No More Learning

Suddhoo came to the point at last. He said that Janoo had told him that
there was an order of the Sirkar against magic, because it was feared
that magic might one day kill the Empress of India. I didn't know
anything about the state of the law; but I fancied that something
interesting was going to happen. I said that so far from magic being
discouraged by the Government it was highly commended.

The greatest officials of the State practiced it themselves. (If
the Financial Statement isn't magic, I don't know what is. ) Then, to
encourage him further, I said that, if there was any jadoo afoot, I had
not the least objection to giving it my countenance and sanction, and to
seeing that it was clean jadoo--white magic, as distinguished from
the unclean jadoo which kills folk. It took a long time before Suddhoo
admitted that this was just what he had asked me to come for. Then he
told me, in jerks and quavers, that the man who said he cut seals was
a sorcerer of the cleanest kind; that every day he gave Suddhoo news of
the sick son in Peshawar more quickly than the lightning could fly, and
that this news was always corroborated by the letters. Further, that he
had told Suddhoo how a great danger was threatening his son, which could
be removed by clean jadoo; and, of course, heavy payment. I began to see
how the land lay, and told Suddhoo that I also understood a little jadoo
in the Western line, and would go to his house to see that everything
was done decently and in order. We set off together; and on the way
Suddhoo told me he had paid the seal-cutter between one hundred and
two hundred rupees already; and the jadoo of that night would cost two
hundred more. Which was cheap, he said, considering the greatness of his
son's danger; but I do not think he meant it.

The lights were all cloaked in the front of the house when we arrived. I
could hear awful noises from behind the seal-cutter's shop-front, as if
some one were groaning his soul out.
Suddhoo shook all over, and while
we groped our way upstairs told me that the jadoo had begun. Janoo and
Azizun met us at the stair-head, and told us that the jadoo-work was
coming off in their rooms, because there was more space there. Janoo is
a lady of a freethinking turn of mind. She whispered that the jadoo was
an invention to get money out of Suddhoo, and that the seal-cutter would
go to a hot place when he died. Suddhoo was nearly crying with fear
and old age. He kept walking up and down the room in the half light,
repeating his son's name over and over again, and asking Azizun if
the seal-cutter ought not to make a reduction in the case of his own
landlord.

Janoo pulled me over to the shadow in the recess of the carved
bow-windows. The boards were up, and the rooms were only lit by one tiny
lamp. There was no chance of my being seen if I stayed still.

Presently, the groans below ceased, and we heard steps on the staircase.
That was the seal-cutter. He stopped outside the door as the terrier
barked and Azizun fumbled at the chain, and he told Suddhoo to blow out
the lamp. This left the place in jet darkness, except for the red glow
from the two huqas that belonged to Janoo and Azizun. The seal-cutter
came in, and I heard Suddhoo throw himself down on the floor and groan.
Azizun caught her breath, and Janoo backed to one of the beds with a
shudder. There was a clink of something metallic, and then shot up a
pale blue-green flame near the ground.