But Chunda Lal intercepted her.
"Stop!" he said—"not yet are you going. There is something I have to speak to you."
"Ssh!" she whispered, half turning and pointing up toward the door.
"Those!" said the Hindu contemptuously—"the poor slaves of the black smoke! Ah! they are floating in their dream paradise; they have no ears to hear, no eyes to see!" He grasped her wrist again. "They contest for shadow smiles and dream kisses, but Chunda Lal have eyes to see and ears to hear. He dream, too but of lips more sweet than honey, of a voice like the Song of the Daood! Inshalla!"
Suddenly he clutched the grey hair of the bent old woman and with one angry jerk snatched it from her head—for it was a cunning wig. Disordered, hair gleaming like bronze waves in the dim lamplight was revealed and the great dark eyes of Miska looked out from the artificially haggard face—eyes wide open and fearful.
"Bend not that beautiful body so," whispered Chunda Lal, "that is straight and supple as the willow branch. O, Miska"—his voice trembled emotionally and he that had been but a moment since so fierce stood abashed before her—"for you I become as the meanest and the lowest; for you I die!"
Miska started back from him as a muffled outcry sounded in the room beyond the half-open door. Chunda Las started also, but almost immediately smiled—and his smile was tender as a woman's.
"It is the voice of the black smoke that speaks, Miska. We are alone.
Those are dead men speaking from their tombs."
"Ah-Fang-Fu is in the shop," whispered Miska.
"And there he remain."