Yea, the black sought for love in the blue. Oh, cold were his eyes!
cold as the snows in the north when the rose began singing
_Hai_, golden sun! _Hai_, cold blue skies!
Grant me but this, a look, a kiss.
_Hai! Hai! Hai!_
Right to the inner court of marbles and jewels, "mid peac.o.c.ks" fans waving and tinkling sutaras, he came when the stars came and talked to my mistress--talked of love and of jewels, the one for the sake of the other. For the Rani grew old, and such women are easily flattered. But Singing-Rose smiled as she sang. Though naught but a singing slave, men sought her for love and for kisses, who sought not her mistress. And one, a snake of a man, sought both without shame; he was high in the Court and a n.o.ble, the Rani"s known lover.
_Hai_, the snake! _Hai_, venomous thing, Dead of your own poisoning!
_Hai! Hai!_
But what is a snake to a rose when the gold sun may kiss her? So she sang sweeter and sweeter till blue eyes grew kinder. "What is your price for a song, Singing-Rose?" he asked softly. "Gold from a snake, but a kiss from the sun," I sang bravely; giving no heed to her frown, for speech was not mine, save by singing; night after night singing on, whilst they whispered of love and of jewels. "I owe her a gift of a surety," he said the last night to my mistress. "Give her gold," she replied with a sneer. "What more would you give to a slave?"
_Hai!_ Gold, nothing but gold!
The heart of the Rose turned cold.
She sought for love!
Listen! listen!
Oh, the ways of love are bold, And the guiles of love are old.
The coins were wrapped in a paper; it had a voice of its own.
"To-night, when the gong chimes one, the seeker will find a kiss, in the twelve-doored marble summer-house bowered in roses." Alone in the garden I read it. I saw not the snake hid in the bushes with unwinking, venomous eyes. "This to my mistress," he laughed, "and to-night, when the clock chimes one, he dies; for the Rani sought love, and he gave her but words. What are words in exchange for the jewels she gave as a bride? The jewels he steals from the Queen when he leaves us to-morrow."
Lies, lies! nothing but lies from the snake!
The sun gives gold he does not take.
Lies! lies!
Heart of my heart! what are words and tears to a snake? And the sun far, far from the rose; too far for a warning. Listen! the rose has thorns to protect her blossoms; a woman has guiles and smiles to protect her lover. "What matters a kiss at one?" said I. "Take yours at _eleven_, in the twelve-doored marble summer-house bowered in roses."
_Hai!_ the greed and l.u.s.t in his look.
The greed at the baited hook!
He saw not the thorn.
But the Rose saw his lying soul; she knew he would take his kiss, and betray her when it was over. She knew that with venomous snakes there is no safety but death. _One_ and _eleven_ when figured on paper show little of change. A stroke, a scratch of a thorn! No need for more than a scratch, ere the paper was lost by the maiden and found by her mistress. Lost by the guile of one woman, found in the path of another.
Oh, heart! waiting "mid the flowers, Counting out the hours Till the snake"s kiss!
_One--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven!_
The clasp of a snake is cold, but the clasp of death is colder; and coldest of all, the warm clinging clasp of a rose, holding him tighter and tighter when the knife flashed out of the dark. "Let me go," he shrieked in his terror, but the thorns of the rose held fast, the warm blood staining her bosom as she waited for death in her turn. Then lights and an uproar, and, lo! instead of the stranger the Rani"s own lover was dead.
Dead! who grieves when a snake is dead?
Men are glad that its power has fled.
They laugh in their sleeve.
Yet was there crying and shouting, and noise bringing warning to all, reaching the moon in the heavens, the sun in its rising,--hastening its flight from the east, to its home in the arms of the west. Is not that the course of the sun? Leaving the cast with a smile; leaving the rose and the nightingale? Yea! "tis the course of the sun.
_Hai_, for the Rose, the Singing-Rose!
_Hai_, for the nightingale.
Yet who kills his own pleasure? Who kills the bulbul in the rose? No!
they cut its wings, they prison it, they bid it sing; sing with a blood-stained heart when the sun shines on other roses. So it sang, waiting always for the kiss which never came. Pillar of Justice, from the land of the western sun, say! did the Rose deserve the kiss which never came? Hath she not waited long enough for the promised kiss?
The song ceased as abruptly as it began, and Smith-Jones, distinctly disappointed at its want of historical value, thanked the old lady politely. It appeared to him confused and bewildering; nevertheless part of it might be twisted into some semblance of a myth. The sun was frequently mentioned, and the chiming of the hours pointed conclusively to the swallowing up of darkness by light, and _vice-versa_. And--by Jove, that must be Dittu returning with the horse!
It was; Dittu, the horse, a bundle of green wheat, and a very broad grin--all of which common objects relieved Smith-Jones, who, to say sooth, felt out of his element lying on his back and being fanned by an old mummy. In his more collected mood it struck him as undignified. He blushed a little, rose hastily, and prepared to mount his horse and depart at once. With this intention, proceeding to rummage in his pockets for a rupee, which with a courteously intended grunt he tendered to the old woman. She might have been a graven image for all the notice she took of him or his coin. The hand holding the fan rested on her lap, her eyes were half-closed.
"The Presence wastes time. He had better give the _bucksheesh_ to me,"
remarked Dittu, grinning again. "The old mother is nigh stone-deaf and blind. She sits so all day, never saying a word save her prayers. She is a real pious one. _Hai, Hai_, what misfortune! The stirrup of the Protector of the Poor is broken. G.o.d send the iron may be lying in the sand where the base-born beast fell!"
Smith-Jones"s puzzled, perturbed look, as he watched Dittu on his knees searching for the missing stirrup-iron, may have been due to anxiety lest he should have to walk six miles into camp. On the other hand, he may have been wondering if the fall had seriously injured his brain; anyhow there was an unusual air of doubt about him when Dittu"s grin and the iron came out of the sand together with the remark that, if the Presence would sit down and wait a while, he, Dittu, had some string with which a splice of the broken strap could be made in a minute or two. Meanwhile, as the Presence no longer required the pillow, he would e"en cover up the old mother again with the veil he had taken from her.
It was more decent like; and she was a decent old creature, despite the fancy she had to wear those gay garments of her youth. So the white veil was wound about the faded finery, leaving nothing visible but the waxen face with its half-closed eyes.
"What are you carrying her about for?" asked Smith-Jones jerkily.
"She is so old, _Huzoor_, and we, her belongings, thought she might like to end her long life peacefully in holy Ganges. So as I had the dead ancestors of the village to carry (they are in those little pots on the other side of the yoke, _Huzoor_) we just put her to make a balance in the basket."
Smith-Jones"s blue eyes (they really were fine eyes now the spectacles were away) grew big with surprise. "You mean that those little pots contain your dead ancestors?"
"Their ashes, _Huzoor_; the ashes of the village for the year. Some one always takes them at pilgrimage-time, and as I was strong I brought the old lady too. She doesn"t seem able to die up there amongst us all, and she will have to be brought along some time. She is mostly bones, as it is, no heavier than the ashes yonder."
He nodded his head at the net-full of pots and went on twining the thread. Smith-Jones"s face grew more and more troubled. He had read in books of old people being brought thus to end their days devoutly in the sacred stream, and it had seemed to him an interesting and curious habit. That was all. It seemed different now.
"The Presence is surprised at the ways of the dust-like ones,"
continued Dittu cheerfully; "but old Gulabi is accustomed to being carried about in a basket. When she was quite a girl--a long time ago, before the gracious and beneficent rule of the Presences came to put an end to all wrongdoing--she had both her feet cut off for something she did. I have heard my grandmother say she was a gay one; but it must have been so long ago that we may forget it in her present decency."
"Both her feet cut off!"
"_Huzoor_, the feet of young people lead them into mischief. She was a singer, and she got into trouble, so I have heard old folk say. If the Presence will cause forgiveness to be awarded to the speaker, it may be said that the trouble was an Englishman. One of the no-account wanderers who used to come before the Great Company Bahadur threw the mantle of protection over the poor. I know not the story rightly; perhaps even old Gulabi hath forgotten it, seeing it was so long ago.
The Rani she served was jealous, and would have killed the Singing-Rose (so they called the old mother) but for her art. That they could not spare. What tyrant kills the bulbul in his garden? So they cut her feet off to keep her in the paths of virtue. It is an excellent plan for those who walk lightly. See! the stirrup is ready for the foot of the Presence and will support him safely on his road."
Smith-Jones stood irresolute before the mummylike figure in the basket.
"Did she ever tell you the story herself?" he asked at length.