THE PRISON OF LIFE

To old Auntie KhÔjee, however, the incident which Lesley had stigmatised as unreal, and fantastic, was quite natural. Her life, and the lives of thousands such as she, dreary, dull, squalid, as they seem to the eyes of Western women, are yet leavened by many wholly unpractical touches which raise them at times to pure romance. The secret worship of the Gods, the thousand and one omens to be sought, or avoided, the endless fanciful ceremonials; all these are, in their monotonous lives, witnessing to the passion for self-effacement in something beyond the woman's own individuality--in something that has to be cajoled and considered, not because it is feared, but because it is loved and must therefore be kept tied to the apron-string--which is Eve's legacy to women of all races and all creeds.

So, as the old lady limped through the bazaars, huddled up in a dirty domino, with Grace Arbuthnot's bangle clutched close to her heart, she felt no surprise at what had happened. Her only feeling was one of regret for having so long believed folk's tales of change. If she had only resorted earlier to ancient methods, little Sa'adut's life might perhaps have been spared. Though that, of course, was God's will; just as it was His will also that at the very last gasp she should have been told by a gossip that the Lord-sahib was coming, as the Kings came in past times to entertain their friends in the pleasure-garden.

For KhÔjee was, literally, at the last gasp. Even Lateefa had not been near the courtyard for three days, though he had promised to look in every morning. In truth, this was not the kite-maker's fault, since he was, once more, kicking his heels in the lock-up. He had not anticipated this result when--on the impulse of the moment--he had slipped the ring, instead of a morsel of brick, into one of the tiny calico bags which he had found the easiest way of attaching ballast to his kites. It had been but the work of a second to do this, and send the kite up to hover in the steady west wind--on trial--with its string attached to one of the wooden pegs driven for that purpose into the brick wall. So he had had no time for full consideration; but even had he had this, he would scarcely have imagined that JehÂn would at once take the irrevocable step of calling in the aid of the police; that being a course which no wise man adopted save as a last resort, when the choice only lay between two evils.

But JehÂn's rage had mastered his caution. The loss of the symbol of past power had raised such a tempest of desire for that power of personal coercion, that, seeing no other means of gaining it, he had at once given not only Lateefa, but Burkut Ali in charge for having, between them, stolen the ring. And that despite the voluntary demonstration of innocence afforded by a stripping to stark nakedness of both the accused! They must, he shrilled, have swallowed it!

Dire suggestion to an executive whose chief method of detecting crime is by personal discomfort to the fourth and fifth generation of those presumably implicated in it! Lateefa had felt his liver dissolve, had for one brief moment thought of confession; but the presence of the police, he saw, would make that a leaving of the frying-pan for the fire.

So he and Burkut Ali, the latter vowing vengeance calmly (and knowing he would get it too, since he had money and JehÂn had none), were hauled away, not to judgment, but to that worse evil, preliminary inquiry.

Burkut, however, had found bail; and he had been back in his haunts for two days, making JehÂn begin to see his mistake, while Lateefa, very sick and sorry for himself, still remained in process of observation.

But by this time his philosophy had returned, and, as he kicked his heels, he composed another mathematical verselet which should equal the values of 'I, Lateefa, laid on nothingness the burden of all things, and the burden of all things made nothingness of Lateefa!'

Of all this, however, Auntie KhÔjee knew nothing as she made her way straight to the pawnbroker's where she had pledged KhÂdeeja KhÂnum's best pink satin trousers. For the recovery of these was the first necessity. On the morrow ceremonial visits of condolence would begin in the wide courtyard, and she dare not ask KhÂdjee to receive them in her ordinary attire.

Grace Arbuthnot's bangle would, of course, redeem the trousers over and over again; but the old lady decided this should only be left, in exchange, for one night, as it would be easy to return the garment after the morrow's visits were over; since there would be no more need for it for at least three days. And that would set the bangle free for its legitimate purchase of the 'Essence of Happiness.'

It was growing dark as she limped along the narrow bazaar. The cavernous shops on either side were but half lit with flaring rushlights. The continuous stream of people passing one way or the other seemed inevitably to thrust her furtive swathed figure into the gutter. And so, at one shop, round which a crowd had gathered, it needed patience before a way could be edged onwards. It was a drug shop, and it seemed to be driving a roaring trade. As a couple of white-robed men elbowed past her, she heard one say, with a sinister satisfaction--

'And our SomÂj dispensary hath trebled its attendance these last days. The people know their friends, know themselves safe! Not that the tales of poison at the hospitals are true; but what will you? These poor folks are ignorant, and we have promised----'

What the promise was, KhÔjee did not catch; nor did she care to know. All her thoughts were with KhÂdjee's pink satin trousers. Therefore she felt as if the whole round world had slipped from under her feet when Mittun, the pawnbroker, from the midst of the miscellaneous collection of rubbish in which he sat like a tame magpie possessed by the nest-building instinct, told her calmly that he had just sold them! Sold them at an incredibly high price to a lady of the bazaar who was in a hurry for something smart in which to appear at an assignation that evening. And then, with infinite self-complacency, he drew out from a bag two rupees and some pice.

'See this, mother!' he said, handing her the money. ''Tis a chance such as comes but once in a kobari's life, who must needs fill his belly a many times with other folk's leavings ere he find a grain of corn to stay his own hunger withal.' Here he looked round distastefully at the old lamps, keys, pickle-bottles, rags, books--Heaven knows what--that made up his stock-in-trade, and which, in truth, looked but indigestible fare. 'Yet I am honest,' he went on; 'this much I made, over and above what I loaned thee on them. So there 'tis, with but the due interest held back. Let none say Mittun, kobari, is no honest man, who cares not for his customers----'

'Nay! meean-jee,' fluttered KhÔjee, helpless. 'None said that of thee. Yet would I rather the trousers, and I could have given thee gold.'

Mittun eyed the bangle covetously. 'Give it me now, mother. I could loan thee ten rupees on that to buy new trousering.'

KhÔjee shook her head timidly; for even the pawnbroker, being a man, had authority.

''Tis for to-morrow, brother; there is not time----'

'Thou couldst buy second-hand,' he persisted; 'there be many in the bazaar, though I have them not. In truth, Mussumat KhÔjee, I would have sold thine for less than I got, seeing that old clothes are no safe purchase nowadays, what with police inspection, and no rags here, no rags there! As if the plague came in aught but God's will!'

KhÔjee, fearful of persuasion, assented hastily to the pawnbroker's piety. Everything was God's will; even her failure to redeem the pink satin trousers!

'I will give thee fifteen for the bangle,' called Mittun after her, and she quickened her limp from the temptation. The bangle was for another purpose. Still fifteen rupees would purchase the 'Essence of Happiness' and leave a margin for sagou dam (sago) and salep misri. Also for real cardamoms. Yes! surely with fifteen rupees in prospect she might afford herself some real cardamoms for to-morrow's assemblage, instead of the cheaper kind she had laid in. It would give style to the occasion, even if the pink satin trousers were unattainable.

Another crowd, before a shop, delayed her as she limped along in the gutter. There was a policeman in it this time, and a voice protesting that it was tyranny. What had the police to do with the selling of a quilt--a quilt that was no longer wanted, seeing that the grandfather had found freedom?

'Ari, idiot!' said the policeman, 'have a care I do not burn it.'

'Give him his percentage, brother!' advised Govind the editor, who, as usual, was hunting the bazaars for news. 'That is what he wants. That is the trick. Yea! I know. Give it him, or he will claim the whole in the name of the plague. That is what the Sirkar does in Bombay. It claims all--money, jewels, clothes. And it will do the same here. This is but the beginning.'

''Twill be the end for thee and thy paper, editor-jee, if thou tellest more lies,' retorted the constable in righteous indignation. 'It is orders, I tell thee! There is suspicion that some one----'

Govind, who, as usual, also had been at the bhang shop, gave a jeering laugh. 'Bapree bap! some one! 'Tis always some one or some thing; but we of Nushapore, my masters, will show them we are not as those of Bombay. We can fight for our own.'

There was a surge of assent in the crowd, as if it sought to begin at once, and KhÔjee, clutching her gold bangle tighter, fled incontinently down a by-street. So little might turn her limp into a fall, and then that fifteen-rupees'-worth might roll into the gutter and be snatched up by any one. Here, in the tortuous alleys, it was at least quiet, though it was dark. She slithered in the welter of the day's rubbish flung from the high houses on either side, and a scamper of pattering feet told her she had disturbed some rats battening on a bit of choice garbage.

'Allah hamid!' she muttered piously, and went on. The sound of wailing from one of the scarce-seen houses she was passing reminded her regretfully of the cardamoms; for she had left shops behind her. Then she remembered one, not far from the gate of the city, which she must pass; one of those miscellaneous shops which are always to be found near city gates, where travellers can buy most things--flour and vegetables, red peppers, pipe bowls, tobacco. Ay, and opium perhaps; but on the sly, since there was no licence over the door. It was not the sort of shop that such as KhÔjeeya KhÂnum patronised as a rule; still it might have cardamoms.

The low-caste buniya, with a wrinkled monkey face and long iron-grey hair, who crouched behind dingy platters and dusty bags, looked ghoulish by the one flickering light set in the solitary cavern of a shop; for on either side of it was blank wall, trending away to narrow alleys.

KhÔjee hesitated. Such men drove many nefarious trades. Still this one might have cardamoms!

'Cardamoms! he echoed with a leer. 'Yea, yea, princess! True cardamoms to satisfy the best of royal blood--he! he!' Those tall houses round his shop held many such as she, and he had recognised the accent.

KhÔjee scarce knew whether to be flustered or flattered beneath her domino.

'And be speedy,' she said haughtily. 'I have no time to spare thee.'

'Lo! NawÂbin,' he jeered, 'I have them; such cardamoms as----' He was rummaging in the heterogeneous mass piled up against the back wall of his shop. 'Wait but a moment. I have them--I have them. But two days ago, my princess, I had them.'

Here, by chance, an unwary pull sent a pile of parcels and bundles in confusion round him, and one rolled nigh to Aunt KhÔjee, who--careful ever--laid a hold of it to save a possible fall into the gutter. The light fell on something green and sheeny, her fingers recognised the feel of satin, and, the bundle having unrolled itself somewhat, she caught sight of the unmistakable cut of a trouser leg! She opened it out a little curiously.

'Canst not leave things alone?' snapped the shopkeeper angrily. 'Those be not cardamoms.'

'They be something I may need for all that,' retorted KhÔjee with spirit--the spirit which never fails a woman in the struggle for chiffons. So there she was, testing the satin with her finger, appraising the make. If they had only been pink!--though that was but a detail, since they were beyond her purse; the satin better by far than the much-to-be-regretted pink-the whole newer--

She wrinkled them aside with a sigh. 'Give me the cardamoms, brother. I have not the money for these.' The man looked at her cunningly.

'If the Daughter of Kings needs trousers, she will find none cheaper.'

'They would yet be too dear for me, brother,' she answered mildly; 'the cardamoms will do.'--

He edged nearer, his evil face growing confidential. 'Lo! Bhagsu never drives a hard bargain with the noble,' he cringed. 'It might be that the virtuous lady's money would purchase these, and save them from the badness of bazaars; since they come from virtue and should go to virtue. How much hath the princess to offer?'

KhÔjee gave a half-embarrassed laugh. It was impossible, of course, and yet----

'That is as may be,' she replied; 'what she will offer, is this----' With a flutter of shame and hope she put down the two rupees and the handful of pice. Then she remembered the cardamoms! 'That,' she continued, telling herself she might as well be bold to the bitter end, 'for the trousers and the cardamoms.' It was a diplomatic stroke, if an unconscious one, for Bhagsu instantly recognised that she had, indeed, ventured her all; that the chance was his to take or leave.

He gave a melancholy groan, then began to roll up the green satin, and tie it round with some of the triple-coloured cotton hanking used at weddings, which, for some occult reason, is always sold at these wayside shops. 'Shiv-jee be my witness,' he whimpered, 'I give them for naught. But what then? Virtue goes out to virtue, and those who live amongst the noble must be noble!'

KhÔjee could hardly believe her ears.

Half an hour afterwards she could hardly believe her eyes, as--KhÂdjee having retired safely to sleep with a sausage-roll pillow and a quilt--she sate in the courtyard gloating over her wonderful purchase.

It was simply astounding. Even KhÂdjee must forgive her duplicity in regard to that secret pawning of pink trousers, with such green ones as these for reparation! all piped, and edged, and faced, with quite a new braiding of gold thread down the front seam, and a new scent to them also; the wearer must have been in strange parts, though the cut was of the North.

She folded the precious garments with loving little pats, brought out the remaining portions of the state toilet from the almost empty store, saw that Noormahal's muslin was as pure and white and smooth as her old hands could make it, arranged the cardamoms in little saucers, and so, when the city had long since become silent, curled her tired old limbs on a string bed set across the doorway of the inner court--where the servant should have slept, had there been one--and slept fitfully.

For she had to be up at dawn, so that everything should be ready for the visitings, and yet leave her time to get round to the goldsmith's, sell the bangle by weight, and purchase some 'Essence of Happiness'--which was, alas! worth its weight in gold.

Yet when it came it had not much effect, greatly to poor KhÔjee's disappointment. Even the quivering, sobbing keene of her neighbours and relations did not rouse Noormahal to any proper display of grief, and--as the groups whispered--how could you expect to lose tears unless you shed them? Was it not a distinct defiance of Providence to deal, even with sorrow, as if it were your own absolutely? Finally, was not khushki (dryness) one of the fundamental faults in things created?--the other being gurm-ai (heat).

KhÂdeeja KhÂnum, however, was quite sufficiently tur and tunda (damp and cool) to satisfy the most rigid standard of etiquette; and what with the real cardamoms, the new trousers, a pennyworth of orange-blossom oil which KhÔjee had brought with the 'Essence of Happiness,' and a most encouraging report of prevailing sickness and death amongst mutual acquaintances brought by the visitors, the old lady had quite a flush on her withered cheeks by evening, and admitted to her sister, when the latter helped her to undress, that the whole thing had really gone off very well.

Nevertheless she was rather fatigued on the next day. The day after that, KhÔjee, returning from the purchasing of some lemon-grass oil, wherewith to wile away the aching in the back, caused, no doubt, by the muscular effort of a continual whimper, found her seated on the string bed in the centre of the lonely courtyard, attired in the green satin trousers and concomitants, waiting, so she said, for the bridal party to arrive.

How stupid KhÔjee was! Of course, having regard to her deformity, it was only natural she should take little heed of such things. But all were not made that way, and it was high time the bridal party did come. It seemed, indeed, as if an undue interval had elapsed since the betrothal day, when--if KhÔjee would remember--she wore pink, not green. Anyhow she, ShÂhzÂdi KhÂdeeja KhÂnum, was not one to stand any slackness in a bridegroom's ardour, and if he did not appear that day, she would choose another.

She did. Death claimed her as his before twelve hours were over; almost before poor Noormahal, roused at last from her absorption in grief, had realised she was ill. It seemed incredible! The NawÂbin's big eyes, larger, darker than ever--encircled as they were by great shadows which seemed to have crept down the oval of her face, making it pointed, pinched--turned to Aunt KhÔjee, even at the moment of death, in bewildered reproach and regret.

'And thou hast called none in to send her soul forth with prayers? Oh, KhÔjee! that was ill done. Nay? I mean no blame for thee alone, kind one, but for us both--yet we did not know--we did not dream--did we?'

KhÔjee stood for a second, speechless, rigid, her eyes staring, yearning towards the familiar face over which the awful unfamiliar look was creeping; then, with a wild cry, she threw up her arms and grovelled at Noormahal's feet.

'Nay! I knew--I knew from the first. Oh, child! I have killed her--I, KhÔjee--hush! wail not! None must know. And touch her not, Noormahal; that is for me--for her sister who killed her. Lo! child, sole hope of the house! stand further--I can do all--I will do all.--O KhÂdjee! KhÂdjee! canst thou forgive? And I knew--I knew in my heart all was not right. I knew none would rightly sell such green satin trousers'--here she broke into sobbing laughter--'yet wert thou happy, sister, and I took the blame of theft, if it was theft--and it was--theft of thy life--O KhÂdjee! KhÂdjee!'

Noormahal, pressed back by frantic clinging arms into a corner of the dark room--for KhÔjee, declaring the illness to be a chill, had insisted on keeping the patient inside--caught in her breath fearfully. 'Peace, KhÔjee! let me go, auntie!--Lo! thou art not well thyself--the fever hath thee--thou art distraught with grief, as I was. Come, let us go into the light, and I myself will call----'

KhÔjee rose to her feet, and laid a quick hand on Noormahal's mouth. 'Nay! none must call,' she said sternly, her self-control brought back by dread. 'Yea! come into the light, and leave her. Come, and I will tell thee there--in the light.'

'How dost thou know?' asked Noormahal, gone grey to her very lips. 'It is not that--lo! folk die of other things. I have seen them. Remember our cousin--it was just so----'

KhÔjee's mask of despair showed no wavering. 'Nay, it is the plague. They talked of it at the wailing. It hath been here and there in the city this week past. Mittun held it blasphemy that it should be aught but God's will, and I cried yea! to him; but cannot God send it in the clothes?' Her face, drawn, haggard, almost awful in its questioning, settled after a second into decision. 'Yea! it is the plague--the swellings they speak of are there. It was the trousers. I killed her. And none must know, or they will come and poison thee in hospital, lest it spread. That is why I called no one. The courtyard is wide. I can dig a grave----' Noormahal gave a sharp cry of horrified dissent. 'Yea! I can--my hands are not as thine, sweetheart, soft and fine. Old KhÔjee's ugliness can do more than thy beauty--the beauty of King's Daughters which none may see! Remember that, child, remember that'--her voice rang clear of sobs for those words; she rose from where she had crouched to tell her tale, and looked round her with dull, yet steady, eyes. 'There is no hurry. If folk come, none need know she is dead. I will say she sleeps. And at night I can dig. Yea! I knew it from the first. But there is no fear, heart's darling! Thou hast scarce been nigh her. That is why I kept her close. And to-night I will carry her to the outer courtyard--there is a padlock to the nanbut khana stairs, and room for--room for her beside them. I have thought--yea! thought while I watched. There is no fear, Noormahal! All will go well. Thou wilt have patience, as wives should, and JehÂn will return to thee, and little Sa'adut from his paradise will smile on brothers--ay! and sisters too--sisters whom thou wilt spare to old Aunt KhÔjee's arms. God knows it shall be so. Deny it not, girl--dare not to deny it? He only knows!'

Her face through its tears was alight with faith and hope and charity, and Noormahal's, as she looked, lost its hardness; a dreaminess that was almost tender came to the dry, bright eyes.

'Yea? He knows.'

That night, after the peacocks with their broken plaster tails ceased to show against the growing dusk, there were faint cautious sounds below them, where the two women dug at a grave. For in this, at least, Noormahal had said she could help. It was not finished by dawn; and after that KhÔjee worked alone and only by snatches, while Noormahal watched from the door of the inner courtyard, ready to give the alarm should any visitor come--ready also to entertain them.

And the next night KhÔjee would have no help at all. How she managed was a marvel, but she did manage. Even KhÂdeeja KhÂnum herself, had she been able to make comments, could scarcely have found fault with any lack of ceremony. And she would certainly have been gratified by her dead-clothes; for KhÔjee, with that terrible remorse at her heart, spared nothing from the costume of ceremony. The green satin trousers should deal no more death. And even the silver earrings, the few trumpery silver bracelets, parting from which would have been worse than death to the dead woman, she replaced with facsimiles in 'German.' For silver could be purified by fire, and the living had need of it; while who knew whether the corpse could tell the difference? Not likely, since God was good, and therefore there was no need to be on one's guard against cheating in His Paradise! So, in a way, 'German' was as good as silver there! For poor KhÔjee's white soul arrived at right conclusions by curious methods; she worked by them also, and, when that second dawn came, it was a very tired old woman who crept to the string bed set against the door.

But she rose again early, and telling Noormahal that, since there was now no one in the house but herself while marketings were going on, she had better keep the inner door closed, went off to the bazaar. She limped more than ever because of her tiredness, yet she sped through the streets quicker than usual, since, for the first time in her life, she went with her face uncovered. There was a breathlessness in that old face, and the old hands that held the knotted corner of her veil, wherein she had tied every available morsel of silver, every scrap of gold lace or ornament for which even a farthing could be got, were clasped on each other with almost painful tension.

'Lo, brother!' she said mildly to the goldsmith, 'what matters a ruthi or two. Weigh it quick, and give what is just. What is just! that is all I ask.'

It was not much, that bare justice, but it was something; and there was still a rupee or two over from the 'Essence of Happiness,' from the unavoidable expenses of that secret burial. So she passed hurriedly to a grain-merchant's shop.

Here she felt lost for a moment, lost, in the magnitude of what she needed to one whose purchases for many years had been a bare day's supply.

'It is for a wedding, likely?' asked the grain-dealer curiously.

'Likely,' she echoed softly. Her very brain felt tired, and it seemed to her confusedly as if, after all, it might be a wedding. The Lord-sahib might send help, Noormahal might be saved, JehÂn might come back to her. All things were possible to patience; and she, KhÔjee, was patient enough, surely?

'Thou must send it in an hour's time,' she said to the corn-dealer, her head being still clear enough for that one single purpose of hers, 'then I shall be back. And, look you! I have paid coolie hire. There must be no asking for more.'

That was a necessary warning, since, when she reached home, every farthing would have been spent.

All but one was spent, when she paused beside the public scribe who had set up his desk at a corner where two bazaars met.

'Is it a letter, mother?' he asked of the old woman who put out a hand against the wooden pillar of the neighbouring shop as if for support. 'To the house-master, likely.'

She shook her head this time. 'Nay, meean! There is no house-master,' she said softly, as before, 'and it is not even a letter. But a pice-worth of words on a scrap of paper. Listen! "There is food enough. Tarry the Lord's coming without fear or noise. I have locked the door." Canst do that for a pice, meean? And write clear, 'tis for a woman's eyes.' As she repeated the message, swaying to and fro as if she were reciting the Koran, the scribe smiled at a bystander and touched his forehead significantly.

'If beauty lie behind the door, the locking of it is a pice-worth in itself,' he said with a grin, 'and I give the rest!'

'If beauty lay behind it!' she thought as she went on, with the paper folded in her hands. Yes! it was beauty, for the safety of which her ugliness was responsible. Had she done all? Had she forgotten nothing? Nothing that would ensure Noormahal from intrusion until she, KhÔjee the plague-stricken, had died in the streets. For that was her plan. When death came close, as it surely must come soon, as it had done to KhÔjee, she would unbolt the doors and wander away--like a tailor-bird luring a snake from its nest--into the outskirts of the city, right away from the old house. And then what stranger was to know that KhÂdjee had died of plague, and was buried by the naubut khana stairs?

When death came close! but not till then. Surely there was no need till then to face the world--surely she might claim that much!

And when she was dead no one would know the lame old woman was KhÔjeeya KhÂnum, Daughter of Kings. Not even Lateefa.

The thought of him brought her a sudden fear. He was the only one who, having the right to claim it, might, by chance, seek entrance to the courtyard in the next day or two. She might on her way home see him, or leave a message to reassure him, at the house next DilarÂm's, whither she had fled with the news of Sobrai's escape.

There was no one in the house, no one in the little yard behind it; but Lateefa had been there not long ago, for the clippings of his trade littered one corner, and two draggled kites, their strings still fastened to wooden pegs in the wall, lay huddled in another.

DilarÂm might know; a message might be left with her.

As KhÔjee stumbled up the dark stairs to a balcony for the first time in her life, she tried to straighten her veil, but her hands trembled; it would not fold decorously.

There were three or four drowsy women lounging in the room at the door of which she stood, beset by a sudden shyness, and three of them tittered at the unusual sight; but the fourth said severely--

'What dost here, sister? This is no place for thy sort.'

'I--I seek Lateefa,' she faltered, and the others tittered louder.

'Peace, fools!' said DilarÂm angrily. 'Dost mean Lateefa the kitemaker?'

But KhÔjee had found her dignity. 'Yea! Lateef of the House of the NawÂb JehÂn Aziz, on whom be peace. Tell him, courtesan, that KhÔjeeya KhÂnum----' She paused, doubtful of her message, and, in the pause, the jingles on DilarÂm's feet clashed once more as she rose to do honour to a different life.

'Let the Bibi sahiba speak,' she said in her most mellifluous tones. 'We in the freedom of vice are slaves to the prisoners of virtue.'

'Tell him,' said KhÔjeeya KhÂnum, 'that it is well with the prison and the prisoners. That they need no service.'

As she stumbled down the stairs again there was no sound of tittering.

It was nearly an hour after this, and the noonday sun was flooding the courtyards, when KhÔjee, having completed her preparations, closed the door between them softly, so as not to disturb Noormahal--who had already retired for the usual midday sleep--and slipped a paper through the chink of the lintel ere drawing it close and padlocking the hasp.

Noormahal could not fail to see the reassuring message there when she woke, and began to wonder where Auntie KhÔjee had gone.

As she straightened herself from stooping to the padlock, she felt, giddily, that she had locked herself out of life. She had but a few hours left of seclusion, and then--the streets.

But those few hours she might surely claim. So she closed and barred the wicket in the outer door, and dragging a string bed into the scant shade cast by the naubut khana, found rest for her aching limbs. And there she lay silent, taking no heed of Noormahal's knockings and appeals which, after a time, rose cautiously. When they ceased the old woman gave a sigh of relief.

Thus far all had gone well. Now she had only to wait till she felt she dare wait no more.

So she lay, watching the shadows of the broken-tailed plaster peacocks of royalty above the gateway creep over the courtyard, up the walls, and disappear into thin air.