There are iron chains on the feet that were set on my heart.
Call to the bowman to make ready--
The voice stopped suddenly, and Trejago walked out of Amir Nath's Gully,
wondering who in the world could have capped "The Love Song of Har Dyal" so
neatly.
Next morning, as he was driving to the office, an old woman threw a packet
into his dog-cart. In the packet was the half of a broken glass bangle, one
flower of the blood red dhak, a pinch of bhusa or cattle-food, and eleven
cardamoms. That packet was a letter--not a clumsy compromising letter, but an
innocent, unintelligible lover's epistle.
Trejago knew far too much about these things, as I have said. No Englishman
should be able to translate object-letters. But Trejago spread all the trifles
on the lid of his office-box and began to puzzle them out.
A broken glass-bangle stands for a Hindu widow all India over; because, when
her husband dies a woman's bracelets are broken on her wrists. Trejago saw the
meaning of the little bit of the glass.
The flower of the dhak means diversely "desire," "come," "write," or "danger,"
according to the other things with it. One cardamom means "jealousy;" but when
any article is duplicated in an object-letter, it loses its symbolic meaning
and stands merely for one of a number indicating time, or, if incense, curds,
or saffron be sent also, place.
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