"That settles it, Tara. You can go to Gunga now if you like, and bathe and be as holy as you like. But there will be no Fire or Water. Do you understand?"
She looked at the hand holding the hair with the oddest expression, though she said obstinately, "I shall drown if I choose."
"Why should you choose?" he asked. "You know as well as I that it is too late for any good to you or others. The Fire and Water should have come twelve years ago. The priests won't say so of course. They want fools to help them in this fuss about the new law. Ah! I thought so! They have been at you, have they? Well, be a fool if you like, and bring them pennies at Benares as a show. You cannot do anything else. You can't even sacrifice your hair really, so long as I have this bit." He began to roll the lock round his finger, neatly.
"What is the Huzoor going to do with it?" she asked, and the oddness had invaded her voice.
"Keep it," he retorted. "And by all, these thirty thousand and odd gods of yours, I'll say it was a love-token if I choose. And I will if you are a fool." He drew out a small gold locket attached to the Brahminical thread he always wore, and began methodically to fit the curl into it, wondering if this cantrip of his--for it was nothing more--would impress Tara. Possibly. He had found such suggestions of ritual had an immense effect, especially with the womenkind who were for ever inventing new shackles for themselves; but her next remark startled him considerably.
"Is the bibi's hair in there too?" she asked. There was a real anxiety in her tone, and he looked at her sharply, wondering what she would be at.
"No," he answered. In truth it was empty; and had been empty ever since he had taken a fair curl from it many years before; a curl which had ruined his life. The memory making him impatient of all feminine subtleties, he added roughly, "It will stay there for the present; but if you try suttee nonsense I swear I'll tie it up in a cowskin bag, and give it to a sweeper to make broth of."
The grotesque threat, which suggested itself to his sardonic humor as one suitable to the occasion, and which in sober earnest was terrible to one of her race, involving as it did eternal damnation, seemed to pass her by. There was even, he fancied, a certain relief in the face watching him complete his task; almost a smile quivering about her lips. But when he closed the locket with a snap, and was about to slip it back to its place, the full meaning of the threat, of the loss--or of something beyond these--seemed to overtake her; an unmistakable terror, horror, and despair swept through her. She flung herself at his feet, clasping them with both hands.
"Give it me back, master," she pleaded wildly. "Hinder me not again! Before God I am suttee! I am suttee!"
But this same Eastern clutch of appeal is disconcerting to the average Englishman. It fetters the understanding in another sense, and smothers sympathy in a desire to be left alone. Even Jim Douglas stepped back from it with something like a bad word. She remained crouching for a moment with empty hands, then rose in scornful dignity.
"There was no need to thrust this slave away," she said proudly. "Tara, the Rajputni, will go without that. She will go to Holy Gunga and be purged of inmost sin. Then she will return and claim her right of suttee at the master's hand. Till then he may keep what he stole."
"He means to keep it," retorted the master savagely, for he had come to the end of his patience. "Though what this fuss about suttee means I don't know. You used to be sensible enough. What has come to you?"
Tara looked at him helplessly, then, wrapping her widow's veil round her, prepared to go in silence. She could not answer that question even to herself. She would not even admit the truth of the old tradition, that the only method for a woman to preserve constancy to the dead was to seek death itself. That would be to admit too much. Yet that was the truth, to which her despair at parting pointed even to herself. Truth? No! it was a lie! She would disprove it even in life if she was prevented from doing so by death. So, without a word, she gathered up the crimson drapery and what lay on it. Then, with these pathetic sacrifices of all the womanhood she knew tight clasped in her widow's veil, she paused for a last salaam.
The incomprehensible tragedy of her face irritated him into greater insistence.
"But what is it all about?" he reiterated. "Who has been putting these ideas into your head? Who has been telling you to do this? Is it Soma, or some devil of a priest?"
As he waited for an answer the floods of moonlight threw their shadows together to join the perfumed darkness of the orange trees. The city, half asleep already, sent no sound to invade the silence.
"No! master. It was God."
Then the shadow left him and disappeared with her among the trees. He did not try to call her back. That answer left him helpless.
But as, after climbing the stairs, he passed slowly from one to another of the old familiar places in the pleasant pavilions, the mystery of such womanhood as Tara Devi's and little Zora's oppressed him. Their eternal cult of purely physical passion, their eternal struggle for perfect purity and constancy, not of the soul, but the body; their worship alike of sex and He who made it seemed incomprehensible. And as he turned the key in the lock for the last time, he felt glad to think that it was not likely the problem would come into his life again; even though he carried a long lock of black hair with him. It was an odd keepsake, but if he was any judge of faces his cantrip had served his purpose; Tara would not commit suicide while he held that hostage.
So, having scant leisure left, he hurried through the alleys to return the key. They were almost deserted; the children at this hour being asleep, the men away lounging in the bazaars. But every now and again a formless white figure clung to a corner shadow to let him pass. A white shadow itself, recalling the mystery he had been glad to leave unsolved; for he knew them to be women taking this only opportunity for a neighborly visit. Old or young, pretty or ugly? What did it matter? They were women, born temptresses of virtuous men; and they were proud of the fact, even the poor old things long past their youth. There was a chink in a door he was about to pass. A chink an inch wide with a white shadow behind it. A woman was looking out. What sort of a woman, he wondered idly? Suddenly the chink widened, a hand crept through it, beckoning. He could see it clearly in the moonlight. An old wrinkled hand, delicately old, delicately wrinkled, inconceivably thin, but with the pink henna stain of the temptress still on palms and fingers. A hand with the whole history of seclusion written on it. He crossed over to it, and heard a hurried breathless whisper.
"If the Huzoor would listen for the sake of any woman he loves."
It was an old voice, but it sent a thrill to his heart. "I am listening, mother," he replied, "for the sake of the dead."
"God send her grave peace, my son!" came the voice less hurriedly. "It is not much for listening. I am pensioner, Huzoor. The King gave me three rupees, but now he is gone and the money comes not. If the Huzoor would tell those who send it that Ashrâf-un-Nissa-Zainub-i-Mahal--the Huzoor may know my name, being as my father and mother--wants it. That is all, Huzoor."
It was not much, but Jim Douglas could supplement the rest. Here was evidently a woman who had lived on bounty, and who was starving for the lack of it. There were hundreds in her position, he knew, even among those whose pensions had been guaranteed; for they had not been paid as yet. The papers were not ready, the tape not tied, the sealing-wax not sealed.
"It will not be for long, Huzoor, and it is only three rupees. I was watching for a neighbor to borrow corn, if I could, and seeing the Huzoor----"
"It is all right, mother," he interrupted reassuringly. "I was coming to pay it. Hold the hand straight and I will count it in. Three rupees for three months; that is nine."
The chink of the silver had a background of blessings, and Jim Douglas walked on, thinking what a quaint commentary this little incident was on his puzzle. "Ashrâf-un-Nissa-Zainub-i-Mahal." "Honor-of-women and Ornament-of-Palaces." If the King's paymaster had thought twice about such things, the poor old lady might not have been starving. He was the real