The old man ceased sweeping to peer at it, then chuckled wheezily. 'Oho! Oho! _bibi!_ and wherefore not, since that is a _râm rucki_ which all know of old! But this other I speak of is new. I tell thee it hath the death-mark on it, and the arrow-head which claims all for the _Sirkar's_ use. Its like none have ever seen before. They sold it deceitfully as safeguard yesterday at Sheik Chilli's fair, and men bought it for their wives and children--_Ala!_ the tyranny of it, the cleverness! who can stand against their ways? So now it is proved a sign of death indeed; all who wear it, all who have worn it, are in the _Huzoor's_ power. When they are wanted, they will die.' Despite her disbelief--a disbelief founded largely on her own kindly grateful heart--Aunt Khôjee felt a cold creep in her old bones. 'How canst tell by now? Some may escape,' she quavered. The old scavenger waggled his head wisely. 'This I know, _bibi_, that in the _Kuteeks'_ and _Lohars'_ houses--yea! and in others too where the sickness was rife, for, see you, it hath been in the city this fortnight past, though folk held their tongues--all bought these bracelets for safety. All! and it is from these very houses that the dead come! Am I not _Dom_ by craft, though I grow too old and crooked to straighten even dead limbs? Have I not seen? I tell thee, _bibi_, not one of the corpses taken out of the city this morning but had the bracelet on its wrist! Ay! and not one of those carried by force to the _hospitarl_ but had it too!' It was an absolutely true statement, even if capable of a more natural explanation. 'But _Rahmân-sahib_, the bracelet-brother, did not give them bracelets?' protested Aunt Khôjee, falling back fearfully on what still seemed incredible. 'God knows,' mumbled the superannuated streaker of dead things. 'Mayhap he did not sell them, but it was by order. A Hindoo in the city, Govind by name, hath a paper with the order written on it, and signed by the _Lat-sahib_ and _Wictoria-Queen_. So there is no lie there, _bibi!_' He passed out resentfully, driving the refuse he had swept up, into the world beyond the six-feet-square yard, with a last flourish of his broom.