RED PAINT
Over on the other side of the city, however, on the wide stretch of sandy waste behind an outlying dispensary which had been turned into a segregation camp, the advocates of certainty and uncertainty had changed places. Here, in the little grass-screened yard, six feet square, which Jack Raymond's kindliness had secured for the ordinary reed hut to which poor crushed old Auntie Khôjee had been brought, it was a scavenger who doubted, a woman who--even amid tears--had faith.
'Lo! brother,' said Khôjee in gentle reproof, as she sat on the string bed hiding her grief-blurred face discreetly from the tottering old man who had been sent in to sweep out the premises; an old man bowed, palsied, senile, yet still, as a male creature, claiming that calm perfunctory drawing of a veil an inch or two more over a withered cheek, 'thou shouldst not repeat such tales; they do harm. As I have told thee before, God knows what happened was not the fault of the Huzoors. It was Jehân's, and mine, and Lateef's; if indeed it was ought but God's will. And lies will not bring her back again! It was lies that killed her, Noormahal, Light of Palaces!'--a sob choked the quavering voice, but she struggled on truthfully--'and the Huzoors were kind in concealing what they could. What use to drag the honour of the King's House in the dust? Even Jehân saw that and held his peace. It is ye--ye of the basket and broom--strangers--not of the house knowing the honour of the house as in old time--who have done ill in talking. And of the girl too. Lo! what thou sayest of her and the pearls may be true; but I know naught of it, and Jehân hath lied ever. Then for the bracelets! Have I not worn one and cried for death? But death has not come, as thou sayest it comes; though I have worn this these two days.'
She held out her thin arm as she spoke, in order to show the râm rucki which Jack Raymond, in his efforts to reassure her, had fastened round her wrist.
The old man ceased sweeping to peer at it, then chuckled wheezily. 'Oho! Oho! bibi! and wherefore not, since that is a râm rucki which all know of old! But this other I speak of is new. I tell thee it hath the death-mark on it, and the arrow-head which claims all for the Sirkar's use. Its like none have ever seen before. They sold it deceitfully as safeguard yesterday at Sheik Chilli's fair, and men bought it for their wives and children--Ala! the tyranny of it, the cleverness! who can stand against their ways? So now it is proved a sign of death indeed; all who wear it, all who have worn it, are in the Huzoor's power. When they are wanted, they will die.'
Despite her disbelief--a disbelief founded largely on her own kindly grateful heart--Aunt Khôjee felt a cold creep in her old bones. 'How canst tell by now? Some may escape,' she quavered.
The old scavenger waggled his head wisely. 'This I know, bibi, that in the Kuteeks' and Lohars' houses--yea! and in others too where the sickness was rife, for, see you, it hath been in the city this fortnight past, though folk held their tongues--all bought these bracelets for safety. All! and it is from these very houses that the dead come! Am I not Dom by craft, though I grow too old and crooked to straighten even dead limbs? Have I not seen? I tell thee, bibi, not one of the corpses taken out of the city this morning but had the bracelet on its wrist! Ay! and not one of those carried by force to the hospitarl but had it too!'
It was an absolutely true statement, even if capable of a more natural explanation.
'But Rahmân-sahib, the bracelet-brother, did not give them bracelets?' protested Aunt Khôjee, falling back fearfully on what still seemed incredible.
'God knows,' mumbled the superannuated streaker of dead things. 'Mayhap he did not sell them, but it was by order. A Hindoo in the city, Govind by name, hath a paper with the order written on it, and signed by the Lat-sahib and Wictoria-Queen. So there is no lie there, bibi!'