Now Aunt Khôjee, like many another woman East and West, was desperately afraid of rats; yet the naubat had to be sounded. She shut her eyes to give her greater courage, and put all her little strength into her blow.
It was too much for the rotten rope. The kettledrum clashed to the ground with hollow reverberations worthy of the old days, and the old woman's frightened cry did duty as the nakârah.
But behind both sounds came a child's laugh, an elfin, uncanny laugh; and, as she paused--in her flight downwards--at the stair-head, she saw in the moonlight below an elfin, uncanny figure sitting bolt upright among the cushions of state, clapping the little hands that held the glistening signet of royalty, and chuckling to itself gleefully, while Noormahal, roused, yet still bewildered, looked about her for the cause, and Aunt Khâdjee from the archway gave pitiful shrieks of alarm.
'The naubat! the King's naubat! My naubat! Sa'adut's naubat!'
The cracked, hoarse little voice went on and on till it became breathless, and after it ceased, the sparkle of the ring still showed in the little applauding hands.
'What is't?--what didst do?' asked Noormahal reproachfully. 'Thou hast made him in a sweat. Lo! heart's delight, let me wipe thy forehead--'tis only Amma jân--thy Amma,' she added coaxingly. But there was no need for that. Sa'adut lay cuddled up on his pillows, smiling, complaisant, both hands clasped over his ring.
'Sa'adut's ring,' he whispered as if it were a great joke, a splendid childish secret that was his to keep or tell, 'and Sa'adut's naubut. His own. He will keep them himself.'
'Lo! bibi,' faltered old Khôjee apologetically--'it will do him no harm. See! it was of himself he rose, and now he would sleep. He is better, not worse. Bismillah!'
'Ur-rahmân-ur-raheem,' came drowsily from the child's lips, finishing that new-taught grace, asserting that new-found dignity. So, with that look of possession on his face, he fell asleep again.
He was still sleeping when, an hour or two after dawn, the tailor's wife from over the alley came in on her way bazaarwards, to see how the child had fared through the night, and ask what the noise might have been which had awakened her house. Had more of the old palace fallen?