Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/21



“I—I …”

She stammered, slurred, stopped; and a faint, withering snicker ran from sneering lip to sneering lip. Beards dyed blue with indigo and red with henna wagged and mocked. Fingers ablaze with precious stones opened and shut like the sticks of a fan to show the futility of all created things, but chiefly of woman. The Sheik-ul-Islam chanted a sonorous “Alhamdulillah!” and lifted his hands to heaven in a Pharisee gesture, as if to ask Allah to grant him patience: all signs which encouraged the Babu Chandra who ordinarily, being a Babu, would have walked softly and talked yet more softly in a gathering of Moslems.

He unclasped his pudgy hands from across his stomach, and stood up straight. There was now neither whine nor whimper in his voice as, very much after the manner of a latter-day, berry brown Robespierre, he addressed the princess:

“I demand justice! Here, in thy town, O Aziza Nurmahal, was I drugged, by a shameless dancing girl and by one Bansi; may this and that and especially this happen to him! For a week every day they drugged my little pipe of opium which I am forced to smoke because my spleen is yellow with a very much devouring sickness. When finally I was myself again, I discovered that Bansi had stolen the key to my office”—which was the truth—“and also one hundred and seventy rupees, five annas in Indian money and sixteen golden Persian tomans”—which was a lie. “Furthermore, he has smashed all the so expensive instruments of the Anglo-Indian Cable Company of which I am the deservedly trusted servant. I demand justice, Heavenborn!”