His unavailing plea came back to him unanswered from the night which had fallen suddenly, as the dust from below sprang electrically up to meet the dust above and hide everything from sight. But through the thick veil that rush of water rose louder and louder as the girl sped on her way. It was true what the old man had said, and she had seen it. There was a river by the old palace. Was the other thing true also? Was the sahib dead? Had they killed him? The darkness lightened a little as she ran over the bridge so that she could see a great swirl of yellow water shooting past the piers not three inches below the keystone of the arch. Lower down it had found the open sluice-gates, hurled them from their foundations and carried them with it as it burst through the embankment weakened by the new-made cuttings of the villagers, and had raced in a mad river to fling itself against the mound of Hodinuggur, tearing down yard after yard of crumbling sand as it turned abruptly from the collision, to try conclusions by a flank movement. Azîzan saw none of this; nothing but the dim white arches where she had waited once before. 'Sahib! Sahib!' No answer, and in her eagerness she crouched down at the closed door, tapping softly. 'Sahib! Sahib!' There was only a quarter-inch planking between them, that was all, for they had left him as he fell till some other white-face should come to accept the responsibility of interference. Yet it did the work as effectually as all the barriers of custom and culture which had divided them in life. 'Sahib! Sahib!' Could it be true? It must be true that he was dead; otherwise he would surely hear her cry! 'Sahib! Sahib!' As she crouched she might have put out her hand and taken his, but for that trivial quarter-inch of wood between them; but he did not hear. Because he was dead? Perhaps, yet even in life he had not heard, he had not known. The light in the potter's yard, lit by her passionate love and care, had only served to arouse his contempt. Better darkness, he had thought, than such a light as that. 'Sahib! Sahib!' At last she rose and stumbled across to the servants' quarters, seeking the certainty which she must gain somehow. A light glimmered behind the grass palisades, sacred to her namesake's modesty, and from within came the eager yet subdued tones of gossiping women. Azîzan crept close, and crouching in on herself held her breath to listen. 'Lo! I content myself with goodwill towards all men,' came the widow's voice self-complacently. 'Yet, O Motiya! wife of Ganesha the groom, I make bold to aver that this is no more or less than a judgment on----' 'What! Dost think it to be really the Flood of Destruction?' broke in Motiya, whimpering. '_Ai fool!_ Who cares for the water? It flows south, not north; so we are safe. No! 'tis the sahib's death. Mayhap 'twill teach other folks' relations not to be in such a hurry to thrust themselves into other folks' service against the custom----' 'But----'