This is a very idle tale--only the record of five minutes in a citron garden. Not a terraced patch set like a puzzle with toy trees, such as one sees on the Riviera, but a vast scented shade, unpruned by greed of gain, where sweet limes, mandarins, shaddocks, and blood-oranges blended flower and fruit and leaf into one all-sufficing shelter from the sun. There are many such gardens in India, lingering round the ruined palaces or tombs of bygone kings. This particular one hid in its perfumed heart a white marble mausoleum, where the red and green parrots inlaid themselves like mosaic among the tracery. For they are decorative birds, and, being untrammelled by prejudice regarding the position of their heads, lend themselves to many a graceful, topsy-turvy pattern. Girding the garden was a wall twenty feet high, bastioned like a fort, but, despite its thickness, crumbling here and there from sheer old age; invisible, too, for all its height from within, by reason of the tall thickets of wild lemon on its inner edge. Four broad alleys, sentinelled by broken fountains, converged to the mausoleum, high above a marble reservoir where the water still lingered, hiding its stagnation beneath a carpet of lotus-leaves. From these, again, narrower paths mapped the garden into squares, each concealed by the dense foliage from the next. It was a maze of shadowy ways edged by little runnels of water and bordered by roses and jasmine, with here and there a huge white drÆcena usurping the path. Day and night the water ran clear and cool, to flood each square in turn, till it showed a shining lake, wherein the roof of fruit and blossom lay reflected as in a mirror.

A Garden of Eden; like it, tenanted by a woman and a snake; famous, also, for its forbidden fruit.

Nowhere did shaddocks grow so regardless of possible danger to the world. The green-gold globes weighed the branches to the ground; the massive flowers burdened the air with perfume. For all their solid, somewhat stolid look, they are fragile flowers. Gather a spray as gently as you can, and only the buds remain; the perfect flower has fallen. So, in a citron garden it is well to purge the soul from "karma" or desire, in order to reach the "nirvana" of content in which--so say the Buddhists--lies the full perfection of possession.

Naraini, the gardener's granddaughter, had different views. She stood, at the beginning of the five minutes, beneath a citron-tree. One dimpled brown hand held the branch above her, and, as she swayed her body to and fro leisurely, the flowers dropped into her stretched veil. She was not unlike a citron-blossom herself. Like them, arrayed boldly in saffron and white; like them, looking the world in the face with calm consciousness that she was worth a look in return. Finally, her world was theirs--that is to say, these few acres of scented shade. As yet Naraini knew no other, though the next day she was to leave it and her childhood in order to follow the unknown bridegroom to whom she had been married for twelve years.

The incessant throbbing of a tom-tom, the occasional blare of a horrible horn in the ruined arcade which was all that remained of a royal rest-house, proclaimed that the marriage festivities were even now going on beyond the crumbling walls. From all this Naraini being necessarily excluded, she had spent the morning in receiving the female visitors with simulated tears, in order to impress them with her admirable culture; thereinafter relapsing, with them, to shrill-voiced feminine chatter until the heat of noon stilled even the women's tongues. Then, driven by an odd unrest, she had slipped away to the cool alleys she knew so well; even there busying herself with preparations, since the flowers she gathered would be needed to strew the bridal bed. It was no new task. Every year an old distiller came, in blossom-time, to set up his still beside the well. Then, in the dewy dawns, she and the old grandmother beat down the blossoms, and when sunset brought respite from the heat Naraini used to watch while the flowers were crushed into the pan, and luted down with clay as if into a grave. And a grave it was to beauty. The first time she saw the yellow mash which was left after the sweetness had trickled into the odd assortment of bottles the old distiller brought with him, she had cried bitterly. But a whole bottle of orange-flower water as her very own had been consoling, and the fact that the label proclaimed her treasure to be "Genuine, Old, Unsweetened Gin" did not disturb her ignorance.

Every year afterwards the old man had given her another bottle, and as she had always chosen a fresh label, she had quite an assortment of them in the shed which served her as a play-room. And now, being nearly sixteen, she was about to leave other things besides that row of bottles labelled "Encore," "Dry Monopole," "Heidsiecker," and "Chloric Ether Bitters!"

She was not alarmed. She had taken a peep at her future husband that morning and satisfied herself that he had the requisite number of eyes, legs, and arms. For the rest, men were kind to pretty girls, and she knew herself to be a very pretty girl. It is hard to convey any impression of the girl's state of mind to English ears, simply because marriage had never been presented to her as an occasion for personal choice. She had been happy hitherto; the possession of a husband ought to increase that happiness, if Fate sent her a pleasant mother-in-law. The man himself was a trifle, since men were always kind to pretty girls. That, formulated so plainly as to rob it of all offence, was Naraini's first and last argument for content.

As she stood swaying in the shadow, some one came down the alley. She recognized him at once. It was the bridegroom; and the demon of mischief, which enters into Eastern girlhood as causelessly as it does into Western, suggested that she had him at an advantage. He had not seen her since she was three years old--could not possibly recognize her. Besides, what brought him there? An intolerable curiosity, mingled with a pleasant conviction, made her stand her ground. Perhaps she knew that the spot occupied by her was the only one visible from the roof of the arcade, and drew her own conclusions. Perhaps she did not. It was true nevertheless, and the bridegroom, having caught a glimpse of something attractive, had taken advantage of the general sleepiness to climb over the ruined wall for a closer view; for he was of those who are very kind indeed to pretty faces. He, it must be remembered, had caught no consolatory glimpse of his bride. People told him she was beautiful, but that was always said: but here was undoubted good looks; so, despite his wedding-day on the morrow, he slipped into the citron garden intent on a lark. No more refined word expresses his mood so clearly.

Naraini, however, neither shrieked nor giggled at the sight of a stranger. She simply drew her veil closer, and went on gathering citron-blossoms. He paused, uncertain of everything save her entrancing grace. Was she only a servant, or did he run risks in venturing closer? Naraini, meanwhile, behind her veil, gurgled with soft laughter, pleased at being able to test the value of her beauty on the man she meant to rule by it. So they stood--she in the shadow at one end of the alley, he in the shadow at the other; between them the scented path bordered by the runnels of water slipping by to bring a deluge to some portion of that little world. Some might have called it a pretty scene, instinct with the joy of youth; others might have turned their heads away, praying to be delivered from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Naraini thought of nothing save her own laughter.

The garden seemed asleep save for those two, as, with the cruelty of a chase waking in him, as in a cat stalking a mouse, the cruelty of success waking in her as in a snake charming a bird, the distance between them lessened.

Suddenly, with a burst of high, childish laughter, the veil full of citron-blossoms was flung in his face, and Naraini was off down the alleys, while he, with anger added to admiration, was after her.

The walls echoed to the soft thud of their flying feet--down one path, up another, round by the tomb, scaring the parrots to a screaming wheel. Confident in her superior knowledge, she paused on the topmost step, ere scudding across the causeway, to fling back a handful of flowers lingering in a fold. He set his teeth hard. If she tried short cuts, so could he; and he was round the next square so fast, that she gave a little shriek and dived into the thickest part of the garden, whither the water was flowing, and where the beasts and birds and creeping things innumerable found a cool, damp refuge. His blood was up--the jade must be caught and kissed, if only in revenge! The flutter of her saffron skirt at the opposite side of a square made him try strategy. He crept into the thickest undergrowth and waited.

Something else waited, not a footfall off, but he did not see it. His eyes were on that saffron flutter, pausing, advancing, retreating, pausing again. Naraini had lost the bearings of her pursuer, and, like a child playing "I spy," was on the alert for a surprise.

Suddenly came a cry as she caught sight of him, a shout as he bounded out; both lost in a yell arresting her flight and his, as if it had turned them to stone. He stood with the wide nostrils and fixed eyes of ghastly fear, clinging for support to the branch above him, whence the flowers fell pattering to the ground. On his ankle two spots of blood, bright against the brown skin. Across the path a big, black rope of a thing, curving swiftly to the roses beyond.

"Snake! snake!"

Her cry echoed his, as she ran back to him; but he struck at her with clenched hand.

"Go, woman--she-devil! Thou hast killed me. Curse thee! oh, curse thee for beguiling me! It has bitten me. Holy Gunga, I am dead! and I was the bridegroom. 'Tis thy fault. I was the bridegroom." He had sunk to the ground clasping his ankle, and rocked himself backward and forward, moaning and shuddering in impotent fear. Naraini stood by him. There was no hope: the big, black rope of a thing did its work well; yet, even so, anger was her first thought.

"It was a lie! 'Tis not my fault! Why didst come? Why didst follow? And if thou art the bridegroom, was not I the bride?" Then something leaped to memory. She threw her hands above her head and beat them wildly in passionate despair and horror.

"He is dead! he is dead! And I am the bride."

The words rang through the garden, and pierced even his grovelling fear. As he turned to fly, he clutched at her skirts, and dragged himself to her fiercely.

"The bride? Then the widow! my widow! Thou hast killed me, but thou canst not escape me. A widow! a widow! a widow!"

His face was terrible in its fear, its regret, its revenge. She fought against him desperately, but his hands held fast, shifting to her waist, till he forced her down to the dust beside him, where she crouched silent, like a young animal terrified into acquiescence.

"Thou shalt see me die--'tis thy fault--thou shalt see me die!" he muttered again and again.

So they sat side by side in the grip of death, his head on her bosom, his hands bruising her wrists, his eyes, full of despair and regret, on her face.

The sun-flecks shifted over them, the citron-flowers fell upon them as the afternoon breeze stirred the branches. And even when the swift poison loosed his clasp, Naraini was still a prisoner to the dead body, lying with its face of desire and disgust hidden in her lap.

She was a widow. The citron-blossom had fallen.

That night there was weeping and wailing instead of feasting in the garden; and at dawn the women put bowls of sweetened milk into the scented thickets to propitiate the holy snake, lest, having chosen one victim, it might seek a pair. Perhaps, as far as happiness goes, it might as well have claimed Naraini also.

After a time, to be sure, life went on as before. The old distiller came, and Naraini shook the blossoms for him into her widow's shroud. The sweetness of them was no less sweet as it trickled into the old gin and champagne bottles, but Naraini got no share of it. What have widows to do with the perfumes of life?

This is an idle tale of a five minutes' tragedy--perhaps none the less of a tragedy because it is true.