We punish our insane; Orientals succor and tend them.
Tenderly they carried mad Ak-kok back to the palace, gently they laid her down, never they left her, never they chided or thwarted or vexed her. And—a year and more after—her wits (as we perhaps witlessly call our human sense of human ills) came back. And such work as she chose to do she did, such things as she bade were done. She chose to sew with the girls who embroidered and beaded. Never she spoke to a child, rarely she looked at one, except the prince whom she had suckled. Little by little her love crept back to him, and then her needles and silks and baskets of sorted beads, of tinsel threads, trays of seed-pearls and of beetles’ gold-and-emerald backs had filled less and less of her time, the royal boy more and more. And when he had wived she had disliked all his brides, but had established herself nurse-in-chief to the babies they had borne.
They were twenty-five now, the offspring of the Raja, the nurslings of Ak-kok. Not one had died. La-swak, a boy of two now, was the father’s favorite, and old Ak-kok loved La-swak more than she had loved aught else or all else before, even tenfold, more than the Raja and father did.
The Raja waited.
Ak-kok spoke his name hoarsely—no prefix, no gesture of respect, not even one of berating—just his name flung passionately out at him in the old woman’s peasant guttural.
The Raja salaamed, and waited her tirade.
But the woman took no heed of the long broadcloth trousers he wore, no heed of the cerise silk elastic that braced them, none of coat and vest on the chair. She had not seen them. And she spoke no word of rebuke. It was fear that convulsed her, not anger. A bead of blood came from her nostril, and trickled down on to her withered lip. She did not feel it.
Twice she tried to speak again, before she did.
“La-swak!” she moaned.
The Raja sprang to her, caught at her shoulder. He could not speak, but she mastered herself, and answered him.