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At her beckon call by Flora Annie
Steele. What is your name? I

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asked, Foolly Jane Huzzar, she
answered with a brilliant, dazzling smile.

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I sat looking at her, wondering
if a more appropriate name could have been

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found for that figure. Among the
anemones and celandines, the primulas, pansies

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and pinks, the thousand and one
blossoms, which, glowing against their groundwork

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of forget me not, formed a
jewel mosaic right to the foot of the

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snows above us. Flowerful life,
truly, that was hers. She had

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a great bunch of scarlet rhododendrons stuck
behind her ear, matching the cloth cap

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perched jauntily on her head, And
as she sat herding her buffaloes on the

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upland, she had threaded chaplet on
chaplet of oxen sied daisies and hung them

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about her wherever they could be hung. The result was distinctly flowerful. Her

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face also was distinctly pretty, distinctly
clean for a Kashmiri girl's, but coquette

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flirt minx was written in every line
of it and accounted for a most unusual

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neatness and brightness She caught my eye
and smiled again broadly innocently. The Huzzaur

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would like to paint my picture,
wouldn't he? She went on in a

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tone of certainty. The sab who
came last year gave me five rupees.

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I will take six this year.
Food is dear, and those base born

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contractors of the Maharajah seize everything one
walnut in ten, one chicken in ten.

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But I was not going to be
beguiled into the old complaints. I

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could hear any and every day for
the hags of the village up here on

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the Mergh, within a stone's throw
of the first patch of snow picketing the

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outskirts of the great glacier of Gwashbrari, I liked, if possible, to

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forget how vile man could be in
the little shingle huts clustering below by the

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river. I will not describe the
place to begin with, it defies description,

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And next could I even hint at
its surpassing beauty. The globe trotter

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would come and defile it. It
is sufficient to say that a merg is

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an upland meadow or alp, and
that this one, with its forget me

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nots and sparkling glaciers was like a
turquoise set in diamonds. I had seated

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myself on a projecting spur, whence
I could sketch a frowning defile northwards,

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down which the emerald green river was
dashing madly among huge rocks crowned by pine

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trees. I will give five rupees
also, that is plenty, I remarked

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suavely, and Foli Jan smiled again. It must do, for I like

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being painted. Only a few sabs
come very few, but whenever they see

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me, they want to paint me
and the flowers, and it makes the

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other girls in the village angry.
Then go Loo and Chuchu. Here she

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went off into a perfect cascade of
smiles and began to pull the eyelashes off

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the daisies deliberately. There seems a
peculiar temptation in girlhood for cruelty towards flowers

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all over the world, and Fuli
Jan was pre eminently girlish. She looked

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eighteen, but I doubt if she
was really more than sixteen. Even so,

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it was odd to find her unappropriated. So I inquired if Golu or

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Chuchu was the happy man my mother
is a widow, she replied, without

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the least hesitation. It depends which
will pay the most. For we are

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poor. There are others too,
so there is no hurry. They are

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at my beck and call. She
crooked her forefinger and nodded her head,

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as if beckoning to some one,
for sheer light hearted, innocent enjoyment of

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her own attraction. I never saw
the equal of that face. I should

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have made my fortune if I could
have painted it there in the blazing sunlight,

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framed in flowers, But it was
too much for me. Therefore I

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asked her to move to the right, further along the promontory, so that

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I could put her in the foreground
of the picture I had already begun there

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by that first clump of iris,
I said, pointing to a patch of

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green sword leaves where the white and
lilac blossoms were beginning to show. She

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gave a perceptible shudder. What sit
on a grave? Not? I do

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not the huzor Now that those are
graves, It is true, all our

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people are buried here. We plant
the iris over them always. If you

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ask why, I know not.
It is the flower of death. A

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sudden determination to paint her The flowerful
life against the flowerful death completely obliterated the

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knowledge of my own incompetence. But
I urged and bribed in vain FOOLI John

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would not stir. She would not
even let me pick a handful of the

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flowers for her to hold. It
was unlucky. Besides, one never knew

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what one might find in the thickets
of leaves, bones, and horrid things.

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Had I never heard that dead people
got tired of their graves and tried

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to get out. Even if they
only wanted something in their graves, they

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would stretch forth a hand to get
it. That was one reason why people

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covered them up with flowers, just
to make them more contented. The idea

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of stooping to cull the flower and
shaking hands with a corpse was distinctly unpleasant,

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even in the sunlight. So I
gave up the point and began to

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sketch the girl as she sat,
rather a difficult task, for she chattered

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incessantly. Did I see that thin
blue thread of smoke in the dark pole

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of pine trees covering the bottom of
the valley. That was Golu's fire.

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He was drying orris root for the
Maharajah. There on the opposite merg where

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the buffaloes showed dark among the flowers, was Chuchu's hut. Undoubtedly Chuchu was

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the richer, but Golu could climb
like an ibex. It was he whom

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the Huzur was going to take as
a guide to the peak. He could

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dance too. The huzor should see
him dance the circle dance round the fire.

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No one turned so slowly as Golu. He would not frighten a young

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lamb, except when he was angry. Me well jealous if the Huzar thought

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that a better word. By the
time she had done chattering, there was

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not a petal left on the oxide
daisies, and I was divided between pity

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and envy towards Golu and Chutchu.
That evening, as usual, I set

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my painting to dry on the easel
at the door of the tent. As

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I lounged by the camp fire smoking
my pipe, a big young man coming

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in with a jar of buffalo milk
on his shoulder and a big bunch of

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red rhododendron behind his ear, stopped
and grinned at my caricature of Foli John.

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Five minutes after down by the servant's
encampment, I heard a free fight

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going on and strolled over to see
what was the matter. After the manner

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of cashmiri quarrels, it had ended
almost as it began for the race love

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peace that it had so ohen it
was not. However, I saw at

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a glance the fault of the smaller
of the antagonists, who was being forcibly

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held back by my Shikhari Chatchu.
That man there wanted to charge Golu.

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This man here the same price for
milk as he does, Your Honor,

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explained the Shikari elaborately. That was
extortionate. Even though Golu, being the

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Huzur's guide for tomorrow, may be
said to be your Honor's servant for the

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time. I have settled the matter
justly, the Huzar need not give thought

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to it. I looked at the
two recipients of Fuli Jan's favor with interest,

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for that the bunches of rhododendron they
both wore were her gift. I

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did not doubt they were both fine
young men, but Golu was distinctly the

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better looking of the two. If
a trifle sinister. Despite the recommendation of

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my shikari to cast thought aside,
the incident lingered in my memory, and

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I mentioned it to Fulijung when,
on returning to finish my sketch, I

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found her waiting for me among the
flowers. Her smile was more brilliant than

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ever. They will not hurt each
other, she said, Chuchu knows that

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Golu is more active, and Golu
knows that Chuchu is stronger. It is

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like the dogs in our village.
I was not thinking of them, I

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replied, I was thinking of you, supposing they were to quarrel with you.

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She laughed. They will not quarrel
In summer time. There are plenty

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of flowers for everybody. I thought
of those red rhododendrons and could not repress

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a smile at her bare faced wisdom
of the serpent. And in the winter

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time, then I will marry one
of them, or some one. I

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have only to choose. That is
all. They are at my beck and

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call. Three years passed before recurring
leave enabled me to pay another visit to

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the mergh. The rhododendrons were once
more on the uplands, and as I

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turned the last corner of the pine
set path which threaded its way through the

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defile. I saw the meadow before
me, with its mosaic of flowers bright

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as ever. The memory of Fuli
Jan came back to me, as she

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had sat in the sunshine, nodding
and beckoning fully Jun echoed the old patriarch

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who came out to welcome me.
As I crossed the plank bridge to the

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village. Fuli Jan, the hood
girl Hussor, she is dead. She

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died from picking flowers, a vain
thing. It was at the turn beyond

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the mergh Hussor, halfway between Chuchu's
hut and Golou's drying stage. There is

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a big rhododendron tree hanging over the
cliff, and she must have fallen down.

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It is three years gone, three
years then it must have happened almost

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immediately after I left the valley.
The idea upset me. I knew not

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why the merk without that flowerful life, nodding and beckoning, felt empty,

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and I found myself wondering if indeed
the girl had fallen down, or if

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she had played with flowers too recklessly, and one of her lovers perhaps both.

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It was an idea which dimmed the
sunshine, and I was glad that

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I had arranged not to remain for
the night, but to push on to

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another meadow, some six miles further
up the river. To do so,

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however, I required a fresh relay
of Cooli's, and while my shikhari was

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arranging for this in the village,
I made my way by a cross cut

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to the promon tree with its pass
of iris. Deaths are rare in these

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small communities, and there were but
two or three new graves, all but

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one too recent to be poor Foolijan's. That then must be hers, with

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its still clearly defined oblong of viris, already a mass of pale, purple

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and white. I sat down on
a rock and began unromantically to eat my

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lunch. Finishing up with a pull
at my flask, and thus providentially fortified,

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I stooped leaving to pick one or
two of the blossoms from the grave,

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intending to paint them round the sketch
of the girl's head, which I

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had with me. Great heavens,
what was that? I turned positively sick

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with horror and doubt. Was it
a hand? It? For some time

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before I could force myself to set
aside the sheathing leaves and settle the point

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something. It was, something which, even as I parted the stems fell

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to pieces, as the skeleton of
a beckoning hand might have done. I

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did not stay to see more.
I let the flowers close over it,

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whatever it was, and made my
way back to the village. My baggage,

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having changed shoulders, was streaming out
over the plank bridge again, and

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in the two first bearers carrying my
cook room pots and pans, I recognized

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Golou and Chutchu. They had both
grown stouter and wore huge bunches of red

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rhododendron behind their ears. I found
out on inquiry that they were both married

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and had become bosom friends. I
have not seen the turk sat in diamonds

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sense, but I often think of
it and wonder what it was. I

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saw among the iris, and then
I seemed to see Foli Jan sitting among

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the flowers, nodding her head and
saying, they are at my beck and

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call. If I were Golu or
Chuchu, I would be buried somewhere else,

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and of at her beck and call
by Flora Annie Steele