The flame-gatherers

by Margaret Horton Potter

Without further words, Fidá turned and left the room. When he reached his bed again, he flung himself upon it, and lay for a long time staring into the dark. Then, gradually, he fell to weeping; and while he wept, Allah had pity on his weakness, and sent him sleep.

But Ahalya! Poor Ahalya! While her lover’s heart accused her of all faithlessness, she suffered not one whit less than he. She loved Fidá, indeed, wholly. Their meeting had been of her own desire and arrangement. But she was young in intrigue, new to dishonor. And when solitude brought her face to face with what she had done, she was plunged into despair. Her mind distorted all things. Fidá seemed infinitely remote from her. Their love had been a thing of such magical growth that, having been half the time unconscious of the workings of her own senses, she, in the first reaction, began to disbelieve altogether in her love. She was in a labyrinth of warped emotion, shame, and remorse; and, till she found herself again, the very name of Fidá was abhorrent to her.

All through the day that followed their first meeting the Ranee lay on her bed, wide-eyed, tearless, and unapproachable. Neila wondered and watched, but dared not intrude upon her. On the evening of that day came Rai-Khizar-Pál, all unconsciously bringing her punishment for her sin. For two days after this she remained in seclusion, while Neila and Churi vainly took counsel together on behalf of the slave, for whom each felt some sort of unselfish concern. But, though Fidá was on the verge of madness, not a word could be got out of Ahalya concerning him: not one message would she send. Churi began to doubt his theory of the fallibility of women; and Neila would not have been surprised at a full confession of everything to Rai-Khizar-Pál. But at last, miraculously, came an incident from an unexpected quarter that did what no amount of pleading and persuasion could have accomplished.

In the hidden drama that had, in the past few days, been enacted in Mandu, there was a certain personage, long since accustomed to play an important rôle in every game of intrigue, who had had no part at all. Nevertheless, Lord Ragunáth was not going to be discounted forever; and it was at this stage of events that he appeared upon the scene. Perhaps a scent of hidden things was in the air. Perhaps his sensibilities, attuned to all that was secret, caught some vibration of treachery; though the nature of that treachery remained undreamed-of. At any rate, it was just at the time when the object of his furtive desires was torn and riven with a struggle in which he was not concerned, that Ragunáth suffered one of his periodic fits of madness, and hit upon a new and, at last, successful method of gaining one of his ends.

The two eunuchs who had recently died of fever in the palace had been men of experience and importance in their station; and they had been replaced by two others, supposedly responsible, from Bágh. Kasya had satisfied himself that both were trustworthy; but Kanava, sounding them from another quarter, found in one of them a long-sought weakness. On the afternoon of the fourth day of Fidá’s misery, when the Rajah was attending ceremonial in the village at the other end of the plateau, one of these men, Kripa by name, stood on guard in the zenana antechamber. Kripa was tired, and Kripa was bored with the prospect of two stifling hours of solitary watching. He was, then, undisposed to be short with any one that came to break his dull thoughts. And when Lord Ragunáth unexpectedly appeared before him, he greeted the minister with a mixture of curiosity and reverence that Ragunáth found propitious to his purpose. He had come well prepared and fortified with the corrupter of prudence, the breaker of faith, the power of the evil-minded—a goodly sum of money. For a few moments he applied himself to his task with all his considerable mind and tact; and, at the end of that time, Kripa stood before him a newly enlisted mercenary. It had been arranged between them that Ragunáth was to stay in the anteroom and there have a brief interview with the Lady of his Desire; provided of course that, what he did not for a moment doubt, she would see him.

Quite tremulous with eagerness, Ragunáth pushed his minion into the zenana, bearing a blind message to the Lady Ahalya to come at once, if it were her pleasure, to the antechamber. Kripa reappeared in a very short space of time, smiling the word that the Ranee would follow him. And Ragunáth, drunk with high success, commanded the fallen one to remain away for at least an hour. Promising nothing, but very well satisfied to be free for a little while, though he dared not join his companions, Kripa, drowsy with the dusk and quiet of his watch, wandered off into the maze of rooms around the audience hall, lay down upon a convenient divan, and was shortly sound asleep.

Ragunáth, meantime, had grown as nervous and eager as a youth while he waited the coming of the Ranee. She did not keep him long. As he stood watching the curtained doorway, she appeared, her young face pale and strained, but with expectation in it; her form all swathed in crimson silks. At sight of her, Ragunáth gave a low cry of emotion; but, in the same instant, Ahalya’s face changed utterly.

“Thou!” she said, half wondering, half sobbing.

“I, rose of heaven! I, star among women, whose hair holds the fragrance of the jessamine, whose breath is perfumed like the almond blossom. I, I, Ragunáth, have sought thee, and beseech thy favor; for, indeed, I am gone mad for love of thee!” And, throwing himself before her, Ragunáth lifted the filmy hem of her garment to his lips.

Ahalya still stood in the doorway, clinging to the curtains on either side of her, her face expressing a mixture of repulsion and disappointment. As Ragunáth would have clasped her feet, she drew back, sharply: