THE FREEDOM OF DEATH

JehÂn Aziz had withdrawn his charge of theft against Lateefa by saying that the whole affair was a misunderstanding, and that the ring was in the possession of the NawÂbin, to whom it really belonged. It had been returned to her without his knowledge; etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!

Now a monopoly in lies gives freedom, but when you have an accomplice whose fertility of imagination exceeds your own, there is tyranny in them. JehÂn found this out when Lateefa, after one silent second of surprise, had grasped the position, and instantly claimed his right to lie also. For in India false accusation is a sort of personal duel in which the challenger, having chosen his weapon, cannot complain of his opponent's more skilful use of it.

So Lateefa had launched into corroborative evidence of the most startling description. Did not the NawÂb-sahib remember this, and that? And JehÂn had remembered. What else could he do?

But he felt it was dangerous work, and was glad when Lateefa's audience was confined to the coachman who drove them back to the city, in the wagonette lined with red flannel and tied up with string! Yet, all the time that he was enlarging, Lateefa was wondering if there was any truth whatever in the story he had been confirming.

Had the ring really been found?

The fact that Burkut Ali was waiting to receive them in the little house next DilarÂm's, inclined him to believe it was not, and that there was still some scheming afoot.

But, on the other hand, the ring might really be lost. The kite might have fluttered down in the next courtyard, or the next. It was a pure chance.

His first glance into the little backyard, however, showed him that the chance had been in his favour. He had the eyes of a hawk, and, even from a distance, could see, not only that those were the kites crumpled in one corner, but that the precious morsel of ballast was still in its place.

And this knowledge gave him, instantly, an enormous advantage over the two plotters, to whom it was, of course, inconceivable that he should, already, know for a certainty that the ring had not been found.

So when, in the most natural manner in the world, they congratulated each other on his being freed from a false accusation in time to allow of his making kites for the annual competition amongst the immediate members of the Royal Family, for what was called the 'Sovereignty of Air,' he assented cheerfully and waited for them to go further. Which they did, by saying that as it was most important to have the best of kites, he had better go back to the old workshop, since the courtyard here was too narrow and sunless to dry the paste and paper quick enough. Indeed, the last kites he had made there had flown askew.

Here Lateefa crossed to the battered ones in the corner, and shook his head over them solemnly. It was true, he said, such kites would ill carry the honour of kings. Yet, since he had none too much leisure--if the trial was to be in two days' time--he would waste no good daylight in moving tools. That could be done at any hour, and leave him half-a-day's work here.

On which JehÂn and Burkut winked at each other, thinking it evident that he was falling into the trap, and was manoeuvring for an opportunity of getting at his hiding-place. So they gave it to him, discreetly, by playing cards meanwhile on the string bed set this time within the room across the doorway; thus combining complete isolation with comparative freedom. Whereat Lateefa smiled to himself.

It was quite a happy little family party, and Lateefa sang, as usual, of 'oughts' and 'naughts' as he worked; sang all the more cheerfully when those two began to yawn.

He kept them at the yawning, out of pure mischief, until it was almost dark; then he piled the kites he had made in the corner, tied his tools into a bundle, and asked the cardplayers politely to let him pass.

Whereupon, as he knew they would, they closed the door and stripped him. He did not expostulate. He seemed to think it quite right that they should thus prove the truth of their own words. He had not, he confessed, been sure, before, of the assertion that the ring was in the NawÂbin's possession. He had thought that, perhaps, the Light-of-the-Universe had retained it himself. Now it was evident that he had not.

And then, refusing to resume any clothing except a mere waist-cloth of decency, or to take his tools or anything which might cause suspicion to go with him, he went out into the bazaars, leaving those two cursing, and swearing, and wondering if by chance they had hit on the right lie! Had the ring really found its way to the ruined palace which was the only other relic of kingship remaining to the Rightful Heir of all?

And even that possession was burdened by conditions!

It is impossible to overestimate what the loss of absolute power means to men like JehÂn Aziz who have nothing to take its place. As a rule, when their personal interests do not clash with their environments, they only grin horribly, and contrive to bear the loss. But when, as JehÂn Aziz did, they feel enmeshed in a network of petty limitations, their impotent arrogance finds the position intolerable.

As he flung himself angrily once more on the eternal string bed, he felt that the only thing which would satisfy him was the grip upon his finger of a gold circlet set with a green stone, on which was scratched the kingly legend.

And despite Burkut's help he had failed to get it; as yet--

Meanwhile Lateefa, naked as he was born--save for his rag of decency and an embroidered skull-cap of inexpressibly filthy white muslin set on the oily, grizzled hair that hung in an inward curve about his ears--was at large in the gutters and lanes, feeling the freedom of a bird newly escaped from a cage. His last sense of allegiance to the NawÂb had gone; he had not yet attached himself to the NawÂbin. He did not really care much as to the fate of the ring. It had been more a desire to outmatch their cunning, than any hope of keeping his promise to KhÔjee, that had made him transfer the precious ballast--as he had done in the leisure afforded him by that discreet game of cards--from the old kite to a new one, and leave it in the pile. It was a trifle safer there; but, on the other hand, any one might find it at any time. If so, it would be the fault of Fate. Not Lateefa's, as it would have been had he been foolish enough to try and take the ring, or even the kites with him. That would have been fatal.

So as, with a twopenny-halfpenny wisp of a muslin scarf he borrowed from a friend, superadded to his costume--or the lack of it--and a certain soft brilliance of opium in his eyes, the kitemaker lounged about in the more disreputable quarters of the town, listening to tales and telling them with equal indifference, he was, in a way, the spirit of an Indian bazaar incarnate. Truth had gone from him utterly. In its place had come an impersonal appreciation of the value of vice or virtue as a mere ingredient of anecdote, and an absolute lack of responsibility for the result of his admixture of good and evil.

Therefore, as he sat crouched up in the corner of a frail lady's reception room, fingering a lute which he had found there, and trilling softly of 'oughts' and 'naughts' while she retailed the latest lies to the shifting audience which came and went up and down the steep musk-scented stairs, he was at once a thing dreadful, a thing pathetic. For his keen face, seen by the smoking oil lamps set high in a brass trefoil before the mistress of the house, was alight with a sensuous spirituality, and his lean figure, so listless in its lounge, was instinct with that power of energy, of spring, that shows even in a sleeping tiger.

'Lo, thou in the corner!' came the narrator's voice; 'hold thy peace. What are thy "oughts" and "naughts" to us of the bazaar? Take them to thy virtuous beauties who leave messages for thee at DilarÂm's--at DilarÂm's forsooth! an odd "post-arffis"^[16] for virtue! And so, my masters,' she went on, 'the daghdars^[17]--there were five of them--carried the woman off by force, and----'

Lateefa was not one of the breathless listeners. He was winking elaborately at the buxom assistant who was handing round the sherbets, and asking irresponsibly, 'Didst leave a message for me at DilarÂm's, beloved?'

'Not I, fool!' she giggled; 'thou must be drunk indeed to think virtue fits me. Yet it is true. One such did come when I was at DilarÂm's with her----' She nodded to the speaker--who, having reached her climax, was becoming dramatic, the light before her making her face all eyes and lips--'An old body--out on thee for thy bad taste, Lateef! And she says, says she, "Tell Lateef of the house of the NawÂb that it is well with us in the prison--that we want no service." See you, friends? not even his! Nay, take it not to heart, beloved! there be others less unkind.'

But Lateefa had risen with a sudden sense of something beyond his present freedom; that freedom from truth, clothes, kite-making, above all things, from the methods of the police! And that something was Auntie KhÔjee. For the messenger, he felt, could have been no one else. Why had she come to say it was well with her? Had they made her do so? And if so, what had they been doing to those helpless women? What they could have done, had they dared, Lateefa knew only too well; and his brain was too confused to remember that had they dared, they would scarcely have bidden him go back to his workshop in the old palace.

His feet were as confused as his brain, but, in or out of the gutter, they steered him pretty straight for the big iron-studded door with the little wicket in it beneath the naubat khana.

'KhÔjee!' he called cautiously, rattling at the wicket; for it was barred, as usual, at night. There was no answer. He raised his voice--'Auntie KhÔjee, it is Lateef! Rise, sister, and let me in.'

She ought to have heard that; for he knew her to be a light sleeper. He paused doubtfully. Was she simply asleep, or had those two been at work? Then it occurred to him that he had been a fool not to ask the sherbet-hander when the message had been left at DilarÂm's. It might have been that very day, in which case he could afford to postpone his inquiries till the morrow. He must find out. That was the first thing to be done.

Late as it was growing, there was no slackening, as yet, in the tide of life ebbing and flowing through the bazaars, when he returned to them. Everybody in the city seemed astir, and he hastily turned his face to the lamp-sprinkled caverns of the arcaded shops, as he saw Burkut Ali and JehÂn Aziz coming towards him in the crowd. They passed him talking together in low tones, and he looked after them doubtfully. Were they simply promenading, as half the town seemed to be doing, or----?

Their sudden turn down a by-lane decided him. He followed cautiously.

Alike though the bazaars and the by-ways of a native city are in form, the change of atmosphere between them is striking beyond words. So here, within a whisper of unceasing talk and movement, Lateefa found all silent, deserted. Lightless too; except when a farthing rushlight at a niched shrine where two lanes crossed, shone on the black slime in the gutters, as if it had been ink, and showed the glistening black streaks upon the windowless walls, down which the sewage from the upper stories of the tall houses trickled to the sewage below. Here and there a dog slunk in the shadows; here and there a woman crept furtively from doorway to doorway. And overhead, with a fathomless depth of purple in which the stars seemed trivial bits of tinsel, a notched ribbon of sky showed between the turreted roofs.

A garland of marigolds--sending their curious odour into the general compound of smells as they hung over a closed door--and a muffled sound of women's laughter told of a marriage within. A knife--still swinging from the touch of the last visitor--and a louder shrill of voices drowning a woman's cries, told of birth. And that faint whimper--practised, conventional--meant death!

All three within closed doors.

And now, from the vantage-ground of the last turn, Lateefa waited and watched those two go on. Had they been there before? Had they the means of entry?

No! The rattle of the wicket sounded loudly; then the voice of authority--'Open! Open to the Master! Open to the NawÂb!'

Even to that there was no answer, and as the two looked at each other, JehÂn's face was fierce with rage. ''Tis as thou saidst, when DilarÂm spoke of the message,' he muttered savagely. 'They are in league! Lateef is here, and means to defy us.'

Then he raised his voice and called again, 'Open! Open to the Possessor! Open to the Master!'

A door or two down the alley creaked ajar, showing dim white-sheeted figures of wonder; for that was not a call to be ignored.

Lateefa, from his corner, wondered still more. What could have happened? Something, evidently, about which those two knew nothing.

A man who had pushed past the dim shadows into the lane, started the question as to when the door had last been seen open; whereat voices came from the dim shadows in answer. One had not seen it so these three days, others had noticed KhÔjee's limp that morning. The voices grew contentious over the point, so that NawÂb JehÂn Aziz growled a curse under his breath, and turned away savagely.

'Come, Burkut,' he said, 'did I not tell thee they could not have arrived by now? The paper at the "estation" says the mail is "change-time." Let me pass, good folk,' he went on irritably to the little group that hung round, curious. 'Can a body not come to see if his family be returned from a journey without the neighbours crowding out?'

The remark was plausible explanation enough; but as the two passed Lateefa in the dark, JehÂn could be heard girding at Burkut. Why had he suggested coming on the sly? It would be all over the town how that JehÂn's women had refused him entrance. He, Burkut, would be suggesting the police next.

'Not the police, my lord,' came Burkut's suave, cunning voice; 'there be better ways of gaining entry than that nowadays!'

When they had gone, and the lane--with clucks of incredulity and remarks that it was time some folk refused to be treated scandalously--had settled behind closed doors again, Lateefa stole back to the wicket.

Once more he had the advantage. He knew that it was no obstinacy induced by his presence which kept the inmates silent. And JehÂn had made noise enough to wake the dead.

The dead? But they could not all be dead! A vast curiosity, more than any apprehension, made Lateefa look up to the balcony of the naubat khana and wonder if he could climb to it. Once there, the shutters he knew were rotten. It seemed possible--if a foothold or two were picked out of the crumbling brick, and a rope hitched on to an iron hook he knew of, some ten feet up the wall. In fact, given a quiet hour or so, he would undertake to make a felonious entry somehow. But it was too early in the night to try. The time for such work came with the false dawn when sleep simulated death. And that was--how many hours away? He did not know, or care. In that strange life of the bazaars, night was as day. No question of bed-time entered into it; so, sooner or later, he would see that the hour he waited for had come, by the look on those ribbons of sky between the close-packed houses; that network of sky, following the pattern of the network of streets and alleys, which was all that thousands in the city knew of the heaven above it.

The bazaars were scarcely more empty, when once again he returned to them; but they were less noisy. Many voices had dwindled to one voice; the voice of the tale-teller. Therefore the voice of the most imaginative mind in the assemblage.

Lateefa listened here, listened there, curious, indifferent, receptive; approving--as the East always approves--the voice with authority that speaks not as the scribes.

He wandered here, he wandered there; even, with that absorbing inquisitiveness of his, into the courtyard common to DilarÂm and her neighbours. Her balcony was dark and silent; the police, he told himself, had likely been bothering her. But the light, and the sound of a crank in Govind's room, meant a special edition of lies. Then with his ear to the chink of the door below he could hear Burkut Ali's voice; then JehÂn's--louder, shrill with protest or anger. They were quarrelling, likely, over drink or cards.

Yet Burkut was sober enough when--barely giving time for Lateefa to find shelter behind the eternal string-bed which was now reared up against the wall--he came out into the yard.

'Fool!' he muttered as he passed, 'not to see his own good. As if it mattered. He would get house and all. Mayhap he will be drunk enough by morning.'

What new villainy was he planning? Lateefa pondered over the question as he drifted on.

The time of felonies was near, for the dogs were forgetting to skulk; a sign that men were fewer in the lanes and streets. Here and there, round an ebbing flicker of light, listeners lingered, and a drowsy voice droned on; but for the most part the cavernous arcades showed still, white-swathed sleepers, simulating death.

This, however, coming swiftly down the bazaar--a strange, swaying, headless body with many legs, monstrous, weird, half-seen--was death itself being shuffled out secretly to the city gates.

Folks said true, then. The plague was abroad?

He had found himself what he needed for his task--a bit of old iron, a bit of leathern rope; but when he reached the wicket his first stealthy touch on it showed him he needed neither. It was ajar. He pushed it open noiselessly and entered; groping his way, since it was dark in the archway below the naubut khana. Beyond, in the open court, it was lighter; yet, even so, he stumbled over a bed set right in the entrance as watchmen set them.

There was no one in it, but the quilt was warm. So some one had been there a moment ago. Some one who had gone out by the open door, and who would therefore return.

He crouched in a recess by the stairs that led upwards and waited. He had not to wait long. A shuffling step sounded outside, and, after a pause to bar the wicket, some one stumbled to the bed. And then out of the darkness came a quavering grace before meat, that grace which is also the prayer of blood-sacrifice.

'In the name of the Merciful and Clement God!'

It had not needed the grace to tell Lateefa that this was Aunt KhÔjee. She must have gone out to draw water from the well down the lane, for the grace was followed by the sound of rapid, thirsty drinking. But why had she not drawn water as usual from the well in the women's courtyard? He must find out.

'God quench thy thirst, sister,' he said piously; then added, 'fear not, it is I, Lateef,' for she had given a startled cry and let fall the water-vessel, which, bottom upwards, gave out a glug glug as the liquid escaped from its narrow neck, that was louder than her feeble attempt at sobbing, as she crouched up on the bed rocking to and fro.

It was all her fault, she was very wicked, she moaned; she had tried to go into the streets, she had tried to feel as if she were going to die, but she could not. And then the thirst had been so dreadful! But she had only opened the door for a little moment. Who would have thought of any one stepping in? And now he must go away, or she would kill him too. Why did he not go when it was the plague? He would surely die, and she did not want to kill any one else....

Lateefa could make out enough of her ramblings for comprehension, but he did not therefore flinch from the huddled-up figure, which was now faintly visible in the grey beginnings of dawn. The fear of death is not easily learned in the bazaars where, so long as it comes naturally, it scarcely excites comment. Nevertheless, he cleared his throat and spat as JÂn-Ali-shÂn had done in the garden; for that propitiatory offering to the dread destroyer is common to all races all over the world.

'Thou wouldst kill no more?' he echoed, his curiosity aroused. 'Who hast killed already? The NawÂbin or KhÂdjee, or both?'

So once more, even there, he sat listening, listening, listening, while KhÔjee rambled through her tale of the green satin trousers, and her plan to save the NawÂbin from being dragged away and poisoned, which had been frustrated by thirst. But who could have expected to want either food or drink----

Lateefa gave a sudden laugh. 'Lo! brave one!' he said, stooping to pick up the fallen water-vessel, 'and when thou hadst got the drink, thou didst spill it from sheer fright of a familiar voice! Of a truth, sister, women are made in bits like a conjurer's puzzle. It needs a man's wit to piece them together. Now think not, KhÔjee,' he continued warningly, 'to shut me out whilst I get thee water. If thou dost, I swear by my kites, I will go tell the daghdars at the horspitÂl to come and poison Noormahal.'

The fantasy of his own threat amused him; yet it roused a sudden remembrance that others might, at least, tell the doctors; especially if, after the scene of last night, the door remained shut. The neighbours, in that case, would begin to talk. And then he recollected Burkut Ali's words, and wondered if the latter could possibly have been contemplating so vile a plan as giving false information. The NawÂb himself would not consent. It was infamy. But if the NawÂb was drunk?

The thought was disturbing, so, after KhÔjee, refreshed by the water, had apparently sunk into a profound sleep, he went outside, and, sitting on the door-lintel, prepared replies to the questionings which should surely come when folk began to go backwards and forwards to the well. He prepared, also, for the interview with the NawÂbin which he meant to have by and by. He meant to tell her about the ring, as an inducement to common-sense; the common-sense of escaping, while she could, from evil to come.

As he sat, answering questions and passing the time of day jauntily, he heard a faint knocking from within, a low-voiced 'KhÔjee! KhÔjee! art returned yet?' The NawÂbin was therefore well; so, if KhÔjee woke the better for her sleep, the whole affair might be simple.

The sun rose, and so did Lateefa's spirits. He joked and laughed with the veiled serving-women, he played with the children when they began to drift out to the gutters, he even cast a gay remark or two into the air for the women who stood on the roofs gossiping. Soon they would be going down into the courtyards, the doors would be closed, and his opportunity for arguing the matter out with two foolish creatures would come.

Then, suddenly, the children stopped playing, the women scuttled to shelter, and Lateefa rose with an awful malediction in his heart.

Two Englishmen had come round the corner, and behind them was Burkut Ali.

Then he had done it! done this infamous thing!----

'It is a nuisance coming at the very beginning,' the English doctor was saying, 'but I can't help myself. And one can only hope it will give the lot a wholesome fright.'

His companion shook his head. 'Doubt it. And to tell the truth, I don't understand this request. There is hanky-panky, I feel sure.'

The speaker was Jack Raymond. By pure chance he had passed the hospital on his morning ride just as the doctor was going out on this, his first search; and, remembering the scene in the king's pleasure-grounds, the latter had asked him to run his eye over the written request for inspection, so as to make sure there was no nonsense.

Thus the names of KhÔjeeya and KhÂdeeja had come to remind him of the silk bracelet, at that moment reposing with some bank-notes in his pocket. It was not in Jack Raymond to refuse such a lead over. He had felt, it is true, a trifle impatient at the necessity for accepting it, but even that feeling had vanished when Burkut Ali, who met them where the lane turned off from the bazaar, apologised for the NawÂb's absence. The latter was too much overcome, he said, by the sacrifice of dignity required in thus proving his devotion to the Sirkar in setting such a good example to others, to attend in person.

'Hanky-panky!' Jack Raymond had murmured under his breath, with a thanksgiving that he was there to prevent more villainy than could be helped.

Lateefa too, seeing RahmÂn-sahib, who was known to all attendants at the race-course, was glad of his presence also, but for a curiously different reason. He was glad, because RahmÂn-sahib was, by repute, not only a real sahib, but, by repute also, he understood what people said thoroughly, and was therefore amenable to deception--that is to words generally, true or false; whereas wit was of no use with most Englishmen!

Jack Raymond's first remark, too, was reassuring, since it betrayed suspicion of Burkut Ali's good faith.

'The door is not closed against entrance,' he said sharply. 'Why was it said to be so?'

Burkut, who had brought a most venerable-looking villain of the royal house to back him up, appealed to the neighbours, who, already, had crowded out to join the rabble which the efforts of a couple of constables had not succeeded in keeping back. Were they not witness, he asked, that last night----

'It doesn't matter, Raymond,' said the doctor aside, 'I've got to get through with it now, and the quicker the better; so I'd rather have an open door than a shut one.' He slipped through the wicket as he spoke, and an odd murmur, half of horror, half satisfied curiosity, ran round the spectators.

It was true, then! The Sirkar did do such things!

'There is no need for those two to come in; it isn't their house,' objected Jack Raymond, as Burkut and the venerable villain prepared to follow. 'Stand back, sahibÂn,' he added in Hindustani; 'and sergeant, when the conservancy sweepers are through, close the wicket. This is not a public spectacle.'

True. Yet in a way the remark and action, spoken and done with the best intention, the kindest consideration, were a mistake. They left a crowd with nothing for its amusement but KhÔjee's screams of sheer terror as she woke to find the doctor feeling her pulse. They were heart-rending, dangerous screams; and Jack Raymond recognising this, and also the fact that the old lady was his petitioner of the garden, supplemented the doctor's commonplace 'Have no fear, mother' with something more ornate, in Persian, which changed the screams to piteous cries of, 'Poison me not! I will die! Yea, I will die without poison!'

And this being almost worse, he tried the effect of showing her the rÂm rucki, and asking if a bracelet-brother was likely to do her any injury; finally, as she only seemed to grasp his meaning vaguely, he fastened the silken cord on her wrist.

Its touch was magical. She clutched at the hand that had put it on, and the cries died down to a whimper.

'Lo, my brother! Lo, my brother, my brother! Tell them I can die. Let them give me time, and I will die! Yea, with time I can die, as well as with poison.'

It was impossible to avoid a smile; the doctor, indeed, laughed cheerily. 'No doubt about that, mother,' he said to her in a relieved tone of voice, 'but not just yet. You haven't got the plague. And you haven't it either,' he continued, turning to Lateefa. 'That is two of you--one woman and a servant. Now, if you can show me the other two inmates in like case, I can give a clean bill. So where are they? In here, I suppose.'

He passed towards the inner door, but Lateefa was there before him. Sharp as a needle, the doctor's words had made him see that Noormahal, alone, would be no good. There must be two women, or the tragedy of the green satin trousers would be as surely discovered as if poor KhÂdjee had not been buried; and that would mean a segregation camp, at best, for all three of them. It might be impossible to hoodwink the sahibs, but he could try. So he appealed volubly to Jack Raymond. This was infamy, as the Huzoor knew, to secluded dames. It had to be, of course; but let it be done in the easiest way. Let the sick woman--she was none so ill but that she could do so much for humanity's sake--go in first and tell of the Huzoor's kindness; of how he was a bracelet-brother (Lateefa had, of course, grasped this fact without in the least understanding how it had happened); no doubt she would be able to persuade the secluded ones to come out for inspection, and that would be less disgrace than the invasion by male things of their sacred isolation.

Jack Raymond watched the keen audacious face narrowly; then once more he said aside to the doctor, 'Hanky-panky! That sick woman is as much secluded as the others; but I'd let her go. Give them a free hand and they will be quieter, if we find them out. Anything is better than hunting them down, poor souls!'

Lateefa, therefore, much to his inward delight--also contempt!--was allowed free instructions to Aunt KhÔjee, while the search-party stood aside.

'We can t let 'em down easier, can we?' said the doctor as he waited; and Jack Raymond shook his head despondently.

'No,' he answered, 'but it's a brutal business all the same--to their notions, and you can't change them in a hurry.'

Meanwhile Lateefa's instructions ran in this fashion. KhÔjee was to tell Noormahal that the big Lord-sahib had sent the bracelet-brother to fetch her to a private interview. That the state dhoolies were waiting. That all was of the strictest ceremonial. On that point she had a free hand. She was to say anything which would induce the NawÂbin to come out. And she herself was to change her dress swiftly and personate KhÂdjee. It was a chance--the Huzoors might not think of seeing the three women together. So, with a parting admonition to be brave, he pushed the tottering KhÔjee through the inner door, closed it, and turned to the two Englishmen appealingly.

'The Huzoors must give time, for it is as death to noble ladies to see strangers; but the old woman will tell them that the Huzoors are as their fathers and mothers. May God promote them to be Lords!'

'Hanky-panky!' remarked Jack Raymond again, 'but it can't do any harm.'

'No,' assented the doctor.

There was no one there to remind them that that is a formula which can never be safely used in India, or to repeat, as Grace Arbuthnot had repeated, a lifelong experience embodied in the words--'You can never tell.'

'They are a long time coming,' said the doctor aggrievedly. He was up to his eyes in work, and he had waited five minutes, ten minutes, patiently, silently. So had the crowd outside silently, but impatiently.

'Huzoor!' protested Lateefa from the door, 'to noble ladies it is as death----'

He broke off, for a sudden shriek rose from within; another; another; and above them a woman's voice shrill, awful, in its intensity of scorn--

'Lies! Lies! Lies! Stand back, fool, thief, liar!' And mixed with these words were others in agonised appeal--'Nay! Noormahal! Lateef? Help! God and his prophet! Thou shalt not! Noormahal!'

Lateefa seemed paralysed--uncertain what to do. But Jack Raymond, the doctor at his heels, had the door open. They were through it in a second. His first glance within, however, made the former grip the latter's arm with a grip of iron, and whisper breathlessly--

'Keep still, man; it's the only chance.'

For, in the centre of that inner courtyard, standing--arrested for a second by the opening of the door--on the parapet of the wide wall, was a tall white-robed figure, its face distorted by passion, its black eyes blazing.

'Lateef! Help!' moaned KhÔjee, who was clinging frantically, uselessly, to one corner of the lone white veil. 'She is mad! the ring!--I had to dress--and she too---for the Lord-sahib--and it was not there! I told you how it would be--it is the ring!'

An awful laugh echoed through the courtyard.

'Yea! the ring! the ring!' repeated Noormahal mockingly. 'Sa'adut's ring--the Ring of Kingship. Liar! Lo! I could kill thee for the lie. It is not there--Noormahal! Mother of Kings, dost hear? It is not there--it was not there when I went to find it.'

There was self-pity, amazement, now, in the voice which had begun so recklessly, and Jack Raymond--watching the figure with every nerve and muscle tense for action--breathed a quick breath of relief; for self-pity meant almost the only hope of averting the mad leap there was so little chance of preventing.

But Lateefa's high voice followed sharply, almost exultingly--

'What then?' he cried, 'when I have it safe! Yea! Mother of Kings! The ring is safe. I swear it. I have it yonder in the bazaar--in the NawÂb's house--I----'

He paused, compelled to silence by her face, by the outstretched hand which, falling from its appeal to high Heaven, pointed its finger at him accusingly.

'Dost hear him?' she asked mincingly, and Jack Raymond instinctively moved a step nearer. 'He, the pandar, hath the ring safe; safe in the bazaar; safe in the NawÂb's house; safe for the NawÂb's bride----'

'Look out!' shouted Jack Raymond, dashing forward, for he knew what that thought would bring.

But he was too late. With one cry of 'Liars,' one horrid laugh, the slender white figure leaped into the air, the veil--detained uselessly in KhÔjee's helpless hold--falling from the small sleek head; and the NawÂbin Noormahal, the Light-of-Palaces, went down as she had stood, mocking, defiant, into the depth of the well; the last thing seen of her, those wild appealing hands.

And outside the crowd was listening, eager to find fault, eager for a tragedy to tell in the bazaars.