There was not much to see in those vaults under the plinth of the pleasure-palace in which Hushmut had set up his distillery. They were very low, very dark, the only light coming through the open door, and from the row of rose-shaped air-holes pierced at intervals in the plinth. Viewed from outside, these formed part of its raised and pierced marble decoration. From within they looked quaint and flower-like, set as they were in the dim shadowy vault, hidden here and there by the dumpy columns, showing through the arches distantly, softly, brightly pink; for Hushmut had pasted pink paper over them, to keep out the bees and wasps, he explained, which otherwise, led by the scent of the flowers, came in troublesome numbers. The rude still, like a huge cooking-pot, stood in one corner, and all about it lay trays on trays of fading rose-leaves. "_Pah!_ How sickly sweet! Let's get outside," said the young man after a brief glance round. But the girl stood looking curiously at a brownish-yellow mass piled beside the still. "What is that?" she asked. Hushmut's black eyes turned to her comprehendingly. He shuffled to the pile and held out a sample for her to see. She bent to look at it. "Rose-leaves!" she said. "Oh! I see--after scent has been taken out of them. Poor things! What a shame!" Hushmut said something rapidly in Hindustani, and the girl turned to her companion for explanation. "He says," translated the latter, with a curiously grudging note in his voice, "that they have their use. He dries them in the sun and burns them in the furnace of his still." She shook her head and smiled. "That's poor compensation!" Then she bent closer and sniffed regretfully at what Hushmut held. "All gone!" she said, so like a child that her lover laughed at her tenderly. "What else did you expect, you goose! 'Only the actions of the just, smell sweet and blossom in the dust!' So come; we really must be off; it's getting late." He felt in his pocket, and held out a _baksheesh_ to Hushmut; but the latter shook his head, and once more said something rapidly in Hindustani. It had a note of petition in it, but the request was apparently not to the hearer's taste. That was to be seen from his face. "What does he want?" asked the girl, curiously. "Nothing he is going to get," replied her lover, moving off; "the cheek of the man!" But the pink muslin stood its ground. "What is it?" she persisted; "I want to know. He doesn't look to me as if he meant to be rude, and--and"--her face softened--"if it is anything we can do, I'd--I'd like to do it. Tell me, please." The young fellow shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "Oh! only fooling! He wants you to give him back some of the rose-leaves he gave you, that he may put them in his new brew, to--to make it sweeter; says the luck-gift of a bride always does--" The girl blushed and smiled all over.