"Enough, enough, Goolab," cried Fazil, as, after several repetitions of the ceremony we have just mentioned, she stroked his chin with her fingers, and kissed their tips; "what evil do you think has come to me that you take it on yourself?"
"Alas, I know not!" said the nurse, sighing; and as she spoke her eyes filled with tears; "but my lord said there had been danger, and I would not have it so. And what evil glances may not have been cast on my beautiful child all through the streets to-day?"
The youth made a slight gesture of impatience, but it was lost on the fond old woman. Checking the feeling which had prompted it, he cried cheerfully, "No, no, Goolab, believe me, I meant no more than ordinary danger; are we not always in it? And who can tell the hour of his death?" he added after a pause, and looking reverently upwards; "or whether it is to come by a bullet or a sword-cut, long wasting fever or sudden sickness; nay, here as we stand! When the message comes we cannot stay."
"Hush, say not so, brother," said Zyna, gently laying her hand upon his mouth; "talk not so of death."
"Nay, my rose, he says but the truth," added Goolab; "and who knew it better, than the pure saint your mother, who sleeps yonder? Well, it was God's will, and who shall gainsay it? Meah is right, my pet, but death should not be sent to the like of you; only to the old servant who is ripe for the harvest——"
"We linger," said Fazil to his sister, interrupting her; "and the darkness is fast spreading. I have much to do ere midnight, and I must go to prepare for it. I will meet thee at the evening meal before I start——Yet once more to take leave of thee, O mother!" he said to himself; "there may be danger to-night, and if it should be——Come, Zyna," he resumed, "a few flowers for the tomb, and I must go. Get a light, Goolab—the lamp may as well be lighted now."
"I had placed them before you came, Fazil; but come; again may she look down on her children together," said his sister.
So saying, she gathered a few jessamine and moulserry flowers and, with her brother following, passed to the end of the garden court, where, among some others, stood a high tomb of polished black stone, with a pillar at the back in which was a niche for lamps that were lighted every evening.
Reverently and tenderly were the fresh flowers laid at the head and feet of the tomb by both. One could see no morbid motive in the act, and there were no tears or vain regret. Their creed, imbued as it is with fatalism, had taught them submission, and the offering up of flowers every evening after the Azân, as the lamps were lighted, had become a simple duty, never committed to others. If those two loving and simple hearts believed that their mother's spirit was thus rejoiced, it will account to us for that constant remembrance of the dead which is so affecting, and generally so sincere, among the Mahomedan families of India.