The Moghul

for a moment, then threw themselves face down on the carpet, pleading in unknown words needing no translation. Hawksworth looked in confusion at the smoking pistol in his hand, not recognizing it. Then he threw it onto the carpet and turned toward Kamala.
    She was gazing at him with open, vacant eyes, as though awakened suddenly from a powerful dream. Her breath was coming in short bursts, and her skin seemed afire. She stood motionless for a moment, then tried to move toward him, holding out her arms. After two hesitant steps, she crumpled to the carpet.
    When he bolted upward to reach for her, the servants were there, holding him back.
    "You must not touch her, Sahib."
    "But she's . . ."
    "No, Sahib." They gripped his arms tighter. "Can't you see? She has the sickness."
    "What are you talking about?"
    "It began late today, in the bazaar. Perhaps they do not know of it yet in the fort. At first no one realized what it was. But tonight, while she was dancing, one of the slaves from Sharif Sahib's kitchen came to tell us. Two of the eunuchs and five of his servants have become very sick." He paused to look at Kamala. "I think she must have known. That is why she wanted to dance tonight."
    "Knew what? What did she know?"
    "The plague, Sahib. The slave who came said that the plague has struck all over Agra. It has never happened in India before." The servant paused. "It is the will of Allah. The prophet Samad foretold it. Now it has come."
    Hawksworth turned again to Kamala. She was still watching him with empty, expressionless eyes, as though her life had just poured out of her. He looked down at her for a moment, then reached for a pillow and carefully slipped it beneath her head. Her lips moved as she tried to form words, but at first no sound came. Then, as though again finding some strength beyond herself, her voice came in a whisper.
    "Did you see?"
    "What . . . ?"
    "Did you see him? The Great God Shiva. He came tonight. And danced beside me. Did you see his beauty?" She paused to breathe, then her voice rose again, full and warm. "He was as I knew he would be. Beautiful beyond telling. He danced in a ring of fire, with his hair streaming out in burning strands. He came as Shiva the Destroyer. But his dance was so beautiful. So very, very beautiful."

    CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

    From the Tuzuk-i-Arangbari, the court chronicles of His Imperial Majesty:
    “ On the day of Mubarak-shamba, the twenty-eighth of the month of Dai, there came first reports of the pestilence in the city of Agra. On this day over five hundred people were stricken.
    The first signs are headache and fever and much bleeding at the nose. After this the dana of the plague, buboes, form under the armpits, or in the groin, or below the throat. The infected ones turn in color from yellow inclining to black. They vomit and endure much high fever and pain. And then they die.
    If one in a household contracts the pestilence and dies, others in the same house inevitably follow after, traveling the same road of annihilation. Those in whom the buboes appeared, if they call another person for water to drink or wash, will also infect the latter with the sirayat, the infection. It has come to pass that, through excessive apprehension, none will minister unto those infected.
    It has become known from men of great age and from old histories that this disease has never before shown itself in this land of Hindustan. Many physicians and learned men have been questioned as to its cause. Some say it has come because there has been drought for two years in succession; others say it is owing to the corruption of the air. Some attribute it to other causes.
    The infection is now spreading to all towns and villages in the region of Agra save one, the noble city of the Great Akman, Fatehpur.
    Wisdom is of Allah, and all men must submit.
    Written this last day of the Muharram in the Hijri year after the Prophet of 1028 A.H., by Mu'tamad Khan, Second Wazir to His Imperial Majesty, Arangbar.”

    Brian Hawksworth walked slowly up worn stone steps leading from the riverside funeral ghats. The pathway was narrow, crowded, and lined with carved statues of Hindu gods: a roly-poly god with human form and the head of an elephant, a god with a lion's body and a grotesquely grinning human face, an austere deity with a pointed head and a trident in his hand. All were ancient, weathered, ill-kept. Tame monkeys, small, brown, malicious, chased among them screeching.
    The smoke from the