But the mother's delight lasted for just five days.
She began to complain, she began to quarrel; the young wife replied, and
the din of their voices greatly distressed the young man, besides making
him an object of ridicule to his neighbours. One evening, in a fit of
passion, both women said they would stand it no longer. They ran out of
the house and up the hillside, but as there was only one path they ran
away together, quarrelling as they went. Then the young Chilti rose,
followed them, caught them up, tied them in turn hand and foot, laid them
side by side on a slab of stone, and quietly cut their throats.
"'Women talk too much,' he said, as he came back to a house unfamiliarly
quiet. 'One had really to put a stop to it.'"
Knowing this and many similar stories, Luffe had been for some while on
the alert. Whispers reached him of dangerous talk in the bazaars of
Kohara, Peshawur, and even of Benares in India proper. He heard of the
growing power of the old Mullah by the river-bank. He was aware of the
accusations against the ruling Khan. He knew that after night had fallen
Wafadar Nazim, the Khan's uncle, a restless, ambitious, disloyal man,
crept down to the river-bank and held converse with the priest.
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