The message ran then:--"A widow dhak flower
and bhusa--at eleven o'clock." The pinch of bhusa enlightened Trejago. He saw-
-this kind of letter leaves much to instinctive knowledge--that the bhusa
referred to the big heap of cattle-food over which he had fallen in Amir
Nath's Gully, and that the message must come from the person behind the
grating; she being a widow. So the message ran then:--"A widow, in the Gully
in which is the heap of bhusa, desires you to come at eleven o'clock."
Trejago threw all the rubbish into the fireplace and laughed. He knew that men
in the East do not make love under windows at eleven in the forenoon, nor do
women fix appointments a week in advance.
So he went, that very night at eleven, into Amir Nath's Gully, clad in a
boorka, which cloaks a man as well as a woman. Directly the gongs in the City
made the hour, the little voice behind the grating took up "The Love Song of
Har Dyal" at the verse where the Panthan girl calls upon Har Dyal to return.
The song is really pretty in the Vernacular. In English you miss the wail of
it. It runs something like this:--
Alone upon the housetops, to the North
I turn and watch the lightning in the sky,--
The glamour of thy footsteps in the North,
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!
Below my feet the still bazar is laid
Far, far below the weary camels lie,--
The camels and the captives of thy raid,
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!
My father's wife is old and harsh with years,
And drudge of all my father's house am I.
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