The Flower of Forgiveness Part 20

The graven image sat so still with its face to the river, that it seemed to me as if the voice I heard could not belong to it. A dreamy sense of unreality added to my drowsy enjoyment of the surroundings.

"Magnolia," I murmured sleepily; "a flower to dream about--hullo!

what's that?"

A faint footfall, as of some one pa.s.sing down an echoing pa.s.sage, loud, louder, loudest, making me start up, wide awake, as the _fakeer's_ cry rose on the still air: "In the name of your G.o.d!"

Some one was pa.s.sing the bridge from the river, and after adding his mite to the bowl, went on his way.

"It is the echo, _Huzoor_" explained the old man, answering my start of surprise. "The tree behind us is hollow and the cut is deep. Besides, to-night the water runs deep and dark as Death because of the flood.

The step is always louder then."

"No wonder you hear so quickly," I replied, sinking back again to my comfort. "I thought it must be the Footstep of Death at least."

He had turned towards me, and in the moonlight I could see those clear eyes of his shining as if the light had come into them again.

"Not yet, _Huzoor!_ But it may be the next one for all we know."

What a gruesome idea! Hark! There it was again; loud, louder, loudest, and then silence.

"That came from the city, _Huzoor_. It comes and goes often, for the law-courts have it in grip. Perhaps that is worse than Death."

"Then you recognise footsteps?"

"Surely. No two men walk the same; a footstep is as a face. Sometimes after long years it comes back, and then you know it has pa.s.sed before."

"Do they generally come back?"

"Those from the city go back sooner or later unless Death takes them.

Those from the wilderness do not always return. The city holds them fast, in the palace or in the gutter."

Again the voice seemed to me not to belong to the still figure beside me. "It makes a devilish noise, I admit," I said, half to myself; "but--"

"Perhaps if the _Huzoor_ listened for Death as I do he might keep awake. Or perhaps if my lord pleases I might tell him a story of footsteps to drive the idle dreams from his brain till the hour of that snorting demon comes in due time?"

"Go ahead," said I briefly, as I looked up at the stars.

So he began. "It's a small story, _Huzoor_. A tale of footsteps from beginning to end, for I am blind. Yet life was not always listening.

They used to say that Cheytu had the longest sight, the longest legs, and the longest wind of any boy of his age. I was Cheytu." He paused, and I watched a dancing shadow of a leaf till he went on. "The little princess said Cheytu had the longest tongue too, for I used to sit in the far corner by the pillar beyond her carpet and tell her stories.

She used to call for Cheytu all day long. 'Cheytu, smooth the ground for Aimna's feet'--'Cheytu, sweep the dead flowers from Aimna's path'-'Cheytu, fan the flies from Aimna's doll,--for naturally, _Huzoor_, Cheytu the sweeper did not fan the flies from the little princess herself; that was not his work. I belonged to her footsteps. I was up before dawn sweeping the arcades of the old house ready for them, and late at night it was my work to gather the dust of them and the dead flowers she had played with, and bury them away in the garden out of sight."

A dim perception that this was strange talk for a sweeper made me murmur sleepily, "That was very romantic of you, Cheytu." On the other hand, it fitted my environment so admirably that the surprise pa.s.sed almost as it came.

"She was a real princess, the daughter of kings who had been--G.o.d knows when! It is written doubtless somewhere. Yes! a real princess, though she could barely walk, and the track of her little feet was often broken by handmarks in the dust. For naturally, _Huzoor_, the dust might help her, but not I, Cheytu, who swept it for her steps. That was my task till the day of the thunderstorm. The house seemed dead of the heat. Not a breath of life anywhere, so at sundown they set her to sleep on the topmost roof under the open sky. Her nurse, full of frailty as women are, crept down while the child slept, to work evil to mankind as women will. _Huzoor_, it was a bad storm. The red clouds had hung over us all day long, joining the red dust from below so that it came unawares at last, splitting the air and sending a great ladder of light down the roof.

"'Aimna! Aimna!' cried some one. I was up first and had her in my arms; for see you, _Huzoor_, it was life or death, and the dead belong to us whether they be kings or slaves. It was out on the bare steps, and she sleeping sound as children sleep, that the light came. The light of a thousand days in my eyes and on her face. It was the last thing I saw, _Huzoor_--the very last thing Cheytu the sweeper ever saw.

"But I could hear. I could hear her calling, and I knew how her face must be changing by the change in her voice. And then one day I found myself sweeping the house against her wedding-feast; heard her crying amongst her girl friends in the inner room. What then? Girls always cry at their weddings. I went with her, of course, to the new life, because I had swept the way for her ever since she could walk, and she needed me more than ever in a strange house. It was a fine rich house, with marble floors and a marble summer-house on the roof above her rooms.

People said she had made a good bargain with her beauty; perhaps, but that child's face that I saw in the light was worth more than money, _Huzoor_. She had ceased crying by this time, for she had plenty to amuse her. Singers and players, and better story-tellers than Cheytu the sweeper. It was but fair, for look you, her man had many more wives to amuse him. I used to hear the rustle of her long silk garments, the tinkle of her ornaments, and the cadence of her laughter. Girls ought to laugh, _Huzoor_, and it was spring time; what we natives call spring, when the rain turns dry sand to gra.s.s and the roses race the jasmin for the first blossom. The tree your honour called magnolia grew in the women's court, and some of the branches spread over the marble summerhouse almost hiding it from below. Others again formed a screen against the blank white wall of the next house. The flowers smelt so strong that I wondered how she could bear to sleep amongst them in the summer-house. Even in my place below on the stones of the courtyard they kept me awake. People said I had fever, but it was not that--only the scent of the flowers. I lay awake one dark, starless night, and then I first heard the footstep, if it was a footstep,--loud, louder, loudest; then a silence save for the patter of the falling flowers. I heard it often after that, and always when it had pa.s.sed the flowers fell. They fell about the summer-house too, and in the morning I used to sweep them into a heap and fling them over the parapet. But one day, _Huzoor_, they fell close at hand, and my groping fingers seeking the cause found a plank placed bridge-wise amongst the branches. _Huzoor!_ was there any wonder the flowers fell all crushed and broken? That night I listened again, and again the footsteps came amid a shower of blossoms. What was to be done? Her women were as women are, and the others were jealous already. Next day when I went to sweep I strewed the fallen flowers thick, thick as a carpet round her bed; for she had quick wits I knew.

"'Cheytu! Cheytu!'

"The old call came as I knew it would, and thinking of that little child's face in the light I went up to her boldly.

"'My princess,' I said in reply to her question as I bent over the flowers, ''tis the footstep makes them fall so thick. If it is your pleasure I will bid it cease. They may hurt your feet.'

"I knew from her silence she understood. Suddenly she laughed; such a girl's laugh.

"'Flowers are soft to tread upon, Cheytu. Go! you need sweep for me no more.'

"I laughed too as I went. Not sweep for her when she only knew G.o.d's earth after I had made it ready for her feet! It was a woman's idle word, but, woman-like, she would think and see wisdom for herself.

"That night I listened once more. The footstep must come once I knew--just once, and after that wisdom and safety. _Huzoor!_ it came, and the flowers fell softly. But wisdom was too late. I tried to get at her to save her from their pitiless justice. I heard her cries, for mercy; I heard her cry even for Cheytu the sweeper before they flung me from the steps where the twinkling lights went up and down as if the very stars from the sky had come to spy on her. What did they do to her? What did they do to her while I lay crushed among the crushed flowers? Who knows? It is often done, my lord, behind the walls. She died; that is all I know, that is all I cared for. When I came back to life she was dead, and the footstep had fled from revenge. It had friends over the border where it could pause in safety till the tale was forgotten. Such things are forgotten quickly, my lord, because the revenge must be secret as the wrong; else it is shame, and shame must not come nigh good families. But the blind do not forget easily; perhaps they have less to remember. Could I forget the child's face in the light? As I told the Presence, those who go from the city come back to it sooner or later unless Death takes them first. So I wait for the Footstep--hark!"

Loud--louder--loudest: "In the name of your own G.o.d."

Did I wake with the cry? Or did I only open my eyes to see a glimmer of dawn paling the sky, the birds shifting in the branches, the old man seated bolt upright in his penwiper?

"That was the first pa.s.senger, _Huzoor_," he said quietly. "The boat has come. It is time your honour conferred dignity on ill manners by joining it."

"But the footstep! the princess! you were telling me just now--"

"What does a sweeper know of princesses, my lord? The Presence slept, and doubtless he dreamed dreams. The tobacco--"

He paused. "Well," said I, curiously.

"_Huzoor!_ this slave steeps his tobacco in the sleep-compeller. It gives great contentment."

I looked down at my pipe. It was but half smoked through. Was this really the explanation?

"But the echo?" I protested. "I heard it but now."

"Of a truth there is an echo. That is not a dream. For the rest it is well. The time has pa.s.sed swiftly, the _Huzoor_ is rested, his servant has returned, the boat has come--all in contentment. The Shelter of the World can proceed on his journey in peace, and return in peace."

"Unless the Footstep of Death overtakes me meanwhile," said I, but half satisfied.

"_Huzoor!_ It never overtakes the just. Death and the righteous look at each other in the face as friends. When the Footstep comes I will go to meet it, and so will you. Hark! the demon screeches. Peace go with you, my lord."

About a year after this the daily police reports brought me the news that my friend the old _fakeer_ had been found dead in the water-cut.

An unusually heavy flood had undermined the banks and loosened the bridge; it must have fallen while the old man was on it, for his body was jammed against the plank which had stuck across the channel a little way down the stream. He had kept his word and gone to meet the Footstep. A certain unsatisfied curiosity, which had never quite left me since that night in the rains, made me accompany the doctor when, as in duty bound, he went to the dead-house to examine the body. The smiling mask was unchanged, but the eyes were open, and looked somehow less empty dead than in the almost terrible clearness of life. The right hand was fast clenched over something.

"Only a crushed magnolia blossom," said the doctor, gently unclasping the dead fingers. "Poor beggar! it must have been floating in the water--there's a tree up the cut; I've often smelt it from the road.

Drowning men--you know the rest."

Did I? The coincidence was, to say the least of it, curious. It became more curious still when, three weeks afterwards, the unrecognisable body of a man was found half buried in the silt left in the alluvial basin by the subsiding floods--a man of more than middle age, whose right hand was clenched tight, over nothing.