Part 39 (1/2)

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 a.s.semblage, 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 a.s.sent in the crowd, as if it sought to begin at once, and Khojee, 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.s; 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 Khojeeya Khanum 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.

Khojee 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.

Khojee scarce knew whether to be fl.u.s.tered or flattered beneath her domino.

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

'Lo! _Nawabin_,' he jeered, 'I have them; such cardamoms as----' He was rummaging in the heterogeneous ma.s.s 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 Khojee, 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 Khojee 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 n.o.ble,' 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?'

Khojee gave a half-embarra.s.sed 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. 's.h.i.+v-_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 n.o.ble must be n.o.ble!'

Khojee could hardly believe her ears.

Half an hour afterwards she could hardly believe her eyes, as--Khadjee 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 Khadjee must forgive her duplicity in regard to that secret p.a.w.ning 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.