She kept the wild fire glowing in heart and eyes by the murmur, until through an open door she saw what she sought--an old man seated at a chess-table, still as a statue. With a cry she darted forward, snatching at the knife in her girdle, then paused abruptly. Where was the hurry? he could not move. So with a half laugh of exultation she turned back deliberately to bolt the door--a strong door, as befitted one giving on the favourite sleeping-place of despotism. It would need time to force an entry there; more time than she would need to do her work. Meanwhile she must look at this arbiter of her fate ever since she was born--this tyrant whom she had never seen. What! was that all? that wreck of a man, with his head upon his breast? but as she came nearer, the light, such as it was, from the wide-arched balcony, aided by a cresset smoking in a niche, showed her something of the youth in his eyes. Perhaps it showed him something of the age in hers, for the Diwân paused in his first haughty challenge, then began again. 'Hast come to frighten me, as thou frightenest the villagers, oh! Azîzan, daughter of the potter's daughter?' he asked coldly. He was defenceless, and he knew it, save for craft of the brain. 'Nay! I have come to kill thee, Zubr-ul-Zamân, Diwân of Hodinuggur,' she replied; 'to kill thee as thou hast killed the sahib.' A sound which might have been a laugh reached her as she took a step nearer, brandishing the knife; perhaps it was that which made her pause again in her turn; for laughter was hardly what she expected. 'I did not kill the sahib, fool. He killed himself for love of the mem sahib: the fair mem who took the Ayôdhya pot.' The girl fell back the step she had taken, and the hand bearing the knife went up to her forehead in a gesture matching her sharp cry of pain. The truth struck home; yet she caught at denial desperately. 'Thou liest! She did not take it. I took it once--twice. I have the pearls--the Hodinuggur pearls. I--I--not she.' One of those curious spasms of life came to the wreck of a man, as it turned to look at the girl more closely. 'So! Thou also hast brains. 'Tis the woman's _yôg_[6] nowadays. My son, and my son's son, have none. Thou shouldst have been my granddaughter, Azîzan, had I but known. Thou mayest be now.' His granddaughter! Of course! she had suspected so all her life, had known it to be so for months, yet she had never realised the fact till now; and an odd, inexplicable sense of kindred rose up in her against her will. 'I shall kill thee, no matter who thou art,' she cried quickly. 'Wherefore? What harm have I done to thee, Azîzan? 'Twould have suited me better had the sahib fancied thy face. Thou hadst thy chance.'