'How? sayest thou. Who can tell? Save this. The mem will send for more if she get the chance. That is our way. One rupee claims another. Bid the vakeel at Rajpore go to her and suggest a marrow to the pot. All things go in pairs, and we could send it through Keene sahib. For the rest we must wait. There is a time yet, and if we are to work by fear of exposure, that comes ever at the last moment. I play for a high stake, as I have told thee, O my father! and I mean to win.' Then it was that the old man, with regretful thoughts of his past youth, had promised her one of the pearls in pledge for a future, when, if she succeeded, she could wear the whole necklace as Dalel's wife. That was how she came to be rolling the pearl against her palm lazily one moonlit night, when George, who began to find the long empty evenings coming at the end of a long empty day rather wearisome, strolled over for the first time since his return from Rajpore to see the potter, and while away half an hour in hearing some of his tales. Rather to his surprise--since he knew nothing of the novel freak for solitude--he found the outer palisade barred by thorn bushes, and going a little farther along to where it joined the mud wall, vaulted over the latter lightly into the inner courtyard. It was empty, and the door of the hovel closed. Supposing the old man to be absent, he turned to go, when a low cough from within made him pause and knock. The next instant the potter burst out on him with eyes ablaze. 'Devils! wilt not leave me in peace?' he began before recognising his visitor. Then his manner changed; he drew the door to behind him, saying hurriedly, 'This slave mistook; the children tease. But if the Huzoor wants songs he must come to the outer court. The wheel is there now. Will not the Huzoor come?' He moved away like a plover luring an intruder from its nest, but George paused again to listen to a repetition of the quick, low cough. 'Who is that ill?' he asked unwarily. The potter echoed the sound instantly. 'It is I who cough, Huzoor,' he went on, still moving away. Pity of God, how I cough! And I have fever, too. Mercy of the Most High! fever always with mutterings hard to understand. But 'tis no matter. The potters of Hodinuggur do not die; we go and come, we come and go.' He had reached the wheel and set it a-spinning. But it seemed pivoted askew in its new place and whirled in fitful ovals. Then he looked up with a foolish laugh. 'My thumb will slip often now, Huzoor. Maybe 'twere better Fuzl turned no more pots.'