"It is not our fault, Light of Heaven, Father of the Poor, the
Mem-Sahib came--the white Mem-Sahib. We are poor men; we have no
fault at all."
Hamilton listened for a moment to the storm of words and protesting
cries. Then he raised his hand and there was silence, but for a
sound of rising wind without and the sobbing of the natives.
"Pir Bakhs," he said to the head of them all, the butler, "tell me
all you know. Your mistress is dead. Who is responsible?"
The butler came forward and fell at his master's feet with clasped
hands.
"Lord of the Earth, I know nothing but this. At five all was quiet
in the house, and our mistress sat in the garden singing. Then
came to the door two runners with a palanquin. They asked to see
our mistress. I said wait. I went to the garden. I said the white
Mem-Sahib has come in a palanquin. My mistress said, 'I will see
her.' She went to the drawing-room, and the white Mem-Sahib came
in, and they drank tea together. Your servant is a poor man, and he
saw no more till the runners went away with the palanquin. So we
said, 'The white Mem-Sahib has gone,' and my mistress said to me
she felt drowsy and must sleep, and went upstairs to the Light of
Heaven's room and shut the door. And your servant was laying the
table in your honour's dining-room a little later, and he went to
close the jillmills,[1] for the wind was rising, and your servant
saw through the jillmill the white Mem-Sahib again getting into her
palanquin that had appeared once more at the back, and the runners
ran with it very fast into the desert; then your servant ran out to
ask the other servants why the white Mem-Sahib had come back, and
the ayah met him at the door and said she had found our mistress
killed in her room; and your honour's servant is a poor man, and
has wept ever since.
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