"
[Footnote 1: Wooden shutters.]
Hamilton listened in perfect silence. The man's face was lined with
grief, the tears rolled in streams down his livid cheeks. A wail
went up from the other servants at his words. Hamilton and his
mistress were their idols, and his grief was very real to
themselves.
Hamilton stretched out his hand to the trembling man with a benign
gesture.
"Pir Bakhs, I believe you. You have served me many years, and never
lied to me. This is another's work, not yours. Be at peace. You
have no fault."
The butler wept louder, and the others wailed with him, calling
upon Heaven to bless their master and avenge their mistress.
Hamilton turned from them to the dark dining-room, which he crossed
to the hall; through this he walked in the darkness as a blind man
walks, to the entrance.
He tore the wood-work door open, wrenching it from its hinges, and
looked out into the night. A dust-storm was raging in the desert
beyond the compound, and its stinging blasts of wind, laden with
sand, drove heavily over the exquisite masses of bloom, the
glorious and delicate scented blossoms of the garden. It tore off
the flowers remorselessly, and even for the moment he stood there,
a rain of thin, white, shredded petals was flung into his face. The
branches of the trees groaned and whined in the thick darkness, the
swish of broken and bent bamboo came from all sides, the roar of
the dust driven through the foliage filled his ears.
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