So, while the hoofs of the Commissioner's horse, as he rode citywards with the chief of the police and the magistrate who had brought the disturbing rumours, echoed down the hard white road, which was laid so evenly between a double row of mud roundels protecting lately planted trees, the show--as Sir George had called it--began. It was rather like a school-prize-giving, with men and women instead of children, for the inevitable table (covered with the twopenny-halfpenny phul-kâri made for the European market, which, with its sham Orientalism, has on such occasions replaced the honest red office baize) was set in front of Sir George and Lady Arbuthnot. On it were three packed posies in green glass tumblers, a pile of diplomas, duly made out in the recipients' names, and another pile of sham Oriental brocade bags in which to keep them.
'You belong, of course?' said the Secretary-to-Government, who was standing apart during the opening speeches, to a sunburnt little lady in a wide pith hat.
'Who, I?' she answered cheerfully. 'Oh dear, no--I am not often in at headquarters, and I get on all right with my schools and that sort of thing without it, so it doesn't seem worth while.'
'Perhaps not,' replied the man of headquarters, once more dubiously. It was impossible for him to avoid that attitude towards much that had to pass through his hands, so he set the doubtful point aside and listened to the President's certainties as he enlarged on the great need for closer ties of friendship and sympathy between the rulers and the ruled, and the excellent results to be expected from meetings of this kind. Then, of course, some one else spoke, and some one else. And outside the lawn, enclosed with grass hurdles, and set with those foundations of flowers, India was going on its way as it had gone, untouched by change, for thousands and thousands of years; and two women, furtively sweeping up a prize of horse-droppings on the outskirts of the assemblage in order to make them into fuel, talked, as they swept, of the amulet that had promised safety and brought death.
'Will you come, please, and form up in line,' said a steward, fussily collecting his candidates among the listening circle. 'It will look better, and save time.'
'Oh dear! I hope I shan't get put next a native,' murmured one little lady, quite plaintively, as she obeyed.
The Secretary-to-Government, who overheard the remark, smiled; still dubiously.
He smiled again, and so did some others, when Mrs. Chris Davenant came up to receive a diploma which--it had occurred to her astuteness--might be worked to her advantage in English society. Perhaps the reflection that she had already shown her willingness to enter into social relations with the other race was accountable for these smiles, but she herself, and Chris too, were quite grave over it.
The latter, indeed, could not at the moment have been otherwise over anything in heaven or earth; for not five minutes past, as he stood dully indifferent on the edge of that circle of listeners, he had felt a touch on the sleeve of his frock-coat; heard a low voice.
'To-night, Krishn, at the "Circling of the Lights" in Kâli's shrine. We meet there, Her priests and His, to settle this matter. And thou must be there also.'