In pursuit, of course, of Elflida Norma!
What tyranny was here! What defiance of custom! Saw anyone ever the like?--on a decent metalled road--and only the ayah--God forgive him the lie!--wanting to make all things in order?
These confused, helpless thoughts ran swifter in the old man's mind that his legs carried his body, as he followed in pursuit of the monster. The lantern, swinging wildly, hindered such light as there might have been without it, but he knew the Thing was ahead of him, by the truly infernal smell it left behind it.
And then from the darkness ahead came a curiously familiar cry, "Hut, hut! (get out of the way). Oh, damn!"
A crash followed; then silence. A few seconds afterwards he was gazing, helplessly bewildered, at two figures who were looking at each other wrathfully across the white streak of road.
One he knew. It was Elflida Norma, her impromptu ball dress metamorphosed by her race into loose white draperies out of which the small dark head and slim throat, with its circlet of big blue beads, rose as from clouds. The other, unknown, was that of a tall, fair young man.
"If you had only stood still," the latter was saying angrily, "I could have managed, but you dodged about like--like----" His eyes had taken her in by this time, and he paused in his simile. But hers had wandered to the monster prone in the dust; and she stepped closer to it curiously.
"I suppose it is named a motor bicycle," she said, coolly. "I have not seen one in our place before, only in picture books. I am glad."
There were no regrets or apologies. And even Imân Khân, when he recovered his breath, made no inquiries as to whether the young man had hurt himself in getting out of the Miss-Sahiba's way He simply looked at the wheels of the bicycle and then at its stalwart young rider.
God had been kind and sent a husband in a miraculous car!
II
Imân Khân sate in the early dawn, putting such polish as never before was put on a pair of rather large size Oxford shoes. So far all had gone well. His own vast experience, aided by the stranger's complete ignorance of Indian ways, had sufficed for much; and Alexander Alexander Sahib (all the twelve Imâns be praised for such a name!) was now comfortably asleep in the bastion opposite the widow's quarters, under the impression that the hastily produced whisky and soda, with a "sand beef" (sandwich) in case hunger had come on the road, the simple but clean bedding, and briefly, all the luxuries of a night's sleep after a somewhat severe shaking, were due to the commercial instincts of a good old chap in charge of the usual rest-house: that being exactly what Imân had desired as a beginning.
The sequel required thought, and, as he polished, his brain was full of plans for the immediate future. One thing was certain, however, quite certain. The husband God had sent in a car must not be allowed to ride away on it before seeing more of the Miss-Sahiba. Arrangements must be made, as they always had to be made in the best families. Generally it began with a tennis party--but this, of course, was out of the question--and perhaps the accident on the road might be taken as an equivalent for that introduction. Then there were dances, and "fools-food" (picnics). The one might be considered as taken also, the others were out of season in the heats of May. There remained drives and dinners. Both possible, but both required time; therefore time must be had. The chota-sahib must not ride away after breakfast, as he had settled on doing, should he and the monster be found fit for the road.
Now the chota-sahib seemed none the worse for his fall, as Imân, in his capacity of valet, had had opportunities of judging. The inference, therefore, was obvious. It must be the monster who was incapable.
Imân gave a finishing glisten to the shoes and placed them decorously side by side, ready to be taken in when the appointed hour came for shaving water. Then he went over and looked at the motor bicycle, which was accommodated in the verandah. It did not pant or smell now as if it were alive, but for all that it looked horribly healthy and strong. It was evidently not a thing to be broken inadvertently by a casual push. Then a thought struck him, and he ambled off to the old blacksmith, who still lived in the serai arcade and boasted of his past trade of mending springs, shoeing horses, and selling to travellers his own manufactures in the way of wonderful soft iron pocket-knives with endless blades and corkscrews warranted to draw themselves instead of the corks!
"Ari Bhai," said Imân mildly to this worthy, "thou art a prince of workmen, truly; but come and see something beyond thy art in iron. Bâpri bâp! I warrant thou couldst not even guess at its inner parts."
Could he not? Tezoo, the smith, thought otherwise, and being clever as well as voluble, hit with fair correctness on pivots, cog-wheels, and such-like inevitables of all machinery, the result of the interview being that Imân, armed with his kitchen chopper and a bundle of skewers, had a subsequent tête-à-tête with the monster, in which the latter came off second best; so that when its owner, fortified by a most magnificent breakfast (served in the verandah by reason of the central room of that bastion having an absolutely unsafe roof), went to overhaul his metal steed, he was fairly surprised.
"It is a verra remarkable occurrence," he said softly to himself as his deft hands busied themselves with nuts and screws (for he was a Scotch engineer on his way to take up an appointment as superintendent in a canal workshop), "most remarkable. And would be a fine example to the old ministers thesis that accident is not chance. There's just a method in it that is absolutely uncanny."
In short, even with the smithy on the premises, of which the good old chap in charge spoke consolingly, it was clear he could not start before evening, if then. Not that it mattered so much, since he had plenty of time in which to join his billet.
Thus, as he smoked his pipe, the question came at last for which the old matchmaker had been longing.
"And who would the young lady be who smashed me up last night?"
In his reply Imân dragged in Warm E-stink Sahib Bahadur and a vast amount of extraneous matter out of his own past experiences. Regarding the present, however, he was distinctly selective without being actually untruthful. The late E-stink Sahib's widow and children, for instance, being also at rest in the serai, were equally under his charge. And this being so, since there was but one public room in which dinner could possibly be served as it should be served--here Imân made a digression regarding the rights of the sahib-logue at large and E-stink Sahib's family in particular--it was possible that the Huzoor might meet his fellow-lodgers and the Miss-Sahiba again.
In fact, he--Imân--would find it more convenient if the meal were eaten together and at the same time, and the mem--her absence being one of the eliminated truths--would, he knew, fall in with any suggestion of his; which statement again was absolutely true.
Alec Alexander, lost in the intricacies of a piston-rod, acquiesced mechanically, though in truth the likelihood of seeing such a remarkably pretty face again was not without its usual unconscious charm to a young man.
This charm, however, became conscious half an hour afterwards, when hard at work in the smithy, his coat off, his sleeves rolled up, showing milk-white arms above his tanned wrists, he looked up from the bit of glowing iron on the anvil and saw a large pair of blue eyes and a large string of blue beads about an almost childish throat.
It struck him that both were as blue as the sky inarching the wide inarched square of the old serai. It struck him also that the eyes, anyhow, had more in common with the sky
