The Potter's Thumb. Flora Annie Webster Steel
oddest old-world tales, and the Diwân with whom the lad played chess. To tell truth, he never climbed up for that purpose to the tower without a breathlessness not altogether to be accounted for by the steepness of the stairs. Face to face with the old man, sitting still as a statue before the pieces, George felt himself face to face with something he could not set aside with a sneer. Yet he might have been playing with an automaton for all the interest Zubr-ul-Zamân displayed, while he, on his part, was agonising in anxiety. But once his hand had left the piece, the old man's would rise from his knee, hover over the board for a second, then swoop down unerringly with the murmur, 'My play is played.' And the move generally disposed of all George's deep-laid plans, for the Diwân was a passed master in chess. Yet the lad returned again and again for a beating, being dogged in his turn. He was, in fact, on his way from one when Chândni and the banjo started his thoughts along a familiar channel. Certainly they were an odd people, and somehow it was difficult to write home letters which should at once reflect the truth and give satisfaction to the British public.
Meanwhile Chândni, desisting with Dalel's first reliable snore, threw the banjo aside and reviewed the position. There was no mist of reserve between her and her profession. She had been born to it, as her forebears had been. Her success in it was rather a matter for pride than shame; her only anxiety being the future. Should she linger on as she had been doing in hopes that out of sheer conservatism Dalel Beg would attach her to him permanently by some of the many possible marriages? Or should she risk the life of a go-between in her old age, return to Delhi and amuse herself? The reappearance of the painted girl in the balcony decided her; she would not give way to such creatures as that until the emptiness of the Treasury was indubitable. Yet as she sat rolling the little pellets of opium for her midday dose between her soft palms she looked at her lover distastefully. He was no good, and if the sluice-gates were to be open that year she must bestir herself--she and the Diwân. So much was settled before she swallowed the dream-giver and threw herself full length on the bare string bed set deep in the shadows. Then the silence of noon fell on that sinful slip of bazaar. Even the quails ceased to challenge from their hooded cages, and the sutara-player with the pomegranate blossom stuck in behind his ear had forgotten the giver in sleep. But out in the fields the peasants were at work on their scanty crops, and George Keene as he entered the red brick bungalow paused to listen to a cry which never failed to impress him. The cry of praise to the giver with which the villagers drew water from the wells which stood between them and death. Truly in that wilderness of sand, water was the mother of all things. What wonder if it became the motive power in life? What wonder that, like the silver sword of the big canal, it cut the world into halves--the people who wanted, and the people who did not want the sluice-gates opened. With a laugh at his own fancy he went in to lunch, wondering this time what form the desert fowl would take: it certainly was the mother of all food! Hodinuggur might have its serious aspects, but on the whole it was farcical as well as tragical, and 'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, counterbalanced that cry of thanksgiving.
And that same evening, while he was reading the last number of the Nineteenth Century in the verandah, Chândni had an interview with the old Diwân on his tower, which, had George been aware of it, would have seemed to him farcical beyond belief, though it was deadly earnest to the actors. She sat at the old man's feet so as to be within earshot of a whisper, since walls, especially in an Indian palace, have ears. That was why Diwân's chair was set out in the open under the star-gemmed dome of the sky which paled to its circled setting of plain that, seen from the height, seemed in its turn to curve, cup-like, to meet the sky. The decent domino she had worn on her way was cast aside out of sheer coquetry, so that her supple figure, unadorned save for the heavy chaplets of jasmine flowers shrouding the filmy muslin, might stand outlined above the low parapet among the stars. For Chândni was shrewd. The ordinary jewels of her class might have aroused memories in the old man, and she wished to impress him with her individuality.
'Nay, daughter,' he said approvingly, 'I well believe failure was not thy fault. As for thy plan--speak.'
She drew her lips closer to his ear, and laid one hand on his knee, as if to hold his attention.
'Father! all men care for something. He cares not for what he has been given. Let us try others. If they fail, well and good. Now there is one thing such as he favour--God knows why?--but I have seen them myself in the bazaar at Delhi--sahibs who have come over the black water to buy ragged rugs and battered brass pots. Why? Because, forsooth, they are old! The crazy potter would say it was because they remember them. I know not. But this boy pokes about the old things--questions of the old tales.'
Zubr-ul-Zamân nodded approval. 'True, he favoured the Ayôdhya pot; but he returned it.'
Chândni's eyes sparkled, then fell. 'So! that is one thing to begin with. Then he is of those who watch flowers grow and birds build their nests; who paint colour an paper for the love of it. Again, when the fowler fails in all else he baits the snare with pity, and sets a decoy-bird a-fluttering within the net. This boy gives quinine to the old wives, and fish-oil to the babes born with the Potter's thumb-mark.' Her laughter crackled joylessly.
'Words--words,' muttered the old man impatiently. What wouldest thou do?'
She drew closer, and the movement sent a wave of perfume from the jasmine chaplets into the air.
'Lend me Azîzan for a week, and thou shalt see.'
Scent, so people say, is the most powerful stimulant to bygone memories; perhaps that was the reason why her words brought such a pulse of fierce life to the old face. 'Azîz! Nay! she is of the house.'
'Why not say of the race, father?' retorted Chândni coolly. 'Nay! in such talk as ours truth is best. Thinkest thou I am a fool when I go to dance and sing in the women's quarter? Is it not sixteen years since the potter's daughter disappeared on the night of the great storm'--hath not this fifteen-year-old the potter's eyes--Heaven shield us from them!' Her hand went out in the two-fingered gesture used to avert the evil eye in West as well as East.
Zubr-ul-Zamân scowled at her.
'There be other girls and plenty; take them,' he began. 'Besides, she is betrothed. I will not lose the dower.'
'Wherefore shouldest lose it? I said a week, and Zainub, the duenna, will see to safety. He will but paint her picture.'
The Diwân spat piously. 'And what good will such accursed idol-making do?' he asked more calmly.
''Twill bring the quarry within reach; he lives too far away now. Give me the girl, my lord, else will I know that the Diwân Zubr-ul-Zamân Julâl-i-dowla Mustukkul-i-jung is afraid of the potter's eyes.'
'As thou art, daughter of the bazaars,' he retorted fiercely. 'Shall I set them on thee and thine?'
Chândni essayed an uneasy laugh. 'I will do her no harm,' she muttered sullenly. 'I will not even speak to her if thou wilt. Zainub shall do all.'
Half-an-hour afterwards Chândni, wrapped in her white domino, paused on her way home at the door leading to the women's quarters and knocked. After a while an old woman appeared at the latticed shutter. The courtesan whispered a word or two, the door opened, and the two disappeared down a dark passage.
''Tis Chândni come to dance.' The whisper ran through the airless, squalid rooms, causing a flutter among the caged inhabitants. Out of their beds they came, yawning and stretching, to sit squatted in a circle on the bare floor, and watch Chândni give a spirited imitation of the way the mem-sahibs waltzed with the sahib-logue. It was not an edifying spectacle, but it afforded infinite satisfaction to the audience. An audience which has to take its world at second-hand, and in the process has grown careless as to abstract truth. The young women tittered, the old ones called Heaven to witness their horror, and then they all sat without winking an eye while the courtesan sang the songs of her profession.
But little Azîzan's light eyes saw nothing at which to smile or to cry in either performance. She was young for her years, and very sleepy; besides, she was betrothed to an old man whom she had never seen, because, as all the other girls took care to tell her, she really was too ugly to be kept in the family. And that sort of thing takes the zest from life.
When the entertainment