Maybe a fiery furnace and a »ed-hot bungalow are overtrying even to the best of clay when it is fresh from the moulder's hand; but that is neither here nor there.
The fact remains that George had run away; from truth and untruth, from himself and his fellow-men, but most of all from Hodinuggur and the crazy irresponsible creator; yet could he have realised the fact, no one in the wide, wide world would have been more incredulous of his own action. And as he lay dead, with a bullet through his heart, the barometer upon the mantelpiece was falling faster and faster, while Dan, with a telegram in his pocket, was riding all he knew across the desert to open the sluice-gate against the biggest flood within the memory of man. To open it so far and no farther, and so to prevent any weakening of the channel for a while. Too late! For already the peasants were knee-deep in their fields breaking through every obstacle which might stem the rising water. And still the barometer fell faster and faster; but the only one who could have understood the silent warning had deserted his post.
[CHAPTER XIX]
Azîzan was waiting for darkness, like many another woman in India; waiting for the veil of night to destroy the veil of man's contriving. Not so much because she dreaded to show her face in the daylight, but because it suited her to keep up the mystery of her appearance. Waiting, however, for the last time; since once her work of warning was done there need be no more concealment, no more playing like a cat over a mouse with the palace folk. Once that was done, she meant to forget caution and kill some of them; for she felt that her own death was nigh, and revenge would sweeten the end of life. As she sat, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chin, Azîzan had no very distinct plans for that revenge, save that the Ayôdhya pot which she had taken from its hiding-place in the stair of the old tower and kept in her bosom must be her chief aid. With its secret bribe of jewels, it would prove to the sahib that there was truth in the tale she had gathered during her nightly wanderings as a ghost about Hodinuggur. When that was done, she would be free in some of those nightly wanderings to kill the Diwân or his son, the man who killed her mother. Perhaps she might be able to kill both, and yet have some strength left for Chândni--Chândni who had told her so many lies. For there was a fire now in Azîzan's light eyes, which quite accounted for the consideration which the courtesan had shown the girl when, more than once, Chândni had awakened to find them looking at her. Of course, by and by a stop must be put to this masquerading through the village, but at present it would be unsafe, when so much depended on good luck, and thus Azîzan had hitherto been unmolested. Indeed, Chândni herself had taken malicious pleasure in countenancing current tales of the return of the potter's dead daughter; and once when Khush-hâl Beg, during his son's absence, had deemed it well to single her out for favour, she had sent the hoary old sinner back to his swinging cradle like a quaking jelly from abject fear of what he might meet by the way. Still it was only when she was on the roof with the old Diwân that she ventured to speak in whispers of a time when this mad girl should be taught her own impotence for good or evil.
So in the meantime, the freedom from interruption, and the dread which the mere thought of her existence roused in the simple village folk, conspired to increase Azîzan's faith in her own supernatural power, and as she sat in the growing dusk no doubt of her own success assailed her; for the little sahib had returned--during the night. At least so said the old man, who, with all his craziness, was to be trusted. Therefore, in less than an hour, he would know all, since the day was dying down quickly; smothered in a hot haze-like smoke. There was not a shadow anywhere; only a dull darkness growing momentarily as the dull darkness had grown upon her mind day by day. For all that she had the power; the potter might mould the clay, the palace folk might plot and plan, but she, the woman with the evil eye, was stronger than they!
'Azîz! Oh! thou art there still, Heaven be praised!' The cry roused her from a sort of dream to find the old man beside her, breathless as from running, his mild face, seen dimly in the darkness, full of piteous entreaty. 'Go not from me this night, oh Heart's-joy! Leave me not again in the storm!'
'The storm! What storm, poor fool!' she asked indifferently.
He laid his trembling hand on her arm. 'Listen! Thou canst hear the noise of many waters. They came before, so the fathers sang, and made a new world. Down yonder at the palace, where thou goest, 'twill run like the race of a river, and the stones of the old wall where thou liest will be crumbling into it. Go not there to-night, oh, Light of mine Eyes! It is safe here on the heights.'
'There is no water,' she answered, with a short laugh, 'there will be none; save in the canal. The sahib will see to that now he hath returned.'
'How can he see when he is dead----'