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"I have a presentiment that we shall find in the valley of Biban el Molûk a tomb intact," said to a high-bred-looking young Englishman a much more humble personage who was wiping, with a big, blue-checked handkerchief, his bald head, on which stood drops of perspiration, just as if it had been made of porous clay and filled with water like a Theban water-jar.
The furniture was scant a quatre, or bed, made of a platform of boards, with a mat and a blanket, some low stools, a small table, an earthen water-jar, and some smaller ones, a pail and an iron pot, and calabashes which did duty for plates, dishes and bowls. In one of the two rooms making the hut, there were always the ashes of the night-fire, without which negroes could not sleep in comfort.
Yes, the sleeper must have wakened, for he began to speak, and to call on the name of God. The old man turned to his son and began softly, "Do you hear me, my boy?" "I cannot sleep," answered the youth. "Then give me something to drink," asked Stephanus, "my wound burns intolerably." Hermas rose at once, and reached the water-jar to the sufferer.
Below, in the light of the hatchway, he saw a young Calash with a broad yellow face and his wiry hair sticking up in stiff wisps through the folds of his head-kerchief, holding an earthenware water-jar to the lips of Jaffir extended on his back on a pile of mats.
The sun blazed pitilessly in the cloudless sky, down on land and river, and on the fugitive nuns who had spread their white head-cloths above them for an awning and sat in dull lethargy, awaiting what might he before them. The water-jar passed from hand to band; but the more they drank the more acute was their discomfort, and their longing for some other refreshment.
"Panchu was not sure of her caste, and would not let her touch the water-jar, or anything at all of his. So they were continually bickering. When she found I had no objection to her touch, she looked after me devotedly. She is a splendid cook! "But all remnants of Panchu's respect for me vanished! To the last he had thought that I was at least a simple sort of person.
She now heard her grandfather's voice, calling feebly and fretfully. She half turned to make a signal for silence, which the old man so far observed as to sink his complaints to a mutter. The girl put the branch into a water-jar near the window, and then stepped lightly to the bed. "What is all this nonsense?" said Monsieur Revel. "Why did not you come the moment I called?"
The ashes of ancient fires were scattered about, and in cleaning them off his new-found hearth the man discovered a potsherd, apparently of a native olla or water-jar, and a chipped fragment of flint, too small to indicate whether it had formed part of an Indian arrowhead or had dropped from an old flintlock musket. "Lucky strike!" observed the prospector. "I was down to my last match."
The night deepens, the palace towers loom spectre-like, and the town hums wearily. Row no more, but fasten the boat to a tree. Let me seek rest in this strange land, dimly lying under the stars, where darkness tingles with the tinkle of a wristlet knocking against a water-jar.
The missionary went in search of a water-jar, and Rosemary McClean bent down above the ancient, shrivelled, sorry-looking mummy of a woman drew the wrinkled head into her lap stroked the drawn face and wept over her. The spent, age-weakened, dried-out widow had fainted; there was no wakened self-consciousness of black and white to interfere.
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