"'Tis all right, master," whispered one of the men. "There is no fear of the bargain when payment follows cure. Lo, thou art better already, and by this thou shouldst have been worse, had not the charm worked. Hurry, hurry, lest harm come from disobedience!"
When they were quite out of sight and hearing, Suttu took the lamp, went to the door of the hut and chirruped. From a hole in the wall a pair of bright eyes looked out.
"The Brahmans say true," she chuckled, "and Ram befriends those who befriend his favourite. Shâhbâsh would have had me tear the squirrel's nest down, but I love the chattering things."
She had little time, however, to spare for amusement at her own trick. The grave had to be completed, the treasure brought home by dawn. Her arms ached worse than ever from their short rest, and there was a grey glimmer in the east, before she judged that her work would pass muster. Then she removed all Shâhbâsh's belongings to the side of the grave, leaving him still in a drunken sleep upon the bare ground.
Finally, lifting the brass pot, which was carefully luted over with hard clay, she carried it to the hut, shut the door, and by the growing light through the chinks began to open up her treasure.
The pot was full of farthings--nothing but farthings. She sat and looked at them hopelessly. What did it mean? Why should any one take the trouble to bury farthings? The puzzle was beyond her, and when a gleam of real sun warned her that time was passing, she hid the pot under a pile of brushwood, and stepped out with a feeling of relief into the open air. The world was ablaze with the clear, uncompromising light of an Indian morning. The parrots were wheeling round the blue dome, and a squirrel sat on the top of the thatch chirping over a date stolen from the disputed crop.
Suttu thought of the Kâzi's son physicked, bled, and hungry. Her laugh echoed out among the palms, and she felt more comforted than when, the night before, she had sought solace in chanting.
Shâhbâsh sat up and opened his mouth with a tremendous yawn. Then he opened his eyes, and at the same moment reached around for the black bottle. Its absence woke him thoroughly, and the further discovery that he was on the bare ground made him instinctively cry "Thieves!" before he was alert enough to notice the sight of his belongings on the ground some little way off. Rising slowly, for he was stiff in his limbs, he stumbled towards them, conscious only of a racking headache. Memory of his own treachery had not yet returned, and when he all but fell into a new-made grave on his way to the black bottle, his mind seemed to him a perfect blank, and he stood transfigured before this evidence of an industry which he could not remember. He sat down helplessly on its edge, dangling his legs over the side, and peered into it critically. Without doubt, if that was his handiwork, he must have been very drunk indeed. The mere force of habit made him slip into it, and, seizing the mattock, begin to trim the shape. Suddenly he gave a yell, and the next moment was up on solid earth again, clutching at something which had rolled out of the last spadeful of earth--something which had clinked and glittered.