'Wherefore not, Huzoor? The sahib could come to none better, seeing we of Hodinuggur have spun the wheel of life for years--for ages and ages and ages.' The words blent with the rising cadence of the wheel as he leant forward to the task again. Faster and faster upon the wheel with a swaying motion. Only the potter's hand poised motionless above the whirring clay which showed--as children say--like a top asleep. Then suddenly came the turn of the potter's thumb, bringing a strange weird life with it. One protean curve after another swelling, sinking, shifting, falling. The eye could scarcely follow their swift birth and death, until the potter, sitting back once more, the slackening wheel disclosed the hollows and bosses. 'The clay is good,' he said, as if deprecating his own skill, 'and it fires well.' 'When the thumb does not slip,' put in Dan quietly. The potter turned to him in sudden interest. 'The Huzoor knows the sayings of the people, that is well; it is not often so. Yea! it slips--thus.' The wheel still span slowly, he shifted his hand almost imperceptibly and a deep furrow scored itself upon the biggest boss. 'So little does it,' he went on, 'a grit clinging to the skin--a wandering thought. It is Fate. Fuzl Elâhi, the potter, cannot help it.' 'Fuzl Elâhi? Then you are a Mohammedan?' He shook his head. 'I am as my fathers were. The Moghuls call me so, the Hindus otherwise; but it means the same. By the grace of God, potter of Hodinuggur since time began. Lo! my fathers and my children are in the clay. I dug a grave in the dust for the boy; the girl dug hers for herself. It was deep, Huzoor. I search for it always; in vain, in vain.' The wheel set up its rhythmic hum once more, but the hands lay idle. 'Poor old chap,' said Dan aside, 'I suppose he is thinking of the accident; but by the powers, Keene, it is a situation. Seated here on a pinnacle--a crazy irresponsible creator----' 'Ask him if he made the pot, please,' interrupted George brutally. 'If I could get a pair, I'd send them to the _mater_. Those things are always in pairs, you know.' 'Pairs! you intolerable Philistine! A potter's vessel trying to be matched before it's broken in pieces. Think of the tragedy--the humour of it.' 'Will you ask, or shall I?' Fitzgerald grinned maliciously. 'You. I like to hear you stuttering.' George smiled, rose, and taking the blue pot from the attendant's tray laid it on the potter's wheel. 'Did you make that?' he asked, in English. His meaning was palpable. 'No, Huzoor.' 'If you did not, who did?' he continued, his triumph mixed with anxiety for the future; but the old man's thoughts did duty for an answer. 'Without doubt my fathers made it; since it is an Ayôdhya pot.' 'Ayôdhya,' broke in Dan, 'that means old, Keene; you'll have to send it back. I half suspected it was valuable, from that old fox's look. But he said it was made here, the sinner! Can you make pots like that, oh! Fuzl Elâhi?'