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'So did not I, he had said of himself, 'because of the fear of God; that fear held me back from sin, and he felt sure it would be the same with Hananiah. He feared God, and therefore he could be depended upon. These two rulers, Hanani and Hananiah, planned out the defence of the city.
Stella started upright with the words. In the gloom her eyes shone with a sudden feverish light; but it very swiftly died. "Ah, don't torture me, Hanani!" she said. "You mean well, but it doesn't help." "Hanani speaks the truth," protested the old ayah, and behind the enveloping veil came an answering gleam as if she smiled. "My lord the captain sahib spoke with Hafiz this very night.
But the slender thread of life they guarded, though it bound them with a tie that was almost friendship, seemed so to fill their minds that they never spoke of anything else. Stella knew that Hanani loved her and considered her in every way, but she gave Peter most of the credit for it, Peter and the little dying baby she rocked so constantly against her heart.
Suddenly she made a movement as if to rise, but checked herself as one reminded by exertion of physical infirmity. "The mem-sahib weeps for her lord," she said. "How shall Hanani comfort her? Yet never is a cruel word. May it not be that he will even now return?" "He is dead," whispered Stella. "Not so, mem-sahib." Very gently Hanani corrected her. "The captain sahib lives." "He lives?"
"That " said Hanani, and paused as if considering how best to present the information, "that was another sahib." "Another sahib?" Stella was trembling violently. Her hold upon Hanani was the clutch of desperation, "Who what was his name?" She felt in the momentary pause that followed that the eyes behind the veil were looking at her strangely, speculatively. Then very softly Hanani answered her.
"How did he help you?" she asked. Again Hanani seemed to hesitate as one reluctant to give away a secret. "From the shop of Hafiz that is the shop of Rustam Karin in the bazaar," she said at length, and Stella quivered at the name, "there is a passage that leads under the ground into the jungle. To those who know, the way is easy. It was thus, mem-sahib, that I brought you hither."
She knew that for a second he stood close above her with arms outflung before he turned away. Then there came the rasp of a match, a sudden flare in the darkness. She looked to see his face and uttered a cry. It was Hanani, the veiled ayah, who stooped to kindle the lamp.... "This country is like an infernal machine," said Bernard. "You never know when it's going to explode.
Wherefore he followed him to the mountains and commanded him to be gone, and thus he went." "But who told Hafiz?" questioned Stella, still struggling against unbelief. "How should Hanani know?" murmured the ayah deprecatingly "Hafiz lives in the bazaar. He hears many things some true some false. But that Dacre sahib returned last night and that he now is dead is true, mem-sahib.
And certain of the priests' sons with trumpets; namely, Zechariah the son of Jonathan, the son of Shemaiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Michaiah, the son of Zaccur, the son of Asaph: And his brethren, Shemaiah, and Azarael, Milalai, Gilalai, Maai, Nethaneel, and Judah, Hanani, with the musical instruments of David the man of God, and Ezra the scribe before them.
"Do you think life is so precious to me now?" Hanani made a protesting gesture with one arm. "Lo, it is yet night, mem-sahib," she said. "There can never be any joy for me again," Stella said. Hanani leaned slowly forward. "Then will my mem-sahib have missed the meaning of life," she said. "Listen then listen to old Hanani who knows!
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