One of those curious spasms of life came to the wreck of a man, as it turned to look at the girl more closely.
'So! Thou also hast brains. 'Tis the woman's yôg[[6]] nowadays. My son, and my son's son, have none. Thou shouldst have been my granddaughter, Azîzan, had I but known. Thou mayest be now.'
His granddaughter! Of course! she had suspected so all her life, had known it to be so for months, yet she had never realised the fact till now; and an odd, inexplicable sense of kindred rose up in her against her will.
'I shall kill thee, no matter who thou art,' she cried quickly.
'Wherefore? What harm have I done to thee, Azîzan? 'Twould have suited me better had the sahib fancied thy face. Thou hadst thy chance.'
Something in her shrank back abashed before the naked truth of the old man's words. She had had her chance, according to her world, and she had failed. She had failed utterly; and yet---- Something else in her, strange, incomprehensible, clamoured against the verdict, and the deadly weariness, the passionate apathy she had so often felt before came over her. The knife dropped to her side, and half mechanically she looked out through the arches of the balcony to where the red-brick bungalow should stand. There was nothing to be seen but sheets of water streaming from above, while from below came a rush and a roar. Suddenly as she listened came another sound; a pit-pat pat-pit on the floor in half a dozen places. The rain had conquered the thick-domed roof.
'It is "Tofhân Elâhi," she said, and even as she spoke a babel of voices rose at the closed door.
'Open! open! The river saps the foundation. Ari bhai! is he dead, that he hath no fear? Beat it down!--Oh, Diwân sahib!--Oh! servant, who hath closed the door?--Open! open!--Nay! without a smith 'tis hopeless--And I tarry not!--Listen! there goes more of the wall--Open, fools! open!'
Amid the roar and rush, the vain blows and shouting, the old man's eyes were on Azîzan's, not so much in appeal as in command. He could not move and his faded voice would never reach through the clamour, so his only safety lay in her obedience. But she shook her head, then crouched down--as if to wait till they should once more be alone--in her favourite attitude, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chin, the knife still clasped in her hand ready for use. A louder roar came from without, a rattle as of bricks, mingled with cries of caution and alarm. Then gradually the blows and voices dwindled away from the ceaseless clamour of the rain and the intermittent rumblings of falling masonry, as the smallest crack widened beneath the pressure to a breach until, bit by bit, the solid walls seemed to melt away.
'Why didst thou not open the door, fool?' The words in the greater silence were just audible to the girl.