The angel Azrael had turned aside from other doors in Hodinuggur besides that of the red-hot bungalow across the canal. Fuzl ElÂhi, the potter, sat once more at his work, with the old calm on his face. The wheel was back in the inner yard again, where the westering sun sent a creeping shadow of the high wall almost to the edge of the spinning circle. It spun so slowly that the eye could see the blue outline of a pot upon the moulding pirn.

The chant stopped in a start. There was a grip on one shoulder, a thin brown hand over the other pointing accusingly at the wheel.

'Why didst lie to me?' panted a breathless voice, low yet hard. 'Why didst say thou hadst sent it to her? Why? why?'

'I lied not, heart's delight.'

The slackening wheel, as his hands fell away from it, showed the AyÔdhya pot, as if in denial of his words; yet he repeated them gently, looking back the while at the girl who had crept from the open door of the hut behind him. 'I sent it; but it hath come back, as all things do in Hodinuggur; as even thou didst, AzÎzan. Be not angry with thy father. Lo, it is fate!'

She set his deprecating hand aside roughly.

'Let be, father--if father thou art. I tell thee 'tis the pot. Give it me here. Yea; 'tis so, and thou hast put a false bottom of new clay to it. Wherefore?'

The old man's forehead wrinkled in perplexity.

'I do it always. Let me finish the task, AzÎz. ChÂndni, the courtesan, will give money for it, as always; then thou shalt have violet sherbet to allay the cough. Pity of me! how thin thou art!'

In truth the girl was emaciated to skin and bone: her small face seemed all eyes; yet, though she swayed as she stood from sheer weakness, there was energy and to spare in her grip on the AyÔdhya pot.

'ChÂndni!' she echoed; then suddenly the fire died down, the tension of her hold slackened. 'Lo, wherefore should I care if it be lies or truth,' she muttered to herself; 'the old man is crazy, and 'tis the DiwÂn's when all is said and done--not hers. Here, take it, poor soul. I care not now, so I be left alone in peace.'

'Art not angry with thy father, AzÎz?' he asked humbly; but there was no answer. He watched her languid retreat to the hut almost fearfully. 'Lo, she forgets the things I have remembered, and I forget those she remembers, he murmured, before he broke once more into his chant with a quavering voice.

This forgetfulness of the girl's, showing itself so often, was a perpetual wonder to the old man, who never for an instant doubted that his dead daughter had indeed returned to him. 'Nay, but thou knowest beloved!' he would remonstrate against her ignorance. 'Hast not played in the Mori gate, and bought sweetmeats of old Bishno, perched on my shoulder like any tame squirrel?'

'Mayhap, mayhap!' she would answer impatiently. 'I care not. There was a Hindu girl, I remember, who did not weep as the others used to do. Life was a dream, she said. We would forget it soon in another. Mayhap 'tis true and I have forgotten.'

It suited her to deceive the old man. When she had first realised the position, she had been too weak to do more than wonder at it. Then, by degrees, while she still lay helpless, the potter's talk, her own recollections of old Zainub's hints, joined to the extraordinary similarity in those extraordinary eyes, had given her a shrewd guess as the truth. And with it came a fierce savage delight in her inheritance of witchcraft. It meant revenge; revenge and safety. The potter deemed her a ghost from another world; the village folk should think the same. So she hid herself away in the dark hovel, spending the long hot days in dreaming of a time when she could creep out on some moonlit night and frighten the wits out of the world which had wronged her; for her whole nature was jangled and out of tune. She hated everything and everybody, herself included; at least so she told herself as she sat idle, listless, brooding over revenge. It was not difficult for her to avoid observation. To begin with, the village folk were afraid of the potter's eyes at the best of times, and of late strange tales had been told. Finally, Mai Jewun's longed-for son had been born with a distinct thumb-mark, and had died. The only person, in fact, who could have allayed these fears lay shrivelling into a mummy with the heat on the old secret stairs; so AzÎzan might have wandered through the village had she chosen without fear of anything save sending all the women into hysterics, and making the men give themselves up as doomed to die. She did not care to wander, however; she cared for nothing save to sit crunched up at the lintel of the hovel door and stare into vacancy until the dawn sent her back to the darkness within.

The potter found her so when he returned from taking the pot back to the Mori gate late in the evening. The fading daylight struggled still with the rising moon, making confused havoc among the shadows, and giving an odd iridescence to the dust-laden air. From without came a barking of dogs, an occasional cry, every now and again a group of bleatings from the goat-pens. All the every-day commonplace sounds of village life; and in the courtyard the same lack of outward novelty. Only an old man with his pugree off eating his supper of millet cakes and water beside a sick girl.

'Ari, beloved, cough not so!' came his tender voice. 'Lo! I will go but now for the sherbet. Dittu was away when I passed his shop. And see, I will seek out the sahib ere he leaves to-morrow and ask for more medicine. It did thee good.'

The girl's breath came faster.

'Leaves? Wherefore?'

'He hath been ill, dear heart, so ChÂndni says. He goes to the mem sahiba in the hills.'

AzÎzan's hand clutched the old man's arm. 'And the pot! what of the pot?'

He shook his head. 'Maybe it was for her. I know not. Cough not so, beloved. See, I will fetch the sherbet.' He bent over her, as he rose, in gentle pleading. 'Go not from me when I am away, AzÎz. Lo! I will be back ere long.'

She gave a short laugh, and sank back, still breathless from her fit of coughing.

'Go! whither should I go? God knows!' The old man sighed as he turned away, to look back more than once at the listless, dejected figure. So it remained for an instant after his had disappeared through the outer yard; then, as if galvanised, it rose suddenly, and the thin arms were flung out passionately.

'She shall not have it. ChÂndni shall not give it to her. She shall not, she shall not.'

Five minutes after, trembling half with weakness, half from sheer hurry, AzÎzan was on her way through the village wrapped in a white sheet snatched from the hut. What she was going to do she scarcely knew, just as she scarcely knew whither she was going. Though within a stone's-throw of her birthplace, the path down which she stumbled was as unfamiliar to her feet as the tempest of emotion was to her mind. A fever of excitement, anger, mistrust of everything and everybody surged through her veins. The road was silent, deserted; but even had it been thronged, the girl would not have hesitated. Amid all the confusion, but one thing was certain: ChÂndni must tell the truth; she must be found and made to tell the truth. But where? Yonder was the Mori gate; she had seen that before through the lattice, and that, at any rate, was a landmark. She would go there first and see. As she came within ear-shot of the tunnelled causeway, a woman's voice rang out in shrill laughter from the dark recesses to the right. Her first instinct was to pause; then second-thought made her keep straight on her way as if to pass through, till at the farther end of the causeway she turned suddenly to the left and sank down behind a plinth. It was as if a shadow had disappeared. A minute to regain her breath, and then she crept farther into the darkness, where, unless some belated gossipers should choose that side of the arch, she was secure. From over the way a clash of anklets and a low full voice, contrasting strangely with those high trills of laughter assured her that she had come straight upon her quarry. The rest was patience, till, sooner or later, the woman would be left alone. Sooner or later the laugh must cease; sooner or later even wickedness must tire and turn to sleep. So the girl sat crouched into herself in the curiously impassive attitude of her race, her thin arms round the thin knees whereon her small chin rested. Not a very startling sight outwardly; though, to describe what lay within is wellnigh an impossible task with an audience of Western ears; for AzÎzan's knowledge would be to such ears incompatible with her ignorance, her jealousy and passion with her patience. Such an audience must remember an upbringing foreign to all their experience, and imagine her, still as a statue, though the blood raced like liquid fire in her limbs and throbbed like sledge-hammers in her temples. The moon, sinking slowly, sent a slanting yellow light through the dust-haze, visible beyond the arched causeway; the village dogs ceased one by one the nightly challenge to their fellows; yet, still the laugh went on. Would wickedness never tire? The wonder, and her own heart-beats lulled the girl to a drowsier patience. She woke to silence, and, standing up, strained eyes and ears into the shadows. Not a sound. She stole softly across the causeway, slipped into the recesses at the right, and listened again. A low breathing from one corner made her feel a way towards it, and her touch, light as a breeze, hovered over a figure on the ground wrapped from head to foot in a sheet like a corpse; yet she knew it could scarcely be ChÂndni, for she would not choose so airless a spot. But there must be rooms above, and a roof above that, and they were worth a trial before going on to the bazaar. Slowly, for she knew nothing of where she was, AzÎzan groped her way to some winding stairs, thence to a suite of low chambers, empty of all save the pigeons rustling and cooing at her step in the dark. Upwards again till, at a turn, an archway gave on a terraced roof not six feet square; and there, lying on a string cot, which, from its narrow resting-place, seemed suspended in mid-air, she saw the soft curves of a woman's figure outlined against the moon-lit dust-haze beyond. It was not a place for a sleep-walker's slumbers; not a place even for a restless one; but ChÂndni slept the sleep of the unjust, which, nine times out of ten, is sounder than that of the just. Her conscience never troubled her; and in addition she belonged to a race apart from the customs and creeds of the people. A race born to the profession of pandars and prostitutes, openly, shamelessly.

So, not being afraid, like other women-folk, of sleeping in the moonlight with face uncovered, she lay carelessly as she had thrown herself down, her tinsel-set veil turned aside by one arm thrust under her head, the other stretched almost straight into the gulf of dusty air, which glittered faintly like the ghost of a sunbeam. Beneath its filmy net covering the bold sweep of her bosom rose and fell softly, with its faded burden of the past day's jasmine chaplets. They gave out a last breath of perfume as AzÎzan's thin brown fingers closed round the sleeper's throat.

'If thou stirrest,' whispered the girl to the startled eyes as they opened, 'I kill. Feel!'

Only a prick above the heart, but joined to that scorching, stifling grip, it was sufficient to send the coming shriek back from ChÂndni's lips. She lay terror-stricken, staring up at the wild light eyes which, catching the moon rays as they dipped to the horizon, seemed to glow with a pale fire. This was no ghost! it was something worse than that; something that meant more than mere fright.

'Why didst send the AyÔdhya pot to her? Why? Give it me back!'

ChÂndni slackened all over in sudden relief. If she could have laughed with that hand on her throat the shrill sound would no doubt have risen on the hot air. So that was all? Nothing but jealousy! Of all things in the world the easiest to rouse--or to allay--by lies, and she had plenty of those at her command. So many, that poor AzÎzan, after a time, wondered sullenly how she came to be sitting amicably on the string cot beside the woman whom she had meant to coerce.

'Poor little chicken,' said the courtesan in contemptuous consolation. 'So thou wouldst have killed me, thy best friend? One who seeks to destroy the mem! 'Twill be the ruin of her, look you, and then he will have none of her. That is their way. She will not get him; so pine no more, child. Lo! I will teach thee how to have lovers and to spare.'

'I want no lovers,' muttered the girl angrily. 'If 'tis to harm her, and thou hast sworn to that, I care not. And thou hast sworn to let me be also. That is enough.'

As she rose, folding her white veil round her, ChÂndni felt sorely tempted to give the little push which must have overset the weak balance, and sent AzÎzan to certain death below. But the thought that, if looks said the truth, fate would do the work for her ere long without scandal, stayed her hand. Besides, the knowledge that the girl was alive and intent on revenge might be of use in dealing with the palace-folk, if they showed themselves traitorous to her claims. So, when she had watched AzÎzan go stumbling down the stairs, ChÂndni rolled over lazily to meet the midnight wind which was springing up, and shortly afterwards fell like a child, into dreamless slumber, long before AzÎz, who had sunk down on a step of the silent causeway, hoping to regain strength for the homeward journey, felt equal to the task. A deadly despondency had replaced her excitement; yet beneath this again lay a dull resentment against fate. If she had understood, if she had known, as ChÂndni seemed to know, the ways and thoughts of these white people, she might have done better. She had meant no harm--no harm in her world at least--for she was not bad. He might, as ChÂndni said, turn away from the mem for being wicked, but he would never have had cause to turn from her, if she had only known. She never would have done anything to displease him--never have done, or said or looked---- The sting of shameful memory drove her from her resting-place to stumble on recklessly in the direction of a twinkling light upon the mound. That must be the potter's house and he must be watching for her; there she would at least find shelter. But it was not the house; it was the potter himself seeking for her among the ruins. His face, by the light of the cresset he carried, showed haggard, and its anxiety soothed her, even while it sent a new pain to her heart. He was unhappy at losing her, and she? O God! how her own heart ached! Must it always be so when those you loved were lost? Then would he feel so if he had to turn away from the mem? Would it send that pain into his heart?

The question was insistent, imperative, as, scarcely listening to the old man's deprecating delight she followed him back to the darkness of the hut. Even there it haunted her. Through the hot night, through the long hot day as she lay huddled up out of sight. 'Would he care? And if he did care, would she be glad or sorry for his pain?'

The moon and the setting sun were disputing possession of the world again, when George lay on a lounge chair in the verandah of the red-hot bungalow. The air was fresher, if not cooler there, and the factotum within was disturbing the foundations of the round world in attempting to pack his master's things; among them AzÎzan's picture, and a parcel which had been sent from the palace addressed to Mrs. Boynton. Something, it was said, she had asked the vakeel at RÂjpore to get for her. The lad, though still weak, was joyous to the heart's core in the knowledge that another hour would see him on his way to spend his holiday in the society of the most perfect woman he had ever seen. That was how he viewed his world. Gwen was in full focus; the rest of humanity out of it; even poor Dan, who was at that moment riding his hardest across the desert in order to take over charge of the sub-division at its outermost limit, and so give the boy every possible second of his leave. Not a very just estimate of relative values, but a very usual one when Narcissus is absorbed with the reflection of himself.

'Salaam Aliakoom,' came a breathless voice behind him. He turned to see AzÎzan, who had sunk as if exhausted on the verandah steps. He stared at her silent with surprise, in which a certain shamefaced annoyance was mingled. He had no desire to be reminded of her existence at present, and even if, as he had felt inclined to suspect, there was some mystery about her, he could do no good by inquiring now, on the very eve of his departure.

'I have come for the pot, Huzoor,' she began without preamble. 'They took it from me. Lo! I was poor, and the poor have no voice. Justice! Justice!'

'Took it from you?' echoed George, his annoyance increasing at this plunge into the past. 'Do you mean by force?' She nodded. 'But,' he went on, 'you sold it. I gave the money to your mother when she came here--on the night the tents were burnt.'

'My mother died before that, Huzoor. It was not my mother who came, but a bad one from the palace. It is true that I never sold it, never got the money; and now I want the pot back again. It brings luck. I will not sell it.'

'But why didn't you come at once and tell me?' asked George angrily. 'Then I might have done something: now----'

She interrupted him eagerly.

'Your slave has been ill; as the Huzoor may perchance notice.' Her wistful tone made George look at her more closely.

'Very ill I should say,' he assented shortly. 'You are not fit to come so far. Why did you? Why didn't you send some one else?'

'I thought the Huzoor would not believe unless he saw me,' she answered after a pause. 'I heard the Huzoor was going away to-day, and I wanted the pot. Surely he will give it back! The protector of the poor has so many things; his slave has but this one thing.'

Her face was outlined against the white pillar beside which she sat, and with all the languor of sickness on it still showed strong in its entreaty. Something in it struck George with regret, even amid the pressing desire to kick somebody which her words had roused in him.

'Give it back,' he echoed savagely. 'Of course I would, if I could; but I can't. It was stolen----'

'It has been found again, Huzoor.'

'Perhaps; but I haven't found it. I'm very sorry, my good girl, but I haven't got it.'

'The Huzoor mistakes. He has it. It is in the parcel that came from the palace. They took it from me again to send it back to the mem.'

George stared at her, unable to believe his ears.

'Took it again then you were the thief--is that it?'

There was a slight pause ere she replied. 'The Huzoor always speaks the truth. I stole it--but it was mine.'

George gave a low whistle; then a sudden grimness came to his face. 'And you say it is in that parcel they sent addressed---- By Jove, if it is,' he added in English as he rose hastily. A minute after, when he returned from within, his face was still more grim.

'Here! take it,' he said, thrusting the blue curves of the AyÔdhya pot at her, as if in haste to be rid of it--and her. 'When I get back I'll inquire, and if what you say is true----' He paused, reduced in his anger to thinking incoherently of Dalel Beg and horsewhips. How dare he send it to her, mixing her up, as it were, in such a discreditable affair? 'Well,' he continued, looking impatiently at the girl, 'that's all, I suppose. You don't want anything more, do you?' The attitude in which she was sitting reminded him perforce of the sunshine glowing on the blue-tiled mosque and of the sidling pigeons--of a past, in short, of which he did not care to be reminded, and a hardness crept over his face.

'That is all,' she replied, rising to go. 'But the Huzoor should not be angry. The pot belonged to this slave.'

'Angry?' he echoed, with a sort of lofty consideration. 'Why should I be angry with you? Every one has a right to their own surely. Now you have got it, go home and get stronger, my child. Salaam, AzÎzan!'

'Salaam Alaikoom, Huzoor.'

He took up his cigar again, relieved to find it alight; for he felt that he needed soothing. On his return, Dalel must be brought to book and smashed; meanwhile he was not sorry that the cursed pot had finally passed into the hands of its rightful owner, for it had a knack of appearing and disappearing in a way which annoyed his common-sense. Now, he need never see it or its owner again. One palpable reason for the latter probability made him give a compassionate glance after the thin, small face where consumption had set its mark indubitably, and which he had seen for the last time.

No! not the last. She too was pausing to look back from the gateless gateway, guiltless of a fence on either side, which served no purpose save arbitrarily, uselessly, to divide one portion of a dusty road from another. So he saw her outlined against the shadows which softened the havoc sickness had wrought in her young face; a graceful figure, seen as he had painted her against the purple mound of Hodinuggur, with the pot clasped to her breast.

Yes! when Mrs. Boynton saw the picture she would be pleased; that is to say, if he showed it to her at all. The thought absorbed him, and when he looked up the shadows were empty.