Part 11 (1/2)

”But if the Sahib wishes to overtake them my burden upon the horse will be an evil, and he will be sorry that Bootea had not shame sufficient to refuse his help.”

She felt the strong arm press her body closer, and heard him laugh. But still he did not answer, did not say why he was interested in the two hors.e.m.e.n. If it were vital, and she believed it was, for him to know that they lay dead at the Bagree camp, it was wrong for her to not tell him this, he who was a preserver. But to tell him would send him to his death. She knew, as all the people of that land knew, that the sahibs went where their Raja told them was their mission, and laughed at death; and the face of this one spoke of strength, and the eyes of placid fearlessness; so she said nothing.

The sandal soles that pinched her soft flesh she felt were a reproach--they had something to do with the thing that was between the Sahib and the dead soldiers. There were tears in her eyes and she s.h.i.+vered.

Barlow, feeling this, said: ”You're cold, Gulab, the night-wind that comes up from the black muck of the cotton fields and across the river is raw. Hang on for a minute,” he added, as he slipped his arm from about her shoulders and fumbled at the back of his saddle. A couple of buckles were unclasped, and he swung loose a warm military cloak and wrapped it about her, as he did so his cheek brus.h.i.+ng hers.

Then she was like a bird lying against his chest, closed in from everything but just this Sahib who was like a G.o.d.

A faint perfume lingered in Barlow's nostrils from the contact; it was the perfume of attar, of the true oil of rose, such as only princes use because of its costliness, and he wondered a little.

She saw his eyes looking down into hers, and asked, ”What is it, Sahib--what disturbs you? If it is a question, ask me.”

His white teeth gleamed in the moonlight. ”Just nothing that a man should bother over--that he should ask a woman about.”

But almost involuntarily he brushed his face across her black hair and said, ”Just that, Gulab--that it's like burying one's nose in a rose.”

”The attar, Sahib? I love it because it's gentle.”

”Ah, that's why you wore the rose that I came by at the _nautch_?”

”Yes, Sahib. Though I am Bootea, because of a pa.s.sion for the rose I am called Gulab.”

”Lovely--the Rose! that's just what you are, Gulab. But the attar is so costly! Are you a princess in disguise?”

”No, Sahib, but one brought me many bottles of it, the slim, long bottles like a finger; and a drop of it lasts for a moon.”

”Ah, I see,” and Barlow smiled; ”you have for lover a raja, the one who brought the attar.”

The figure in the cloak s.h.i.+vered again, but the girl said nothing. And Barlow, rather to hear her voice, for it was sweet like flute music, chaffed: ”What is he like, the one that you love? A swaggering tall black-whiskered Rajput, no doubt, with a purple vest embroidered in gold, clanking with _tulwar_, and a voice like a Brahmini bull--full of demand.”

The slim arms about his waist tightened a little--that was all.

”Confess, Gulab, it will pa.s.s the time; a love story is sweet, and Brahm, who creates all things, creates flowers beautiful and sweet to stir love,” and he shook the small body rea.s.suringly.

”Sahib, when a girl dances before the great ones to please, it is permitted that she may play at being a princess to win the favour of a raja, and sing the love song to the music of the _sitar_ (guitar), but it is a matter of shame to speak it alone to the Presence.”

”Tell me, Gulab,” and his strong fingers swept the smooth black hair.

The girl unclasped her arms from about Barlow's waist and led his finger to a harsh iron bracelet upon her arm.

At the touch of the cold metal, iron emblem of a child marriage, a shackle never to be removed, he knew that she was a widow, accounted by Brahminical caste an offence to the G.o.ds, an outcast, because if the husband still lived she would be in a _zenanna_ of gloomy walls, and not one who danced as she had at Nana Sahib's.

”And the man to whom you were bound by your parents died?” he asked.

”I am a widow, Sahib, as the iron bracelet testifies with cold bitterness; it is the badge of one who is outcast, of one who has not become _sati_, has not sat on the wood to find death in its devouring flame.”

Barlow knew all the false logic, the metaphysical Machiavellians, the Brahmins, advanced to thin out the undesirable females,--women considered at all times in that land of overpopulation of less value than men,--by the simple expedient of self-destruction. He knew the Brahmins' thesis culled from their Word of G.o.d, the Vedas or the Puranas, calculated to make the widow a voluntary, willing suicide. They would tell Bootea that owing to having been evil in former incarnations her sins had been visited upon her husband, had caused his death; that in a former life she had been a snake, or a rat.

The dead husband's mother, had Bootea come of an age to live with him, though yet but a child of twelve years, would, on the slightest provocation, beat her--even brand her with a hot iron; he had known of it having been done. She would be given but one meal a day--rice and chillies. Even if she had not yet left her father's house he would look upon her as a shameful thing, an undesirable member of the family, one not to be rid of again in the way of marriage; for if a Hindu married her it would break his caste--he would be a veritable pariah. No servant would serve him; no man would sell him anything; if he kept a shop no one would buy of him; no one would sit and speak with him--he would be ostracised.