When he had finished his prayer he got up and went into the house, and sat down in his usual place. "Where is Zóra?" he asked of the old servant; "hath she not come?"
"No," replied Hoosein-bee; "I daresay she is with her sick children. One is very ill, she told me so this morning; perhaps it is dying, and she is with it." It was a poor attempt to satisfy herself and calm the old man's fears, and it was all she could do to check her own sobs.
"It is night now," said her master, in a trembling voice; "the pigeons have ceased to coo, and the air is chilly. Why delayest thou, Zóra, Zóra, Zóra?" and the piteous, wailing cry began again, as he rocked himself to and fro. Sometimes he thought the panthers had killed her; again that she had fallen between the frightful crevices of the rocks and was lost. "Oh, child! so beloved, art thou dead? Dead! and the old man living? Nay, there is no justice in it. Why did Alla let her die?"
"Peace!" cried Hoosein-bee, rebuking him; "art thou accusing God? I loved the child as well as thou didst, but if the Lord hath taken her, dare we refuse her to Him? What does it matter for us, who are old and will soon die? Peace! someone will find the child and bring her in, then it will be time enough to weep."
"I have sinned," returned the old man, submissively; "I will not complain: whatever her destiny was, I could not avert it, Ameen! Ameen!" and he rocked himself to and fro as before. "And yet," he muttered to himself, "her horoscope was fine, and there were happiness, and honour, and children, and wealth in it. And I believed that; but it may have been a deceit of Satan; and I shall never hear her sweet voice again, nor feel her soft hands about me, alas! alas!"
"I see a torch coming from the village gate," cried Hoosein-bee, who had been watching from the door. "There are a man and a woman, and the torch-bearer. Master! master! they come hitherwards; they will surely have news. Let us vow offerings to the saints if Zóra be safe! Oh, Syud, dost thou hear?"
But the old man could not speak; he only rose and tottered to the door. "Are they come?" he asked, tremblingly. "Hoosein-bee, who are they?"
"I see them now, master," she said; "only Peeroo and his wife Goolab-bee."
"What can they know about the child?" he returned, peevishly. "Why do they come when I am in grief?"