THE OLD WINE

Chris woke suddenly, and yet without that sense of dislocation which such awakening often brings with it.

The vast content that had been his in falling asleep was his still, as with eyes which seemed to him to have grown clear of dreams he lay smiling at what he saw, though that was only a wide, empty, whitewashed room with many window-doors set open to the dawn; and through these, nothing but a strip of mud roof; and beyond that again, the broad blades of the plantain leaves shining grey-green in the grey light. A slight breeze swayed them, and rustled in the frayed straws of the rude matting with which the floor was covered.

But that louder, more intermittent rustle was not the wind. It was the patter of a bird's feet. And there, with tail erect on the coping, clear against the glistening grey-green leaves, which swayed like sea-weeds in a swift tide, a striped squirrel was breakfasting on some treasure-trove.

Chris filled his lungs with a long 'breath. He was back in the old world; the world where all living things are alike mortal, where even man is as the flower that fadeth, the beast that perisheth.

And the old way was better.

So far he had gone, when the consciousness that he was not alone--that strange consciousness of humanity which, be the old way never so charming, separates men from it inevitably--came to him, and he sat up on the low string cot, set so regardless of symmetry just where it had first been dumped down in the room.

His instinct had been right. A figure had been seated, unmovable as a statue, just behind his head; but as he turned it turned also, and held out a folded paper. The figure was that of a young man about his own age and of much the same build, but guiltless of clothing save for a saffron-coloured waist-cloth. The forehead was barred with white lines, and a leopard's skin hung over the shoulder. Palpably this was the disciple of some learned ascetic, as he, Chris, would have been, had not the West interfered with custom. The thought made him smile, but the face opposite his remained grave, almost disapproving; the figure rose without a word, turned on its heel, and disappeared. Chris, left with the paper in his hand, felt as if a message had been sent to him from another world; felt so still more when he had read the broad black Sanskrit lettering inside.

'Thy guru calls thee'--it ran--'come, ere it be too late.'

He sat staring at the words, conscious--despite his better sense--of a compulsion, almost of fear.

For why had this claim of authority been made now? Wherefore should the guru--that is, the spiritual adviser of his family--desire to see him?

The answer was but too plain; he must already know of that stolen visit Chris had made to his mother's house; a visit which, should one, who was her spiritual guide also, choose to proclaim it, might bring endless trouble, vexation, disgrace upon her.

Chris stood up, inwardly cursing his own recklessness. He might, he told himself, have known that priestly spies would be about him after that incident of the bathing-steps. He ought not to have gone; not at least as he had gone, leaving his mother still in her fond belief that he had done, or was willing to do, the necessary penance.

Yet without that belief-strengthened as it had been by his repeated requests for secrecy in the present--she would not have received him as she had. And Naraini----

Plainly he must obey the order, and so find out what was wanted, what was threatened. He rose therefore and went out into the cool grey dawn.

The arcaded courtyard recessed about a cluster of temples, where SwÂmi Viseshwar NÂth taught his disciples, was empty as yet when Chris reached it, save for half a dozen figures scarce distinguishable from the one which had summoned him. All, in these early hours, were busy over ceremonials of sorts; but all looked up at the newcomer with that dull disapproval.

'The guru is within,' said one sullenly.

Chris did not need direction. Had he not learned the precious shibboleths of his twice-born race yonder at the master's feet?

'So thou hast come, Krishn. Take thy seat, pupil, and listen,' came a voice.

It was almost dark in the slip of a room behind the arcades, but Chris could see, by the help of memory, the unmovable figure, the placid face with its wide thin lips. He saw in a flash, also, everything that had ever happened to him in this, his earliest school, and the old awe that comes with such memories fell on him as he obeyed.

'There is no need,' continued the voice, 'to tell thee that I know what thou wouldest rather I did not know. Neither canst thou pretend ignorance of what such knowledge means. Therefore, Krishn, there is naught to say but this. What art thou about to do?'

Chris had been asking himself the question, but he resented its being put to him.

'That depends,' he was beginning, when the SwÂmi stopped him by laying an impassive hand on his wrist.

'To save time, I will tell thee. Out of past years--as thou didst disappear in them--thou shalt return--as thou didst go--Krishn Davenund, Brahmin, twice-born. There shall be no question asked, no answers needed. Thou shalt return to us--I, Viseshwar NÂth, parohit of thy race, say it, and none shall quarrel me--thou shalt return to hold a woman's hand, and circle the sacred fire--her hand, Naraini's, whom the gods keep for thee, whom I, child, have kept for thee!'

The words with the nameless rhythm in them, which the use of Sanskrit phrases gives to the vulgar tongue, echoed softly into the arches, and Chris felt his eyes, his ears held captive by the insignificant figure that was hedged about by no sign of dignity or office save the leopard skin on which it crouched, naked.

'Kept for me--how so?' he echoed, trying once more to be resentful.

The SwÂmi smiled. 'Hast, indeed, forgotten the old life so utterly, boy, as never to have wondered why one of Naraini's age remained virgin in thy mother's house?'

Chris felt the blood go tingling to his face; for he could not pretend to such ignorance. He knew that the limit of laxity in such matters had almost been overpast in the hope that when he returned from England he would marry the girl. But that possibility had vanished when he had married Viva. Therefore, to blame him for the subsequent delay was unfair; so he answered boldly--

'I have not wondered. I have known and regretted the idle dream. But that was over long ago--ere my father died. Had he chosen, he might----'

The SwÂmi's hand stopped him once more. 'Not so,' he said calmly. 'If thou hast forgotten much, there are other things thou hast never known; that none would have known save thy father and I--not even thy mother--hadst thou been dutiful and fulfilled the dream. Listen and reflect! Thy cousin Naraini was betrothed or ever she came to thy father's house, betrothed as an infant to one who--who left her.'

'Left her?' echoed Chris hotly, 'wherefore?'

'That matters not,' replied Viseshwar NÂth; 'there be many reasons, but the result is the same: if the betrothed be dead, Naraini is widow!'

In the pause Chris clenched his hands; for he saw whither the wily lips were leading him, and in a flash realised his own impotence if this were true.

'It is a lie!' he muttered helplessly. 'I must--my mother must have known. And my father----' Then memory came to remind him that his father had been a champion of widow remarriage, and he broke off still more helplessly.

'Even so!' continued the SwÂmi, not unkindly; 'thy father agreed with me (we of the temple have to keep touch with the world, Krishn). Yea! he gave gold, since that is in thy thought! to hide the wrong. And if he were willing to give her to you, his only son, as wife, wherefore should I speak? No harm was done to others; no deception to ignorant honour. But it was different when he died and thy mother came to me, with heart split in twain between the dream and duty, to speak of another betrothal. So I said then--"Wait yet a while. The gods have mated these two. He may return." That was better, was it not, Krishn, than--than widowhood for the girl?'

He leant towards the young man as he spoke the words, his sombre eyes fixed on Chris Davenant's shrinking face. Though the latter had known what was coming, the certainty of it overwhelmed him. He sat staring breathlessly, with such absolute paralysis of nerve and muscle that a damp sweat showed on his forehead, as on the foreheads of those who are in the grip of death.

And widowhood was worse than death. It would be a living death to Naraini--Naraini with her little rose-coloured, rose-scented casket.

'Which is it to be, my pupil?' came the SwÂmi's voice, swift and keen as a knife-thrust. 'Widowhood, or marriage?'

Chris buried his face in his hands with a groan; then he looked up suddenly. 'Why?' he began, and ended. Appeal he knew was useless; but he might at least know why this choice was forced on him, for choice it was. His had been in the eye of the law a mixed marriage--his right as Hindoo remained in India.

The SwÂmi's lean brown hand was on his wrist again, but it was no longer impassive; it seemed to hold and claim him almost passionately.

'Because we of the temple need such as thou art, my son, in these new days when the old faith is assailed--ay! even by such as RÂm NÂth, low-born, with his talk of ancient wisdom, his cult of Western ways hidden in the old teachings, his cult of the East blazoned in the outside husks of truth--the husks that we of the inner life set at their proper value! But thou art of us! Deny it not--the blood in thee thrills to thy finger-tips even as I speak. Thou art of us! and thy voice trembled in that dawn over the gayatri thou hadst not said for years--nay, start not! we of the temple know all---as it trembled, Krishn, when thou didst first learn it here, as thou art to-day, at my feet.'

In the silence that followed, Chris Davenant, who had so often ridden in a Hammersmith 'bus, was conscious of but two things in the wide world. That thrill to his finger-tips, and the scarlet stain of a woman's petticoat passing templewards beyond the arches; the only scrap of colour in the strange shadowless light which comes to India before the sun has risen over the level horizon.

So, once more, the SwÂmi's voice came, still dignified, but with a trace of cunning in it now, of argument. 'Thou canst not do it unaided, Krishn; but with us behind thee--giving more freedom, remember, that the herd knows or dreams--thou couldst have thy wish--thou couldst teach the people.'

True. Chris, listening, saw this, even as he saw that scarlet streak; but all the while he was thinking idly that if Naraini were doomed to widowhood, the bridal scarlet would never be hers.

And yet he forgot even this when the SwÂmi struck another string deftly. 'Our best disciples leave us'--the rhythm grew fateful, mournful.--'The new wisdom takes them soul and body ere they have learned to unhusk the old, and find its heart. But thou hast found it. Come back to us and teach us! For day by day the husk hides more. Even on the river, Krishn, where the old sanctuaries of the Godhead in Man and Woman stand side by side, the younger priests quarrel over Her power and His. As if the Man and the Woman were not, together, the Eternal Mind and Body! And the quarrel grows keen, like many another in those days; keener than ever since the golden paper fell, prophesying blood upon Her Altar. Lies, Krishn, lies! we know them so; but we are driven to them to keep our hold upon the people. What other hold have we but ignorance, if young wisdom leaves us?'

Chris gave a sort of inarticulate cry, and his hands rose passionately to his ears as if to shut out the words which were enlisting all things that were good in him on the side of something which he still condemned. But, as he stopped his ears despairingly, a sound came which no hand could quite shut out.

It was the clang of the temple bell, proclaiming that the Eucharist of Hindooism was ready for communicants; that the Water of Life which had touched the gods was waiting for those who thirsted for it.

Muffled, half heard, it seemed to vibrate afresh on every tense nerve of his mind and body. He stood up dazed, half hypnotised by it, by the figure--a dim shadow of a man that had risen also, smiling softly, among the dim arches.

'Come, my son,' it said, 'so far thou art with us! Let the rest be for a while. But this, stripped of its husk, is thine.--Come!'

And as it passed silently into the courtyard, Chris passed too, lost in the familiar unfamiliarity of all things. Of the clustering spikes of the temples seen against the primrose sky; of the drifting hint of incense shut in by the arcades; of the bare empty silence broken only by that clanging bell. The scarlet streak was passing outwards, already sanctified, approved. Others would come, but for the moment there was solitude; save for that half-dozen of indifferent disciples droning over their devotions, and the officiating priest, unseen within the temple.

Unseen, because it was the SwÂmi himself who, returning from the darkness of the sanctuary--into which he had passed swiftly, leaving Chris hesitating on the lowest step--stood on the upper one, the Churrun-Âmrit in his hands, and bending low, said--

'Drink, Krishn Davenund! and live.'

The words came like a command, making the slender brown hands curve themselves into a cup.

How cool the holy water was on those hot palms! Dear God! How cool, how restful! The man's whole soul was in his lips as he stooped and drank thirstily.

A dream! a dream! but what a heavenly dream!

Chris stood there, in that shadowless light of dawn, unable even to realise what the dream was. And then, suddenly, a great desire to be alone, and yet to find companionship--a shrinking from the routine around him, and a longing to find shelter in the hidden heart of things--came to him as the worshippers, answering the call of the bell, began to crowd about the temple. So--the SwÂmi having kept his promise of asking no more of him for the time--he passed out of the court into the bazaar beyond. But here the world was already chaffering over the needs of the body, and Chris, who was only conscious of his soul, stood bewildered in it, uncertain which way to go. Nothing seemed to claim him, not even his work; for it was Sunday morning.

And after that act of communion, the hope of companionship anywhere seemed, strangely enough, further from him than ever. So he stood idly watching the worshippers pass in and out of the arched entry to the temple court, leaving the world and coming back to it with businesslike faces, until he saw RÂm NÂth approaching him, and the sight made him pull himself together swiftly.

'The very man I want!' said RÂm NÂth in English, with such an elaborate lack of surprise at Chris's costume that the latter felt instantly that it was known, and had been discussed in Shark Lane. 'If you will wait a moment, I will walk--er--back with you.' The hesitancy showed that something else was known also, and Chris felt a faint resentment come to lessen his forlornness as he waited while RÂm NÂth disappeared towards the temple and reappeared again wiping his hands daintily with a hemstitched pocket-handkerchief.

'We of the world,' he explained as he tucked his arm English fashion into Chris Davenant's, 'have to keep in touch with the priests. You disagree, I know; but I hold you wrong. We are driven to acquiesce in much we think untrue in order to keep our hold on the masses. What other hold have we but their ignorance, if they deny our wisdom?'

The forlornness deepened again round poor Chris. Here was the SwÂmi's argument upside down.

'What was it you wanted to see me about?' he asked resignedly, feeling that he could not go on with that subject.

'About this afternoon,' began RÂm NÂth, and Chris stared blankly.

What! was it possible! his companion continued; had he forgotten that the afternoon was to see the realisation of their long-cherished project of founding an Anglo-Vernacular College? It came back to Chris then, and he hastened to deny what had really been the case; whereupon RÂm NÂth went on, mollified. At the last moment, it seemed, some one had remembered that Lady Arbuthnot--who had kindly consented to lay the stone--ought to be presented with a bouquet; and HÂfiz Ahmad had claimed the honour for his wife, thereby raising so much jealousy in Shark Lane that he, RÂm NÂth, thought the only solution of the difficulty was to intrust the giving to Mrs. Chris, as wife of the Vice-President of the Managing Committee (Chris heard himself so described with a sense of absolute bewilderment); only, of course, it might not, perhaps, be convenient now.

Chris came back to sudden perception of the other's meaning.

'She will be very glad,' he said quickly; 'I will tell her when I go home.'

It was done in a moment; but Chris felt his dream to be madder than ever as he realised that his afternoon's occupation would be standing in a frock-coat simpering, while Viva presented a bouquet. How prettily she would do it! How beautifully she would be dressed! Then in the evening? In the evening would the SwÂmi come and ask for an answer?

Meanwhile, RÂm NÂth was full of relief. That would settle the difficulty; really a most serious one, since nothing must mar the harmony of the memorable occasion. It would be singularly appropriate too, because, in order to ensure a large attendance, it had been arranged to hold an Extraordinary Chapter of the 'National Guild for Encouraging Comradeship,' to which most of the English officials and their wives belonged. In fact, it was to be a memorable occasion, and one that would fully justify our popular Lieutenant-Governor in, for the nonce, waving his rule against Sunday ceremonials in order to allow all employees to be present. Having here cut in on the lines of the speech he had prepared for the afternoon, RÂm NÂth was fluency itself, and went on and on quite contentedly, while Chris, absorbed in that vision of himself in a frock-coat, listened without hearing. After all, which was the real Krishn Davenund, which the ideal? One was the older certainly; but change must come to all things.

They had reached the river steps by this time, and he paused--making RÂm NÂth pause also--to look down on a scene which had not changed a hair-breadth in essentials for thousands of years. Yet Chris Davenant's eye noted one change of detail, in a moment, as a woman passed him on her way to fill her waterpot. There was a new sort of amulet on her wrist; an amulet made out of a brass cartridge casing. He glanced round quickly to see if other women were wearing it, and, by so doing, recognised rather a momentous fact; namely, that there were singularly few women to be seen, and that all who were, belonged to the working class.

He turned to RÂm NÂth instantly and pointed out both signs, as to one who ought to know their value. 'What is up?' he said briefly. 'You must have seen these amulets being sold, as I did. Is it a trick? and who is doing it? and why?'

His companion shrugged his shoulders. 'The priests, I should say--it is on a par with the paper which fell from heaven. There is always something. You think we ought to protest; but why? Such manifestations of the temper of the masses strengthen the hands of the Opposition by engendering a fear of resistance in the Government, and so making for the considerate treatment at which we aim. It is not as if such trivialities could do harm.'

'They might--there is some hope of mischief behind them--there must be----'

'Mischief!' echoed RÂm NÂth acutely; 'you know as well as I that there are many folk in Nushapore whose only hope lies in mischief, and here comes one of them.' He pointed to Burkut Ali, who, accompanied by a servant carrying a bundle of kites, was passing towards the bastion beyond the bridge. He was followed by other claimants to the 'Sovereignty of Air,' which was due to be decided that evening after the kites had been chosen and entered for the competition. RÂm NÂth looked after the faded brocades contemptuously. 'Poor devils!' he said--as an Englishman might have said it--'one cannot help pitying them, and yet, between ourselves, if we were in power we couldn't do anything else with them; though, of course, as the Opposition, it does not do to say so! But to return to our argument. Believe me, the ignorant masses are helpless without a lead, and we, the educated party, will not give it towards anything unconstitutional.'

'But others might. Burkut Ali, for instance.'

'Burkut Ali? Not to-day, at any rate! He will be occupied in the Sovereignty of Air--really an appropriate employment, is it not?' replied RÂm NÂth lightly. 'And as we--and all Nushapore which carries any weight--will be otherwise engaged also, this affair of amulets--even if there is anything in it--will be like the heaven-sent paper by tomorrow. I, at any rate, know of no reason why this should not be so,' he added a trifle resentfully, seeing the look on his companion's face, 'and if I don't, who should? Well! good-bye, if you are not coming on.'

Chris felt doubly relieved; partly at the almost unhoped-for straightforwardness of RÂm NÂth's words, but mostly because he had been growing conscious during the conversation of the fact that, wherever he might find comradeship, it was not here. Still in that same weary bewilderment, therefore, he seated himself on the uppermost step and looked down to where, in the deep shadow of the archway of Mai KÂli's temple, he could just see--above the heads of a little crowd listening to a declaiming priest--a hint of the idol's red outstretched arms.

They brought back to him, in an instant, the sense of his own personal powerlessness. Gripped on either side by East and West, what could he do? In the afternoon a frock-coat! In the evening the SwÂmi with his question! How should he, how could he answer it? How could he condemn Naraini to a living death? How could he give up the past with its good and evil, the future with its evil and its good? Putting himself aside, for the truth's sake, what ought he to do? God! how powerless he was! Mai KÂli's widespread arms seemed to close on him, to choke him.

Till suddenly, a swift vitality came back to him, as a whistle--mellow as a blackbird's--made itself heard behind him. He turned with a smile, with a sense of relief, knowing it was JÂn-Ali-shÂn.

It was. JÂn-Ali-shÂn coming to feed the monkeys. JÂn-Ali-shÂn looking marvellously spruce, alert, self-respecting, seeing that most of his night's rest had been on a brick stair!

'Mornin', sir!' he said, touching his cap decorously; but his hand lingered to hide a smile, as he added with deep concern, 'Ain't lost nothin' more o' your wardrobe to-day, sir, I hope?' Then his recollections got the better of his politeness, and the laugh came openly. 'Beg pardin, sir, I'm sure, but wen I think o' 'ole 'Oneyman and them pants--oh! Lordy Lord!'

The recollection, however, brought more than amusement to poor Chris, who, in truth, felt as if he had lost everything. It brought a sense of grateful comradeship, and there was quite a tremble in his voice, a mist in his eyes, as he said, 'It's all very well to laugh, but you saved my life that day, Ellison; you know you did. I've often thought of it since----'

The memory of kindness received was almost too much for him, he paused, unable to go on.

John Ellison looked the other way as he sat down at a respectful distance, and began to scatter sugar-drops to the monkeys. Then he cleared his throat elaborately.

'Like as you saved me, I expect, sir, from breaking my neck over them blamed stairs last night, sir. One good turn deserves another, as the sayin' is, so we're about quits. Not,' he went on, as if to make a diversion, 'that I was, so to speak, onnecessary drunk, sir, for it was a case o' gettin' tight or killin' a chap as cut me out, fair an' square, with my fancy. So, it bein' fair an' square, I chose the better part an' drowned my sor'rers in the flowin' bowl. It's surprisin',' he continued, with the affable defiance with which he always alluded to his own lapses from grace, 'wot a teeny drop o' whisky will drown 'em; don't it, sir?' As he scattered the sugar-drops he sang the chorus of a drinking-song with great gusto.

They were an odd couple those two, the alien feeding the sacred monkeys, the native watching him silently, and both conscious of a bond of fellowship between them.

'I suppose so,' replied Chris, after such a lapse of time that the remark seemed almost irrelevant, 'but I never tried it. I'm a teetotaller.'

'Deary dear!' ejaculated JÂn-Ali-shÂn sympathetically. It was really the only remark he could think of in such an extraordinary connection.

'It doesn't last, though, does it?' asked Chris after another long pause. 'And it gives you a headache next morning, doesn't it?'

JÂn-Ali-shÂn's fluency returned to him. 'Lor' love you, no, sir! Not if you's used to it; special if kind friends put you to by-bye proper.' He broke off, then turned to Chris and shook his head--'Now you, sir, if I may make so bold, looks as if you 'ad one. You takes things too dutiful, sir, I expec's. It's 'ard on the 'ead, sir, is duty.'

Even so much sympathy drove Chris to hiding the mist in his eyes by watching the monkeys. They were jostling and hustling, as ever, over the prize; but the sight for a wonder had brought few spectators, and such as they were stood far off, more curious than amused.

JÂn-Ali-shÂn, looking towards them, raised his eyebrows and nodded carelessly. 'Got the 'ump to-day, 'as you, Ram-sammy? Well, keep it, sonny! It don't make no odds to me or 'Oneyman. Do it, siree?'

Apparently none, for the hoary old sinner, out and away the tamest there, was pouching sugar-drops as fast as he could from the loafer's hand.

'Ellison,' came Chris Davenant's voice at last, with a note of decision in it, 'what would you do if you found yourself in--in such a tight place that you couldn't--yes, that you couldn't possibly get out of it?'

'Do?' echoed the other slowly, as he shook out the crumbs and tore the paper into fragments. 'W'y, kill the chap as put me there, if it was John Ellison 'imself as done the job! That's what I'd do, sir.'

Chris rose, and the note of decision was stronger. 'Thanks,' he said briefly, 'I think you're right.'

But JÂn-Ali-shÂn had risen also, and now stood facing his superior officer with an expression of kindly tolerance and mournful respect.

'Not, sir, as there ever is sich an almighty tight place, as a chap can't get out of by leavin' a h'arm or a leg or a bit of hisself generally to be cast into 'ell fire, as it say in 'Oly Writ; for there ain't nothin' impossible, if you've enough of the devil in you--that's 'ow it comes in, sir; here he paused, doubtful, perhaps, whether Holy Writ contained this also, then went on easily, 'for it ain't no manner of use, sir, reachin' round for things as you can't catch no real holt of--you must jes' take wot comes 'andy, though it mayn't be much to be proud of--such as cuss words an' kicks and that like. But they give a powerful grip sometimes, sir, as you'd find, savin' your presence, if you was to give 'em a fair try.' He paused again, looked at Chris tentatively, then smiled a perfectly seraphic smile full of pity, wisdom, almost of tenderness. 'If I might make so bold, sir, w'ot a man you an' me 'd make if we was mixed up! H'arch-h'angels wouldn't 'ave a look in! And w'ot's more, I shouldn't 'ave to clean damn myself keepin' them Kusseye coolies from sneakin' the cold chisels; an' a good name too for the lot, though it is cuss-you as I make it in general.'

'Kuzai?' echoed Chris quickly. 'What! are those fellows from the butcher's quarter giving trouble--and I only put them on out of charity? Why didn't you tell me before?'

But JÂn-Ali-shÂn had reverted to his affable indifference. 'Trouble,' he echoed in his turn, 'Lord, no, sir! I has to read the Riot Act summary most days--they get quarrelling with the 'Indoos over some cow-killin' tommy-rot; but w'en it come to sneakin' cold chisels, I 'ad to knock 'arf a dozen o' 'em down. But they don't give no trouble to speak of. Nor won't,' he added significantly, 'if they're spoke to proper.'

'I'll see to it to-morrow,' said Chris, and then, once more, wondered at his own words. This afternoon a frock-coat; to-morrow an inquiry into a workmen's quarrel; and between the two, inevitably, that decision. The rest was all unreal, but that was certain, that must come.

JÂn-Ali-shÂn, however, as--after touching his cap decorously--he moved away, sang

'To-morrow will be Monday'

as if all the foundations of his world were absolutely sure.

And there were others, besides these two, on the river steps that morning whose outlook on the future showed the same divergence. A couple of municipal scavengers, armed with the broom and basket which under our rule bids defiance to privilege, prejudice, and privacy, talked with cheerful certainty as they swept up the paper JÂn-Ali-shÂn had torn to bits. The Sirkar would have to employ everybody's relations if the plague went on as it had begun. They were shutting the shops already in the butcher's quarter, the hospitals were full, the bazaars empty. Of a surety there was a good time coming for scavengers!

Two women, however, returning with their waterpots from listening at the temple, agreed that if, as the priest said, Mai KÂli had declared there must be blood on her altars ere the plague was stayed, what was the use of amulets? Besides, who could tell if the promise was not a trick; who, briefly, could tell anything except that it was an ill time for virtuous women, and that those were lucky who could stay at home? So with furtive glances, and keeping close together, they shuffled back to some dim alley, to retail what they had heard.