“How can I seek help of my grandsire?  Have I not disgraced his name by adopting this life?  And were I mean enough to ask his favour, would he not first insist that I become once more ‘pardahnashin’?  I cannot live again behind the screen, for too long have I been independent.  The filly that has once run free cares not afterwards for the stall and bridle.  It has been an evil mistake, Saheb, but one not of my making.  I sometimes loathe the lights, the tinsel, the bells, aye even the old songs; for they remind me of what I might have been, but for another’s fault, and, of what I am.  You ask of Mimi’s future?  So long as I live, she never shall play a part in this work.  Mated with a good man of mine own faith she will never know regret.  That is my great wish, Saheb.  The issue lies with Allah.”

So the tale ran on with its accompaniment of song, its suggestion of regret.  Once in the middle of a ballad a funeral passes in the street below.  The mourner’s chant sounds above the bourdon of the tom-tom, the wail of the saringis.  “Hush, hush” cries Nur Jan, “let the dead pass in peace.  It is not meet that the song of the dancing-girl should be heard upon the final journey.”  One more refrain, one more question on the mystery of her birth, and we ask permission to depart, offering at the same time some small token of our approval of her songs, to which she replies in the words that commence this chapter.  We catch a last glimpse of her, bidding us good-bye in the gentle manner that tells its own tale, and of Mimi crooning to herself and trying to push a much-crumpled playing-card,—­the Queen of Hearts,—­into the cinglet of her small pyjamas.

XVI.

GOVERNOR AND KOLI.

A FISHERMAN’S LEGEND.

A friend has supplied me with the following quaint history of a well-known Marathi ballad, which is widely chanted by the lower classes in and around Bombay.  Composed originally as a song of seed-time, it has now lost its primary significance and is sung by men at their work or by mothers hushing their children in the dark alleys of the city.  The verse runs thus:—­

  “Nakhwa Koli jat bholi,
  Ghara madhye dravya mahamar,
  Topiwalyane hukum kela,
  Batliwalyachya barabar.”

which may be rudely interpreted as follows:—­

  “Seaman Koli of simple mould
  Hath in his house great store of gold
  Lo! at the order of Topiwala
  Koli is peer of Batliwala”!

Now the word “Topiwala” means an Englishman; and “Batliwala” is a reference to the first Parsi Baronet, Sir Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy:  albeit the word is often used as a synonym for “millionaire” in much the same way as “Shankershet” has crept into Marathi parlance as the equivalent of “rich and prosperous.”

The story, which the Kolis relate with pride, refers to the great wealth of Zuran Patel, the ancestor of Mahadev Dharma Patel who at this moment is the headman and leader of the Christian Kolis of Bombay.