| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The Flame-Gatherers
Author: Potter, Margaret Horton
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Flame-Gatherers" ***
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents remain.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.
THE FLAME-GATHERERS
[Illustration: Publisher’s Monogram]
THE FLAME-GATHERERS
BY
MARGARET HORTON POTTER
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1904
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1904.
Reprinted September, 1904.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO
Gerhardt Hauptmann
WITH THE PROFOUND ADMIRATION
OF THE AUTHOR
PRELUDE
“UP FROM EARTH’S CENTRE THROUGH THE SEVENTH GATE
I ROSE, AND ON THE THRONE OF SATURN SATE;
AND MANY A KNOT UNRAVELLED BY THE ROAD,
BUT NOT THE MASTER KNOT OF HUMAN FATE.”[1]
GREAT OMAR, THIS VAGUE TALE RETOLD CONTAINS
PART ANSWER TO THE RIDDLE. ALLAH DEIGNS
A LITTLE WISDOM THROUGH THE MOST UNWISE:
THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE IN CHAINS.
BEHOLD IT, WRITTEN FOR THE OCCIDENT.
AH! WILL THEY SEE, ALTHOUGH THE VEIL IS RENT?
OR WILL NOT ONE BELIEVER PAUSE BEFORE
THE TATTERED GLORIES OF THE ORIENT?
M. H. P.
[1] “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,” Ed. Fitzgerald, trans.
CONTENTS
BOOK I
FLESH-FIRE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE CONQUEROR 3
II. THE INCEPTION OF A FLAME 22
III. AHALYA 39
IV. THE ASRA RUBY 58
V. POPPIES 74
VI. CHURI 88
VII. THE POWER OF THE FLAME 109
VIII. THE CURSE 134
IX. ASRA FIGHTS AGAIN 150
X. THE SONG OF NARMÁDA 163
BOOK II
SOUL-FIRE
I. THE SON OF GOKAMA 175
II. OMAN THE CHILD 185
III. HIS SOLITUDE 196
IV. HUSHKA IN THE MARKET-PLACE 206
V. YELLOW-ROBED 227
VI. THE VIHARA OF TRUTH 240
VII. THE WHEEL OF THE LAW 254
VIII. THE OUTCAST 265
IX. THE STRUGGLE ON THE HEIGHT 283
X. THE WANDERER 299
XI. SUNRISE 315
XII. MANDU IN MALWA 323
XIII. A BROTHER OF THE SOUL 332
XIV. THE ANCIENT FLAME 353
XV. THE RIVER TEMPLE 370
XVI. “LA-ILAHA-IL-LAL-LAHA” 384
XVII. THE SIGN OF THE RUBY 399
XVIII. SUNSET 411
BOOK I
FLESH-FIRE
“Daily walked, in radiant beauty,
To and fro, the Sultan’s daughter;
In the twilight, where the fountain
Ripples o’er with crystal water.
Day by day the youthful slave stood
In the twilight, where the fountain
Ripples o’er with crystal water.
Daily he grew pale and paler.
“Once at evening came the Princess
To his side, with hurried accents:
‘Tell thy name, for I would know it;
And thy home, thy sire, and kindred.’
“And the slave replied:
‘My name is Mahomet. I come from Yemen,
And my race is the race of Asra,
Who must die if love they cherish!’”
—HEINRICH HEINE, “The Asra.”
THE FLAME-GATHERERS
CHAPTER I
THE CONQUEROR
The sun was setting over the Narmáda plain. In the midst of long
stretches of sunburnt farm land the waters of the great river rolled
and flashed with light. The barren millet-fields were illumined with
long streaks of yellow sunshine that ran to the base of Mandu, an
immense plateau, rising sheer from the lowlands to a height of some
three or four hundred feet. Between it and the nearest of the Vindhyas
is a deep chasm, a quarter of a mile or more in width, bridged over
by a miracle of man, a stone causeway, many centuries old even on the
day of September 6, in the year of the Christian Lord 1205, and of the
Hejira 601.
This causeway, a vast, stone bridge, supported on piers built up from
the rocks below, balustraded to a height of five feet, and finished on
each corner by watch-towers in which lookouts were always stationed,
made the single approach to the otherwise impregnable plateau which
formed in itself the entire principality of Mandu. Remarkable among
Indian ruins to-day are those that crown the deserted height of this
unique spot: temples, houses, and vast palaces of the most ancient
times; and at the period of which we speak, the opening years of the
thirteenth century, Mandu was in the heyday of its Indian glory,
renowned throughout the West for its wealth, its power, and the
righteousness of its rulers.
The rice harvest was just beginning, and the inhabitants of
Mandu—Brahman, Vaisya, Sudra, and Pariah alike—were busily engaged in
this toil of peace. The Kshatriyas, or warrior part of the population,
were not in the minds of their fellows to-day; for at the end of the
rains they had marched to the north on an expedition against an army of
Mohammedans by whom their neighbors of Dhár were beset.
The great causeway was deserted save for its lookouts and a fakir who
had chosen to light a harvest Ishti on the stones near the southwest
tower. As the sun neared the horizon, however, the silence was broken
by a sudden screaming of birds and monkeys in the wooded mountain gorge
beyond the bridge. Two of the guards stretched themselves and looked
out along the pass—looked, and were transfixed. Shrill trumpet-notes
and the faint beating of hoofs along a rocky road became suddenly
audible. The glint of spear-heads shone among the trees. Lastly came
the tapping of the tiny saddle-drums. Two of the soldiers shouted
together: “Avalu! They are coming!” and, leaping down to the bridge,
started at breakneck pace toward the fields, crying as they ran: “The
army! The soldiers! Lord Rajah! They are here! They have returned!”
The other two guards made no move to leave their advantageous posts.
The Brahman, also, abandoning his invocation to Agni, mounted the
nearest tower, to watch the arrival of his earthly ruler. He had
scarcely taken up his position when the vanguard of returning warriors
rode out upon the bridge, a glittering company, headed by the
stateliest of figures, at whose approach the guards all but knelt in
salute to their ruler, Rai-Khizar-Pál, Rajah of Mandu in the country
of Malwa, a brave and noble king. Slightly behind him rode two other
richly dressed men, mounted on beautiful horses, each of whom came in
for some share of the acknowledgments of the guards,—Puran, captain of
the troops, and Ragunáth, confidential adviser of the Rajah. Slowly,
for the horses were fagged with long marching, the three passed over
the bridge, followed by a lengthening train of officers and men, horse
and foot, over whose robes of crimson and white and green played the
last beams of the setting sun, sending off a dazzle of light from the
rubies that fastened a long spray of white feathers to the turban of
the Rajah.
By the time the first of the cavalcade had entered the broad road
leading straight across the plateau to the palaces at its eastern end,
throngs of field-workers and people of the town had begun to line the
edges of the route; for the news of the army’s return had spread from
one end of the plateau to the other, and men and women left their
work and, stained and disordered with toil, rushed to the road to
greet their ruler and their defenders. A well-built lot of people they
were, by far the greater number of the men invested with the cord of
the twice-born. And their king’s popularity was very evident from the
welcome they were giving him. Men of the Brahman caste lifted their
hands to him, Vaisyas fell upon their knees, and Sudras and Pariahs
prostrated themselves upon the earth till he had passed. Then all stood
gazing eagerly at the slow-moving file of troops. Jests, salutations,
and words of welcome passed between the onlookers and the returning
warriors; and the general spirit of joy was redoubled when it was found
that the campaign, short as it had been, was also a victorious one.
Evidences of victory presently became visible; for, at the end of the
lines of foot-soldiers, came a long string of captives, many on foot,
a few mounted upon mules, these last with their feet bound together by
thongs passed round the animals, their arms tied behind them with ropes
of hide, and the beasts themselves fastened together in a long chain.
Beside this mounted company, who represented captives of station, rode
a soldier armed with a triple-lashed whip, which he used with no great
degree of compassion upon the backs of his charges.
These captives were greeted by the onlookers with shouts of triumph,
but with no insults or even unfriendly remarks. The followers of the
Prophet were still rather mythical enemies to these dwellers of the
Dekhan. Mahmoud of Ghazni was a name they recognized; but Aybek, the
great slave, who had just mounted the throne of Delhi, was as unreal to
them as their own kings who had died three thousand years ago, in the
first conquest of India. These captives now among them were tangible
enough, but they presented too abject an appearance to give any idea
of their force in battle. The chagrin of captivity, the many days of
riding and walking, the intolerable suffering occasioned by their
bonds, had broken the spirit of all save one, who rode at the head of
the pitiable procession. He was young, this man, good to look on even
in his unkempt state, and his clothes, through the stains of war and
woe, showed their richness. He sat straight on his unsaddled mule, and
his head was not bent down. He seemed to notice nothing of what passed
around him, but kept his eyes fixed far ahead on the long, curving
range of blackened mountains, lighted by the glow of the sunset sky
that blazed behind them. His dignity and his unconsciousness made him
a continual object of interest to the crowd, and the slave-master was
under a running fire of questions which he was not slow to answer.
“He is a prince, a son of the enemy’s leader. He will bring a great
ransom,” he repeated again and again, proudly.
Cheers never failed to follow the explanation; and, after some twenty
minutes of this trial, the Arab’s head for the first time drooped, and
a deep sigh broke from him.
“Let not my lord grieve,” whispered the person riding next behind
him, a boy, scarcely more than fifteen years in age. “My lord will be
ransomed.”
But the Mohammedan sighed again, making no answer; and the
slave-master, overhearing the whisper, cut off the conversation with
a quick stroke of his whip on the back of the boy, who bore it, as he
bore all things for his Prince, without a sound.
By this time the road, which had hitherto run through grain-fields,
approached a building set, as was the custom with many Indian temples
and palaces, in the midst of a square pool of water. The structure was
built of white stone, in the usual massive and grotesque Indian style,
and seemed only approachable by a narrow path between two glassy sheets
of water, which reflected in their mirror-depths the clumps of wild
cotton trees, graceful bamboos, and feathery tamarinds by which they
were surrounded. The eyes of the captives, turned from this structure
only when it lay behind them, were instantly fixed upon another,
infinitely greater, which a new bend in the road disclosed a few
hundred yards beyond. The entrance to this new building was filled with
a bustling throng, for here the soldiers were dismounting. It was the
dwelling of the rulers of Mandu; and in five minutes more the captives
themselves had halted in the huge, unpaved courtyard round which the
palace was built.
The sun had now set and the brief twilight sunk into darkness. A
bonfire burned already in the centre of the courtyard, and its fitful,
wavering light accentuated the activity of the scene. The Rajah and a
few of the officials had disappeared into the palace; but it seemed as
if all the rest of the little army, together with a hundred attendants,
were crowded into the courtyard:—soldiers, slaves, eunuchs, page-boys,
villagers, and women,—women unveiled, unabashed, openly interested
in their fellow-creatures. Finally, in the portal of the north wing,
quiet, calm, betraying no sign of weariness, stood Ragunáth, the right
hand of the Rajah, that small, slender, well-favored man, with the eyes
of the lynx, an intellect keen as a steel blade, and a constitution
that was superior to time and disease. He was still clad in his crimson
riding-costume. The turban had not been lifted from his head; but he
carried in his hand a thin, ebony staff. He was engaged in directing
the dismount and disposal of the captives. Already those that had come
on foot had been led away by guards into the south wing; and now, under
his low-voiced commands, two men were lifting the riders from their
mules and, as soon as they could stand, sending them after the others.
One of these, only, made any resistance to this plan. He was the boy
who had ridden second in the line, behind his leader. Spent as he was,
this child struggled violently against separation from his master, at
whose commands only he finally consented to be led away. And now this
master remained alone, upon his mule, his face turned to Ragunáth, and
in his eyes the faintest expression of dislike.
“What is thy name, captive?” demanded the Indian, in a flat, low tone.
“Fidá Ibn-Mahmud Ibn-Hassan el-Asra,” returned the captive.
“The son of the Mohammedan leader?”
“His brother’s son.”
“Ah! then you are not a prince?”
“I am the head of our race. My father is dead.”
“Ah!—Partha, let him be taken down and brought to my apartment. Then go
tell the Lord Rajah that the work is done.” And, turning upon his heel,
the minister disappeared into the corridor behind him.
Immediately the two men beside him cut the thongs that bound Fidá’s
feet to the mule; and they also unfastened his arms. He was lifted
from the animal, and set upon his feet, at the same time supported on
either side. It was some moments before his numb and stiffened limbs
would bear him; but at length he straightened, and followed his guides
into the palace. They proceeded for some distance down a hall hung at
regular distances with finely wrought lamps, and at length turned into
a narrower passage that ended, Fidá could see, in another courtyard.
Before this was reached, however, they halted at a doorway closed by a
hanging; and here Fidá was bidden to enter and pass through into the
farthest room. Then he was left alone.
The captive gave a sigh of relief. After the long strain, just ended,
silence and semi-darkness seemed to him unspeakable boons. He longed
to lie down here upon the ground and sleep. That being impossible,
however, he took the only practicable advantage of the respite. Facing
toward what he believed to be the west,—and Mecca,—he threw himself
into the devout attitude and repeated the sunset prayers. Then,
relieved in mind and heart, he pushed aside the hanging, and entered
the apartment of Ragunáth. The first room was empty, illumined by a
single lamp, the light of which gave some indication of the richness of
the furnishings. Through this and another room Fidá passed, and then
halted on the threshold of the third, the living-room of a fortunate
man.
Here, reclining on a great pile of cushions, was the adviser and
confidant of the Rajah. Beside him, on a low stand, were a dish of rice
and a chased goblet containing wine. Two attendants were bathing his
feet with perfumed water; and at the opposite side of the room, under
a hideous image of Krishna, a Brahman was making the evening sacrifice
of meal and ghee, over two or three sticks of burning wood. Fidá forgot
himself in gazing at this scene, till Ragunáth, opening his eyes, which
were shut under the soothing influence of rest and quiet, cried out,
rather harshly:
“Come! Enter, slave! To thy knees!”
Fidá walked slowly forward, made a respectful salutation to the
master of the room, and then stood upright again. Ragunáth shrugged
his shoulders, but did not attempt to enforce his command, which was,
indeed, contrary to the etiquette of captivity, he being in no way
Fidá’s overlord. It was some moments before he would speak; and, during
the interval, the Brahman, his task over, turned to him, announcing:
“The evening Agnihotra is accomplished. Krishna and the gods are
appeased. I will depart,” and forthwith left the room. Then Ragunáth,
once more master of his tones, said smoothly:
“You are here, Asra, to choose the life of your captivity. Will you
wait imprisoned and guarded till there come members of your race
to treat for ransom; or will you take the clothing of the Rajah’s
household and become the servant of our lord, his cup-bearer, till the
time of your freedom?”
“Will not Rai-Khizar-Pál send messengers to treat with Omar for my
ransom?” cried Fidá, in amazement.
“The way is long and difficult. We are but just returned from a
dangerous campaign. The Rajah is satisfied with his victories.”
For some moments Fidá stared hopelessly at Ragunáth’s impenetrable
face. Then he bent his head beneath the tumultuous wave of bitterness
that overswept him. Finally, controlling himself, as all Arabs are
taught to do, he looked up again, and answered in an unnatural voice:
“I will enter the household of the Rajah. I will serve him as his
cup-bearer.”
Ragunáth nodded, and touched a gong beside his couch. After a moment’s
waiting a slave ran into the room, knelt before his master, and bent
his head to the floor.
“Radai, take this man to the house of slaves, and let him be clothed
in the fashion of the Rajah’s servants. He will serve to-night, at the
feast, as cup-bearer to the Lord Rai-Khizar-Pál. Go!”
The slave rose, took Fidá by the hand, and turned to leave the room,
when they perceived that a newcomer was standing in the doorway: a
eunuch of high office. Ragunáth, seeing him, gave an exclamation.
“Kasya! Enter! enter!”
“My lord summoned me?” The man did not move from the doorway, and Fidá
and his companion stood aside.
“Yes, yes, I summoned thee. How goes thy office? Enter, Kasya. All thy
work is well?”
“The Lady Ahalya—is well.”
The answer was made in such a tone as brought Fidá’s eyes to the face
of the man that uttered it. Kasya’s eyes were bright, Kasya’s lip was
curled, and Fidá perceived that the sarcasm, the almost insult, in the
eunuch’s tone had been fully intentional. In another moment Fidá was
drawn from the room, but not before he heard Ragunáth utter a smothered
oath, and had perceived a light of satisfaction in the eunuch’s eyes.
It was an incident unusual enough to impress itself on the mind of the
new-made slave; for he was sometimes a student of men. But there seemed
no adequate reason why one word, the name that Kasya had spoken, should
so have fixed itself in Fidá’s brain that, for the next hour or two,
it beat upon him with a constant rhythm, “Ahalya—Ahalya—Ahalya,” till
it seemed fuller of import than the great battle-cry the syllables of
which so much resembled it. And, in the end, Fidá accepted it as an
omen of all that afterward came upon him in this new land.
In the meantime the whole palace, and especially the great central
portion of it, had been humming with life. Manava, the regent-minister,
and all his staff of servants, were preparing an unexpected welcome for
the return of the Rajah and his victorious troops. By half-past eight
in the evening, the vast audience-hall presented a gala appearance; and
shortly after that hour Rai-Khizar-Pál, with Purán on his right hand,
Ragunáth on his left, and a great company bringing up the rear, entered
and was received at the foot of the daïs by Manava, who, with this act
of reception, discharged himself of his three months’ regency.
The hall, which was the largest in the palace, and opened immediately
from the central courtyard, was a remarkable example of the massive,
clumsy, and inartistic architecture of uninvaded India. Stone pillars,
of unequal size and design, supported the roof. The walls were covered
with multicolored hangings, and furthermore were to-night covered
with ropes of flowers. A hundred lamps of wrought bronze and silver
hung from the ceiling, and torches were fastened to the pillars. At
the head of the room, opposite the entrance, was the daïs, on which
stood a broad divan overhung with a canopy. This was the judgment seat
of Mandu, to be used to-night in a lighter cause. As the Rajah laid
himself in his place, the three high officials squatted on cushions
near the royal couch, each with a low, round stand before him. Below,
in the hall, stood three long, low tables, raised not more than eight
inches from the floor, beside which were rows of woven mats, on which
the feasters squatted in customary fashion. In three minutes every seat
was taken, and immediately a throng of slaves came hurrying in, each
bearing his burden of food or wine or metal bowls filled with water
for the washing of hands. Among these ministers of the feast was Fidá,
who came halting along in the rear, side by side with the young Ahmed,
now perfectly content by reason of the nearness of his lord. Fidá was
dressed in a loose white cotton vestment that hung to his ankles, and
was confined about his waist with a broad, red scarf. The sleeves were
wide and short, and the tunic opened loosely in the front, disclosing
his bare, bronzed chest. His feet were unshod; but his head was bound
round with a brass circlet, the sign of slavery. In his hands he
carried a jar of the liquor forbidden to his creed. As he neared the
royal divan many eyes were turned to him, and he was pointed out, here
and there, as a prince of the enemy; and if the feasters gazed at him
once for his station, they looked a second time at his beauty, for Fidá
was worthy of his birth. Taller in stature, better shaped as to limb,
cleaner-cut in feature than any Indian, he gave ample evidence of the
higher civilization and keener intellect of his race. For at this time
the men of Arabia were at the zenith of their power; and were bearing
the religion of their Prophet at the point of their swords into every
nation of the known world.
Fidá went up and bent the knee before his master; and Rai-Khizar-Pál
turned upon him a gentle and kindly glance. “Come up, young man. Let me
behold thee. So. Thou art named master of my drink. Fill, then, this
cup, and Indra grant it may be full forever!”
Fidá obeying this command, the Rajah lifted the golden vessel to his
lips, and instantly all those in the room sprang to their feet. He
drank deeply, replaced the cup on the stand before him, waved one hand
to his people, and the feast was opened.
To Fidá, tired, dreary, and, above all, famishing with hunger, the
meal seemed endless. It was not, indeed, a refined sight to one
suffering as he suffered. Flagon after flagon of wine he poured into
the Rajah’s bowl, dish after dish of the richest food was presented
at the royal stand, mountain after mountain of meat, river on river
of drink, disappeared under the attacks of the feasters below; and
still there was no end. One man alone, of all the number, displayed
some fastidiousness in his taste. Ragunáth, after a moderate meal,
ceased to eat, and sat cross-legged on his cushion, silent, motionless,
oblivious, seemingly, of the sights and sounds around him: untempted by
any viand or wine to exceed his capacity. In spite of this fact Fidá
could not regard the man with admiration or even with respect. For to
the prejudiced eyes of the slave, delicacy in Ragunáth only assumed a
guise of affectation.
Time went on, hours apparently had passed, and still Fidá’s
ministrations as cup-bearer showed no sign of diminishing. Finally,
however, relief came from an unexpected source. Kasya, the head eunuch,
whom Fidá had already seen, glided into the room through a small door
to the right of the daïs, connecting the audience hall with the Rajah’s
private apartments. Kasya knelt before Rai-Khizar and murmured a few
words which brought the royal master to his feet, exclaiming to those
near him:
“Come, my friends, let us go. There is to be dancing.”
Purán and Manava rose at once from their cushions, Ragunáth emerged
from his spell, and the three of them, with Kasya and one or two
slaves, followed the Rajah from the room, unnoticed by the rabble below.
Fidá, to his infinite relief, found himself left behind. He realized,
indeed, that he was at the end of his endurance; and this fact made
him bold. Going to Ragunáth’s place, he sat down and set to work upon
the untouched food left there. Never had slave been so daring before;
but, also, never before had a meal been so direfully needed. As he
ate, he regarded the crowd below apprehensively; for he did not know
what discovery might bring. But the great feast was nearly at an end.
Half the company had gone straggling off to their beds. Of those that
remained, few were in condition to observe anything; and, to his
reassurance, Fidá presently perceived that slaves and servitors had
begun to slip into empty places, and to begin their part of the meal.
Among this number was Ahmed; and when presently the eyes of the two
met, Fidá nodded slightly, and the other came running to the daïs, and
stood before his master.
“Sit here by me, and eat, Ahmed,” commanded the young man.
“My lord! It is not fitting—”
“Sit here. Am I not a slave also? There! Here is lamb roasted with
cinnamon and stuffed with raisins and sugar. Excellent! Eat of it. And
this is deer flesh. And here is sesame, and rice, and a duck fried in
oil. They do not starve in Mandu; but I have seen no water in this
room.”
“I will fetch it!” and Ahmed darted away, to return presently with the
prescribed liquid in a large, porous bottle.
Fidá drank gratefully, and then the two ate in silence, while below
them, minute by minute, the great hall grew quieter. The meal was
almost finished, and Fidá was smiling at the contentment of his devoted
little servitor, when suddenly a eunuch came running through the
Rajah’s door, and, seeing Fidá seated tranquilly on the daïs, gave him
a violent cuff on the head, crying out:
“Dog! Leave thy gluttony and come to the King. He calls for his
‘cup-bearer’.—Faithful cup-bearer thou! Come!”
At the blow, both Mohammedans leaped to their feet; and the Asra stared
upon the eunuch, his face flaming with anger. Ahmed, indeed, would
have thrown himself upon the man, but that Fidá fortunately regained
his temper, and, restraining the lad’s arm, bent his head before the
messenger, and with a slight smile at Ahmed’s outraged expression,
followed his guide from the room.
They passed through a hallway more richly furnished than any Fidá
himself had ever seen; and then, crossing a corridor, turned down
a narrow passage into the open doorway of the “theatre”—a large,
irregular room, with a slightly elevated platform at one end, and the
usual daïs at the other.
The place was brilliantly lighted. Rai-Khizar-Pál lay upon a divan; and
disposed about him were his usual companions, together with one or two
new officials, and a dozen or more slaves, who crouched back in the
shadow of the hangings. In one corner of the room, below the stage,
sat three musicians, playing, upon their strange-shaped instruments,
a rhythmical minor air. The stage was occupied by six nautch-dancers,
gayly and scantily clad, of their type good-looking, perhaps. They were
performing a dance with which Fidá was familiar enough, having seen it
many times at Delhi. It was called the “serpent”, and appeared to be
highly acceptable to the spectators. The Rajah was laughing and talking
genially, and even Ragunáth’s face wore a smile. At the entrance of
Fidá, Rai-Khizar called him to the couch and good-naturedly abused him
for deserting his post. The Arab offered no excuse, and was finally
ordered to his task of pouring wine. Cups and jar stood close at hand;
and from time to time the whole company drank a toast to some favorite
performer. Fidá, refreshed by food and encouraged by the leniency of
his master, watched the stage with some interest. In the course of an
hour many dancers came and went. There were sometimes six, again two,
occasionally one, on the stage; and all the time the low, droning,
monotonous music never ceased.
In time the audience began to grow drowsy under the effects of light,
wine, and unceasing sound. Rai-Khizar had nodded on his pillows, and
Ragunáth yawned openly. By and by all the dancers left the stage, and
the musicians’ tune died away. The Rajah started up, demanding to know
why the dance stopped without his command. But, while he spoke, the
music began again, this time with a different air, a swinging, graceful
melody, new to its hearers. A little murmur of approval came from
Manava and Purán. The rest waited. Then Fidá, his curiosity awakened,
saw a woman run on to the stage:—a woman fair-skinned, dark-eyed, with
a wreath of poppies woven into her hair, and garments of scarlet gauze
flying about her slender, beautifully shaped figure. For an instant he
shut his eyes; and, before he could open them again, there burst from
two throats the same hoarse cry:
“Ahalya!”
Rai-Khizar-Pál and Ragunáth together had started to their feet; but
she who danced only smiled and half lowered the lids of her dark and
lustrous eyes.
“Ahalya!” shouted the Rajah, in a frenzy of excitement. “Ahalya! Get
thee from this room! How darest thou appear—in this place? Kasya—take
her away!”
As the enormity of his wife’s offence grew upon him, Rai-Khizar’s wrath
waxed hotter till he stood panting with emotion as Kasya dashed upon
the stage. Ragunáth, entirely forgetting himself, stood still, gazing
upon the charming figure of the young woman, with a light in his eyes
that was all too easy to read. Of the rest, slaves and officials alike
watched the scene with impartial interest, all but Fidá, who, even
after Ahalya, rebellious and laughing at her escapade, had left the
room, still crouched in the shadow of the canopy, the blood pounding
at his temples, his heart literally standing still, his brilliant eyes
staring as at the vision of the wonderful red and white beauty of
Ahalya, youngest wife of Rai-Khizar-Pál of Mandu in Malwa.
CHAPTER II
THE INCEPTION OF A FLAME
Fidá slept that night on a divan in an antechamber of the Rajah’s
suite, instead of in his lawful place, the house of slaves behind
the palace. This breach of duty came about simply enough. After the
tumultuous breaking-up of the party in the theatre, the slaves in
attendance on the Rajah and his officials seized the opportunity for
retiring, and disappeared with such quiet zeal that, three minutes
after Ahalya’s departure from the stage, Fidá found himself alone
on the daïs in the empty room. Rai-Khizar had rushed away to his
delinquent wife; and the officials, tired out, lost no time in betaking
themselves to their own apartments. Fidá was perfectly well aware of
the situation of the house of slaves. He had dressed there in the early
evening. But the Asra had no intention of passing the night in that
uninviting spot if it could be helped. After a moment’s consideration,
therefore, he left the theatre and wandered through the tangled web of
little rooms constituting the royal suite, till he came upon one room
which promised comparative safety for the night. It was unlighted. He
believed it to be out of the way of the more inhabited part. And all
round it ran a divan well covered with cushions. So, without stopping
to consider consequences, Fidá lay down upon the pleasant couch, buried
his tired head in a pillow, and in five minutes was sleeping the sleep
of the slave.
He woke by degrees. First there was the consciousness of light;
secondly of a weight upon his heart; thirdly it was extraordinarily
still. Evidently he was not in camp. Was it Delhi—the palace? He opened
his eyes to see—and he saw. Memory brought a groan to his lips; but he
stifled it, half-uttered, and lay still to consider his situation. The
first thing that occurred to him was that it must be past the hour of
morning prayer. Rising, then, he turned his back to the sunlight that
streamed in through a half-screened window, and, having gone through
the form of ablution permitted when water is not at hand, he began the
_Niyyat_, speaking in Arabic. The syllables fell lovingly from his
lips, and his heart swelled with the comfort of his religion. Except
the moment at Ragunáth’s door on the previous evening, this was the
first solitude that had been his since the day of battle in which he
had been taken captive by the Rajah. During the succeeding days he
had stumbled through his prayers as he lay bound in tents, or rode,
strapped to the mule, along rough paths through the hills. At last he
was alone, unhampered, free to take the attitudes of prayer, free also
to whisper the words of his own tongue, which of late years he had
seldom used in ordinary intercourse with men.
Yet Fidá was not to end his devotions as he had begun them. He was
standing with eyes cast down, repeating the _Subhán_:
“Holiness to thee, O God!
And praise be to thee!
Great is thy name,
Great is thy greatness;
There is no deity but thee!”
when a figure suddenly appeared in the doorway, and the captive’s words
were stopped short as he met the eyes of Rai-Khizar-Pál, his conqueror.
So amazed was he that Fidá forgot to kneel or to give any sign of
abasement. Thus they stood, gazing each at the other. Perhaps some
mute message was carried from the slave to the master; for the Rajah’s
expression little by little softened, till at length he asked quietly:
“What is it thou doest here, Asra?”
Fidá bent his head. “Mighty lord, I prayed.”
The Rajah smiled slightly, lifted one of his hands to the curtain
beside him, grasped it, and settled into an easier position. “Thou art
not a good servant, Asra,” he observed at last.
“It has not hitherto been my place to serve, O King.”
There was another pause, while the Rajah’s eyes travelled around the
room. “Thou hast slept here?”
“Yes.”
“And why? Knowest thou not the house of slaves?”
For a second Fidá hesitated. Then he answered, “Too well I knew it,
Lord Rajah.”
“What sayest thou?”
“Thou, O King—wouldst thou lie among the base born?”
“_I!_—I am Kshatriya! Among you there is no caste.”
“There is pride.”
Rai-Khizar laughed. “Thou’st a tongue, slave. It were my duty to have
thee whipped. But this day is a day devoted to the gods. Begone, then.
Get thee a morning meal and wait for a message from me. Yet remember
this, my Asra: here there is no prince but me. If thou anger me, I
shall have thee killed.”
“You dare not!” rose to Fidá’s lips, but he checked the words; for it
was indeed time that he learned his place. And he stood with lowered
head as the Rajah turned away and left him.
This encounter strongly affected Fidá’s state of mind. Reconsidering
the conversation, he perceived that he stood the debtor of the man
whose slave he had become—an infidel dog, a worshipper of images and
Jinn. It could not be denied that Rai-Khizar’s toleration was greater
than that of any Arab chief; and Fidá felt bitterly the humiliation of
his leniency. Yet in all the Rajah’s mildness there had been a dignity
that inspired in the Mohammedan an unwilling admiration and respect.
Perfunctorily, Fidá finished his prayers, and then acted upon the first
of the two commands of his master:—he left the palace in search of
food. It was some time, however, before he found it, and then only in
the house of slaves, where a number of his fellows were beginning the
morning meal. Among them was Ahmed, who sat a little apart from the
chattering herd, apparently watching for some one. At sight of Fidá he
rose eagerly and ran forward, greeting him with marks of respect which
the Asra reproved. Then the boy led the way into the interior of the
dirty, barren house, in the centre of which was a wood fire, overhung
by a large iron pot filled with a bubbling mass of millet. Near by, on
a stand, was an immense bowl of clarified butter, or “ghee”, which,
mixed with the meal, formed the staple as well as the sacrificial food
of the low-caste Hindoo throughout India. Fidá waited in silence while
Ahmed handily procured him a dish of the none too appetizing mess. And
then, eager to escape the vile and smoky air of the interior, the two
hurried out into the shaded veranda, while the other slaves were eating.
It was now a not unpleasant scene that the captives looked upon. The
day was hot, gay with sunshine and the chatter of birds, sweet with the
perfume of the jessamine vines, which were still covered with flowers.
The slave-house faced the angle of the palace formed by the juncture
of the central building and the south wing. Directly opposite them
was a long, wooden-pillared arcade called the veranda, running the
length of the wing. It was covered with flowering vines, and furnished
like a great room, with cushions and stands and hangings in place of
more customary frescoes. In the end that faced the central courtyard,
invisible from without, was a temple room, the priests of which seemed
to spend the greater part of their lives lounging on mats in the
fragrant veranda. In this same side of the palace lodged Manava’s suite
and Purán’s; and at the end of all was a wooden barracks, where the
soldiers were now just waking from the sleep induced by last night’s
festivity. A group of these hung about the well, which stood between
the house of slaves and their domicile, waiting their turn for water.
There was a general splashing and shouting, little laughter, but also
no swearing, for the Hindoo is always clean-mouthed.
From their vantage-point, Ahmed and Fidá, observing this life, found
themselves entertained; for all the human nature of the palace
found vent here. The two captives lingered over their meal, talking
generally; and presently Fidá remarked on the number of slaves who had
been passing and repassing near them. Ahmed answered him at once:
“There are more than three hundred employed here—including eunuchs, who
do not sleep in this house. I have been made a sweeper. This morning
the slave-master, Kanava, roused me at dawn, gave me a broom of dried
kusa grass and sent me, with nine others, to sweep the corridors of the
north wing.”
“Then thou hast had little enough sleep. Go, therefore, lie down and
rest while I sit here. By my life, I would I knew what my duties are to
be. No one orders me about. I am given no instructions. I have not even
seen this Kanava.”
“Ah, dear lord, to think that thou must serve! He—Look. There is a stir
opposite.”
Two slaves had entered the veranda of the south wing, and went running
down it, shouting, as they went, some unintelligible words. At the
sound, men came pouring out of the interior rooms, and turned in the
direction of the courtyard, whither, in a moment or two, there moved a
long procession of priests, soldiers, and petty officials. The last of
these had not yet disappeared when every rear doorway and opening in
the main building near by began to let forth slaves, who came toward
their particular house in a straggling group of almost two hundred.
“It is a big sacrifice,” observed Fidá, who was familiar enough with
Indian customs to know that no Sudra can participate in the service of
the gods.
“Yes, early this morning there stood erected in the courtyard a great
altar, to which many men were bringing fagots and flowers. It will be
an animal sacrifice also; for a dozen sacred cows were tethered in an
enclosure there when I passed through.”
“The animal sacrifice is not common. I have never seen one. It must be
in honor of victory.”
Ahmed did not answer. His eyes were fixed on a man who had come out
of the palace alone and was running toward the slave-house. “That is
Kanava,” he whispered, as the man drew near. Fidá beheld a cruel face,
marked with lines of habitual ill-temper and impatience, and rendered
doubly unpleasant by the deep pock-marks which pitted it everywhere.
His dress was that of the common slaves; but the band about his head
was of beaten silver. At his appearance the clamor in the slave-house
suddenly ceased. Ahmed jumped to his feet, but Fidá remained seated,
his empty bowl in his lap. Kanava scowled at the breach of respect, and
shouted:
“Up, slave! Up! You are summoned. Come!”
Fidá rose obediently, went to the first opening in the trellis, and
stepped to Kanava’s side. Together they started toward the palace, and
the groups left behind looked after Fidá, with new respect; for, though
he had been rash, Kanava had neither struck nor abused him, and was
now, moreover, walking not in front of him, but at his side.
As they neared the palace, Fidá’s curiosity as to their errand rose.
But he would ask no questions, and Kanava did not offer information. So
in silence they entered the palace, walked down long corridors to the
audience hall, now cleared of every trace of last night’s festivity,
and finally to the threshold of the outer door, where, without a
word, Kanava turned and left the Asra standing stock-still before a
remarkable scene.
He had but an instant’s view of the thing in its entirety:—a vast,
close-packed sea of people, garlanded, decked, nay robed, in the
brightest flowers; in the centre of the living mass a high, square
altar, piled with firewood; and surrounding the altar, ranged in
symmetrical order, twelve sacred cows, twelve accompanying priests,
and twelve huge, earthen jars. All this Fidá took in at one, swift
glance. The next instant a universal shout arose, and he was seized and
drawn through the crowd, which opened for him, by two young Brahmans,
naked except for loin-cloths and the sacred cord. In a moment Fidá
was beside the altar, where stood the Rajah, flaming with jewels, and
Ragunáth, scarcely less magnificent. Here, without a moment’s delay,
the bewildered captive was taken in hand by two snatakas, and bound,
hand and foot, with ropes. Then, as at some signal, the twelve priests
began to chant those verses of the Rig-Veda that are designed for the
great Srahda sacrifice. The crowd was silent now. There was not a
whisper; there was scarcely a movement among them all. The twelve gray
cows stood, as if long accustomed to such sights, mildly surveying
the people. Fidá felt himself like them. He was stunned into perfect
tranquillity. His eyes wandered aimlessly; he listened without interest
to the words of the chant. He counted the number of flowers in the
garland round the neck of the nearest cow. And all the time his mind
was really circling about one idea, too horrible to be faced. For he
had no doubt that he was to be the first offering in that triumphal
sacrifice. This was the reason for Ragunáth’s evasion about his ransom.
This was the explanation of Rai-Khizar’s mildness. Fidá looked toward
the Rajah, whose eyes were fixed reverently on the ground. The next
instant, however, he had caught Ragunáth’s glance, and the minister
was smiling at him—a small, cruel, white-toothed smile, a smile like
a grimace, that sent a sudden bolt through Fidá’s heart. Ragunáth
could smile upon him in his death-hour! In that moment hatred was born
in the Arab:—a hatred for this man, which, through all their future
intercourse, never lessened and was never still.
At length the chant came to an end. Fidá felt a breath of relief; for
self-control was becoming difficult. Now, at last, he was seized by the
stalwart young Brahmans and lifted, like a log of wood, up and up till
he was laid on his back on top of the great heap of unlit firewood.
A hoarse shout went up from the people gathered below. Fidá’s heart
throbbed to suffocation. His hair was literally rising on his head; but
he made no movement, nor did he utter any sound. Even in his horror he
remembered the behavior of women enduring the suttee, and the memory
shamed him into stillness. Under the fierce rays of the sun, now in
mid-sky, he closed his eyes and waited—waited for the first crackling
flame to leap upon his flesh. Evidently the time for this had not yet
come. Again the priests were praying those endless, senseless, Vedic
prayers, to Indra, to Vishnu, to Agni—Agni, the fire-god. How long
he lay upon the pyre Fidá did not know. It was at once a century and
a second. Then the voices of the priests were still. Once more he
was seized by the head and the feet and lifted to the ground. There
his ropes were cut. He was free again. Trembling and faint, he found
himself facing the King’s minister, who was smiling at him still.
“The captive did not know,” he murmured, “that our sacrifices are
bloodless.”
Fidá felt himself redden, and the next instant met the eyes of the
Rajah, who was staring at him in amazement: “Knew you not? told they
you not? Didst fear such a death? It was a needless fear. Human blood
stains not the altars of our gods. You, the foremost of our captives,
were laid upon the altar of Indra as a sign that we attribute all our
victories to him. That ceremony is over. You are free to depart from
the sacrifice.” And, with a friendly gesture, the Rajah turned away
again, and Fidá knew himself dismissed.
It was not now so easy a task to force his way through the dense
crowd; for this time they did not voluntarily make way for him. He was
fiercely possessed with the desire, however, to escape from this mob
who had been unconscious witnesses of what he felt to be his cowardice.
And, after a persistent pushing and edging, he found himself beyond
the people and in front of that doorway where he had dismounted the
night before. Here Ragunáth had stood and watched him, but had not then
read his soul; or, if he had, had found there nothing of which an Asra
might be ashamed. Now!—Coward or not, that Asra was leaning up against
the palace wall, gone very faint, even his knees trembling with the
reaction of a strain that had been greater than he realized.
He remained standing here for a long time, regaining command of
himself, and, afterward, attracted by the spectacle before him. The
wood on the altar had been lighted, and a hot, wavering flame leaped
high in the centre of the garland-strewn multitude. Into this fire went
the contents of the jars that had stood at the base of the altar:—four
of fine, ground meal, four of ghee, and four of strained honey. From
this sacrificial mess arose a thick smoke; but the odor that came from
it was, surprisingly enough, decidedly agreeable; for the meal and
butter had been so skilfully treated with aromatics that the natural
smell of burning vegetable and grease had been overcome. The sacrifice
was of course accompanied by a continuous high and musical chant from
the priests. Chapter after chapter of the Vedas they repeated without
halt or break. Prayers were sent up to every Vedic god: to Vishvakarma,
the all-maker, to Varuna and Mitra, to Agni, to Surya, to Yama, to
the Ashvins, brothers of dawn and twilight, to Rudra, the storm-god,
and Vivasat, the father of death. The sacred cattle were offered to
Prishni, the holy cow of heaven; and, their spirits being accepted
by a sign in the flame, they were led away to resume their duties in
the great temple at the other end of the plateau. Finally, at the
conclusion of the ceremony, the last god was introduced: he who, for
many centuries, had played the great rôle in this ceremonial: Soma,
lord of the moon, and lord of drunkennesses, whose name is that of the
plant from which the powerful, sacred liquor is distilled. And at the
first pronouncing of this name, the sacrifice was interrupted by the
arrival of fifty slaves, who made their appearance from the great hall,
bearing on their heads jars of the liquid to be quaffed to the great
ones above. They were greeted by a long, loud murmur of anticipatory
joy, such as no lavish display of meal or cattle could ever call forth
from the crowd. And now at last Fidá, too well aware of what was to
follow, turned from the courtyard down the corridor through which he
had passed on the previous night, on his way to Ragunáth’s rooms.
He walked slowly along the cool, dim hall, the silence of which was
refreshing. Evidently there was not a single soul in this part of
the palace; and for an instant there rose in the mind of the captive
a wild idea of escape. He was here, alone, unseen—and hundreds of
miles away from his uncle’s army, hundreds of miles from any possible
safety. Sanity returned as quickly as it had left him, but bringing
a new heaviness on his spirit. He came presently to the passage
that led to Ragunáth’s rooms; and, looking down it, perceived that
it ended in a bright patch of sunlight, marking an inner court.
Instinctively he turned thither, finding himself presently on the
edge of a charming little three-cornered courtyard, shut in on every
side by vine-clad walls. Opposite the passage ran a veranda, overrun
with passion-flowers; and in a corner near by rose a group of small
tamarinds. The courtyard was unpaved, but in the centre of it stood a
little fountain of clear, bubbling spring-water. This place, like the
corridor, was without a sign of life; but, pleased with its homelike,
pleasant air, Fidá entered it, suddenly seized with a sense of
unfamiliar delight.
As if in answer to his appearance, a door across from him was opened,
and out upon the veranda, and thence into the court, came a young
woman, unveiled, dressed in pale, flowing silk, her hips bound with a
striped sash, of the broad Indian fashion, her dark hair twined with
purple clematis. She was humming to herself a little tune; and as she
hummed, she swayed her lithe body from side to side and stepped as a
dancer does. Fidá drew a sharp breath. She was the woman who had danced
the night before. She was Ahalya, youngest wife of Rai-Khizar-Pál.
She was—the fairest creature that Fidá’s eyes had ever looked upon.
As he drew quickly back into the shadow of the doorway, he knew, as
one knows things in dreams and visions, that it was her spirit filling
this place that had made it dear to him. Oblivious of himself, he stood
gazing at her while she came to the fountain, sat down upon its brim,
and dabbled her hands in the cool water, smiling to herself the while,
reminiscently.
Presently, lifting her eyes, she looked full upon Fidá, and, startled
out of her composure, jumped to her feet, and then stood still again,
uncertain whether she wished to run or not. Fidá advanced matters by
walking forward into the courtyard again and performing a deep salaam
before her. She saw the metal circlet on his head, knew him for a
slave, and yet lifted up her voice and spoke to him. What manner of
woman could she be!
“Who art thou? What is thy name?” she asked, surprising herself by her
unpremeditated boldness. The beauty of her voice, however, made the
slave’s senses swim anew.
“My name is Fidá. I come from Yemen. And my race is the race of Asra—”
he looked into her eyes, and his voice sank to a whisper, as he added
involuntarily, “who must die if they cherish love!”
The girl started slightly; but she did not move while he looked at her,
her white face, her deep, heavy-lidded eyes with their long, black
fringes, and the slender white throat left uncovered by her dress.
Presently she spoke again, more timidly: “Thou’rt a captive—brought
home from war by my lord?”
“I am a captive. I am the slave of thy lord. May Allah pity me!” And
this last was drawn from him not by the thought of his captivity, but
by the sight of her surpassing loveliness.
Ahalya’s expression softened and grew wistful. “I am a captive too,”
she said. “I was born in Iran.”
“The land of roses! I have been in Iran. We passed through it on our
long march from Yemen. And we rested in Teheran, where our people have
made treaties with the Shah.”
He hoped to see her eyes brighten when he spoke of her country. But
she only gazed dreamily beyond him and answered: “I do not remember
it—Teheran. I was a baby when my mother brought me into this land. She
was in the house of the King of Dhár, and from there I was married to
the King of Mandu.—But thou must go, Asra! Thou’lt be—killed if they
find thee here.”
“Nay, lady!” Fidá suddenly fell upon one knee. “Let me stay but another
moment. Thou—thou hast made captivity so fair to me!”
“Hush, Asra! Go quickly. Indeed, indeed, I would not have thee harmed.”
She drew back from him, and he, coming suddenly to his senses, rose and
turned away. Yet before he reached the doorway he had twice looked back
at her, and each time found her facing him, her great eyes shining, a
half smile trembling round her lips.
Fidá reached the corridor on fire. It was as if he had been drinking
Soma. His blood raced in his veins. His heart pounded. His hands
were cold. Yet he was not too much distraught to hear the sound of
some one approaching in the corridor; and, with a quick sense of
self-protection, he slipped into the nearest doorway, and concealed
himself behind the hangings of Ragunáth’s antechamber.
The newcomer had come down the passage; and Fidá, peering cautiously
out, perceived, with a start, that it was Ragunáth who was
approaching—Ragunáth, the mild, the temperate, who had left the Soma
sacrifice and come hither alone, to seek—quiet? To Fidá’s surprise and
momentary relief, he passed his own doorway, and went on toward the
little courtyard. And now the slave, suddenly forgetting himself in his
interest in the movements of the man he hated, stepped full into the
passage and watched. In the courtyard Ahalya was still seated beside
the fountain; but at sight of Ragunáth she rose hastily.
“She was here to watch for him!” thought Fidá; and he clenched his
hands at the thought.
Ragunáth went up to the princess and bowed before her as profoundly as
Fidá himself had bowed. Evidently, at the same time, he spoke. Ahalya,
however, began at once to move backward, away from him, he following
her by degrees, till they had proceeded clear across the court. And
then, suddenly, at the veranda step, the young woman turned around, and
literally ran into the women’s apartments, whither none could follow
her.
Ragunáth would be coming back now, and Fidá perceived the necessity for
a quick escape. In a moment or two he was back in the broad corridor;
and, looking round the angle into the passage, saw Ragunáth come slowly
in from the court and enter his own rooms. From the man’s walk Fidá
read enough to satisfy him. “She was not waiting,” he thought; and
at the idea his spirits rose dizzily. Yet, after all, in this last
pleasant surmise he was wrong.
CHAPTER III
AHALYA
Short of breath, flushed of face, and discomposed in temper, the Ranee
Ahalya entered her day-room after the brief interview with Ragunáth.
As she appeared, a girl, who sat on some cushions at the side of the
room, working at a piece of embroidery, rose and bowed, and then asked
eagerly:
“Did he come?”
Ahalya flung herself down on the broad divan that ran across the end
of the room under the screened windows. “Yes, he came,” she said,
petulantly. Then, after a moment’s reflection, she added: “I hate him,
Neila.”
“Did he—what did he say?” asked the handmaid, forgetting her work as
she watched her mistress.
“I don’t know what he said. How should I? I did not think of him. But I
think he dishonors the gods. They were all at sacrifice, and he stole
away because he does not like Soma. Nor is it good,” she added, with a
touch of sympathy.
“But he is a man, and should have a man’s tastes.”
Ahalya shrugged her shoulders, and the two of them were silent for a
few minutes, Neila waiting patiently for the mystery that she knew her
lady would reveal—in time. Presently, indeed, the Ranee began to speak,
in a low, reflective tone as if she were merely thinking aloud. “In
all those months when my lord and the rest were away, fighting, I have
thought many times of Ragunáth, who was kind to me at my first coming
here. I thought I should be happy when he came again. I wanted him to
come. And oh, Neila, thou knowest the days have been long and lonely,
and I have been sick for Dhár and for my mother. My lord is very tender
of me, and I know that he is good. But he is not young and beautiful
to look on. His eyes are not bright nor do his lips smile when he sees
me. And Ragunáth seemed younger and more in love with life. Last night,
when I danced the poppy dance, it was for him. But, Neila, I have
perceived that he is not a man. He makes me think of a snake, with his
shiny eyes and his long, still hands. He does not burn with an honest
fire.—Ugh, I hate him! So will I tell my lord.”
“Thou wilt not, Lady Ahalya! Thou darest not tell the Rajah you have
seen this man! We should all be killed!” Neila sprang to her feet, her
work dropping unheeded, while she stared at her mistress, who lay,
hands clasped above her head, staring off into space, nor gave the
slightest heed to her companion’s fear. Thus Neila presently returned
to her place and took up her work again, not without anxiety in her
eyes; for the service of the youngest wife of the Lord of Mandu was,
to say the least, no monotonous life. Ahalya was as erratic and as
reckless as an existence of stifled loneliness can make a young,
brilliant, and impulsive nature. And this very careless openness,
mingled as it was with a singularly pure and unsuspicious nature, had
won a place for her with every one, from the King of Mandu down to the
humblest eunuch of the zenana. She was even tolerated by Malati, the
oldest wife, who had been born a Brahman. And than this nothing more
can be said.
For some moments Ahalya continued to smile into space; which smile,
considering her just-avowed aversion to Ragunáth, Neila was decidedly
at a loss to interpret. Then Ahalya asked:
“Neila, have any of the slaves told thee anything concerning the
captives brought home in the Rajah’s train?”
“Yes, Kasya spoke to me of one of them, who has been made the King’s
cup-bearer. He presumes greatly on his station; for last night he would
not even sleep in the slave-house, but lay on the divan in one of the
Rajah’s antechambers, sleeping like a god. This man was a prince of his
race:—At—Ak—I cannot remember—”
“Asra,” put in Ahalya, quietly.
“Asra! ’Tis that!”
Ahalya sat suddenly up and leaned forward a little. “Kasya told you
this! Said he more? What will they do with him? Will he be ransomed?”
“The captive, madam?” Neila, so used to her mistress’s whims, was still
surprised at this one. “I do not know what they will do with him. Kasya
did not tell me. He was offered on Indra’s altar to-day—being by birth
Kshatriya, and the chief of the captives.”
“Yes. He is a prince. Neila, I have seen this man.”
“Seen him! Oh, Ranee, Ranee, be careful! Why, he is a slave! If he were
seen speaking with thee—they would burn him!”
Ahalya laughed joyously. “None saw him but me. He came before Ragunáth.
And, Neila, he told me a strange thing. He said: ‘I come from Yemen;
and my race is the race of Asra, who must die if they cherish love!’
What could he mean by that? To die because one loved! I should not die,
I think. Neila, Neila, _he_ was young, and his eyes shone. Neila!
I am lonely! Go bring to me the young Bhavani. Say to him that I will
tell him the tale he loves most to hear: of Prince Arjuna and the great
bow and the beautiful Princess Draupadi.” Ahalya smiled. “Go tell him,
Neila, and put away that endless work of thine.”
Obediently the girl rose, left her embroidery lying on the cushions,
and went out of the room. When she was gone, Ahalya stretched herself
still more lazily on her divan, closed her eyes to the light, and,
as if she saw with her mind things more beautiful than real, smiled
slightly, and began to sing the swaying melody of the poppy dance.
About her was a perfect stillness. Not a sound, not so much as the
tones of women’s voices from the interior of the zenana, penetrated to
her solitude. Perhaps her reverie was broken by the silence, but she
only smiled the more; for it had come to be an uncanny habit with her
to smile through her loneliest and saddest hours. Only at those rare
times when joy or interest lifted her out of herself did her face show
all the strength and purity of its melancholy beauty. Her heritage from
her mother was a self-defence of constant concealment, and a kind of
inward cynicism, which, never revealed on the surface, was nevertheless
constantly nourished and strengthened by the many humiliations of her
existence. Just now she was considering her performance of the evening
before, and the results of it, when, after she had left the theatre,
her lord had come to her in great anger, expecting tears, repentance,
and abasement from her, and had got only petulance, rebellion, and
remorseless laughter, so that finally, worked into a fierce rage,
he had left her alone to wake to a realization of her offence. This
realization had by no means come; and she fully expected the Rajah to
appear before her that evening humbly craving favor; for experience
had taught her that she need never be the first to surrender.
Rai-Khizar-Pál loved her far more dearly than she, unhappy child,
cared for him, grave, honorable, and just as he was; and it was to her
carelessness of favor and the consummate skill with which she let that
carelessness be known, that the Lady Ahalya owed the favoritism she
enjoyed and the rooms she lived in.
These rooms were the choicest in the zenana. They consisted of a tiny
suite of three, opening from a passage that led directly into the main
palace. The first of them was an antechamber, heavily spread with
rugs, walled with carved wood brought from Ceylon, and lighted day and
night by a single crimson lamp suspended from the ceiling. The second
room, in which Ahalya now lay, was a light and pleasant place, its
floors covered with silken rugs, the walls frescoed gayly with birds
and flowers, the furniture and the thousand ornaments it contained all
of the costliest variety, and, at the end farthest from the windows,
a little shrine to Rahda, the Lady of Love. The last room, accessible
only through the other two, was the sleeping-room, its walls hidden by
silken hangings of pale purple and gold; its couch covered with cloth
of gold; the chests to hold the Ranee’s garments, of precious woods
inlaid with ivory and pearl, lined with sandal-wood; and teak-wood
toiletstands displaying mirrors, brushes, perfumes, and cosmetics
wherewith a woman might be beautified:—a heavily gilded room indeed,
and one in which Ahalya spent little time.
Beyond these apartments of the favorite wife, across the whole length
of this inner palace wing, stretched a long, narrow room, furnished
with every luxury that Indian ingenuity could devise. This was the
women’s day-room,—their common lounging-place,—where wife and slave
met together in free converse. Around it were ranged the rooms of the
other wives: Malati’s, where the young Bhavani, Rai-Khizar-Pál’s only
son, the heir of Mandu, lodged with his mother; Bhimeg’s the Kshatriya
woman’s; and those of Chundoor, the despised Sudra wife. At the end of
the wing, farthest from the palace, lived the women slaves; and beyond
was a separate house for the eunuchs. Such was the zenana, in the days
of Indian rule in Mandu: a place full of life and color and sound; of
interminable jealousy, strife, and bitterness; a place which only one
man ever entered; he on whom all these women must expend the human love
and fidelity that lay seething in their hearts.
In the meantime, to Ahalya, waiting on her couch, came Neila, bringing
with her a lad ten years old, shaggy-headed, with big, black eyes,
and a sturdy figure, who went up and kissed the Ranee affectionately.
His eyes were bright with excitement as he cried to her: “Alaha!
Alaha!” (it was his name for her), “I have been riding to-day! Kasya
put me upon a horse, and we went almost to the old temple and back.
And—and I am to go every day now!” Trained studiously to the dignity
of his birth, he gave little active sign of his pleasure; but his face
expressed his delight, and Ahalya, more demonstrative than he, threw
her arms about him and laughed in sympathy.
“Beautiful, Bhavani! Beautiful! Now thou wilt soon be given a bow; and
then—”
“Then I shall really go and contend in the games before the beautiful
Draupadi!”
“Yes. Shall we play it now? You will be Arjuna, and these cushions your
horse. Pile them up! Pile them up!”
“Yes, and you are Draupadi, there on the divan, and I will ride before
you and contend with—with—”
“Neila!” cried Ahalya: “Neila! Where are you? There,” as the girl came
in at the door, “Neila, if you please, you are all the other princes
contending for my hand in the royal games. You are four of the sons of
Pandu, and the hundred sons of Hastinapura, and—”
“And I am to wrestle with you, and shoot you, and kill all of you,
Neila! And it will be splendid!”
And, Neila smilingly consenting to the slaughter, the game began. For
half an hour the contest raged fiercely; and finally Ahalya herself
came down from her throne to be killed by the all-conquering one. But
at last, when the little room looked as if a devastating army had
passed through it, the sport came to an end, and Ahalya and the little
boy sat down together to rest, while the untiring Neila began the task
of setting things to rights. It was then that Ahalya’s turn came, and
she lost no time in beginning:—
“Bhavani, hast seen thy father to-day?”
“Yes! Oh, yes! He left the Soma sacrifice to see me ride!”
“Was he—was he in a glad humor? Asked he of me?”
Neila paused in her labors to hear the answer to this question.
“He was very glad and gay. He gave me a piece of silver for sitting
straight on my horse. But—dear ’Laha, I think he did not ask for you.”
“And said he naught of any one else?”
“Of whom? Oh, but he just talked about me, and my riding, and how in a
few years I should go to war with him.”
Ahalya laughed, but not with her eyes. “Well, I am tired now. I am
going to sleep, Bhavani. Therefore run away. See what a mess we have
made of the room! Run away.”
“But—I may come again soon, to play Arjuna?”
“Oh, yes.”
“To-morrow?” wistfully.
“Yes. But go now, Bhavani.”
Obediently and reluctantly, Bhavani went.
When he was gone, Neila and Ahalya found themselves looking at each
other intently. “He will surely come this evening,” said the slave. “He
cannot stay away longer.”
Ahalya flushed and frowned. “I do not want him to come,” she said. “I
am tired. I am going to sleep now. Do not wake me till the evening
meal is ready.” And the Ranee forthwith disappeared into her bedroom,
pulling the purple hangings across the doorway behind her so that Neila
could not see, as she lay on her bed, whether she slept or not.
Rai-Khizar-Pál did not come that evening, nor the next day, nor the
next. And by the third afternoon Ahalya was secretly very anxious.
Nothing ever went unknown for twenty-four hours in the zenana: that
place whose inmates had nothing to do all day long but discuss each
other; and for two days now nothing had been talked of in the common
day-room but the favorite’s fall from favor. The Lord Rajah had been
at home from his campaign nearly four days and had seen Ahalya in
that time only once! Glory to Krishna! Who would get her place? On
the afternoon of the fourth day Ahalya, braving the worst, appeared
in the day-room. The chill of humiliation that met her was expected,
but none the less hard to endure. Malati, when profoundly saluted,
set the example for the room by barely noticing the Ranee. The very
slave-girls laughed at her as she passed them; and only Chundoor, the
Sudra woman, offered to make room for her. Ahalya, however, had not yet
come to passing a whole morning with a person of low caste; nor yet was
she to be driven from the day-room because Rai-Khizar-Pál was offended
with her for the poppy dance. After her one bow to Malati, who, as
oldest wife, was entitled to it, she walked once round the room,
leisurely chose out a pile of cushions apart from the general groups,
settled herself with inimitable, lazy grace, despatched one eunuch for
sweetened rose-water, commanded another to fan her, gave orders to
three or four more, and, when she had made herself important enough,
caused Neila to bring in a tray of toilet articles and begin to shape
and polish her nails. While Neila worked, she lay perfectly still,
surveying the company near by in a supercilious manner, and giving her
rivals ample opportunity to realize that, try as they would, not one of
them could ever approach her in beauty, in grace, or in charm.
By this time the whole room was in a ferment of disdain and concealed
envy. Suddenly, as if the excitement had not been already great enough
for one morning, Rai-Khizar-Pál appeared on the threshold, and looked
eagerly down the room. Every head was turned to him: Ahalya’s too, but
leisurely, and with an indifference that was noticeable. Scarcely did
she take the trouble to lift her eyelids, as the Rajah came slowly
forward. Her husband’s eyes were busy, however, during his ceremonious
progress; and he read a deal of history in that walk. It would have
been impossible for him not to have made the comparison between Ahalya
and those from whom she had so studiously withdrawn herself. Beside
their dark, heavy, sensual faces, hers, in its clear-cut, Persian
fairness, stood out as a rose among thistles, as gold beside brass.
This morning, after three days without her, the Rajah appreciated her
more keenly than usual; and, before her indifference, his displeasure
melted like mist in the sun. Stopping to speak with no one else,
he went to her, amid a sensible but scarcely audible murmur of
disappointment. Ahalya looked up only when he bent over her; but she
smiled at him for greeting, and he asked nothing better.
“My lotus-flower! My heart’s delight!” he said, gazing thirstily at
her fair face. “Ahalya! Thou wilt dance no more nautch dances at the
theatre?”
For a moment she seemed to hesitate. Then, because she had had enough
of playing for the time, she answered, truthfully enough: “Nay, lord.
I—am sorry that I danced the poppy dance.”
Rai-Khizar longed to take her in his arms; but this, in the face of all
the zenana, even he scarcely ventured to do. So, bending low over her,
he whispered:
“In two hours come to the marble bath, and we will eat together, alone,
by the fountain there. Make thyself beautiful for me, rose of Iran!—my
treasure!—my child!” Then, with the smile that he gave only to her, the
Rajah turned away, and left the room without speaking to any other in
it.
Ten minutes after he had gone Ahalya also departed, running the new
gantlet of hurt and angry glances with less indifference than she had
borne her humiliation an hour before. Her pride served her well in
trouble; but ill-natured jealousy always cut her to the quick; and she
had found but light armor against it.
Returning to her own room, she bathed, and let Neila dress her as the
Rajah commanded. Her garments were silken tissues of palest pink,
delicate as rose-petals. Her waist was girdled with gold and pearls;
and her hair braided and bound up with golden threads. When Neila
had finished her she was a picture, and she knew it, perhaps, though
she took small delight in it; for the unexpressed thought in her
heart was that she would have matched her raiment with her love; and
Rai-Khizar-Pál she loved as a father, as a venerable and powerful man;
her master, but never the lord of her heart.
The Rajah, however, was waiting her coming with very different
feelings; for he loved Ahalya as most men love only in early youth.
His delight in her was out of all proportion to his reserved and
conservative nature. On her he lavished the wealth of his treasury.
For her he would have sacrificed, without a thought, every other woman
in his zenana. And while her escapades and her insubordination never
failed to startle and hurt him, they only served, in the end, to bind
her more strongly to him by the chains of fascination and elusiveness.
The place where the two were to sup together was the Rajah’s favorite
retreat:—an open-roofed, white-colonnaded room, in the centre of which
was a broad, marble bathing-pool. Beside the water grew grasses and
flowers, carefully tended; and near at hand, on the marble pavement,
were piles of cushions, low stands, and all the articles of Oriental
furniture necessary to a retreat where even slaves were not allowed
to come without command. By night the marble terrace was lighted with
lamps placed on stands; and now, in a soft glow of rosy light, beside
an ebony table spread with choice dishes and rare wines, the Rajah lay,
appreciating the change of this miniature fairy-land from the rough
existence of camps and battle-fields; and waiting for that which should
put a finishing touch to his deep content.
She came, the Ranee of his soul, unattended, her delicate garments
floating about her like a cloud. At sight of her he exclaimed, and she
went to him, smiling and holding out her hands, secretly desirous that
he should not kiss her face. She had her wish. Scarcely daring to touch
her in her delicacy, he put her off at arm’s length, and gazed at her
in a kind of wonder that such a thing should be human.
“Beautiful one! My princess! Sit there and let me look at thee. Most
exquisite one! Art thou too frail to eat?” He smiled at his fears, and
began to lay before her the various dishes. “See, here are mangoes,
and figs, and tamarinds, and little custard apples. And here is a kid
cooked in sugar. And rice—and all these sauces. And there is a cup of
the wine of Iran, from thy mother’s land, beautiful one.”
With his own hands he served her, talking inconsequently, content
just to gaze upon her roseate presence. And Ahalya, who had been wont
to enjoy this patent adoration, sat wondering at herself that it had
become painful to her. She strove well to conceal her feeling, not
knowing what to make of it. And she ate, smiled, and praised the food
and wine, but could think of nothing else to say. She was dreading the
time that was coming; but she could not put it off. When both had eaten
enough, and when another jar of Persian wine had been opened for the
Rajah’s use, and Ahalya had washed her hands in a silver basin filled
with rose-water, Rai-Khizar lay back on his cushions, called the Ranee
to his side, and began tenderly:
“Thou’rt glad, beloved of mine, that I am returned to Mandu?”
Ahalya sighed. “I am glad,” she answered. “Oh—the days have been
dreary! The weeks would not pass. Loneliness hath killed my soul. Hath
my lord ever dreamed of the sadness of women’s lives when they are left
alone in the zenana?”
Rai-Khizar laughed, misunderstanding her words; but Ahalya flushed
with anger that he mocked her earnestness. Seeing her expression, his
changed at once. Laying one hand on hers, he said, gently:
“Thou hast been lonely, beautiful one? Tell me of it.”
“How can I tell thee, who hast not been a woman? There are we left, day
after day, hating and hated by those with whom we live. And we must
dress and powder and perfume, eat, drink, sew, and be content that we
have beds to sleep on by night and a prison to house us by day. If I
leave the palace and wander abroad in the fields, under the bright
sun, the women chatter and the slaves stare, and bearers must be at
my heels to carry me if I tire. I cannot sleep away my days. Rather I
would live like the Vaisya women, who are free to labor, and laugh, and
grow hungry and weary with their toil. The monotony, the idleness of
my life, kills my soul! It is for this I danced the poppy dance. It is
for this I sometimes sit for hours in the old, ruined temple of Surya,
watching the monkeys play in the cotton trees. It is for this I shout
and sing and tear to pieces my silken garments, and break the ivories
you bring me from the south. For I am not of Hindoo blood. My mother
came from free Iran, and I am also of that race. And here, in this
sleepy indolence, I suffer—I stifle—I die! There! Is it enough? Have I
told thee?”
She stopped, hot and eager with the feeling of her speech, to find
Rai-Khizar staring at her with troubled eyes. He gave her a long and
close scrutiny; and when he spoke it was only to say, in a quiet tone:
“Thou wilt do well to crush this spirit, Ahalya. I cannot make thee a
man;—nor would I if I could. Therefore, being a woman, thou must be
protected as one. Speak of this no more. Nay, listen, and I will tell
thee of our campaign, of the battle on the plain of Dhár, and of these
men of the west that are worthy warriors. Thou knowest, Ahalya, that,
hundreds of seasons ago, there came, over the snow-clad mountains of
the north, a great host, led by one called Mahmoud of Ghazni. They
came, in the name of their one God, to conquer our country; and though
many hundreds of times Indians and Rajputs drove them back, they have
persevered, and are now masters of the north and east. In Lahore, their
kings have ruled for generations; and now a slave sits on the throne of
the new Kingdom of Delhi.[2] And out of Delhi a fresh horde has come
for the conquest of Malwa. Beyond the walls of Dhár we met them in
battle; and, by Indra and Vishnu, we routed them well! I have brought
back in my train the nephew of their leader; and I think it will be
long ere Omar crosses the Vindhyas to get him back!”
“Thou hast brought home the nephew of their leader! What glory for
thee! Is he to be ransomed?”
[2] Aybek, a slave of Mahommad-Ghori, founded the present Kingdom of
Delhi.
“No, by my life! I like the fellow, and I have made him my cup-bearer.
He pleases me with his manner. He is like thee:—rebellious. Why, look
you, on the first night of his captivity he slept in one of my rooms
here—would not go into the house of slaves, and so put me to the blush
for asking a prince to demean himself, that I have granted him a bed in
one of the antechambers near my sleeping-room. Also, yesterday, at the
noon meal, he ceased to fill my cup after the second jar was empty. I
asked him why he failed in his duty, and he answered that he did not
fail, but was, rather, careful of my welfare:—that the gods had made
kings to be examples to their people; and that a drunken king bred
drunkenness in his subjects!”
Ahalya’s eyes shone. “And thou—what didst thou, my lord?”
“I gave the fellow ten lashes for his impertinence. But I like him, and
I shall keep him in my service.”
“Keep a prince for thy slave, lord?”
“Whoorroo, Ahalya! Thou hast his tongue to-night. Come; I am weary of
talking. Dance for me—the poppy dance, if thou wilt, now we are alone.”
Ahalya rose submissively, and poised herself, while the Rajah lay back
in deep comfort on his pillows. She was a beautiful dancer when she
chose to dance; and she could hum her own music, beating the rhythm
with her feet as she swayed slowly from one posture to another. But
she did not dance the poppy dance to-night. She only made a series of
tableaux that would have delighted the soul of an artist, and which
fully satisfied the eyes of the Rajah. Ahalya circled round him like
some broad-winged bird, moving more and more lightly, becoming more and
more cloudlike to his stilling senses. And presently when, out of her
gauzy mist, the Ranee looked at him, she perceived that his eyes were
closed and that his breath was coming deeply and regularly.
Ahalya experienced a sudden feeling of relief. He slept. His sleep
would wear the night away. She was free to go. Joyously, softly,
swiftly, she passed out of that room and the next; but in the
antechamber beyond she paused. Three or four rooms and a passage lay
between her and the zenana. These she appeared to be in no haste to
traverse. Halting indecisively, she stood looking about her as if in
search of something—or some one; and her brow was drawn in meditation.
Then, all at once, she started, not in the direction of her apartments,
but through another door that led off into a long range of rooms,
little used, in one of which the captive slave of Rai-Khizar-Pál had
had the audacity to sleep on the first night of his coming to Mandu;
and the use of which the lenient Rajah had afterward granted him. As
she continued on her way, Ahalya’s excitement and her speed increased
until she was fairly running along, her eyes, meantime, swiftly
examining each room as soon as she entered it. At last, when her breath
had become panting, and her color unnaturally brilliant; when, as it
would seem, she began to realize what she was doing, she reached, by
her devious route, the antechamber to the zenana, where an eunuch stood
on guard. And he stared in amazement at her flushed and frowning face
as she hurried past him into her voluntary captivity.
It was as well that the Ranee Ahalya sought her sleep that night
without having peered out of her screened windows into the inner court;
for had she done so, she might have found by accident that which she
had unsuccessfully sought. For, till a very late hour that night, Fidá,
the slave, risking his life, crouched in the shadow of the fountain of
that court, watching, with burning eyes, the glow of a single lamp that
shone in the Lady Ahalya’s rooms: a lamp which, though he knew it not,
was never extinguished. And so, when weariness finally overcame him, he
crept away without learning whether or not the lady of his dreams was
sleeping behind her imprisoning walls.
CHAPTER IV
THE ASRA RUBY
It was some time past midnight when Fidá, baffled and exhausted,
returned to his antechamber, and, wrapping himself in his white cloak,
lay down on the floor. Weary as he was, he could not sleep at once, but
lay for a little while thinking profitlessly on what he had done. Fate
had twice given him that which he had not sought. But now, trying to
circumvent Fate, he had been doubly defeated; for, had he been where
he should that evening, Ahalya, in her reckless search, must have
come upon him. This, happily, he did not know; but he was none the
less unrighteously angry at his failure to find out something, even
the smallest, of her habits. _Her_ habits! Reason, which he had
persistently smothered, rose up against him, and began to lay before
him certain grim truths. This woman, of whom his nearly every waking
thought was now composed, was a Ranee—a queen, a wife. To her he was
an outcast, and yet he had dared to lift his thoughts to her. Fool
that he was, he had got himself into a state men called love! What
love could be more unholy than his? She was a Ranee. But, argued his
other self, he was himself a prince by birth, and the actual head of
a great race. Nevertheless, this race of his was a strangely unhappy
one; and he, Fidá, had, all his life till now, persistently avoided
women; for to his family women were fatal. He had taken the highest
pride in his reputation for coldness, for chastity, for temperance.
At sixteen he had left Yemen to put himself under the guardianship of
his uncle,—a power at the court of Delhi; and, upon his departure for
India, he had vowed lifelong devotion to the extension of the Prophet’s
power; and had determined to allow no human temptation to conquer him.
This present matter, however, he protested, was no temptation. It was
even most unlikely that he should see the woman again, considering the
difference in their present stations. Nevertheless, after a little more
chaotic thinking, Fidá took from a certain secure hiding-place in his
vestment a tiny golden box, scarcely half an inch square, fastened by a
minute spring. Without opening it, he clasped this box closely to his
breast; and, as if it held some magic power, under its pressure he grew
calm again, his brain ceased to throb, sleep stole upon him, and little
by little his hold on it relaxed, till at last his hand fell from his
breast and his treasure rolled upon the floor.
Fidá’s awakening was sudden. The tones of a loud voice, calling
confusedly, mingled themselves with his dreams. Then he sprang to his
feet to find the Rajah standing over him, in a most dishevelled state,
crying to him to bring drinking-water, instantly. And Fidá, startled
and sleepy, hurried away on his errand.
When he returned with the desired drink, he found his master in his
bedroom, surrounded by half a dozen attendants, each ministering to him
in some way. Way was made with alacrity for the cup-bearer, however;
for Rai-Khizar greeted the appearance of water with a positive roar of
eagerness. After three brimming gobletfuls had been quaffed without
pause, the Rajah gave a great sigh and sank back on his cushions. “By
the fingers of Ushas,” said he, “that is the best liquor ever brought
me! Fidá, thou abstainer, where learned thy people their wisdom?—Now I
bathe. Let a meal be ready when I return, and summon Lord Ragunáth to
eat with me. Sacharman, go rouse him. Thou, Asra, say thy prayers, and
then come and wait at my table. Away! Out of my sight!”
There was a general scurrying, in the midst of which Rai-Khizar,
restored to tranquillity, walked away to his bath, leaving the room
free for other slaves to prepare in it the morning meal. In half an
hour, when the King reappeared, all was in readiness, and Fidá stood
alone behind his master’s seat. The Rajah seated himself at once; but,
not greatly disposed toward food, sat waiting for Ragunáth before
beginning his meal. The official did not long delay, though he made his
appearance in no way hurriedly. He was carefully dressed, fresh-colored
and smiling; and in his hand he carried a tiny, golden box. Fidá
perceived it at once, and his heart throbbed with anxiety, but he
did not speak. Greetings passed between Rajah and minister, and then
Ragunáth took his place opposite Rai-Khizar, and laid Fidá’s box on the
low brass table in front of him.
“This was upon the floor in the second antechamber,” he observed.
The Rajah took it up and examined it, Fidá still silently watching. For
a moment Rai-Khizar seemed to consider. Then, suddenly turning to his
slave, he exclaimed: “’Tis thine, Asra! I remember they found it on
thee in my tent in the plain of Dhár, and returned it to thee again, it
being a charm of thy god.”
“Yes, it is mine, O King.”
Rai-Khizar-Pál examined it further, with curiosity. “Doth the box open?
What is its power?” he asked.
“It contains a charm, great Rajah, the charm of my race.”
“Show us this charm,” demanded the master, handing the box to his slave.
Fidá’s hand closed upon it with visible eagerness; but he was very
loath to open it. However, there was no choice. Touching the delicate
spring, that was almost undiscoverable, the golden lid flew open, and
Fidá turned the box upward on his palm. When he lifted it, there lay
in his hand a stone, red and brilliant: a ruby, as magnificent a gem
as the Rajah had ever looked on. It was cut and polished, and from its
prismatic sides shone an inward fire of palest crimson. This stone Fidá
placed in the Rajah’s hand, who received it with an exclamation of
wonder.
“Whoorroo! There is not, in all Mandu, a gem so wonderful! Thy family,
Asra, must be powerful indeed! Come, as the price of keeping thy
treasure, relate to us its merits as a charm, and how it came to be
thine.”
Fidá was deeply troubled. He gazed at Ragunáth, who, forgetting
himself, was leaning over the tray, his eyes fixed—was it
hungrily?—upon that gleaming stone. There was an eagerness in the
clear-cut face that was too easy to read; and as he watched, Fidá saw
the man’s hands fairly tremble for the gem. Rai-Khizar-Pál was wholly
different. His face, as he examined the stone, expressed pleasure; but
there was not a hint of avarice in his large, quiet eyes. After three
or four minutes of hesitation and inward struggle on the part of Fidá,
the King exclaimed:
“Thy tale, Fidá! Or wouldst really lose the jewel to me?”
“The jewel,” cut in Ragunáth, in a smooth, quiet voice, “belongs by
right of war to the Rajah. No slave should possess such a fortune as
this.”
“Ah, good counsellor, there thou’rt wrong. This Mohammedan is not a
Sudra. Moreover, he does not carry the ruby as riches, but for a reason
that we wait to hear. Come, Fidá, speak!”
The King laid the ruby on the tray before him, and began to eat,
slowly. At the same time Fidá, overpressed, entered upon his tale;
and during the whole of the recital his eyes never once rested on the
jewel, but were fixed unwinkingly on Ragunáth’s æsthetic profile.
“O conqueror, the story of this jewel that you bid me tell is stranger
than you think. ’Tis such a story as is scarcely to be found outside of
fairy lore. And yet I stand here to prove that it is true.
“Know that my race, the Asra, are an ancient and powerful family, that
have dwelt for many centuries in Yemen, the holy land. We are of high
descent, and among us, at the time of the Hejira, was a follower of
Mohammad, afterward one of the writers of the Koran, a venerable and a
holy man, accounted a sage: by name, Hussen el-Asra. At the same time
there lived in Mecca the high and holy Osman, compiler of the Koran,
worshipped throughout the city as a saint. Now Hussen had a son, a
young man of great beauty of face and form, and of highly virtuous
mind, called Abdullah. One day this young man, by an unhappy accident,
chanced to see a maiden, the daughter of a wealthy nobleman of Mecca,
Said ibn-Alnas; and in the first sight of her he loved the maiden, and,
going to her father, asked her hand in marriage. Said received Abdullah
in the most courteous manner, but was distressed by the object of his
visit, in that his daughter had already a suitor in old Osman, who,
though four times married to virtuous women, had become so enamored
of the beautiful Zenora that he purposed divorcing himself of one of
his wives in order to marry her. Abdullah, however, was unmarried;
and the venerable Said preferred to make his child the first wife of
an honorable man, to bringing dishonor on the head of another woman
by marrying her to Osman. Zenora, likewise, when the matter was laid
before her, as is our custom with our women, begged earnestly to become
the wife of the younger man, whom she already loved. Thereupon, before
Osman was made aware of the matter, Zenora and Abdullah were safely
married, and she had taken up her abode in the house of her husband and
her husband’s father.
“When news of this wedding was brought to the saint Osman, he fell
into a violent rage of despair. Praying to the Prophet for vengeance,
the Prophet listened to his prayer, and put into his mouth a curse.
And so Osman went into the market-place and waited; and when Abdullah
came thither, Osman went up to him and cursed him and his love, and
the loves of his children and his children’s children, that whosoever
of his race should truly love a woman should die of it, having by her
no more than one son. And though an Asra should, in his heart, cherish
love for a woman and not marry her, the curse should yet be upon him,
till in a short time their whole race should perish from the face of
the earth.”
“It was an unholy curse,” observed the Rajah, deeply interested. And
Fidá rejoined:
“So thought all that heard it; and no man looked for it to come to
pass. Yet it happened that Abdullah and Zenora had not been wedded a
month when the husband sickened. Though he grew constantly worse, he
but clung the more to his wife, and she to him, until it seemed that
he must surely die. Then, in her bitterness and grief, Zenora called
upon her father and her husband’s father for aid; and the nobleman
and the learned and holy one took counsel together, and prayed to
Allah and the Archangels. And their prayer was answered. A voice from
heaven addressed them, bidding Said bring forth the richest treasure
of his house, and then Hussen to bless it and then take it to Abdullah
for a charm against the evil of the curse; and, while he carried it,
it would give him health and bring him children. So Said went and
got this ruby, which was renowned throughout Yemen for its size and
perfection. And Hussen, performing his part of the task, blessed the
gem and consecrated it to Allah, and took it to his son, who by it was
miraculously restored to health. Abdullah and Zenora lived happily,
and had many daughters, but only one son, to whom the ruby was given
at his father’s death, with the word that it should descend in time to
his first-born, and so on down. In time it was found that only those
children born of deep and lasting love were subject to the curse; but
upon these, since the time of Abdullah and Osman, the evil has never
failed to take effect when the ruby is not worn as a protective charm.
It was my father’s, and given me by him according to the custom;
wherefore my uncle, though he married and has a son, has devoted his
life to pursuits of war and hunting, knowing that the gentler pleasures
of life are not for him.”
“And hast thou never put thy stone to the test? Hast never loved?”
inquired Ragunáth, with a faintly curling smile.
“No,” answered Fidá, shortly. But the Rajah broke in:
“By Surya, ’tis a tale worth the price of the gem! Take it, Asra; and
I think it were well for thee to keep it idle while thou remainest in
this palace.”
Fidá gave a little, imperceptible start, and stared quickly into his
conqueror’s face. There was nothing to be read in it; and surely it was
impossible that the words could have had any under-meaning. Greatly
relieved at receiving back his treasure, the Asra replaced it in its
box, which he fastened again in his garment. As he did this he was
aware that Ragunáth’s eyes were still upon him; but Ragunáth’s glances
had annoyed him so often, that he failed especially to note this. He
had recovered his jewel; and now the meal was coming to an end and for
an hour he would be released from duty.
When he was again summoned to the Rajah’s side, it was in the great
audience hall, where Rai-Khizar-Pál officiated in his judicial state.
The Mohammedan was not a little interested in the proceedings of the
long morning; and his respect for the ability of his master increased
not a little as he watched him settle, one after another, with ease,
rapidity, and remarkable insight, the great number of quarrels and
suits brought before him by his subjects. At the second hour after
noon, however, the court rose, and those natives whose cases had
not come up that day were told to return on the morrow; whereupon
they got up, without comment, from where they had been sitting in
rows around the wall, and departed to their various pursuits. The
Rajah, accompanied by Manava, retired to eat his second meal, which
Fidá served. When it was over, he stood waiting to be dismissed; for
it was the time of day when Rai-Khizar usually slept and the slave
was accustomed to enjoy a period of idleness. Left alone with the
captive, however, the King turned to him, and, after a few moments’
consideration, said gravely:
“Asra, I have said that I would not ransom thee; liking too well thy
presence and thy service. Yet this I have in my heart reconsidered
until, though I shall grieve to let thee go, I am willing to send
envoys to thy uncle to treat for thy ransom. Doth this rejoice thee?”
Fidá fell upon one knee and pressed the Rajah’s hand to his head.
“Thanks to my lord!” said he, in a voice muffled with emotion.
“Ah, thou’lt be glad to be in thine own estate again! I send the envoys
forth to-day. It should be not more than three weeks ere thy freedom
cometh. On my life, I shall be loath to part with thee. But now I can
keep thee no longer in this servant’s garb. Thou shalt be habited like
a prince again, and wait here, my guest, till thou goest forth.”
“Let the King pardon my boldness. What is the ransom thou wouldst free
me for?”
“Far less than thou art worth, my Asra: five thousand pieces of copper,
jewels to the worth of an hundred cows, and the oath that the Rajah of
Mandu and the mighty Aybek of Delhi be henceforth as brothers.”
Fidá had risen to his feet; but he stood with his head so bent that the
Rajah could not see his face. “I have a favor to ask my lord,” he said,
still in the muffled tone that could not be interpreted.
“Speak.”
“Will the Rajah permit that, till the time of my freedom, I may remain
as I am now:—the cup-bearer of my lord?”
“What! Art not a prince? Wouldst thou remain a slave?”
“I asked a favor of my lord.”
“Then it is granted, Asra. But, by the bolt of Indra, I understand
thee not!” And, displeased with his captive’s request, he got up and
strode out of the room. Fidá stood there alone, staring at the floor,
with a curling, sorrowful smile on his lips, and a deep melancholy
in his eyes. For Fidá knew his race well; and he was perfectly aware
that, though an army of twenty thousand Mohammedans might storm the
plateau of Mandu for the simple purpose of taking him out of captivity,
yet they would never pay one-half of the ransom demanded; and, should
they take the oath of brotherhood with an infidel, it would be for the
purpose of plundering him at the first opportunity. Entertaining, then,
from the first, no false hope of freedom, Fidá preferred remaining in
his present state as personal servant of a king, to mutilation and
degradation when the answer that his uncle would send should reach the
ears of Rai-Khizar-Pál. Understanding all this, and having the courage
to face it from the first, Fidá was none the less bitter at heart at
the thought of it. And it was with dragging steps and a darkened face
that he finally set off toward the house of slaves.
There, as he had hoped, he found Ahmed, unoccupied and awake. The
brightness of the boy’s face at sight of his master roused Fidá a
little from his mood, and his eyes had lost their sombreness when,
side by side with his young companion, he left the chattering veranda,
and walked in the direction of the great courtyard. As they went, they
talked in their native tongue, and Ahmed, his boyish spirits always
light, recounted all the gossip of under-life in the great palace which
had not come to Fidá’s ears. The Mohammedan boy had made himself very
popular even among the Indian slaves; and he, like all servants, was
in possession of intimate details of the higher life that would have
astonished and nonplussed certain august personages. His chatter was
innocent enough, however. One of the slave-women in the zenana had had
a quarrel with Bhimeg, the second wife, over a pet paroquet. Purán and
Kanava had had a trial of strength in wrestling, and Kanava had come
out victor. Two of the eunuchs of the zenana were just dead of a fever.
And so on, infinitely, till Fidá had ceased to listen, and was occupied
with his own thoughts, which had suddenly turned in another direction.
After all, did he really wish to leave Mandu? Was there not something
here that could not be taken away; something that was not to be found
in any other country of the earth? Dwelt not the fairest woman in the
world here, in the place of his captivity? Did he really desire to
leave her land even for princely honors? Nay. It might be impossible
that he should see her again; yet always she was here, and here only,
the lady of his secret heart.
The two companions, loitering through the great courtyard, finally
entered the temple room of Vishnu, that began the south wing of the
palace. A curious place, this temple, devoted to that species of
half-formed Hindooism that was at this time the prevailing religion
of India. Into this religion, as into a gigantic pie, had been thrown
pell-mell the doctrines of ancient Vedic worship, the religion of the
great Triad, the worst side of dying Buddhism, and the Philosophies,
insulted by their anthropomorphitic company. This temple room was a
fair specimen of the mingled faiths. On one side, decked and carved
with the symbols of fifty other gods, the images of Vishnu and Lakshmi
reclined upon a throne about which was entwined the great serpent
Sesha, symbol of eternity, in whose coils was caught a golden lotus,
from which Brahma and the demigods had, in the beginning, come forth.
Over the head of Vishnu hung a wooden monkey, representing Hanuman, the
friend of Vishnu; and three or four living members of the chattering
tribe dwelt in the room. Around the three other walls were images of
different gods, all comparatively insignificant, but each with his
priest and a sect, however small, of worshippers. At any hour of the
day, indeed, but especially in the morning and in the evening, there
were to be found from one to twenty worshippers seated on the floor
before the various deities, engaged in performing an Agnihotra or an
Ishti for prosperity and good fortune.
In the dusk of this holy place, lighted by its fires, Fidá and Ahmed
continued their low-voiced talk, which had now turned upon the
long-standing feud between Kasya, chief of the eunuchs, and Kanava, the
slavemaster. Kanava was high in the favor of Ragunáth; but Kasya, heart
and soul devoted to his Rajah, found little favor in Ragunáth’s eyes.
“Kanava,” Ahmed said, “is Ragunáth’s spy; and he can go anywhere in
the palace except into the zenana. Kasya watches his eunuchs, so that
Kanava has never been able to get in there; and I have heard one of the
eunuchs say that he has tried to bribe every one of them to let him in.
They say that Ragunáth is in love with one of the women—”
“What woman?” demanded Fidá, sharply.
“The youngest wife. They call her Ahalya.”
Fidá’s eyes blazed with anger. “Why is not the Rajah told of this?”
“Great Allah! Every one would be killed, I suppose,” returned the boy;
and the subject was dropped.
In the midst of all this gossip Fidá had not told his companion
anything of the chief event of the day:—the matter of his ransom.
And, on reflection, he decided to say nothing about it. Ahmed’s
young buoyancy could never be made to understand Fidá’s own view of
the incident; and he could do nothing but raise hopes that would
not be fulfilled. So, after a while, each returned to his duties,
insensibly lightened at heart by the taste of intimate and affectionate
companionship.
Fidá lay down in his corner, that night, tired out. According to old
habit he slipped his hand inside his tunic and made sure that his
little box was in its place, in a pocket that he had made for it
himself, after his other clothes had been taken from him. Finding his
treasure safe, he offered up a prayer, wondered where his uncle slept
that night, still more wondered whether the Lady Ahalya was asleep,
and, with her name on his lips, drifted off into unconsciousness.
He was awakened by the sense that some one was bending over him. Next
he felt the lightest touch upon his body. A hand was slipping along him
so softly that only an acute sense could have felt it. Then Fidá opened
his eyes. Ten brown, sinewy fingers were working at his sash. Quietly
the Asra laid his own hands on those of the marauder, and, while the
blood rushed to his heart, gripped them with the strength of a giant.
The intruder gave a soft exclamation; and Fidá found himself looking
into the eyes of Kanava.
The gaze continued till the slave-master was beaten. He turned his eyes
away. Then Fidá’s lip curled, and he spoke, his voice soft with scorn.
“Go back, Kanava, and tell thy master that the Asra ruby is not for
him.” And, with a violent gesture, he flung the man away from him as
one would fling a bag of meal.
Without a word Kanava got up and crept out of the room. After he was
gone again Fidá relaxed, and, curiously enough, found no difficulty in
going back to sleep. Nor did he afterward waste much time in thinking
of the mortal enemy he had made by that night’s work.
CHAPTER V
POPPIES
On the night after the reconciliation with her husband, the night also
after her search for a slave in the palace, the Lady Ahalya went to bed
in a temper, without having roused Neila, her maid. During the night,
while she slept, some subtle change surely worked upon the brain and
heart of the Ranee; for she herself, and Neila too, knew afterward that
this night was, with her, the beginning and the end of all things. For
the next three or four days Neila’s life was made miserable; but Ahalya
did not attempt to account even to herself for the freaks, moods, and
whims which changed with such rapidity that, before human power could
gratify one, the next had made the work all to do over again. Not for
an entire week did the long-suffering attendant get an inkling of what
was really the trouble; and then she went into a state of consternation
that Ahalya made no attempt to lessen. For the Ranee’s secret mind was
running continually now, perhaps without her own volition, on the most
dangerous of topics:—how she might see the Asra again. This was not a
matter so absolutely impossible as Fidá deemed it. Life in the Indian
zenanas was not quite that of the harems of Arabia; though, as Ragunáth
knew, this one was certainly well guarded. By degrees, however, Ahalya
approached her end. How it came about, who could say? But Neila found
herself presently acting in the character of a spy. This eunuch and
that she questioned; now and then she ventured into the great courtyard
or, more warily, into the palace itself: observing, listening, asking a
question of one slave or another, till Fidá’s daily habits had become
familiar to her. Then, after so much patience, opportunity arrived. One
afternoon at the very end of the month, after the Rajah had partaken of
his afternoon meal and gone to rest, Neila herself saw the slave Fidá
set out alone into the fields, along the old temple road. This incident
being duly reported to her mistress, Ahalya’s face lighted like a
child’s.
“I, too, am going to walk on the temple road! Yes, yes, Neila, I am
going! Seek not to detain me. I am going to gather the late poppies in
the temple field to make a rouge for my face. Come, prepare me!”
The unhappy Neila protested violently, all her courage failing.
Gradually she had been drawn into Ahalya’s madness; but now, brought
face to face with possible consequences, she rebelled. There was a
scene between her and her mistress such as had never been known before.
But while Neila wept on the border of hysterics, Ahalya, the power of
her great malady holding her above such things, remained dry-eyed,
firm, commanding. What wonder that Neila in the end submitted?
Nevertheless, one thing the maid insisted on. She and Kasya must
follow their lady, as indeed many times before they had followed her
unconventional rambles; or Ahalya should leave the zenana only over
her, Neila’s, body.
Twenty minutes later the three set out along the temple road, Neila
bearing with her certain fiercely given instructions that had caused
her heart to grow leaden in her breast. Kasya, as they proceeded,
wondered more and more about the relations between his mistress and her
maiden; for Ahalya was walking with a rapidity that sent the blood into
her cheeks and her heart pounding; while the traces of tears on the
other’s face were fresh enough to denote some unusual incident before
the expedition. A little more and his suspicions, ever ready because
ever needed, would have been aroused. But, at this juncture, Fate, more
powerful even than Love, stepped in and took command of the day. The
three had not proceeded half a mile from the palace when there came
running to them a little slave-boy, who, halting beside Kasya, spoke
a few rapid words in his ear that turned the eunuch’s mind from all
thought of the Lady Ahalya and her walk. The Ranee Malati, it seemed,
had called for her son to be brought to her; and the young Bhavani, the
most important person in Mandu after the Rajah, was not to be found.
For a moment or two Kasya hesitated. He had no choice but to go.
“I beseech the pardon of the Lady Ahalya. I must return to the zenana.”
Ahalya’s face brightened. “Go then,” said she.
“I will send after thee another of the eunuchs.”
“It is not necessary.”
“Lady—thy lord would be angry. I dare not—”
“Then send Churi after us; but let him not intrude on me.” And Ahalya,
now a little angry, started on again, Neila perforce following her.
Kasya, troubled in his mind, turned away, and set off at a run for the
palace, nor did he neglect to despatch Churi, “the doctor,” Ahalya’s
favorite slave, after the errant Ranee. But Churi, who was more an
individual than a slave, had ideas of his own about Ahalya, and did not
hurry to follow her. He arrived, indeed, at the temple ruin, to find
Neila stationed at its entrance as if on guard. And he had the immense
self-restraint to join her without asking any questions.
Fidá, in the meantime, unconscious of the little sensation he was
stirring up, was occupied in making an exploration of one corner of
the plateau. As soon as the Rajah dismissed him he had started off by
himself, having a great desire for solitude in which to meditate on a
situation that was becoming every day more galling to him. Two weeks
had passed since the departure of the embassy to his uncle’s camp;
and he found himself gradually beginning to hope against hope that
he would, after all, be rescued from his slavery. For this captivity
which, for a few days, had been tinged with the glamour of adventure
and romance, had now become the most irksome, the most unendurable of
degradations. He walked for a long time, thinking deeply, paying little
heed to his way till the scene became too remarkable to go unnoticed.
He was two miles away from the palace when the road, which, some
distance back, had turned sharply to the left, ran out of the flat,
cultivated fields, and entered a wood which shortly became a little
jungle, the road being cut through the heaviest undergrowth of bushes,
trees, and sinuous vines. Around him, monkeys and paroquets chattered
and screamed. The foliage was brilliant as with a second summer; for
with autumn and the first suggestion of the second rains, summer leaps
up again over all the northwest country; and Fidá was gazing about
him delighted with the color and the life, the trouble of his heart
banished by the beauty of nature, when suddenly his road turned again,
and—ended.
Before him, to the precipitous edge of the plateau, stretched a
naturally clear space, in the centre of which stood a giant building,
gone all to ruin. Its huge sandstone blocks were black with age and
green with moss and growing plants. Its veranda and great doors were
open to the daylight; and within, through openings in the roof,
bright sunlight shone. The architecture was crude and heavy; but Fidá
recognized, without difficulty, the style of the oldest Buddhism. And
he divined correctly the history of this building, which he had started
out to find: that it had once been a Vihara, later converted to the
uses of Surya, one of the Brahman gods.
The place was, like the religion it still symbolized, a magnificent
ruin. And its setting was worthy of it; for the fields on either side
were overrun with flaming poppies, blooming for the second time in the
year, and filling the whole air with the somnolence of their burden
of opium. Beyond the fields, a fitting frame for the picture, the
jungle commenced again: a high wall of subdued color, green and brown,
splashed with the scarlet of the wild-cotton flowers. Fidá, halting
in wonder, felt his heart suddenly grow light. Here were poppies—her
flowers. It was a propitious omen. In his trouble, he had come upon a
place devoted to her symbols. Was it a sign to him to remain in Mandu,
hoping, however vainly, sometime to find a way to her? Smiling a little
at the Indian superstition of his thoughts, he moved on, rambled for
a time round the rock-strewn rooms within the temple, and finally out
into the fields, where the flowers took effect on him again and set his
mind running hotly upon Ahalya, the one woman of his world.
An hour had passed since he left the palace, and he knew that in a
little time he must turn his steps again toward slavery. This thought
intensified the delight of lingering here, held by the fascination of
the wild flowers. And it was now, at the most beautiful hour, in this
enchanted spot, that she herself, Ahalya, came to him. Fidá saw two
figures appear from the trees by the temple. Both were women. He got to
his feet, trembling a little. Only one was advancing:—dressed all in
white, the head-veil thrown back from her face, under one arm a broad,
flat basket. Yes; it was Ahalya. Fidá perceived that he was neither
blind nor mad. She, the Ranee, was here, with him. Hesitatingly he
advanced toward her, two or three steps, and their eyes met.
Ahalya crimsoned violently; and seeing this, Fidá grew bold. Not
thinking of the enormity of his daring, with only the memory of two
empty weeks upon him, he went straight toward her, and when he was at
her side began, passionately: “Most beautiful of women! Lotus-lidded!
Lily-faced! I behold thee, and thou art not a dream!” And then abruptly
he paused, overcome by the situation.
Ahalya turned to look behind her, and Fidá’s eyes followed hers.
Churi had arrived at the ruin, but he and Neila stood leaning against
a fallen stone, their backs to the poppy-field, evidently talking
together. The Ranee, seeing herself safe enough, became confused; and,
still half turned away from the slave, murmured, with an embarrassed
manner:
“I came—to gather poppies. Did my lord send you hither?”
“Thy lord—sleeps,” muttered Fidá.
Ahalya gave a nervous start. Now that she had attained her end, the
Ranee began to wish herself a thousand miles away, so confused was she
by the presence of this man. Fidá saw how her hands trembled; and,
emboldened by the flush of her half-averted cheek, his heart beating
furiously with a sudden hope, he took her by the hand and gently,
persuasively, led her to the stone from which he had just risen. Here,
though she would have protested, he caused her to sit down. “I must
have the poppies,” she found courage to say, lifting up her basket,
and suddenly smiling. “Neila and Churi may come at any moment.” And
she turned again to look at the ruin. This time the two figures had
disappeared entirely.
“I will get poppies for you. Wait.” And, taking the basket, Fidá
darted forward and began plucking the tough-stemmed flowers. In five
minutes the basket was heaping full, though the assortment was anything
but select. But while he worked, his back turned to Ahalya, all his
new-born audacity suddenly ran out at his finger-tips, and when he
returned to her with the narcotic burden, his eyes were fixed on the
ground, and he was more confused than she. He laid the basket at her
feet, and then stood, like a culprit, before her.
“Let the Ranee pardon me!” he whispered.
“Pardon thee?” she asked, wondering.
“Ah, I have dared to lift my eyes to thee, and now—and now—” his voice,
unpent, rang clear.
“And now,” she breathed, most softly.
“Now,” his heart throbbed, “I cannot lower them again!”
Her eyes lifted themselves to his, and she smiled at him, half shyly,
half with a beautiful pride. Seeing that smile, Fidá’s senses deserted
him. He fell upon his knees before her, and lifted up his hands, crying:
“Ahalya! I love you! I love you! I love you!”
The princess shivered, half in terror, half in—something else. But she
could not speak. Slowly, therefore, the fire died out of Fidá’s face.
His dark head, bound with its slave’s circlet, drooped lower and lower,
till at length it rested on a stone at the edge of her silken garment,
and his face was buried in his arms. So they remained for a long time,
taking no account of the moments as they passed, neither of them happy,
both afraid of what they had done, of the astonishing betrayal. Fidá
was sick and shaken with his inward tumult. Ahalya sat in a rigid calm,
thinking, after a desultory fashion, of many ordinary things that now
seemed infinitely far removed from her. The bitter weariness of her
life had suddenly disappeared; but that which replaced it, she could
not just now consider. The revolution was too absolute. How should she
readjust herself so soon? Yet, since they were here together, free and
alone, she wished to speak; and so, in a sweet, monotonous tone, she
gave voice to many fragments that were in both their minds.
“I love you. Is it not right, and holy? I love young things, and youth,
and beauty. Krishna and Radha loved thus. Who knows how it comes? I
loved you by the well. Your eyes shone into mine, and you smiled at
me, and you were not afraid. I loved to think of you, a captive, and a
prince. Most of all I love you here, because, Fidá—because—ah, look!”
At the change in her voice the slave roused himself, as one wakes, with
an effort, from some wondrous dream. Ahalya also had risen, and was
staring fearfully at a figure that approached them out of the shadow of
the trees.
“Ragunáth!” muttered Fidá. “Name of the prophet! how comes he here?”
“Where I am, there he is also,” murmured the Ranee. “Ah, Fidá, run,
run, and bring Neila and Churi! I fear this man. He must not see you.”
“He has already seen me. I cannot go.”
This much they had time to say, as the Rajah’s counsellor came slowly
toward them, his arms folded across his breast, his eyes aflame with
angry suspicion. Ahalya, trembling though she was, still straightened
up to receive him, and Fidá fell slightly behind her, to one side, as
became a slave. But there was, in his attitude, small suggestion of
respect for him who approached. At a little distance Ragunáth halted
and looked at them:—looked as only he could look, from one to the other
and back again. To-day, however, his lips did not smile, but wore the
hard line of jealousy. Under this gaze Ahalya quivered anew; and Fidá
heard her catch her breath. Instinctively he stepped forward. But, just
at that moment, Ragunáth raised his upper lip a little off his teeth,
and spoke:
“The Lady Ahalya has found a new slave.”
Ahalya turned white, but remained silent. Fidá gazed steadily and
scornfully at the eavesdropper, who, after waiting a moment, said again:
“Is there a new law of the Lord Rajah’s, that his slaves shall walk
with his women—picking poppies, in the fields?”
Ahalya, angered beyond her dread, opened her lips to speak; but Fidá
was before her.
“The Lady Ahalya, attended by Churi, and Neila, her woman, came to this
field to gather poppies. I, unknowing, was here before her. When the
Lady Ahalya perceived me, she allowed me to pluck the flowers for her
and to lay them at her feet.”
“Churi and the woman, then,—am I blinded? I do not see them here,” and
he peered about the field like a man looking for a lost gem.
Fidá’s hands itched for his throat; but now, suddenly, Ahalya assumed
the height of her position, and, actually stamping her foot with
outraged dignity, cried: “Does Lord Ragunáth presume—_dare_—to
doubt my word? I say that Neila and Churi brought me hither; and,
coming here, we found this trusted slave of my lord, whom I commanded
to pluck the poppies for me. But my Lord Ragunáth—came he hither also
to get flowers to make a rouge for his face?” The last words she all
but spat at him.
Ragunáth was silenced, but very far from being suppressed. Indeed, the
slight lifting of his eyebrows and the shrugging of his shoulders spoke
as words could not speak; and Fidá was perilously near an outbreak.
At this juncture, however, by intervention of a dilatory providence,
Neila, and with her Churi, made their appearance from the temple. At
sight of three figures in the field where they had thought to find
one, or, at worst, but two, they came hurriedly forward to their lady,
who stood awaiting them in silence. Ragunáth’s eyes were now fixed
upon the face of Churi, who endured the look very well; for in his
own way he was much interested in the situation. No words passed till
Ahalya, indicating her slaves with a gesture, said icily: “Attend me.”
And then, without looking again at the minister, but with the barest,
fleeting glance at Fidá, she moved away toward the road, and was
presently lost to sight among the trees near the ruin.
The Arab and the Hindoo were left alone, face to face. Fidá’s eyes were
fixed unwinkingly on Ragunáth’s. On the counsellor’s lips a half-smile
hovered, and his expression had in it more of mockery than anger. When
Ahalya was quite out of sight, he spoke, slowly:
“So—slave. Art thou prepared to greet thy god in death?”
Now Fidá’s lip curled. “May Allah receive me at the appointed time,”
said he.
“That time is near.”
“Nay, Lord Ragunáth.”
“‘Nay’? ‘Nay’? Knowest thou not that Rai-Khizar-Pál, hearing of this
adventure of thine, will not leave thee an hour alive?”
“Even that I do not know, Ragunáth. But, were it true, still, who shall
tell the Rajah of the incident of the day?”
“I, dog, shall tell him.”
“Am I indeed a dog? Be it so, I am a dog that speaks. And I am not a
thief.—Does thy master know thy taste in rubies, lord?”
Ragunáth flushed scarlet. “Thou speakest like a madman!”
“Nay, it is rather thou that art mad. Thou hast walked on dangerous
ground before, thou traitor to honor; but never so near destruction as
now. Hast thou told thy master of thy visit to the zenana courtyard
on the day of the great sacrifice? Did he despatch thee to-day to the
poppy field? Hath he ever trusted the honor of his lady in _thy_
hand? Oh, though thou couldst hush the mouths of all the eunuchs in the
zenana, the story of thy bribes and treachery would be shouted aloud by
every slave in Mandu.—Thus, the Lord Ragunáth is the madman.—A slave
picks poppies in the field. A slave is near a lady when Ragunáth would
speak with her. The slave has eyes, ears, and a tongue. Moreover, this
slave understands honor, for he was born a prince. Speak, then, to the
Rajah concerning this day’s incident. It were fitting he should know—”
“Be silent, man!”
“It seems I am become a man!”
“Be silent,—or thou diest.”
Fidá shrugged, but let the threat go. “_If_ I am silent, then?” he
asked.
“If thou art silent, fool,” Ragunáth made an effort, “if thou art
silent, I will let time and thine own folly betray thee; for it is not
fitting that I should soil myself with the affairs of infidels and
slaves.”
And this last insult also, though he was obviously in the position to
command, Fidá passed over. Was it because he knew that, for all his
bravado, he was not himself innocent of treachery to his conqueror?
CHAPTER VI
CHURI
Fidá had lived in the palace of Mandu for nearly a month before he had
his first glimpse of one of the most important persons in the lower
stratum of its life, a man with whom he was later to become but too
familiar:—Churi, the eunuch. They beheld each other first, distantly,
in the poppy field. On the evening of that same day they met again.
It was about sunset, and Fidá was at the well in front of the house
of slaves, washing out certain of the Rajah’s drinking vessels, when
he became aware of a white-robed figure standing at his side, and,
turning, gave a sudden start to find himself gazing into a pair of eyes
one of which was of a lustrous brown, the other of a pale, greenish
hue. The owner of the eyes smiled slightly; and then Fidá recalled
Ahmed’s description of the doctor, he whose position ranked next to
that of Kasya among the guardians of the zenana.
“Thou art Churi,” observed Fidá, wondering if the man had seen him
start.
Churi nodded, and took thoughtful survey of the Mohammedan. During this
look Fidá felt, uncomfortably, that his secret soul had been penetrated
by those singular eyes. Churi’s words, however, when he spoke again,
were simple enough: “Did Ragunáth trouble thee to-day?”
Fidá smiled. “Nay. Why dost thou ask?”
“His face boded thee no good when I saw it. He is a man scrupling not
to lie.”
“Have I lived a month in Mandu and know not that?”
Churi chuckled. “Thou hast no need of help?” said he.
“None.”
“Then I will delay thee no longer. Yet remember that no slave in this
palace need have any fear of that mighty counsellor.”
Fidá shrugged. He felt himself suddenly put upon the status of a
servant who discusses the persons whom he serves; and, furthermore,
Churi’s words seemed to dispel the secret satisfaction he had felt in
having outwitted Ragunáth that afternoon. Even these thoughts it is
possible that Churi robbed him of; for, as the latter turned away, the
smile was still upon his lips; nor did it wholly fade as he went back
to his quarters, which were at the other end of the palace, beyond the
zenana wing.
In his own sphere, Churi was a privileged person, commanding a respect
and an interest above that of Kasya, the incorruptible. Like Kasya,
Churi had a room of his own; though he by no means always occupied it
alone. So great was his skill in medicine and surgery that he took the
place of first official physician in the palace, though he had had
many rivals for the place, and the Rajah was still obliged to employ a
corps of priests who strove, by means of spells and charms, to prove
their methods superior to those of the eunuch with his herbs, simples,
and tourniquets. Churi’s opponents troubled him little, however. He
appreciated his gift; and generally cared for the sick among the slaves
and eunuchs in his own room. Two of his fellows had, in spite of his
care, recently died there of the malignant fever so common at this
season of the year. And to-night, having no desire to eat alone, Churi
took his evening meal of millet and ghee with the other eunuchs in
the common room. While he was still there, chatting with a companion
or two, Kasya invaded the apartment, evidently in search of some one;
and, finding Churi, seized upon him, and drew him back to his own room,
where they could be alone. As they went, Churi broke silence:
“The young lord was safely found to-day?”
They were out of possible ear-shot before Kasya answered: “Too safely.
He was in the rooms of Ragunáth. But my lord himself was not there.
Kanava had the child, and I do not understand the alarm. Tell me, didst
thou overtake the Ranee before she reached the ruin?”
During this last question Churi had begun to laugh. “Oho! I perceive!
Mine eyes are enlightened!”
“What sayest thou?”
“Oho! The faithful Kasya walks out with the Ranee. My lord councillor
is disappointed, captures the child, amuses him in his rooms with toys,
spreads the alarm that he is lost, brings back the faithful Kasya to
the search, and then goes to join the Ranee in the poppy field! Oho!”
“Ragunáth! He _dared_!”
Churi laughed again. “Dared he not? The Lady Ahalya was in the middle
of the poppy field. Neila and I stood, by command, near the ruin. Then
the councillor appeared. He had come through a path in the little
jungle. At very sight of him the Ranee fairly fled to us, whereupon we
set out again for the palace. Nor have I seen him since.” Churi stopped
rather abruptly, wondering how this ingenious version of the truth had
ever come out of him. Was it worth while to add the important details?
There was no time to consider. Kasya was furious.
“This—this, at last, shall go to the King! This even I cannot
countenance from the man—”
“Not so fast, comrade. What hast thou to carry to the King? Young
Bhavani wanders by accident into Ragunáth’s rooms. My lord himself goes
for a walk. By accident he meets the Ranee Ahalya in the poppy field.
They scarcely speak. She returns home with her woman and me;—my lord
remains there on whatever business is his. Bah, Kasya! The fool is
punished now. Doubt it not. The Ranee can lash a man with her eyes, an
she will; and Ragunáth was not favored to-day. I swear that by Lakshmi.
A turmoil is never the result of wisdom. Let it rest, Kasya.”
Churi was committed in good earnest, now. For his own sake the affair
must not go up to the Rajah.
“I thought—” Kasya bent his brows, “I feared the Ranee did not disdain
him wholly. If you speak truth, however—”
Churi shrugged.
“Then let it pass. In time we shall show him that the Rajah’s will is
done in Mandu.” And, with a sigh, Kasya turned and departed.
Churi’s desire for company had gone, apparently; for he made no move
to return to the common room. For a few moments he stood in his own
doorway, brows drawn, head bent, meditating. Then he turned inside, and
dropped the hanging across the open space, to prevent interruption.
Stretching himself out on an improvised but remarkably comfortable
divan, he gave himself up to a more critical consideration of the drama
that had been revealed to him that afternoon. It was a thing that he
had never dreamed of. A day before, he would not have believed that
he could be so calmly reviewing the situation that evidently existed
between the one thing he cared for in Mandu—Ahalya—and the Mohammedan
captive. If it piqued him that he had had no knowledge of its
beginnings,—he, to whom every intrigue enacted in the palace during the
last ten years had been an open book,—he could console himself with the
reflection that he was still the only one that knew of it at all. But
he wished especially to understand himself with regard to Fidá, toward
whom, as yet, he felt no animosity. Fidá, however, continued to baffle
him. He could come to no satisfactory opinion. His concealment of what
he knew from Kasya, though it had come about accidentally, gave him
little anxiety; for it was perfectly consistent with his usual methods:
those plots and plans and hopes in which he, even he, the eunuch,
constantly indulged.
Doctor Churi was, in fact, a person out of the ordinary. He had been
the child of a Rajput woman and an Arab. For his birth, his mother had
been put to death, and he himself, in his babyhood, sold into slavery.
Before he was even aware of the existence of right and wrong, he had
been made a creature apart from ordinary men. And when he was old
enough to understand this, his soul rose up in revolt. From that time,
his whole nature was warped; and he became an iconoclast in his every
thought. His brain was unquestionably fine. His talent for medicine was
manifested at an early age, when he tried to poison himself with opium,
and was only saved by the quick skill of the doctor in whose charge he
was still living. Under this man’s tuition, he gained his knowledge of
anatomy and the power of herbs. At the age of eighteen he was sold to
Rai-Khizar-Pál, his education having trebled his value. At the time of
the transaction, Churi was made aware of the sum paid for him; and it
was then that his great idea came: which was, by some means to obtain
the equivalent of the amount, and with it buy himself into liberty.
Since that day, twelve years had passed away. Churi was thirty years
old; and the little hoard of copper pieces which he had been able
to store up, was still pitiably small. Meantime his heart had grown
bitter, and his mind had taken to winding through tortuous ways of
perception and imagination. He was known to many evil thoughts, but
to few evil practices. And there was in him a volcanic passion of
humanness kept relentlessly in check, that occasionally betrayed itself
above the surface in some eccentric outburst.
The man led a solitary and loveless existence; yet as all human things
must know some softening of the heart toward some one, so Churi had, by
degrees, come to feel a strong interest, a more than interest, in the
Ranee Ahalya, the universally beloved. She was very different from the
other women in the zenana; and Churi had been first attracted to her
by the quality rarest in women: that quality which she had in marked
degree, and he not at all—disinterestedness. Because she had never had
ends to gain, because she curried favor with none, he gave her the
only genuine devotion that he had ever felt for any one; and, where
her interests were concerned, was accustomed to waive his own. Perhaps
it was this instinct in him that had suggested the lie to Kasya; and
thereby, probably, he saved the life of Fidá. But it was quite for his
own amusement that Churi now lay on his divan considering the incidents
of the afternoon. All the result of these thoughts was, that he decided
to see something of the Asra in the near future, and that the Lady
Ahalya would perhaps bear a little watching also.
Fortune favored Churi’s first decision in a very simple way. Two or
three nights later Fidá, who had not been in the house of slaves
for forty-eight hours, went there to find his young comrade, Ahmed,
lying in one corner of the porch, uncovered to the evil air of night,
and burning with fever. Another slave, also Arabian, stood near by,
regarding the sick boy helplessly. When Fidá appeared, Ahmed, who had
lain with closed eyes, heeding nothing, sat up, stretching out his
hands to his master. Fidá took them tenderly into his own, and was
frightened to feel how hot they were. Wrapping the boy in his cloak, he
bent over him, keeping off the swarm of little flies and insects that
hovered around, and listening with alarm to the boy’s half-delirious
murmurings. Something must be done. He was not to be left in this
state. Surely even slaves were given help. And as he cast about,
anxiously, for means of assistance, he was addressed by one Chakra, a
soldier, who stood looking into the veranda:
“If thou couldst bring Churi to the sick boy, he would not die.”
“Ah! Churi! Where is he?” cried Fidá.
“I will show thee where he lives.”
“Come, then!—Nay, better, I will take the boy to him.”
Ten minutes later the physician, squatting comfortably in the doorway
of his own room, perceived a small group approaching out of the
darkness. First came the soldier, quite subdued by Fidá’s peremptory
manner; and then Fidá himself, with Ahmed in his arms. Churi got up and
went toward them a step or two, peering with his strange eyes.
“Thou, Chakra?” said he.
“I come with a slave who brings you a boy sick of a fever.”
“Oh,” said Churi, recognizing Fidá. “Come into this room.—Is the boy
thy son?” he demanded, sharply, of the Asra.
“Nay, I have no son,” answered Fidá, calmly. “But this boy is my
friend, who followed me into captivity. And he is sick. I fear he is
very sick.”
They were now inside the room, where two lamps burned. Fidá laid his
burden down in a corner, and then, as Ahmed clung to him, sat down
beside the boy, who gave a faint moan of satisfaction. The soldier
had already gone; and Churi, after a moment’s survey of his two
self-invited guests, came over and made a speedy examination. It took
little astuteness to perceive that the boy was dangerously ill, with a
fever that was common enough at that season of the year. When he was
assured of its nature, Churi turned to Fidá, saying:
“Let him remain here. I will care for him. But it is not well that thou
shouldst also stay. Go, then, and fear not.”
Fidá made two or three attempts to release himself from the boy’s hold,
Churi watching him. Then Fidá shook his head. “He will not suffer me to
leave him.”
“I will do it. See.” Churi placed himself immediately in front of the
Asra, and laid his hands, with great gentleness, where those of the
Mohammedan had been. Ahmed, drowsy with fever, did not notice the
change. “Now go, softly,” commanded Churi, in a whisper, and Fidá
obeyed.
Such was the beginning of Ahmed’s sickness. It endured for more than
five weeks, and, but for Churi’s unceasing care and skill, had lasted
scarcely three days. It was, moreover, the beginning of an intimacy
between the eunuch and Fidá, which developed with a rapidity and a
completeness that surprised them both. During the first few days,
when the danger was extreme, no one was allowed to see the sick boy.
But after that Fidá was admitted regularly; and, first for the sake
of Ahmed, then on his own account, he spent three quarters of his
spare time in the sick room. Churi having a private interest in Fidá,
he succeeded in making himself so interesting that the slave, though
suffering doubly from captivity and from hopeless love, was drawn out
of himself by the strength of the other’s personality.
Ahmed’s convalescence was a fruitful period. Churi had returned to the
regular zenana duties, modified when there were any sick whom he must
attend; and so the hours in which he saw the captive were much fewer,
but thereby more prized. Churi early disclosed the fact that he had
Arabian blood in his veins; and Fidá, in a passion of yearning for his
people, made this almost a symbol of brotherhood, and poured out to his
new-found confidant all his life-story, with its fury of battle and its
dulness of peace. Churi studied the young man keenly; for just at this
time pressure was being brought to bear on him from another quarter,
and amazing possibilities began to shape themselves in his imagination.
Ahalya, chafing with impatience, longing, and bitterness, in her pretty
prison-house, had become imprudent, and told him half of what he
already knew.
Churi had high responsibilities when he served the zenana. His duties
during the day were light enough; but by night, his was the task to
fasten every door and window looking out upon the unguarded court
of the zenana; and his night-watch at the inner entrance, in the
antechamber connecting the women’s wing with the palace, was between
the hours of twelve and two. Here was the trust which he had never
betrayed. And here, also, were possibilities which he had never
considered. The problem was before him now, however; for his feeling
for Fidá grew daily stronger. He was beginning to consider things
which, had they been suspected by a single soul in Mandu, would have
sent him, and with him Fidá, on the quickest road to death.
Meantime, weeks had gone by. The autumn rains were at hand, and it
was more than a month since the Rajah’s men had left for the north
on Fidá’s behalf. Daily now their return was looked for; and, with
every twelve hours of delay, Fidá grew more wretched. His mind was
full of fear. It was not at all out of the nature of his uncle to have
murdered the ambassadors for the money they might have with them, or
for any fancied disrespect in their demeanor. Had this thing been done,
Rai-Khizar-Pál must know it ere long, and then even the meagre joys
of captivity would end for him. And at this time Fidá did not want to
die. The existence of Ahalya made slavery more than bearable; for while
he lived in the same building with her, the hope of seeing her again
never quite left him. He loved her. He had told her that he loved her.
That fact never failed to bring exhilaration upon him. Even the hope
of freedom could not reconcile him to the idea of losing her forever.
In his sanguine moments there flitted through his head the wildest
plans:—storming the palace at the head of an army, bearing her forth
in triumph, and carrying her home with him to Yemen, where they should
live together forever in the house of his fathers, in the holy city.
But, in time, these dreams were brought to an end by the return of the
messengers from their long journey. On the night of the twenty-fifth of
October, Fidá lay asleep in the little box of a room that had been made
his own. He had gone to bed early that night, for the Rajah was hunting
in the hills, and his services were dispensed with. It was nearly
midnight when the slave opened his eyes to find a soldier of the guard
standing over him. He started up, and was presently following the man
stupidly through rooms and passages till they had come to the audience
hall, where the Rajah, dressed in dusty hunting-garb, sat on his daïs,
a frown of deepest anger on his brow. In front of him were five men,
worn, dishevelled, heavy with sleep. Save for this little group, the
vast room was empty. The torches flickered, ghost-like, into shadowy
corners. The deep night-stillness was only broken by the rattling of
the soldier’s armor and weapons as he walked.
In his first glance at the scene in the hall Fidá, now fully awake,
recognized the situation. As his guide stood aside, he walked alone to
the foot of the royal divan, and prostrated himself there, kissing the
ground before him, in the deepest reverence a Moslem can do. When he
had risen again, he lifted his eyes to the conqueror’s face and found
the Rajah regarding him solemnly, with something like compassion.
“O King, live forever! Thou hast summoned me.”
“I summoned thee, Fidá ibn-Mahmud ibn-Hassan el-Asra, to hear thine
uncle’s message to me. Thou seest my men are returned.”
Fidá, gone white to the lips, looked into the Rajah’s eyes, and, albeit
his voice was unsteady, said quietly: “Let them speak.”
“Radai Sriyarman, repeat the message of Omar el-Asra.”
The soldier nearest Fidá turned slightly toward him, and began,
speaking as if by rote: “Omar the Mohammedan, answering our demand of
five thousand copper pieces,[3] specified jewels, and treaty of eternal
peace with Mandu as the price of the freedom of Fidá el-Asra, spake
thus: That what was demanded was greater than the value of any man.
That he would give, with the permission of the Lord Aybek of Delhi, the
large price of five hundred dirhems for his nephew; and, we refusing
the offer, he then returned this message to Rai-Khizar-Pál, Maharaj’ of
Mandu: ‘Let the King beware that he touch not one hair of the head of
Prince Fidá. The sword of the great Prophet is ablaze over the land,
and, in a year’s time, all the country from Lahore to the great Ghats
will be under the rule of the faithful. Let Fidá, my nephew, be of
good heart. Let him be assured that any injury to him will be avenged
a thousand-fold upon the people of Mandu, and that the King himself
shall answer for his daring with his life. Thus speaks Omar of the
Asra, a follower of Mohammed, in the name of Allah, the one God, the
compassionate, the merciful.’”
[3] Before the Mohammedan conquest, copper was the standard of
currency in India.
“Thou hearest it! Thou hearest this message of thy kinsman?” shouted
Rai-Khizar, stirred anew to wrath with the rehearing of the insolent
message.
“Ah! Dost thou not perceive? My uncle desires my death—longs for my
death, that he may know himself the head of his race!” Fidá cried,
in an agony of bitterness. Then, while the Rajah gazed down upon him
in astonishment, the slave once more fell upon his face before the
conqueror: “O King, live forever! Let the King show mercy to his slave!
Let him remember how I refused to assume the state of the ransomed
when the messengers left Mandu. Let Rai-Khizar-Pál remember that I am
his slave, defenceless. Let him show himself more merciful than my own
people!”
Fidá pled passionately, scarce knowing why it was that life had
suddenly become so precious to him. To the surprise of the soldiers,
and, perhaps, to his own, his words served. The Rajah sat silent for
some moments, his pride and anger struggling with his sense of justice.
In the end the good triumphed. His frown softened, and he rose to his
feet, saying:
“Thou shalt live, then, Asra, by my mercy. Return to thy kennel! But,
by Indra, the Mohammedan hath not yet seen the last of Rai-Khizar-Pál!”
Fidá, scarcely believing in his own deliverance, scarcely able to grasp
the scene that had just passed, stumbled from the room, and returned
to the place that the King had called his kennel. All that night he
tossed and turned on his uneasy bed, sleeping fitfully, glad when he
woke out of his dreams. Relief at his scarce-hoped-for escape for a
time prevented his facing the future. But at last he began to realize
the fact that the hope, so slight and so desperately clung to, of
release, was gone: that henceforth he faced a life of unremitting toil,
of thankless servitude. Years—centuries, perhaps—must elapse before the
Mohammedan rule could spread through Malwa. Nay, India might rise and
drive the invaders back across her cruel mountains before the prophet’s
followers had looked upon the Dekhan. And as Fidá grimly strangled his
new-springing, infant hope, his cup of misery seemed full. Despair
gripped him; and in its iron arms he slept.
Two days passed before Fidá again visited Ahmed. There was some excuse
for his absence, perhaps, for he was now become a slave indeed, and had
been given new tasks, one of which might, perhaps, have been regarded
as something of a favor. The charge of young Bhavani’s horsemanship was
placed with him; and every afternoon, for an hour, he was commanded to
lead the young prince up and down the road beside the water palace,
instructing him as to his seat, the carrying of weapons, and the
management of his animal. Although the spirit of his new work made Fidá
ache with the memory of his free warrior days, still he was proud of
the confidence reposed in him; and he and the young prince soon took a
fancy for each other. At first Rai-Khizar-Pál frequently appeared at
some period of the lesson; and, having convinced himself that his slave
was really fitted to instil the knightly spirit into his son, Fidá
found himself restored to a part of his former favor.
The matter of the riding lessons and the companionship with Bhavani
were not given up while Fidá lived in Mandu; and, long before he left
it, despair over his captivity had been driven from his heart. For
forty-eight hours after the return of the ambassadors of ransom, he
hugged misery close, and the future was veiled in black. But on the
third day his lonely fortitude gave way, and, when Bhavani’s lesson was
over, he stole down to the house of eunuchs and into Churi’s familiar
room. Ahmed, convalescent now, lay sound asleep upon his bed. But upon
Fidá’s appearance, Churi came forth from a shadowy corner, and took him
by the hand.
“Come, let us sit here, Asra,” he said, in a low voice, at the same
time leading his visitor to the place where he had been sitting.
Fidá, mildly surprised at his manner, settled himself. Churi sat down
at his side, and stared at him, meditatively, for some minutes. Then a
distorted smile broke over his face. “I was waiting for thee, prince of
the Asra.”
“I am no prince,” returned Fidá, savagely. “I—”
“Yet,” broke in Churi, “I bring a message to you from a—princess.” He
paused. Fidá sat staring at him, incredulous of his ears.
“I have a message for Fidá, Prince of the Asra,” repeated Churi, at
length, with emphasis. “Wouldst hear it?”
“Speak!” answered the slave, hoarsely.
“These, then, are the words I was told to say to thee: ‘Why comes
not the Asra to her that waits? The way shall be easy to one greatly
aspiring’.” Churi spoke in the lowest voice; and Fidá strained forward
to catch the words.
“‘Why comes he not to her that waits? The way shall be easy—to one
greatly aspiring’,” he repeated, trying to grasp all that it meant.
“And there was this to be given,” continued Churi, taking from his
girdle, and handing to Fidá, a faded and wilted poppy.
Fidá grasped the flower in his hand, and started wildly to his feet.
“Take me to her!” cried he. “Take me to her, Churi! Allah give thee
life!”
“Quiet! Quiet! Shall the whole palace hear thee?” Churi glared at
him, without moving from where he sat. In his face there was no sign
of life. And, at his words, and still more by the cold indifference
into which his expression had relapsed, Fidá’s flaming eagerness was
chilled. His face grew questioning. The hand holding the poppy dropped
to his side. Then Churi spoke, slowly:
“I have delivered to thee the message. Find thou the way.”
“Churi!”
The eunuch smiled, vaguely.
The smile accomplished much. Fidá’s impatience gave way. Determination
took its place. He sat down again beside his tormentor, placed the
poppy carefully in his own sash, and then leaned persuasively toward
his expressionless companion. “Tell me, Churi, wherein I am wrong,” he
said, sweetly.
Now, Churi had got himself into an anomalous position. He had, as a
matter of fact, accepted a gift from Ahalya for the transmission of her
message; and he was perfectly well aware that she expected him to go
much farther in the betrayal of his office than she had asked in words.
But Churi was not quite prepared for these lengths. His actions during
the last few moments had been instinctive. He was trusting to chance to
show him a method of procedure. After some little thought, he answered
Fidá as truthfully as he could.
“Thou’rt wrong in this, Asra, that thou acceptest this message for
truth when it says: ‘the way is easy to one greatly aspiring’. The
way is not easy, but, rather, so difficult that I see no means of
traversing it.”
“Dost thou not, indeed? Ah, but thou aspirest not, Churi. That is the
difference.”
Churi shrugged.
“Now I already see the feat performed. Shall I explain it to thee?”
“I am a listener, Asra.”
“Then hark. Between the hours of twelve and two, the zenana is guarded
by one that is a kindly man. At the hour of his watch this fellow, for
just the shadow of an instant, falls asleep. Lo! The way is open!” Fidá
smiled delightedly.
Churi, however, turned on him a solemn look. “Truly thou hast little
regard for the life of the ‘kindly one’. Knowest thou not the penalty
for a guardian that sleeps?”
Once again Fidá sprang to his feet. “Name of Allah, man, why hast thou
brought this message then? Was it to drive me mad? Am I a fool to be
mocked at? What meanest thou?”
Churi’s color changed perceptibly. “I mock thee not,” he said, in a
voice that rang untrue. “I mock thee not. Behold, thou demandest of me
my safety, my fidelity, my life. Is that so small a thing to ask—as a
gift?”
“A gift! Ah! I see.” Fidá’s head sank upon his breast, and, for a
moment, he was lost in thought. Then, looking Churi straight in the
eyes, he said: “I am a slave—thou knowest that. What wilt thou have of
me? Wilt thou take my life when once I have done the bidding of—the
beloved?”
“Thy life is useless to me.”
“Killing me, thou couldst save thine honor.”
“I am no murderer.”
“Then—wait! Wait.” Fidá’s hand flew to his sash. He was not
treasureless. Nay, at this moment there was, on his body, a fortune
greater than that asked as his ransom. True, it was worth more to him
than his freedom. He had been willing to suffer slavery rather than
deliver up his race to death. But love!—Ah, the Asra had always held
that greater than life. Love was beyond price. Should not the Asra
ruby buy him the love that must eventually kill him? Instantly impulse
answered that death, after the love of Ahalya, would be as nothing. Yet
he waited to weigh the question further; and was met on every hand by
reason flanked with love. What promise did life hold out to him:—the
dry, lonely, lowering life of the slave? At the end death would come,
and the ruby be buried with him, or pass to the conqueror of the alien
race. Let him, then, buy a great, brief joy with it, and afterwards a
speedy exit from his slavery.
Fidá drew forth the golden box, Churi watching him with surprise and
interest. Pressing the hidden spring, he let the ruby roll into his
palm, and held it out to Churi.
“Look,” said he. “Take it into thy hand and look.”
The eunuch complied; and, seeing how the wonderful stone gleamed and
glowed even here in the shadows, his eyes brightened and his lips
twitched.
“This is the key to the zenana. Take it, Churi, and unlock the door for
me—to-night.”
Churi looked up into Fidá’s face, and found there sincerity and
earnestness. For a moment he hesitated, considering, counting the cost.
At last his eyes fell. “How much is this ruby worth?” he asked, in a
low voice.
“More than was asked for my ransom.”
“Why, then, didst thou not ransom thyself with it?”
“It holds in it the fate of the Asra. For her, only, would I surrender
it.”
“Hath the Rajah seen it?”
“Yes, and suffered it to remain with me for the sake of my people.”
“How, then, shall I take it from thee?”
“Because I give it—freely.”
Churi’s hand closed slowly on the stone. His eyes were glittering as he
rose at last. “Come, then, to the antechamber, to-night,” he murmured.
Fidá’s face grew radiant. “Wilt thou tell her?”
“I will tell her.”
“At midnight to-night—oh, my beloved!”
Churi stared at him still. “Truly thou aspirest greatly,” he said, with
envy in his heart.
CHAPTER VII
THE POWER OF THE FLAME
After his arrangement with Churi, and the delivery of the ruby, the
remaining hours of daylight passed for Fidá in swift chaos. Ahmed woke
before he could leave the room; and he sat beside the boy trying to
talk to him for a few minutes, though he had little notion of what he
was saying. Then he returned to his duties beside the Rajah, and for
the next three hours was fully occupied, though his mind wandered far
from his hands, and he drifted through mists of thought. It was not
till later that there came an idea that filled him with terror. Might
not the King himself guard the zenana to-night? Happily this dread was
of short duration. The King sat late over his wine with Manava; and
Fidá himself saw him in bed and beyond apprehension. Then, at last
alone, Fidá betook himself to his diminutive room, and there prepared
to wait through two eternal hours.
How long the time was; and how short! He would not look back; he dared
not look forward. He existed only in a consciousness that she, she, the
one, was waiting for him; that to-night, at last, he should be alone
with her, fearing no intrusion. This unexpressed thought he had lived
with all day; and it became keener, now, till he could not be still.
It grew late. The palace was quiet; but Fidá was beyond passiveness.
He rose, walked swiftly through the maze of rooms and passages, and
entered the silent courtyard. The moon, a little past the full, had
come up from the east, and swung, like a great, yellow lantern, above
the dark outlines of the palace roof. The world shone softly in the
mellow light. The night air from the hills was cold; but the earth was
sweet. Fidá loitered near a doorway, wrapped in his cloak. The great
courtyard was empty save for the two motionless soldiers that guarded
its entrance. Apparently not another soul was abroad in the palace
to-night. Fidá moved languidly across and looked into the temple room
of Vishnu. Darkness and silence here. The gods also slept. A great
excitement, a great terror, a high ecstasy were drawing over him.
Surely now it was time—time to claim the price of the ruby. Surely by
this time Churi stood on guard in the antechamber. Yet nothing must be
risked. If he were too early?—The thought was impossible. He waited,
therefore, till the moon was halfway to mid-heaven, and then, when he
could endure no more, left the outer world. A moment later he stood at
the door of the antechamber.
“Is it thou?” came, in the faintest breath, from Churi, within.
In an instant Fidá was at his side, and had seized him by the arm.
“Now! Now!” said he, gazing fiercely, eagerly, into the eunuch’s
unmatched eyes.
“Enter then, and turn to the left hand. The way is short. It is not to
be missed.”
Fidá grasped Churi by the shoulders, clasped him for a second like
a madman, and then ran across the forbidden threshold—where man not
of the royal house of Mandu had never set foot before. Swiftly he
traversed the short, dark passage opening on his left, and presently
found himself in an oblong room, lighted by a single crimson lamp that
glowed through a mist of incense smoke pouring up from a metal jar on a
stand, near by. Dazed by the overpowering sweetness, he shut his eyes
for an instant. When he opened them again, he had a swift impression
of rich tapestries, thick rugs, many cushions, and then—and then he
beheld, lying on a divan at the end of the room, a slight figure, all
clad in red and gold, lying asleep in the heavy air.
His heart pounded against his sides. His throat tightened till he could
have uttered no sound; and he went to her, softly, and knelt at her
side, and gazed at her. She was here—waiting for him. Her white lids
were shut over her eyes, and the long, silky lashes curved outward a
little from her cheek. Her heavy hair was pushed back from her brows;
and one of her little hands lay in a mass of it above her head. Fidá
studied her, hungrily, eagerly, silently. He had never seen her like
this before—had, indeed, never dreamed of seeing her so. She was his,
for his eyes to feast on. And oh—how fair! how fair! In that moment
he dreaded to have her wake; for then she would surely send him from
her. It seemed to him impossible that she could love him, could suffer
him to kneel beside her. Yet, with an effort, after two attempts, he
whispered her name, hoarsely: “Ahalya!” Then again, after a moment,
“Ahalya!”
She sighed, and her eyes opened. Shivering slightly, she stared, and
sat up, crying: “Thou art come! Ah, thou art come at last!”
That was all. It was more than mortal flesh could bear. He had touched,
he had clasped her. She was lying in his arms.
Nearly two hours went by; and then Neila appeared from an inner room.
Ahalya was still upon the divan, her head pillowed on the breast of
Fidá, who sat upright. It seemed almost as if they slept, so motionless
they were. Neila halted in the doorway, staring at them, till she
encountered the glittering eyes of the Asra.
“Oh, thou must go! It is time,” she murmured.
“No!” Ahalya, feeling the intruding presence, roused herself, and
convulsively tightened the clasp of her arms about Fidá’s neck.
“Krishna!” mourned Neila, “we shall all be killed!”
Fidá, however, conquered himself, and loosened the Ranee’s arms.
“Beloved, I must go—that I may return,” he whispered.
Trembling, Ahalya submitted; and, as Fidá rose, she sank upon the
divan, face downward, nor could any intreaty induce her to lift her
head again. So they parted, without a word; and, at the zenana door,
Fidá found Churi, excited and uneasy. He hailed the Asra’s appearance
with infinite relief.
“Mahendra will be here in a breath. I had nearly come for thee.”
Fidá smiled at him out of shining eyes. “Ah, Churi, had I a thousand
rubies, they should all be thine!”
“Thou fool!” rose to Churi’s lips. But he only said: “Verily, the
danger is worth rubies, even of the value of thine. Is this thing to be
done again?”
“Again and yet again! until—” Fidá’s face darkened, “until I pay my
price—of death.”
But Fidá as yet was far from death. Overcome with weariness he
returned to his bed, and slept for nearly six hours before he woke to
the new joy of light and living. That day he was as a man drunk. His
exhilaration was boundless. He walked upon air. His eyes shone, his
voice rang triumphant with love. The world was at its climax. She was
his. What mattered dishonor? What mattered treachery, slavery, or the
old, forgotten curse? Love, youth, the world, were his. Should he ask
more?
With the evening came his answer. With all this, he had still little
enough; for the King ruled in his zenana, and Fidá began to know
something of the sinner’s suffering. She was beyond the protection of
him to whom by right of soul she belonged. She was beyond him; and
yet, second by second, he must suffer for and with her. He wept and
raved and clenched his shaking hands in the madness of jealousy at
this retribution of the wrong he had done. In the new day, as he came
to gaze upon the tranquil face of his conqueror, his whole being was
stirred with wonder that such things as were in his heart could lie
there unsuspected. But Rai-Khizar-Pál could not know the heart of his
slave, nor how, with night, hope came again.
As soon as Churi went on guard at midnight, Fidá appeared in the
antechamber, unstrung and reckless. He would have rushed past the
eunuch without a word, but that he was forcibly restrained. This
action, on the part of his one ally, goaded Fidá fairly to madness;
and, without speaking, he flung himself into a fierce struggle with the
eunuch, whose strength, however, he presently discovered to be very
great. When both of them were all but exhausted, the Asra, coming to
himself, fell back, staring hopelessly at his opponent, and murmuring,
more to himself than to Churi:
“Thou traitor! Oh, miserable! Have I sold my birthright for this!”
“Madman!” retorted Churi, “thinkest thou there is no reason in what I
do? I serve our lady. She bade me deny thee entrance.”
“It is not true!”
“By Krishna, I swear it.”
“Ahalya!” Fidá’s face grew deathlike.
“Neila came to me at dusk. The Ranee is sick and shaken with grief and
fear. Thou canst not see her—yet.”
“_Yet!_”
Churi smiled cynically. “Thou boy! Verily thou knowest little of women.
Wait in patience, Asra. I think thou shalt see her again. I will not
prevent thee. But now, leave this place, if you court not death.”
Without further words, Fidá turned and left the room. When he reached
his bed again, he flung himself upon it, and lay for a long time
staring into the dark. Then, gradually, he fell to weeping; and while
he wept, Allah had pity on his weakness, and sent him sleep.
But Ahalya! Poor Ahalya! While her lover’s heart accused her of all
faithlessness, she suffered not one whit less than he. She loved
Fidá, indeed, wholly. Their meeting had been of her own desire and
arrangement. But she was young in intrigue, new to dishonor. And
when solitude brought her face to face with what she had done, she
was plunged into despair. Her mind distorted all things. Fidá seemed
infinitely remote from her. Their love had been a thing of such magical
growth that, having been half the time unconscious of the workings
of her own senses, she, in the first reaction, began to disbelieve
altogether in her love. She was in a labyrinth of warped emotion,
shame, and remorse; and, till she found herself again, the very name of
Fidá was abhorrent to her.
All through the day that followed their first meeting the Ranee lay on
her bed, wide-eyed, tearless, and unapproachable. Neila wondered and
watched, but dared not intrude upon her. On the evening of that day
came Rai-Khizar-Pál, all unconsciously bringing her punishment for her
sin. For two days after this she remained in seclusion, while Neila and
Churi vainly took counsel together on behalf of the slave, for whom
each felt some sort of unselfish concern. But, though Fidá was on the
verge of madness, not a word could be got out of Ahalya concerning him:
not one message would she send. Churi began to doubt his theory of the
fallibility of women; and Neila would not have been surprised at a full
confession of everything to Rai-Khizar-Pál. But at last, miraculously,
came an incident from an unexpected quarter that did what no amount of
pleading and persuasion could have accomplished.
In the hidden drama that had, in the past few days, been enacted in
Mandu, there was a certain personage, long since accustomed to play an
important rôle in every game of intrigue, who had had no part at all.
Nevertheless, Lord Ragunáth was not going to be discounted forever; and
it was at this stage of events that he appeared upon the scene. Perhaps
a scent of hidden things was in the air. Perhaps his sensibilities,
attuned to all that was secret, caught some vibration of treachery;
though the nature of that treachery remained undreamed-of. At any rate,
it was just at the time when the object of his furtive desires was torn
and riven with a struggle in which he was not concerned, that Ragunáth
suffered one of his periodic fits of madness, and hit upon a new and,
at last, successful method of gaining one of his ends.
The two eunuchs who had recently died of fever in the palace had been
men of experience and importance in their station; and they had been
replaced by two others, supposedly responsible, from Bágh. Kasya had
satisfied himself that both were trustworthy; but Kanava, sounding them
from another quarter, found in one of them a long-sought weakness.
On the afternoon of the fourth day of Fidá’s misery, when the Rajah
was attending ceremonial in the village at the other end of the
plateau, one of these men, Kripa by name, stood on guard in the zenana
antechamber. Kripa was tired, and Kripa was bored with the prospect of
two stifling hours of solitary watching. He was, then, undisposed to be
short with any one that came to break his dull thoughts. And when Lord
Ragunáth unexpectedly appeared before him, he greeted the minister with
a mixture of curiosity and reverence that Ragunáth found propitious to
his purpose. He had come well prepared and fortified with the corrupter
of prudence, the breaker of faith, the power of the evil-minded—a
goodly sum of money. For a few moments he applied himself to his task
with all his considerable mind and tact; and, at the end of that time,
Kripa stood before him a newly enlisted mercenary. It had been arranged
between them that Ragunáth was to stay in the anteroom and there have a
brief interview with the Lady of his Desire; provided of course that,
what he did not for a moment doubt, she would see him.
Quite tremulous with eagerness, Ragunáth pushed his minion into the
zenana, bearing a blind message to the Lady Ahalya to come at once,
if it were her pleasure, to the antechamber. Kripa reappeared in a
very short space of time, smiling the word that the Ranee would follow
him. And Ragunáth, drunk with high success, commanded the fallen one
to remain away for at least an hour. Promising nothing, but very well
satisfied to be free for a little while, though he dared not join
his companions, Kripa, drowsy with the dusk and quiet of his watch,
wandered off into the maze of rooms around the audience hall, lay down
upon a convenient divan, and was shortly sound asleep.
Ragunáth, meantime, had grown as nervous and eager as a youth while he
waited the coming of the Ranee. She did not keep him long. As he stood
watching the curtained doorway, she appeared, her young face pale and
strained, but with expectation in it; her form all swathed in crimson
silks. At sight of her, Ragunáth gave a low cry of emotion; but, in the
same instant, Ahalya’s face changed utterly.
“Thou!” she said, half wondering, half sobbing.
“I, rose of heaven! I, star among women, whose hair holds the fragrance
of the jessamine, whose breath is perfumed like the almond blossom. I,
I, Ragunáth, have sought thee, and beseech thy favor; for, indeed, I am
gone mad for love of thee!” And, throwing himself before her, Ragunáth
lifted the filmy hem of her garment to his lips.
Ahalya still stood in the doorway, clinging to the curtains on
either side of her, her face expressing a mixture of repulsion and
disappointment. As Ragunáth would have clasped her feet, she drew back,
sharply:
“Away from me, dishonorable one!” she said, in a low, angry voice. “If
you would not have me expose this treachery to Rai-Khizar-Pál,—begone!”
Ragunáth did not rise. Rather, he lay writhing at her feet, like one
possessed of a frenzy—as indeed he was. But it was a resolving frenzy.
After the period of madness, he was coming to himself again. Pride
returned to him, and, with it, something of his usual cunning, as he
remembered how willing Ahalya had been to come before him. It was then
that he got to his feet; then that he turned on the woman, asking,
softly, through shame of the display he had made:
“O, Ranee, it was not I, then, that you came to greet? It was not for
Ragunáth that you are decked out in crimson and gold? And for whom? for
whom? Not Rai-Khizar. He waits not in antechambers for thy greeting.
Ah, will it be wise, Ranee, to ‘expose’ me to thy lord? There are
things—”
“Be still! thou shameless, treacherous, hateful one! I hate you! Know
that. I hate—I hate—I hate you!” And, her voice on the last word rising
to a shrill cry, the young woman, white faced and burning eyed, turned
from him and fled into the inaccessible rooms beyond. There, panting,
sobbing, angry, and, in her heart of hearts, greatly terrified,
she flung herself upon a couch and gave herself up unreservedly to
acknowledgment of her hidden love and woe.
Now, during the few moments of this interview, Neila, astonished and
frightened at what she, like Ahalya, believed to be Fidá’s appearance
at this hour, had, as soon as her mistress left her, run to seek out
Churi, whom she brought back more disturbed than she, just as the Ranee
returned to her rooms. Churi did not enter there, but proceeded at once
to the antechamber. Parting the curtains that hung before the door, he
started, and stood stock-still to find himself face to face with the
one man he had had no thought of. Ragunáth was still standing where
Ahalya had left him, and, at this new appearance, he was too much taken
aback to note the newcomer’s discomposure.
“Churi!” he muttered, half in alarm, half angrily.
“Even so, Lord Ragunáth.” At once Churi was himself again.
“Dog! who sent thee here?”
“The Puissant One speaks the same words that had lain on my humble
lips.”
“Strangely indeed is the King’s zenana conducted! I pass the
antechamber and see no guard therein. I enter the antechamber that I
may see if the guard be perhaps concealed from view; and, as I look,
there appears a pariah, who sees fit to insult me. By Indra, thou
doctor of dogs, thou shalt be whipped for it!”
There came a little pause, during which Churi, with his disturbing
eyes, gazed steadily, smoothly, quietly upon the man that faced him,
till Ragunáth fairly writhed under the look. Then Churi said: “It
pleases the high lord to speak these words. Since it pleases him, it is
well. But,” and the tone changed, “let him take care that he act not as
he speaks. There are things more strange than unguarded antechambers
that may come to the ears of the Rajah.” Churi’s eyes menaced now.
Ragunáth gave some sort of hoarse ejaculation; and then, after wavering
for a moment, he turned and walked swiftly away, nor halted till he was
safe in his own rooms, with a personal slave or two on whom to wreak
his wrath and his double mortification.
Churi, left alone, was well pleased with himself. Luckily the
self-satisfaction was not too great to prevent his having his wits
still about him. He knew that this was Kripa’s watch, and in three
minutes he had hunted out the deserter’s retreat, kicked him awake, and
despatched him to his post thoroughly frightened. Yet Kripa was allowed
to remain in possession of his gold; for Churi was in no position to
expose the acts of the man he hated.
Unlucky as it had already proved to its two principal actors, the
little drama of the afternoon had further results. Ahalya, even in
the anger of revulsion against Ragunáth, knew that there was another
feeling in her heart: dared, after a time, admit to herself her
disappointment that it had not been Fidá who thus boldly summoned her
to him; for indeed she had gone to the anteroom, on Kripa’s summons,
thinking to find her lover there. Before nightfall she knew that she
longed to see Fidá again; and the more she repudiated the thought,
the more insistent it became, until she yielded to it. In the early
darkness Churi was despatched to bid him come to her that night.
When Churi managed to waylay the slave, Fidá was on his way to the
rooms where wine was stored, to fill a jar for his lord’s evening meal.
It needed only a look between the two for the eunuch’s errand to be
understood. Fidá laid a hand on Churi’s arm, and said, softly: “In the
name of Allah, Churi, speak to me!”
“There is no need,” answered the other, looking at him in a quizzical
but not unkindly manner.
“She will see me? I shall go to her again?”
“To-night. As before.”
In a single instant the accumulated anger and anguish of the past
four days melted and ran away from the youth’s heart. His load of
unhappiness was lifted. Once more he walked on air. It seemed to him
that he radiated life. But the few hours that still separated them
brought him much that was new in the way of thought. Since she had
forgiven him, he perceived that his banishment had been, in large
measure, brought on by himself. He had not sufficiently considered
her, her woman’s delicacy and hesitation. He had acted as his youth
and his manhood prompted him. But he resolved that there should be no
such mistake again. The thought of her now brought a deep tenderness,
which, indeed, might have surprised Ahalya could she have read it. Nor
were the six hours of the evening long or heavy. He had a foundation
on which to build his castle of dreams; and his heart was full of
thankfulness and relief. It was five minutes after midnight when he
entered the little room where Churi stood.
“All is well?” asked Fidá, his mouth dry.
“All is well. No one is stirring. Enter.”
Fidá’s bright eyes grew brighter still; and he ran boyishly through
the doorway into the little passage where, this time, Neila awaited
him. He followed her, in silence, down the short hall, through the
memorable room at the end of it, which was empty to-night, and across
the next one, that he had never seen, to a door at which Neila knocked.
A moment’s suspense, and then a muffled voice said, “Open!” The maid
pushed it, and motioned to Fidá, who passed swiftly within. The door
closed behind him. He was gazing upon the figure of Ahalya, who stood
a few feet away, looking at him, doubtfully, longingly, half sadly.
His heart throbbed with many emotions. He took a hesitating step or
two toward her, pleading with his eyes. Then, all at once, there was a
quick, low cry, and Ahalya had flung herself into his arms.
What passed between them now were difficult to relate. Afterwards
they themselves had but a confused idea. It was very certain that
Ahalya loved him; for she delivered herself up entirely to his will.
Yet, with each of them, passion was mingled with something better: a
deep tenderness, a high companionship, the mutual compassion of the
unhappy. She laid upon him a great responsibility, telling him over
and over again that without him she should not try to live; explaining
the torture of her self-hatred: the shame that, loving him, she must
still submit to another; wetting his eyes with her tears while she
demanded from him a solution of her miserable problem. Pitying while
he loved, Fidá read what her warped life had been, and all the history
of her loneliness. Nor did he fail her in a certain sort of comfort,
of a philosophical nature, for which she cared little, save that it
came from his lips. But she listened eagerly to all that he told her
of himself, of his country and his life; though he withheld the story
of the curse, of which, at their first meeting, he had given her a
suggestion that she seemed to have forgotten. They talked long, but the
talk was finally hushed. Fidá extinguished the single lamp that burned.
And later, Neila, come to warn them of the time, found them there in
the darkness, Ahalya weeping in his arms.
This time it was the woman that bade her lover leave her; for Fidá
had not the strength to put her from him. When at last he reached
the anteroom, only three or four minutes before the appearance of
Churi’s relief, the latter’s heart was in his throat, and he was
ready to declare that he would never again run the risk of disaster
and discovery through the slave’s rashness. Later in the night he
sought Fidá in his own room, and the two had a long talk together. The
eunuch had come with the purpose of protesting against the present
arrangement, with which he was in a high state of dissatisfaction. But
he ended by allowing himself to be, to some extent, overpowered by the
earnestness and the logic of love; though after he had departed, Fidá
lay awake for a long time, anxiously considering the risks that he ran
in placing all his dependence on this one person, whom he knew very
well to be in some ways entirely unreliable.
Churi, indeed, was playing a part very different from the one he had
imagined for himself. He had entered upon the affair rather blindly,
and with the belief that a few weeks, perhaps days even, would convert
his ruby into money; upon which his freedom would quickly follow. A
little time had shown him his mistake. The ruby was not a gem easily
to be sold; for the simple reason that no one in Mandu save the Rajah
himself was wealthy enough to buy it; and Rai-Khizar-Pál knew the
stone, and to whom it belonged. Questions were not to be risked. Churi
soon realized that he must wait until the spring, when the travelling
merchants from Rajputana would come down from the north with the rich
wares that made their arduous journeys profitable. One of these,
the eunuch knew very well, would take his stone, without questions.
Meantime, what was his course to be? It was true that he was genuinely
attached to Ahalya, and had some feeling for Fidá. Moreover, his
natural talent for intrigue rejoiced at the risk of the present affair.
Nevertheless, that risk, as matters stood at present, was too great.
Soon, then, he found his mind at work reconstructing, building up new
safeguards against that bombshell which, one day, no caution could keep
from an explosion that must betray its existence to Mandu in ruin and
destruction.
Churi, evil-thinking, evil-doing, was nevertheless faithful to his
better instincts. It was not for his own gain that he set his mind to
work at new plans of entrance to the zenana; and at finding therefrom
new exits, to be used in case of need. These plans materialized well;
and, by the bedside of the now almost recovered Ahmed, he expounded
his ideas to Fidá. The Asra was already aware that the zenana was
accessible by other ways than the central portion of the palace. The
passage from the north wing to the little court was left unguarded
for the simple reason that, by day, no one could enter there without
risk of being seen by half a hundred eyes; and by night the face of
the zenana itself was made, by means of chains and locks, a perfectly
impenetrable wall, by which the high Lord Ragunáth himself had more
than once been baffled. For Fidá, however, this difficulty did not
exist. On the other side of that wall there were willing hands to work
for him; for Churi himself had the task of fastening doors and wooden
window-screens at nightfall. Who was there to discover that one of
these, in the inner room of the Ranee Ahalya, was left unlocked? Who
was there to note the tiny hinge which deft-handed Churi substituted
for a bolt? Rai-Khizar-Pál never perceived these things; and, beside
him, Neila was the only soul that entered the Ranee’s bedroom. Shortly,
then, Fidá had ceased to be dependent on the antechamber for access
to his lady; and he and Churi both wondered how so obvious a means
had slipped their first consideration. But passion soon began to get
the better of the Arabian. His gracelessness no longer stopped with
the night. Hairbrained were the risks he ran, wild the chances that
he took, though all the time it seemed that he was protected by a
scandalous providence. Churi and Neila spent days and nights of dread;
but Ahalya was as blind to caution as the Asra; and together they
overran advice or pleadings; and recklessly they laughed with Fate.
Two months—a little more—went by: to the lovers, months of ecstasy
and despair, of joy inexpressible, and keenest agony; for love like
theirs carries constantly its own punishment. But the man and the
woman were young, of Oriental blood, the desire for affection in each
rendered abnormal by the restraint to which both had been subject.
Fidá went without sleep and without food, and yet seemed to suffer
no untoward effects from his nerve-destroying existence. Indeed, so
remarkable was his vitality, so strong his power of recuperation after
the longest service and watchfulness, that he, and Churi also, began in
their minds to scoff at the Asra curse, and wonder whence the quaint
legend had originated. Ahalya, who had little to do, save in so far as
Rai-Khizar-Pál demanded her companionship, spent all the hours in which
she and Fidá were apart, in dreaming of their next meeting. Never had
she been so beautiful as now. Every line of weariness and discontent
had disappeared from her face. Her eyes, under the light of their new
knowledge, shone like stars. Her face took on a new glow of color, more
clear, more pure, more rose-and-white than ever. Her voice had gained
a new and tender richness; and, as she dreamed over the Persian harp
that she loved to play, Neila used to listen in amazement to the beauty
of her singing. Her increased charm had its penalty, however; for the
Rajah was not slow in perception, and seemed more and more to delight
in her, keeping her at his side oftener than of old. And the suffering
entailed by this was nearly enough to drive the loveliness away.
Varied as were the duties of Fidá’s life, pleasant, or dull, or
interesting as they might otherwise have been, he performed all save
one apathetically, as so much dull labor to be got through willy-nilly.
Everything in him, every thought, every wish, was under Ahalya’s sway.
Body and heart and brain she ruled him, as, indeed, he ruled her.
There was now scarcely a suggestion of remorse or regret in either of
them. The lower natures of both were in the ascendant; and there were
numberless hours when the flesh reigned supreme. In his saner moments
Fidá sometimes paused to analyze himself, doubtfully, wondering if he
could be the Fidá of Delhi and of Yemen. But during the last month
he was not often sane; and when, with the glare of the day, other
thoughts, truths, reproaches, came to him, he fought them off, refusing
to consider, not daring to remember, his code.
El-Islam, life to the true Arabian, was, by degrees, deserting the
captive. How should he maintain a religion that taught moderation in
all things, duty to the master, forbearance from intoxication? Ahalya,
whose mother, in her long captivity, had lost her own beautiful Magian
religion, and who had herself been brought up a Hindoo, had, like
many Indian women of station, taken the god Krishna, lord of beauty,
romance, and love, for her special deity. And some of the pretty
ceremony and graceful superstition of her half-doubtful beliefs had
woven themselves like an evil web around Fidá’s brain. Often, during
their quiet hours, Ahalya used to sing to her lover parts of the great
Indian Song of Songs—the wooing of Krishna and Radha. And her voice,
and the smooth-flowing poetry of the words, charmed him into new
forgetfulness of the sterner western creed. The story was well fitted
to their state. As Ahalya sang, he loved to call her Radha; and if she
delighted in him as the incarnation of her too well worshipped god, her
lover saw in it no sacrilege. But in this way his prayers grew strange
to him; and he became in some sort a pagan, unworthy of any god.
There was but one pursuit left in which they found an honest pleasure.
Both of them loved the boy, Bhavani, whom, in different ways, each was
instructing in a primitive code of manhood and chivalry. The child had
taken so strong a fancy to Fidá that his father, perfectly confident of
the Asra’s fitness for the position, began more and more to surrender
him as cup-bearer in order that he might attend his son. And Fidá,
finding the child truthful, obedient, and affectionate, took a genuine
pride in instructing him in all that he knew. There were times, indeed,
when the man, brought into close contact with young innocence and
instinctive honor, was drawn to a certain unavoidable sense of guilt;
and this same thing Ahalya felt, when, in accordance with the young
prince’s wishes, she rehearsed with him, in their old way, the dramatic
epics of ancient Indian heroism and self-sacrifice. And so much alike
had the minds of the lovers become, that the young Bhavani, imbibing
from each the same often identically expressed principles, came by
degrees to connect the two in his mind; perhaps even, with a child’s
intuition, guessing something of their position, though unconscious of
its sin.
The momentary and fleeting suggestions of remorse were very slight,
however, even with Ahalya. Neila, who knew all, watched her mistress
in perpetual wonder; for she had changed utterly. She was a gazelle
transformed to a tigress; and the handmaid, who worshipped her with the
worship of a slave for a queen, now feared her while she loved her,
and because she loved her, also feared. Neila, never told anything in
words, had known all from the first, and from that first had acted as
go-between. In spite of the cynicism of Fidá, who, after the Mohammedan
fashion, trusted no woman, she had proved faithful to both of them,
and had held the interests of both at heart. For, if Ahalya were
her princess, Fidá was a captive prince, a man rarely beautiful in
form, and, moreover, the very first that, to her knowledge, had ever
succeeded in doing what he had done. He had risen to great heights in
her eyes; and if Ahalya sometimes called her lover by the name of her
wooden god, Neila carried the matter farther yet, and half believed
that Fidá was really more than human.
In this different-wise ten weeks passed, and it came to be the third
Ashtaka[4] of Magghar Poh (December). This sacrifice and festival,
begun at noon, was wont to continue till midnight; and the Rajah,
jealous of Brahman prerogatives, never failed to take a chief place in
such rites. Fidá, an outcast according to Hindoo codes, was, during
this holy ceremony, not allowed on sacred ground; and he therefore gave
himself up to the propitious time, and spent eight of the twelve hours
at Ahalya’s side. It wanted ten minutes to two when he left her, by the
now usual means of the low window in her room. Wrapping himself closely
in the long, white cloak of thin woollen stuff that made part of his
winter clothing, he started across the little, dark courtyard.
[4] On every eighth day through December and January there is a
special Brahman sacrifice called the “Ashtaka.” (See Grihya-Sutras,
Vol. I, p. 203, M. Müller edit.)
The noise of the revellers in the great court had not yet died away;
and Fidá debated whether he dared pass through them on his way to bed.
For the first time in many weeks he was thoroughly exhausted; and the
chilly night air swept over his parched and burning body with grateful
effect. All at once he felt that he dreaded to be alone because of
the thoughts that might come upon him. Entering the north wing, he
rapidly traversed the narrow passage leading past Ragunáth’s rooms,
turned instinctively in the usual direction, and presently emerged
at the court, where the ceremonial was over, the fires burning low,
and the soma revellers lying or standing about in various degrees of
intoxication. Near the door of the audience hall stood a little group
of priests and officials, among whom were the Rajah and Ragunáth. Not
daring to approach these, and giving not more than a passing thought to
the matter, gradually overcome by vague, chaotic ideas that were rising
in his mind, Fidá went on, out into the road, and along it till he came
to the water palace that stood on the edge of the plateau, overlooking
the south plain, through which the great Narmáda rushed. Here, in
the stillness, Fidá halted, looking around him. He was beside one of
the smooth water-basins overhung with slender bamboos and tamarind
shrubs, with tangles of lotus-plants floating, brown and dead, upon
its mirror-like surface. Before him rose the low, level walls of this
charming accident of Indian architecture. On high, overhead, hung a
late moon, wreathed in a feathery mist of night clouds, and throwing a
faint light over the plain and the distant river. To the right, in the
distance, a long, black, irregular shadow, rose the giant barrier of
the Vindhyas, beyond whose mystic recesses, far northward, lay distant
Delhi, the city of the slow-conquering race, the people of the captive
now standing here alone with the night. Gradually, as Fidá looked,
a great awe stole upon him. His body had grown cold with the night
chill; but his mind took no heed of the flesh. A change was upon him.
His chaotic thoughts were shaping themselves. Gradually, before the
vastness, the high dignity of nature, the ugliness of his last weeks
became clear to him, and he trembled with horror of himself. Slow tears
ran down his cold, set face. He locked his hands together, and rocked
his stiffened body to and fro. A cry was welling up in the heart of
him, standing there in the face of Allah’s creation: the high-reaching
hills, the wide, moonlit plain. To his overstrained nerves it seemed
that they judged him, in their immense incorruptibleness:—him, the
corrupt. And presently the mountains lifted up their voices and
spake. Plainly to his ears, out of the dim, black recesses, came low,
deep tones, uttering first his name: “_Fidá ibn-Mahmud ibn-Hassan
el-Asra_,” and then, after a long pause, the words, old and familiar
to him since childhood, the tradition of his race:
“Cursed be the Asra by Osman: cursed this day and forevermore any man
of them that loveth woman as I have loved Zenora. Let him die in the
first year of his loving, though from east to west he seek a cure. And
to him that taketh from another a promised wife, may the curse of Allah
the Avenger seek him out till he be hidden in the depth of Hell. Thus
I, Osman, curse thy race!”
Down from far generations rolled these words into the ears of the
youngest of the Asra, who, hearing them, uttered a deep cry, and,
swaying for a moment where he stood, presently fell, face down, into
the dead grass beside the pool.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CURSE
The night moved quietly on, the moon dropped westward, and still Fidá,
lying there on the dead kusa grass, did not stir. From his swoon he
had fallen into a heavy sleep which was unmoved by the slow passing
of the night. The far mountains, oblivious of the havoc they had
wrought upon a human mind, reared themselves grimly toward the stars,
and out of their fringing forests came now and then the roar of some
king animal, or the melting cry of a night-bird. Little by little the
moon paled and the stars grew dim, and a white mist rose over the
far-flowing river. The cold breath of dawn was upon the world, and in
its inimitable stillness the slave, wakened perhaps by the throbbing
of his own pulses, opened his eyes dully, and shivered and then rose
and stood staring down into the pool, struggling to free himself from
the bonds of oblivion and of sleep. When the memory of the past night
opened before him, it was as if he contemplated the undoing of another
man. He made no attempt, he had no wish, to think or to reflect upon
himself. The dawn was upon him—the sacred hour. Already, in the east,
a pale, clear light had lifted itself upon the horizon. One or two
silent birds—kites—floated over the walls of the water palace and
began to sink slowly into the depth of the plain. In the village a
dog howled, an ass brayed. Instinctively the spectator inclined his
ear for the muezzin’s call to prayer. But there was audible only the
flutelike note of the newly wakened koïl. The east brightened. The
clouds over the Vindhyas grew rosy, and the river mist was tinged
with gold. In the fresh morning air Fidá could perceive how his brain
burned, how his head throbbed. His body was racked with misery, but
there was a great clearness in his mind:—no searching, no thinking,
only a sudden upliftment and a simple sense of gratitude to nature for
this, her hour. Prayer was not upon his lips; but at last it lay in his
heart:—the great natural prayer that the first Hindoo, waking on his
world two thousand years before, had felt and could not utter.
The hour was advancing. The line of clouds above the northeast hills
changed from pale pink to a fiery rose-color that shed a glow over the
whole plateau, and haloed the man who stood, with his white-clothed
arms upraised, drinking in the purity around him. When at last the sun
pushed its edge over the horizon, it was invisible to Fidá; but he
knew, from the gradual disappearance of the delicate vapors, from the
sudden quieting of the birds, the _sense_ of day, that the mystic
dawn was over. Then, at last, Fidá realized suddenly that he was faint
with weariness and parched with thirst. Slowly he took his way back to
the palace, thinking not at all, only passively longing for rest. His
walk over, he stopped for a moment at the well, then went at once to
his own room, and, thankfully remembering that every one would rise
late to-day, threw himself on his bed and sank into another stupor-like
sleep. How long it was before he regained a vague consciousness, he did
not know; but he found two men standing over him, and one he recognized
as the Rajah. The sight of his face caused Fidá a dull surprise; but he
returned into the stupor without having uttered a word. After that his
rest seemed to be broken by various dire sensations and many monstrous
dreams. When his eyes opened, he always found Ahmed, and sometimes
Churi, near at hand; and, comforted by their presence, realizing that,
with them, delirium would be safe, he resigned himself. He knew that
he was very ill. Every one else knew it. Churi was exerting his utmost
skill; though he never once thought of the ruby. It did not remotely
occur to him to try that as a remedy. Three or four weeks passed
away, and then the fever abated a little, and gradually it came to be
understood that the Rajah’s favorite slave would live. By degrees his
strength, wofully depleted by the reckless strain he had put upon it
for so long, came back; and by the end of January he made a feeble
appearance again. He soon discovered that his sickness had not been
thought unusual by any one, since in his ravings he had betrayed the
fact that he had spent a night on the ground near the water palace.
Indeed, it would have been strange if the fever that lurks in all damp
night mists in western India had not made him a victim of his own
imprudence.
This view of the matter brought a great relief to Fidá. Perhaps, after
all, the incident of the curse had been just the wild dream of a sick
man. Perhaps those sinister words had been spoken by his own heart.
Perhaps.—Perhaps.—Perhaps. But, unnaturally, after Fidá was up and
about again, he did not get well. There were days when it seemed as
if his old-time vitality were returning to him; but there were many
more when he felt as if, by no possibility, could he bear the weight
of his limbs: when, racked with an inward fever that penetrated to the
very bone, he dragged himself about only by a superhuman effort. Yet,
unspeakably dreading that time when he must face the end, the slave
made every effort to conceal his illness, forcing himself to much
that seemed impossible for a man in his condition. One thing only he
could not do. He could not see Ahalya. Now, in the light of their past
vital relationship, he realized that he could no longer attempt his
former rôle. Day and night, it is true, he longed for her sympathy,
her tenderness, the touch of her gentle hands. But in return for her
ministrations he could give her nothing—nothing but the weary plaints
of a sick man. And so, steeling his heart to loneliness, he went his
way, blindly and dumbly, yet still, after the pathetic human custom,
hoping that life held yet a few empty years for him.
When, with mid-February, the spring appeared, Ahalya could no longer
bear her unhappiness, and one evening sent Churi to Fidá, bidding
him come to her. It was a summons that could not be refused; and, in
the early darkness, he stole to her rooms by the little courtyard.
Alas! How many, many times had he come to her thus in highest joy!
How differently to-night he came! In each heart there was dread, and
fear:—in hers that he long since tired of her, in his that she could
no longer care for him. When he appeared she was alone, standing at
the end of the room by her narrow bed, her face turned to the window
through which he entered. Seeing him, she did not move, but her eyes
grew big with inquiry, and her mouth drooped a little. Fidá, who could
not look upon her without deep emotion, also stood silent till he could
command his voice. Then he said, gently, but without much expression:
“Thou hast sent for me. I have come.”
Ahalya’s lip quivered, pitiably; and she lowered her head, without
replying.
Fidá, watching her, moved forward a step or two. “Ranee—what is thy
grief?” he asked, putting her, by his appellation, infinitely far away.
Ahalya gave a sob that was like a scream, and, flinging herself face
down upon the divan, laughed and wept hysterically, but still without
speaking. Fidá, bewildered, miserable, yet hoping something that he
dared not voice, knelt at her side and longed to give her comfort;
restraining himself only by a great effort. She wept as long as she
would, and then suddenly ceased, lifted herself, and turned a burning
gaze on him.
“Faithless one,” she said, in a low, monotonous tone: “thou faithless,
infinitely despised! Did I not give myself to thee, for thee committing
the greatest sin? I loved thee, and my heart was true, and in thy long
sickness by day and night I prayed to the gods for thee, vowing that,
shouldst thou die, I would follow thee as becomes a widow; for in all
ways I have considered myself thy true wife. And after thine illness,
when I yearned unspeakably to comfort thee, didst thou come hither?
didst send one word to me, that still live only in the thought of
thee? Oh, tell me,” and her voice rose passionately, “who is thy new
love? What is the name of her on whom thy traitor kisses fall? O thou
wretched one—” her tone became a long, ungovernable wail, “O captive—O
Fidá—hast thou forgotten me?”
“For the soul of Allah, Ahalya, do not torture me! Ahalya, Ahalya—I am
true to thee! Look at me!”
Dropping his concealing cloak upon the floor, he stepped into the
glow of light under the hanging-lamp, the pitiless rays of which fell
directly across his emaciated and deathly face, out of which shone
his eyes, glittering with fever. Ahalya gave a low exclamation, which
he answered. “Yea, look upon my face. It is that of one that hath not
much longer here. I have not told thee, thou beloved of my soul, of the
curse that lies upon my race. That curse was given me by the Vindhyas
on the last night that we loved. In my heart I know well that I am
doomed. My strength is gone, and the weakness grows daily greater.
Shall I bring this misery upon thee? Shall I—”
But here he was stopped. Comprehending him at last, Ahalya, her eyes
shining with new-found peace, went to him and put her arms about his
wasted frame; and he, feeling no desire to resist, let himself be drawn
down upon the divan, his head pillowed on her breast, her strong,
young arms around him. “Beloved,” she murmured over him, and Fidá
gave himself up to her. As he lay, passive, motionless, one of his
hands wound in her curling hair, they talked together, scatteringly,
of many things. Both of them understood that their burning days were
forever at an end; that indeed of the quiet ones there were left not
many. But, for the moment, Fidá could look upon the future without
dread; and Ahalya was under the spell of too great a relief to face
new calamity at once. Both knew, indeed, that the situation might have
been infinitely worse. There might have come sudden parting:—death for
one, for the other the torture of long waiting. Instead, the future
was to be to them but a golden repetition of the golden past. And even
now their companionship could be resumed, their love only growing the
stronger as Fidá’s body became weak, since they were now bound by ties
of truth and unselfishness that no misrepresentation or sorrow or
suffering could break.
Thereafter ensued a quiet period of nearly four weeks. The spring was
advanced. The planting was over, and Mandu abloom. The sun’s rays grew
daily hotter, though as yet there was little discomfort from heat. It
was the time of year when all growing and living things love and mate;
but for Ahalya and Fidá it was the autumn of love. Their days were
filled with misgiving; for, as the inevitable end drew near, both came
to suffer a great anxiety about the manner of that end.
Nor did the late spring bring joy and peace to Mandu. With the advent
of gay birds from Ceylon, came also messengers from Dhár, in the north,
bringing word that Omar the Asra, with a Mohammedan army, had come out
of Delhi and was sweeping victoriously southward on his way to Mandu.
To this warning and covert appeal for aid, Rai-Khizar-Pál could not but
reply by gathering together his fighting men, and preparing to march.
Mandu was in a state of excitement; but there was no rejoicing that
their well-loved King must prepare to set out on a new campaign. The
ministers that were to be left to rule were unpopular; for this time
Ragunáth was not to accompany the army, but left co-regent with Manava
over the people. For many days these matters kept all the plateau in
a state of ferment; and there was perhaps only one person among them
all that viewed the proceedings with apathy. He, indeed, was one to
whom events might have been considered to be most important. Fidá
might not unreasonably have entertained some idea of being taken upon
the expedition in his position as King’s cup-bearer. But this hope,
or fear, was quickly killed; for Rai-Khizar-Pál valued his slave too
highly to run the risk of losing him by allowing him to come into
actual contact with his own people. Nor could Oriental flesh and blood
have been expected to withstand such temptation to escape.
It was on the twelfth of March that the Rajah, with his army, was
to set out upon his second campaign against the Mohammedans. On the
afternoon of the eleventh, Fidá was with young Bhavani when the Rajah
summoned him. It had been one of the slave’s most miserable days.
During his morning service he had taken care to keep himself as much as
possible behind his master; and now he dreaded the interview extremely.
There was, however, nothing for it but to obey the call; and, resigning
Bhavani to his attendants, he hurried away to the King’s private room,
where he found Manava and Kasya standing one on either side of the
royal divan. At the door Fidá performed his usual deep salaam, and was
motioned to come forward.
“Enter, Asra. I sent for thee. By the flocks of heaven, thou’rt sick
to-day! Hast no care for thyself, good slave?”
Fidá smiled, slightly and bitterly. “I have no need for care. I am in
health, O King,” said he.
“Tell me not that any man with visage so deathly is in health. Thine
appearance troubles me, for I repose great trust in thee, and I dare
not depart in fear of thy death. Speak, Manava,—what thinkest thou of
him?”
“He hath the appearance of a man very ill,” answered the minister,
thoughtfully regarding the slave.
“Fidá, for the space of a week keep to thy room, and let Churi and the
priests attend thee and bring thee back to strength again. Thou must
accept so much of aid, for thy look troubles me sorely.”
The Asra threw himself on the floor at the King’s feet, and once more
protested that his looks belied him, that he was perfectly able to
perform his usual tasks. And the Rajah, whose projects were upset by
the prospect of this slave’s illness, allowed himself to be persuaded
against his own judgment, and proceeded to the object of the audience.
“Fidá el-Asra, thou hast been in Mandu, in my service, scarce half a
year as yet; but because thou art of high birth and noble training, I
repose confidence in thee. I cannot take thee with me upon my campaign,
because I should fear to lose thee in the north. But, in leaving thee
behind, I am about to place thee in a position of great trust. Manava,
whom thou seest standing upon my right hand, is, in my absence, to be
part ruler of Mandu. To Kasya here, my faithful eunuch, I intrust the
guardianship of my women. To thee I give the last of my treasures, the
hope of Mandu: my son, Bhavani, the flower of my heart; to be taught
and guarded till my return. Thou shalt have full direction over him,
save only in those times when the Lady Malati, his mother, desires his
presence. Already Bhavani loves thee, Asra; and thy training makes thee
fitted to be his companion and his master in my absence. For this trust
that I repose in thee, give me thy fealty.”
Deeply touched by a mark of favor so little deserved, Fidá fell upon
his knees and pressed the Rajah’s foot with his brow. In that moment of
abasement he was very near to confession; and, had it not been for the
presence of the other two, Fidá might, at that moment, have opened up
his heart and told his lord all the story of his treachery and crime.
A moment’s swift reflection, however, brought with it the remembrance
of Ahalya; and in dread for her the impulse passed away, and he found
himself protesting incoherently his gratitude, his fidelity, and
his sorrow at the departure of the Rajah. Once more, before he was
dismissed, Rai-Khizar-Pál, noting anew his gaunt and pallid face,
expressed some concern for his health; and then, giving his hand to
his slave’s lips, sent him away. Fidá, his nature suddenly revolting
against himself, sought his room, flung himself face down upon his bed,
and there, in guilty misery, poured out some sort of inchoate prayer of
remorse.
After an hour or two of meditation and quiet, the Asra took resolution
on a certain matter which he had been pondering for a long while.
Ever since he had become certain that the curse was actually on him,
he had wondered whether or not Churi had yet disposed of the ruby. It
was Churi’s place to have thought of the stone for him; and he hated
himself for the desire he had to touch it again. But it had apparently
never occurred to the eunuch to use the blessed jewel as a remedy;
and, as often as the thought came to Fidá, he put it resolutely from
him in shame. By this time, however, his hunger to gaze upon the charm
had grown great and fierce. He felt an intense desire to live; and,
believing the means of health to be within easiest reach, what wonder
that his temptation came again and again? This evening, in view of the
new trust, which he had the strongest desire honorably to keep, the
temptation suddenly overcame him, and, putting away his pride, perhaps
even his self-respect, he went to seek out the doctor.
Churi was in his own room, eating. Looking up from his food, he gave
Fidá his usual easy salute:
“Vishnu favor thee! I am told that thou’rt to be given sole charge of
the young prince. Truly, Asra, the King loves thee as well as his wife.
Wilt deign to eat with me?”
Fidá did not respond to the ill-timed raillery. He stood leaning
against the wall, gazing at the eunuch with so strange an expression
that Churi changed his mood.
“Thou’rt ill to-night,” said he, more gently.
“Yes, I am ill,” answered the Asra, in a low, harsh tone. “I am dying,
Churi.”
“Dying! Why shouldst thou die, lover?”
“Allah! Thou knowest why.”
“Ah! The old legend. Dost really believe—that—”
“Canst thou doubt that I am cursed?”
They remained facing each other, silent, staring. No further words
were necessary. Churi knew very well now why he had come; but he sat
struggling with himself, for he was disturbed. Nevertheless Fidá’s
ghastly face pled strongly. After a few moments, during which the slave
suffered under his degradation, Churi rose, walked to the shadowy
corner of the room, bent over for a moment or two, working in the earth
of the floor, and then came back to Fidá with the gold box in his hand.
Fidá, looking into the unmatched eyes, saw animosity in one and scorn
in the other.
“There. Take back thy gift.” Churi held the box out to him.
To the eunuch’s astonishment, Fidá deliberately accepted it, rolled
the ruby out into his hand, and for a moment feasted his eyes on it.
Then he pressed it to his breast, shut his eyes, and moved his lips in
prayer. When the prayer ended, he replaced the jewel in its case, and
once more held it out to Churi, who had stood in silence, watching him.
“I thank thee,” said Fidá, simply.
Churi looked surprised anew. “Wilt thou not keep it?” he asked.
“Ah! Thou thinkest me such a dog?”
“Will that help thee—just the moment of it?”
“I do not know; yet it seems to me that the very sight of it hath
helped me.”
A second time Churi held out the box, this time voluntarily. “Take it
and keep it on thy person for a week.”
Fidá drew back.
“Nay, I wish it. I trust thee.”
“But it is thine. How hast thou not already sold it?”
“That is not easy. I dare not show it in Mandu. But in the month
of April will come a man from the north, a travelling merchant of
Rajputana, that comes each year, bringing with him silks, rugs, gold
work, and gems of the costliest kind. I know him well, and he will take
the ruby and give me my freedom. Therefore thou seest there is time for
thee to recover. Take the stone at least for the space of a week; and
then if thou art better, thou shalt keep it till the merchant comes.”
There was only friendliness in Churi’s tone. Fidá’s simplicity had
disarmed him. Seeing that the favor was done willingly, Fidá accepted
it; and, when he walked away from the eunuch’s house, the little golden
box lay in its old place in his girdle.
Next day, at noon, all Mandu thronged about the palace and along the
old road to witness the departure of the Rajah and his army. It was
indeed a brilliant pageant that set forth upon the long and dangerous
journey to the north. Fidá, in a throng of slaves, stood against the
south wall of the great courtyard, and watched the companies form. At
high noon Rai-Khizar-Pál, attended by his two ministers, who walked
one on either side of him, came out of the palace, and was greeted
with tumultuous acclamations by the throng of soldiers and people.
And the Lord of Mandu was unquestionably worthy of admiration. Never
had Fidá seen him more magnificent. His large, well-proportioned body
was clad in half-armor, of a purely ornamental type, under which he
wore a fine, white garment heavy with red and silver embroidery. On
his head was a white turban from which rose a black aigrette fastened
with a pin glittering with rubies. His horse, a magnificent animal,
in trappings of black, red, and silver, with the small double-drum
rimmed in silver placed before his saddle to mark his rank, was held in
waiting. After a few inaudible words with the regents, and an effective
parting from each, he walked swiftly to his steed, sprang upon it
without aid, caught up his bridle, swept an arm toward his body-guard
which immediately galloped up and surrounded him, and then, amid the
renewed shouts of his people, rode rapidly out of the courtyard, and
began the march. He was followed by Purán, in more serviceable costume,
surrounded by a group of what might be called aides; and then by the
army itself:—first, two hundred horse, and then five hundred foot, the
whole of the forces of Mandu. Slowly, line by line, they formed in the
limited space, and wound away after their leaders, spear-heads and
head-pieces flashing in the sunshine, men and animals alike fresh and
vigorous—eager for what lay before them.
To Fidá, still leaning against the courtyard wall, this sight of armed
and armored men passing out to honorable combat, was bitter indeed.
All the warrior in him rose and struggled for place in his enfeebled
frame. He was sick with the servility of his life. He loathed the
despicable part he had played. Every soldier that passed him seemed
to him to walk over his heart, bringing back vivid pictures of what
had been, when the smell of battle was sweet to his nostrils, and the
battle-cry the fairest music his ears could know. Once he had been a
man! Now—now—he would not answer the question of his conscience. When
the hour was over, when the last foot-soldier had passed out of the
courtyard and was lost in the winding road, he drew a long, heavy sigh,
and moved his eyes. The first thing they encountered was the figure of
Ragunáth, standing near him, gazing fixedly in the direction of the
departed host; and Fidá saw with wonder the expression on his face: an
expression of deep-seated relief, joy,—nay, rather, triumph. The Asra
stared yet more earnestly, a sudden apprehension striking home. Was it
possible that, at last, Rai-Khizar-Pál being gone, Ragunáth meant to
taste the well-guarded fruit? Fidá’s lips shut tight. Was there finally
to be an open struggle between them? Was it to be his happiness once
to perform a real service for the King? Wondering, hoping, hating, he
stood there, nor heeded how he was grinding the golden box deep into
the flesh of his left side.
CHAPTER IX
ASRA FIGHTS AGAIN
The departure of the Rajah and his army wrought, at first, little
visible change in the life of the palace at Mandu. The zenana was a
little duller, the ceremonies less formal, the work of the royal court
less arduous;—for Manava, though a just man, had not his over-lord’s
popularity as a judge. To Fidá, however, the absence of Rai-Khizar-Pál
made a marked difference; and his life was almost entirely changed. He
had a new sense of freedom; and he saw Ahalya oftener than ever. Since
she was no longer subject to her husband’s will, both she and Fidá
had a much greater feeling of confidence, but also a greater sense of
dishonor than when he was at hand. The duties of the Asra, meantime,
were light, and less uncertain than they had been. All the morning,
and, indeed, nearly to mid-afternoon, he was with Bhavani. But when
their various tasks and pursuits were over, the young prince generally
elected to spend the rest of his time in the zenana, where he was the
spoiled pet of twenty or thirty women. In this way many hours were
unquestioningly open for the slave and Ahalya; but Fidá was shortly
made aware that most of them must be hours of sadness. One week from
the evening on which he had had his last talk with Churi, he reappeared
in the room of the eunuch, who, as usual at that hour, was within. The
Asra walked up to him, and silently tendered him the golden box. Churi
looked quickly into his face—and his eyes remained fixed there.
“The charm—hath not worked?” he asked.
“No,” answered Fidá, shortly.
“Thou’rt not better?—Thou’rt worse?”
“Yes.”
“But the reason of it?” Churi looked down at the treasure now lying in
his own hand, and a faint smile stole across his lips. “The charm—is
gone?”
“I sold it. I sold the birthright of the Asra. I have doubly cursed my
race. It is fitting, indeed, that I should expiate the sin by death!”
“Nay, despairing one. We shall cure thee yet. ’Tis but a lingering
fever. I shall try to help thee. There is a certain draught of herbs—”
Fidá interrupted him with a sort of laugh. “Nay, Churi, spare thy
skill. Fever-draughts will not avail against the curse of the Saint.
There. I thank thy generosity. I thank thee, also, Churi, for all the
rest thou hast done for me. I tell thee now in the face of death, that,
were all to do over, I would face a thousand ends for half the glory
I have known in her. And all this, I owe to thee. Had I mine uncle’s
riches in addition to the ruby, they should be thine. And yet—Allah
comfort her when I am gone! That—that, Churi, makes me suffer. Oh, I
talk folly in my weakness. Heed me not. A peaceful rest to thee!” And,
turning on his heel, Fidá was gone.
Time crept slowly along, and the Asra, absorbed in his duties and in
his increasing weakness, took little note of the many things that
passed about him. Ragunáth, busied with his share of government, was
now doubly occupied with certain plans and desires of a private nature.
It was a strange thing that Rai-Khizar-Pál had never seemed to suspect
what all the rest of the palace knew: that Ragunáth was, and for a long
time had been, deeply enamoured of Ahalya, who, six months before, had
been almost at the stage of returning his affection. But for the past
four months, indeed since the sharp repulse he had met with from the
lady herself, Ragunáth had had the wisdom to make no attempt to see
her. Now, at last, however, the time seemed favorable for a renewal
of his efforts; and the mere possibility of success roused the man’s
long-stifled passion with unconquerable fierceness. Rai-Khizar being
well out of reach, Ragunáth was now a great power in the government.
Manava he considered almost unimportant, but pliable. And so did he
turn over matters in his mind, that he finally arrived at a casual,
well-arranged talk with his fellow-minister, begun about servants in
general, and continuing to Kasya in particular, who was getting old,
who would be well replaced by some younger, more vigorous man:—Kripa,
perhaps? He, Ragunáth, felt that the whole matter might be adjusted
very simply, and would himself undertake it and its responsibility.
Manava listened to him, seemed struck with the idea, considered it for
a little, in his grave, inscrutable way, and then said some pleasant
things to his coadjutor. Nevertheless, Ragunáth, on retiring, found
that his point had not been gained; found that he had an impression
that Manava considered the whole affair absurd; but was able to lay his
memory on not one single unpleasant word that the other had spoken.
He began then to perceive that he had underestimated his companion in
office.
The failure of his scheme was a serious disappointment, and proved for
a time a check upon his plans. Review the situation as he would, he
could see no point in Ahalya’s guardianship that had not already been
tried and found invincible. Considerably involved in other matters,
he was forced to leave this, that was nearest his heart, alone for
a little; though her image was scarcely out of his mind by day or
night. And with all his brain’s ferment, Ragunáth found no hope of
action until, for her own reasons, Chance, the great goddess, stepped
scornfully in, and gave him what no scheming could have brought about.
Spring was now far along, and March at an end. It was the time of year
when all young things were at the fulness of their vitality; for in
India the late spring, before the coming of intolerable heat, is the
real summer of the growing world. All nature was filled with vivid
life. Each lightest thread of zephyr carried with it a shower of golden
pollen, blown for floral marriage-beds. Birds and beasts had long since
mated. And by night the bulbul in the champak bushes sang to his mate
throbbing songs of the children that were coming to them from the eggs
over which she brooded. Lutes in the hands of poets attuned themselves
to the triumph of love; and, under the universal spell, only Fidá could
not rise to it. On the afternoon of the third of April, the Arab had
been with Ahalya for a moment only, showing himself too miserable to
linger at her side; and she had sent him sadly away to rest alone, and
perhaps sleep back into a semblance of life. Left to herself, Ahalya
found it impossible to be still. She was young, and there was no curse
on her to keep the summer from flowing in her veins. Neila was asleep
somewhere in the zenana. She must have some one to speak to; and, even
as she pondered, the young Bhavani bounded in to her with a fascinating
and unwise proposal. Some slave, he said, had told him that this year,
in the water-palace pool, there was a blossom of blue lotos, the flower
said to be found only in paradise. Would she not go out with him to see
if it were really there? Ahalya seized on the idea with alacrity. She
longed to get into the living world; and Bhavani was delighted with
her enthusiasm. The Ranee veiled herself, and then, calling no one to
attend them, they hurried into the little courtyard, out of it into
the north wing, and so across a corner of the great court and into the
road to the water palace. And, as Fate had decreed, Ragunáth, sitting
at council in the great audience chamber, caught, through its open
doorway, one fleeting glimpse of Ahalya’s veiled figure, recognized it
instantly with the divining eyes of desire, and began to calculate how
soon he should be able to follow her.
Unconscious of the ill-omened gaze, careless of the recklessness and
the indecorum of walking abroad unattended, Ahalya went on, hand in
hand with the worshipful boy, joyously drinking in the exquisite
air of the late afternoon. The sun almost touched the river in the
west, and the air was suffused with rosy gold. From the south came a
fragrant breeze, laden with the spicy breath of far Ceylon. There was
a twittering chorus of birds. The trees and shrubs on every side were
clad in foliage in the highest stage of fresh beauty. The tamarind
and the willow vied with each other in grace. The bamboo was tufted
with palest silver-green. The almond trees had finished blossoming,
and the grass beneath their branches was strewn with pinkish petals.
Here and there was a lilac shrub, heavy with clusters of pale purple
flowers—emblems of Persia. And in sunny places the grass was strewn
with white and golden gillyflowers, with occasional starry narcissi and
daffodils. The whole world was abloom, and the air heavy with perfume.
As she proceeded, Ahalya’s languid delight increased to a species of
intoxication. She was bewildered by the beauty of the world, enchanted
by the high, pure notes of the birds, by the whisper of winds in the
trees, by the heavy hum of drunken bees, by the murmur of distant,
rushing water. Bhavani, a little overcome by her manner, presently
broke away from her to run after a new-come butterfly; and Ahalya
walked on alone to the water palace. Arrived there, and seeing Bhavani
happily racing away at a little distance, the Ranee seated herself
beside the pool, almost in the very spot where, months before, Fidá had
stood and listened to the curse that welled from out the mountains,
whose sides were now swathed in a bluish haze, that grew gradually
golden in the light of the setting sun. Here, in the shade of the
willows and bamboos that overhung the basin, Ahalya’s mood changed, and
her thoughts were no longer of the joy of the young summer.
She thought on darker things: of the plight in which she was, of
the worse one that was shortly to come to her. In her love of Fidá
Ahalya was now, and, after the first day, had been, remorseless and
surprisingly careless of discovery. This was all in accordance with the
training of the child-woman, who, though she did not know it, had loved
the Rajah as a daughter only, and had turned from him to the young Arab
with all the truth and all the womanhood in her. There could never be
for her another like Fidá. And she knew now that the end of love was
very near. She had been denied its expression for a long time; but
while its object lived she did not care. Now, however, in the midst
of this brilliant scene, she suddenly perceived how weak, how worn he
was. And it was borne in upon her that the pallor of his face was the
pallor of death. How soon would the end come? How would it come? Could
she show her love for him in performing the suttee? Would there be
opportunity? or would he be burned, like a dog, on a handful of sticks,
in the city of the dead at the other end of the plateau, far from her
reach? The thought was too hideous to be maintained; but the shadow
of it darkened over her heart. How was it possible that such dreadful
things could be? How—
She was interrupted in her morbid revery by Bhavani, who, tired of
butterflies, came to drag her round the pools in search of the blue
lily. Ahalya was not now in the humor for this amusement; and Bhavani
became slightly peremptory in his demands. So, finally, she released
herself from him, and, while he ran on, to the other side of the
building, she, desirous of returning to her meditation, melancholy
though it was, began slowly to pace up and down the flowery turf.
Bhavani was quite out of sight; and Ahalya herself, her back toward the
road, stood gazing out over the sunset plain below, when there was a
sudden step behind her, and a voice exclaimed in her ear:
“Can it be that I have found the embodied spirit of the summer?”
She turned sharply, and found herself face to face with Ragunáth. Her
first impression was one of disgust at the expression on his face; her
first instinct to escape as quickly as possible from his presence.
“I am not a spirit at all. I have lingered here too long and must go at
once. Your favor, sir. Let me pass!” She motioned him imperiously out
of her way; but, to her amazement, he only moved as she did, so as to
be always in her path.
He smiled, regarding her half-admiringly, half-respectfully, but kept
his position till, stamping one small foot upon the ground, she cried,
angrily: “Out of my path, my Lord Ragunáth!”
“Nay, be not so hurried, Ranee,” he returned, mildly.
Annoyed by the presumption which his tone belied, she lifted her eyes
and looked him fairly in the face. A shudder ran through her frame. At
last she realized that he did not intend to let her go: that her wishes
were now of no consequence. Instantly she was alive to her situation.
She looked around her, terrified, desperate, and perceived, at a little
distance along the wall of the palace young Bhavani, standing quite
still, staring at the figure of the newcomer. Immediately Ahalya began
waving her hand to him:
“Bhavani! Bhavani! Run quickly! Seek thy master!”
Ragunáth grasped her roughly by the arm. “Silence!” he cried. And
indeed she was silent, for, even as her tormentor spoke, she saw
Bhavani turn and start like a deer in the direction of the palace. And
Ahalya knew well to whom he would go first of all.
In a measure relieved, understanding that now she had only to gain
time, her wits rose to the situation, and she turned her face to
Ragunáth’s frown, and laughed. “Art thou so angry that I have sent the
boy away? Wouldst thou have had him stand there gazing at us? Even
Radha despatched her maidens ere she let Krishna look upon her face
unveiled. Hast thou not heard that tale, my lord?” She smiled on him
incomparably.
Ragunáth’s reply was a laugh. He, who trusted no living man, was in an
instant thrown off his guard by a woman’s trembling coquetry. “I have
heard the tale.—What lover hath not? Yet it hath never been sung to me
in the young summer, and by one resembling Radha as thou dost. Sing to
me, then, beautiful one, of the loves of Radha and Krishna.”
“But I have neither lute nor harp.”
“It matters not. There is no instrument that would dare accompany thy
voice.”
So Ahalya, her heart throbbing with fright, her whole body quivering
with loathing of the man who walked so closely at her side, began to
sing. And as she sang, the daylight sank from the sky; for the sun had
set, and darkness, most terrible to her plight, was upon the land. She
sang the eleventh Sarga of the great epic: that of the union of Krishna
and Radha, which she had so often poured into the ears of him she
delighted to call her god. And even now, at the joyous triumph in the
words, her heart was sighing at the emptiness of her love. This, to the
music Vasanta and the mode Yati, is what she sang:
“‘Follow, happy Radha, follow,
In the quiet falling twilight,
The steps of him who followed thee
So steadfastly and far—’”
“That is true, most beautiful Radha. Let thy fair feet henceforth
follow me through the land of delight,” murmured Ragunáth, in her ear.
Her voice shook as, without replying, she went on:
“‘Let us bring thee where the banjulas
Have spread a roof of crimson
Lit up by many a marriage lamp
Of planet, sun, and star.’
“‘For the hours of doubt are over
And thy glad and faithful lover
Hath found the road by tears and prayers
To thy divinest side—’”
“‘And thou wilt not deny him,’”
broke in Ragunáth, whispering,
“‘One delight of all thy beauty;
But yield up open-hearted
His pearl, his prize, his bride!’”
Ahalya shuddered again and was silent, wondering what evil genius had
made her begin that song. She began to fear, desperately, that Bhavani
had not understood: that she was really left alone, at the mercy of
this man whom she feared as much as she hated. Therefore, filled with
terror at what she had made herself do, she suddenly determined to
attempt escape; and, on the instant darting from Ragunáth’s side, she
started, at the top of her speed, across the grass, in the direction
of the road. Ragunáth, taken wholly by surprise, stood for a second
staring after her, and then hurried in pursuit. Unhampered by his
garments, and far more used to swift exercise than she, he overtook her
halfway to the road, and caught her round the waist in an iron clasp.
She gave a faint cry, and, at his touch, strove wildly to escape it.
But Ragunáth was not now in a mood to let her go. Grasping her yet more
firmly, he lifted her, and, in the starry darkness, carried her across
the open space and into a little copse of champaks and wild cotton
trees at one side of the empty lawn. Here began a fierce struggle.
Ahalya fought like one possessed of a demon; and Ragunáth was a little
aghast at the strength of her fury. Fearing to hurt her, and realizing
that at this rate her strength could not last, he devoted himself only
to defence and the prevention of her escape, reserving his force for
the time of her exhaustion. And indeed Ahalya presently found herself
in a sad plight. Her strength would not last above a minute more. Only
one hope was left now; and that was desperate enough. Lifting her head,
she uttered two piercing screams. And—to Ragunáth’s consternation—she
was answered by a fierce cry, as a man’s figure dashed through the
trees to where they stood.
Ahalya had only an instant in which to recognize the gaunt form of
Fidá. She caught one view of his face in the gloom, alight with such
fury as she had never dreamed he possessed. Then the two men were
locked together in mortal struggle.
Broken and weak with the strain and terror of the last half-hour,
horror-stricken at what was happening now, Ahalya stood like one
entranced, watching without sound or movement the combat going on
before her. She could not, in the darkness, distinguish between the
two forms rolling together on the ground. The men fought without a
sound:—Ragunáth with the strength of passion, Fidá with a final fury of
jealousy and despair. It lasted only three or four minutes. Then the
woman, who, in her terror, stood rocking her body back and forward,
holding both hands to the sides of her head as if that helped her to
suppress the wild screams on her lips, saw one figure suddenly rise
above the other, draw a weapon from his girdle and plunge it once,
twice, thrice, into the breast of the other who was struggling to lift
himself from the ground. Instantly, with a low, gurgling cry, the body
fell back. And Ahalya, peering like a mad-woman into the dusk at the
living man, whispered hoarsely:
“Fidá—Fidá—is it thou?”
And he, who was standing straight and still, his arms hanging at his
sides, answered quietly: “Yes, Ahalya. I am here. I have killed him.”
CHAPTER X
THE SONG OF NARMÁDA
For a long time they stood there, in the stillness of the night,
looking at each other in a kind of lethargy; while between them, on
the ground, lay the body of Ragunáth, gradually chilling, the blood
from its three wounds still running thinly down into the pool beside
it. Around and over all three of them myriad fireflies fluttered, like
stars of the under-world, setting a ghastly glow over the ghastly
scene. Fidá’s heart was beating very faintly now. He was obliged to
breathe in little gasps. But he was not thinking of this. His mind was
groping. He was still in a great darkness when Ahalya came over to him,
walking carefully to avoid the blood, and laid both hands on his arm.
“Let us go back to the palace,” she whispered.
Fidá shook his head. “I think I shall not go back to the palace. I
think I shall go on,” he answered.
“On! Whither?”
“Up. Up to be judged.”
“Fidá! Beloved! You will come with me.”
But the man was not to be moved by her tone, which was such a one as is
used to a sick child. Possibly Fidá was mad, or very near it; but it
was a quiet madness, and he was sure of his desires.
“Alas, Ahalya, what wrong I have done thee! All the wickedness that
man can accomplish I have accomplished. Wherefore I am going up before
Allah. But thou must not grieve for me, thou fairest of all women.
Thou knowest well that I was very near the end. Most beautiful—most
sweet—lotos-lidded, fear not lest I should not take upon my soul the
double crime. Thou shalt be freed from all sin in the eyes of Allah and
Mohammed. It is the last joy of love that I can perform for thee.”
He spoke in a quiet, solemn tone that frightened the woman
inexpressibly. As he paused, she threw herself before him, clasping his
knees.
“O my lord—O beloved of my heart—thou Krishna—whither thou goest permit
that I go also! If thou art to appear before thy great god, suffer me
to remain at thy side. Spurn me not for that I am a woman. Did I not
vow to thee long since that, since thou wast my true husband, I, thy
faithful one, would not suffer thee to die alone, but, performing the
suttee with mine own hand, would accompany thy spirit to its blest
abode? And I swear now by the faithfulness of Radha, and by Lakshmi and
Devi and the divine Ushas, that, if thou goest forth alone into the
presence of the gods, I will surely follow thee. Wherefore, thou, who
hast loved me well, grant me a last boon. Let me go forth and die with
thee, that we may be judged together, and, if thou lovest me still,
together endure our punishment.”
“Consider thy words, Ahalya. Just now thou’rt not thyself. Return to
the palace and dwell there quietly, and let peace come into thy heart.
I absolve thee from that old vow of love. There is no one that could
suspect thee of this murder. I have done it; and this my absence will
proclaim. Bhavani knows nothing. He is now with Churi, and thou canst
tell the child what thou wilt. Return, then, to the house of the Rajah,
and forget—and forgive—my sins.”
“Nay! Nay, nay, nay!” It was the first time that either of their voices
had been raised. “I will not be absolved from my oath! I will not be
left alone to face the terrors of Kutashala Máli! Take me with thee,
else, by mine own hand, I die alone. Oh consider the sweetness of death
together! Consider the terror of death alone!”
“Again—I plead with thee!”
“No, no. If thou diest, I also will die.”
“But thou knowest, Ahalya, that I cannot live. Thou knowest that
to wait will mean either execution by torture for the murder of a
Brahman-Kshatriya, or a long and agonizing death through my curse. And
I, coward-like, perhaps, choose here a swifter and more merciful end.
Yet, if thou wilt, I will return with thee to the palace and wait there
for what may come.”
For an instant Ahalya considered. Then she answered: “Nay, beloved, I
will not have thee return to the palace. Only take me with thee that I
may not die alone.”
“And if I took thee with me? How should we die?”
“What was it that thou wouldst have done, going up alone?”
“I have here the dagger that slew Ragunáth.”
Ahalya shuddered. “Not that! Listen. Thou knowest that by my people
there are certain waters held sacred to the gods, so that those that
die in them are cleansed of many sins. Such a stream is the broad
Narmáda, which to us is the little Gunga, the promised sacred flood.
Let us, then, under cover of night, go down to the river and there, in
the same moment, die together—thou in my arms, I in thine.”
Fidá reflected. “How shall we reach the river?” he asked.
“I have heard that there is a way down the rocks of the plateau at this
end. When the plain is reached, it is an easy walk to the river. By
dawn we should be there if—if only—thou hast the strength.”
“I shall have the strength. Did I not slay this man?” Fidá’s pride
was touched; and perhaps, after all, just this little, human vanity,
decided them. “I have the strength. But thou, most beautiful, canst
thou endure this long and painful journey now? Faintest thou not for
food? Will my arm be enough to uphold thee by the way?”
“If I fall, Fidá, thou shalt kill me where I lie and thyself proceed.
Nay, I shall not fail thee. Come. Let us seek the path down the cliff.”
There was a moment or two of delay while the knife was plucked from
the body of the dead man, and Ahalya removed a part of her hampering
drapery. Then, after one solemn embrace, they started. It was the time
of the month when there was no moon; but the stars, nowhere in the
world more brilliant than here, shed a faint, steady light over the
quiet earth. The descent of the great cliff was begun at a point almost
immediately behind the water-palace; and they soon found themselves
occupied enough to forget the tragic circumstances of the journey, as
they picked a fearful and uncertain way from point to point, from rock
to rock, down, through the night, from high Mandu to the plain. What
chance it was that stayed their destruction, they scarcely knew. But
certainly it was a miracle that, in the first five minutes, they were
not dashed headlong down the whole depth. Fidá’s knees shook under him.
Had it not been for Ahalya, he would have ended all just here, swiftly.
But, with an effort that he felt to be the final summing up of all
his forces, he went on, the woman following uncomplainingly, fleetly,
silently. It lacked an hour to midnight when they reached the plain,
and, looking back and up, wondered at what they had accomplished.
Now they threw themselves upon the ground, for a few moments of
necessary recuperation. Ahalya was drooping with sleep, which Fidá
dared not permit her to indulge. He realized, vaguely, that the
unnatural strength on which he was enduring must break soon; and by
the time it was gone, they must be at the river-bank—the borderland of
eternity. So, after a few moments, he bent over her, whispering:
“Up, beloved—up, and on! We must reach the river by dawn. There, my
Ahalya, thou mayest sleep—we may both sleep—long and undisturbed.”
And Ahalya, heeding him in all things, rose and put her hand in his,
and they passed into the night again, over the plain, toward the
distant river.
* * * * *
Dawn, white, mistlike, broke slowly upon the world, over the plains
of Dhár, where, to the south of the city, two armies were encamped:
one, that which guarded the city walls, the joined forces of the
Lords of Dhár and of Mandu; the other, Omar el-Asra, with five
thousand Mohammedan warriors out of Delhi. In the earliest dim shadow
of daylight these two armies stirred, woke, and swiftly prepared
them for the day; till, when the first shafts of the sun tipped the
Indian spear-heads with red fire, there rose from either line a low,
deep battle-cry,—from the Indian ranks the oath of the gods: “May
the bright bolts of Indra, the discus of Vishnu, the lingam of Siva
protect us to-day!” and from the other side the cry that was echoing
over all the civilized world, from Granada to Benares, the great
shibboleth of conquest and carnage, before which the earth bowed:
“La-Ilaha-il-lal-laha!” “There is no god but Allah!” a god of violence
and death. And while these shouts still echoed to the sky, the two
lines began a slow advance, till, ere they met, a great cloud of
sun-bright dust whirled up and around them, and the haze of impending
battle closed them in from mortal sight.
* * * * *
Light lifted itself also over the swift-flowing, holy Narmáda, on the
north bank of which stood the man and the woman, hand in hand, silently
watching the coming of the day. They were exhausted with the horror
and the travail of the long night; but their minds were now above the
physical state. That no longer mattered. Fidá stood staring at the
slowly lightening waters, his face fixed and very stern. Ahalya also
was still, leaning on the arm of her lover, her eyes closed. She was
not praying, nor did she even think. Of what was there to think? The
past lay behind them, ended. Of the future there was none. The present
was painless. Like Fidá, she was tacitly waiting for the first rays of
the sun to mark that spot in the water where It must come.
Just before the first finger of gold was raised over the Vindhyas, just
before the armies in distant Dhár began their advance, Fidá turned to
Ahalya beside him, and murmured, softly:
“Beloved, it is too terrible for thee. I cannot let thee die here,
thus. See, it is cold, this mountain water. It comes from far above.”
“Hush, Fidá. We are to go up together. Thou hast promised it,” she
replied quietly, her lips barely moving.
Fidá uttered a groan. “It is not I—it is not for myself I falter. But
thou—there is no sickness upon thee—”
“Look! look, beloved, it is the sun! See where it makes a bed of gold
upon the stream! Lift me up, Fidá—carry me out—carry me out and lay me
there—upon our golden bed.”
She turned to him, and he, looking into her upraised face, could
urge no more. Lifting her, with a last effort, gazing the while deep
into her unrepentant eyes, he sought for the last time her lips, and
then—with a setting of all his muscles—stepped forward into the stream.
The rush of water, even near the shore, was very swift. It was scarce
up to his waist, no more than covering Ahalya’s ankles, when, suddenly,
he knew that he could not breast the current. There was a second of
agonized realization—a scream from the woman as she was plunged into
the icy flood. Then came a moment’s struggle with the resistless,
irresistible force, which at one time covered the whirling bodies and
again exposed them to the air. Suddenly Ahalya was swept into the arms
of Fidá. With the last instinct of life, the hold of each tightened
about the other. Then, in the tumult of the running river, came a
mighty stillness. The current might toss them as it would. They were
alone and one, and there was for them a moment of indissoluble peace
before they were called up to answer for their deed.
* * * * *
And now, upon the plain of Dhár, the battle-lines had met, and were
mingled in an inextricable mass. Those watching from on high—Brahma,
Vishnu, Siva, and Allah—might, in the hideous mêlée, have been able
to distinguish one single combat, short, swift, decisive. There, in
the midst of the shouts, shrieks, and yells, encompassed by flashing
weapons and life-streams running red, two men, Omar el-Asra and
Rai-Khizar-Pál of Mandu, met together, fighting mace and mace, and,
later, sword and sword. One moment, only, in that chaos of duels, did
this endure. Then the great Rajah, husband of Ahalya the beautiful,
conqueror of an Asra prince, plunged forward from his saddle, his skull
cloven in two by the keen blade of the Mohammedan warrior.
Thus, in that fair April morning, by devious ways, four souls that had
been closely bound in their earth-life, went up and met together at
the throne of the dread judge:—Rai-Khizar-Pál, his sceptre laid down
forever; Ragunáth, his faithless minister, passion-spent at last; and
finally, still hand-in-hand, still unrepentant of their love, Fidá of
Yemen and the Ranee Ahalya, not now flushed with the sweet rose-hue of
her Iran.
BOOK II
SOUL-FIRE
“‘... Yes, who am I? God wot!
How often have I prayed to Heaven to tell me!—
Who am I, God?—But Heaven itself is mute.
Yet this I do know: whatsoe’er I be,
Hero or weakling, demigod or beast,
I am the outcast child of the bright Sun
That longs for home!—
A bundle of sorrow, weeping for the light
That stretches out its radiant arms in vain
And yearns for me!’”
—GERHARDT HAUPTMANN, “The Sunken Bell,” Act V.
CHAPTER I
THE SON OF GOKARNA
It was July; and in Bul-Ruknu, Vindhya-sheltered, the rains were over.
From now till September one could but avoid the open sunlight and sleep
as much as the human system would permit. This afternoon the heat
poured blindly over the mud and bamboo village, and even animals and
children had deserted the streets and sought shelter from the molten
sky. One woman, her head and body wrapped round in bright-colored
cotton, darted out of the close veranda of her own dwelling and
hurried swiftly down the street toward the spot where, set a little
off by itself, stood the largest and best-built house in the town.
Entering the veranda of this she found seated there, on a pile of straw
cushions, her half-sister, Kota, wife of Gokarna, the head-man, and at
the same time, which was unusual, chief priest of Siva, the village
deity.
Greetings passed between the two; and Kota, causing her sister to sit
beside her, clapped her hands for a slave who presently appeared in the
doorway, a timid, unkempt girl of fifteen.
“Bring us fruits, Jensa,” commanded her mistress. Then, as the girl
disappeared, she turned to Hilka: “’Tis six days since I have seen
thee. Are thy gods propitious?”
“Yesterday, at sacrifice, the omens for the harvest were bad. But
Gokarna has told thee that. How art thou?”
Kota stirred a little, uncomfortably, and lifted her languorous eyes to
her sister’s face. Just then the slave came back with custard-apples,
early mangoes, and pomegranates in a basket. Kota took them from her,
proffered the dish to her visitor, who accepted one of the mangoes, and
then, while both began to eat, Kota said slowly: “I am not happy, my
sister. My mind is troubled. I am filled with melancholy and foreboding
concerning the child. I see many strange visions in my sleep. The gods
refuse me peace.”
“Art thou thus, Kota? That is not right. Yes, I can see thou art not
well. Let Gokarna offer special sacrifice for thee.”
“He hath done so twice already since the _Pumsavana_. But ah,
Hilka, I cannot speak my heart to him. It seems to me as if my thoughts
were not my own. They are put into my mind by evil spirits. I fear
them, and I fear the end. Alas, shall the soul of this child be evil?
I fear it! I fear it!” She spoke with a nervous intensity that made
a strong impression upon Hilka, who knew well her sister’s lazy,
thoughtless temperament. It was the first time she had ever perceived
any strong feeling in her. Now she said anxiously: “Go to Naka, at
the end of the village, and get a charm from him to ward off the
_Devas_.”
“Hush! Gokarna is coming! Do not speak before him of charms, or he
would scold us both.”
Hilka, who had been sitting with her back to the street, turned
hastily, as Kota’s husband appeared in the veranda entrance:—a tall and
austere-looking Brahman, clad in a long, white garment. He came forward
at once to greet his wife, giving Hilka but a careless recognition;
for, to the head of the village, even his wife’s relatives were
scarcely worthy of attention from him. And Hilka’s visit was brought
to a sudden close; for no woman of Bul-Ruknu would, from choice, have
stayed long in the proximity of the Priest of Siva.
Kota bade her sister a quiet farewell, not asking her to come
again—rather taking that for granted. And when the visitor was gone,
she turned immediately to her husband, who touched her on the forehead,
answered briefly her questions concerning the day’s auguries, and
presently left her and went into the house.
Kota, knowing that it would be useless to follow him, too dreary at
heart to care whether or not he talked with her, returned to her
cushions and sat down again to gaze off into space at the swirling,
white heat-waves, and to dream, vaguely, of days that had never been.
For an Indian, Kota was a pretty woman, her eyes being very large and
soft, and her black hair, just now woven with yellow champak flowers,
thick and long. She was seventeen years old, and had been married for
three years. Moreover, she had been born a Brahman, and, in her married
life, had been highly honored; for, though until now she had been
childless, her husband had not taken another wife. Above all, Gokarna’s
parents had died in his early youth; so that Kota, at her marriage
made mistress of the finest house in Bul-Ruknu, had been also spared
that terror and curse of all young Indian women—the mother-in-law,
whose traditional duty it was to make the life of the young wife one of
perpetual misery.
At the time of her marriage, the girl Kota had been envied by every
woman in the village. Later, despite the unheard-of advantages of her
position, she had not been so much looked up to, for the reason that
she was childless. But, just now, her star was again in the ascendant,
since, in the winter, she was to present Gokarna’s house with a
much-prayed-for heir.
In spite of the fact that she was to have what she herself had most
longed for, Kota, as she had just explained to her sister, was not
happy. Her mind was in an abnormal state; and was seriously affected
by the slightest incident. Highly imaginative, like all her race, she
had always been more or less given to visions and presentiments; though
never so much as now. She would sit for hours motionless, wrapped in
unhappy dreams, or, as the result of some slight accident, a prey to
the keenest forebodings of evil. These things she did not often confide
to her husband. Nor did she see enough of the members of her own family
to get much comfort from them. Thus the naturally morbid state of
her mind was fostered and increased by her loneliness and her secret
broodings, till her nights were filled with terror, and her days were
of the length of years.
The hot months passed slowly; and when, after the early harvest, the
fall monsoon came on, Kota grew more than ever listless and unhappy.
Her time was now much occupied, however, with religious ceremonial;
and, in this respect, probably no woman was ever better cared for than
Kota. The _Simontonnayana_ was made the occasion of a special
festival, which was attended by the whole village. According to the
commands of the Vedic ritual, the mother was magnificently dressed,
and adorned with gold and jewels. Gokarna sacrificed a bull to Indra,
the flesh of which, after an offering to the gods, was partaken by
everybody. Then the ceremony of the parting of the hair was performed,
and texts were chanted by all the Brahmans. Only one event marred the
general gayety of the night. At the end of the prescribed ceremony, and
before the beginning of the feast, Gokarna, following custom, bade his
wife sing the merry festival song: “Taza ba Taza”. Kota, who had sat
silent and solemn through the entire ceremony, looked up at her husband
pleadingly, then opened her lips, uttered the first words of the song
in a hoarse and trembling tone, and suddenly burst into a torrent of
tears that no entreaty of her friends nor stern command of her husband
could still. This incident was considered an evil omen; but, in the
subsequent feast and merrymaking, it was quickly forgotten by all save
the poor little mother herself.
After this, Kota did not appear again in public. Indeed, for the next
two moons she spent her time almost wholly on her bed, attended by
Jensa, and sometimes by Hilka, till, at length, January came. In the
last days, Gokarna suddenly became attentive, nay, almost tender, to
his wife. He was by nature neither demonstrative nor affectionate.
But the matter of his child touched the dominating note of his
nature:—pride. And he could not but be interested in the person who
had power to present him with sons to whom he could hand down his
state and dignity. Gokarna was inordinately anxious for a son. Though
his dispassionate nature rebelled bitterly at the thought, he was
determined that, should this child prove to be a girl, he would take
another wife. Meantime, however, Kota was the object of his highest
interest; and not a little was she astonished when he left the
conducting of the full-moon sacrifices to an under-priest, that he
might stay beside her. He wished to talk with her of the child. But
Kota’s three years of wedded life had not prepared her to confide her
secret thoughts to her husband, and he got surprisingly little from her
on the subject nearest both of them. His conclusion was that she was
like all women:—too stupid to think. But had Kota chosen, she could
have disclosed to him a little wonder-world of motherhood that would
have opened his eyes anew to womankind. Melancholy she had been. Now
she was full of dread. Nevertheless, the sacred love was in her; and,
in her brighter hours, she had given her child all the tenderness of
hope, all the ambitions and desires for its welfare, that her stunted
womanhood could conjure up. For the first years of its life, at least,
the baby would be her own to love and to rule. Her heart would have
something to cling to. The dry dust of her existence was about to
put forth flowers and foliage at last. But of such thoughts, and the
joy in them, she could tell Gokarna nothing, as he sat beside her
mat-bed in mid-January of that year 1207. He could only make ceaseless
inquiries as to her welfare; and, toward nightfall, he was rewarded
by her suddenly sitting up, and crying to him to send at once for the
low-caste nurse who was to attend her in the coming hours.
These hours were terrible enough, even to the emotionless Gokarna.
Religion forbade his remaining with his wife, or allowing any but the
woman of special caste to behold her. All he could do was to sit in the
room next to that in which she lay, kindle a sacrificial fire, repeat
over it certain prescribed Vedic texts, and listen anxiously to the
sounds issuing from the neighboring room. This lasted an unconscionable
time. Then, when the night was at its most solemn ebb, the moaning and
sobbing suddenly ceased, and silence fell on the priest’s house. This
stillness was far more terrible than the noise had been. Gokarna’s
unemotional nature was stirred to its very depths. Should he brave the
Vedas—and go to her? While he waited, straining his ears, a new sound
came:—a faint, baby wail that pierced the heart of the man and caused
him to start joyously to his feet. A moment later the hanging before
the doorway was pushed aside, and the nurse appeared, holding in her
arms the child, wrapped in a piece of cotton cloth. For a second,
Gokarna stood still, choking with hope. Then he ran forward, and put
his hands on the tiny form:
“Is it—is it a boy? Speak!” he said.
The nurse answered not a word, but laid the child in his arms.
* * * * *
Not until noon the next day did Gokarna enter the room where his wife
lay. Kota, on the bed, with the baby beside her, started up as he
entered. But the words on her lips were stopped by his look.
“In the name of the gods, Kota, I give greeting to thee—and to my son.
My son,” he repeated, slowly, his eyes fixed upon the face of his wife,
whose frightened expression did not diminish. “And thou,” he continued,
turning to the nurse who stood at hand, listening intently, “see that,
on penalty of banishment, thou prate to none concerning the matters of
this house. I am now come to perform the ceremony of the breathing and
the secret name. Therefore depart, woman, from the room, nor return
until I summon thee.”
The nurse, alarmed at his tone, made a hasty exit; and Gokarna turned
again to his wife. Nor did he say another word on the subject nearest
both their hearts. Immediately he took the child from its mother’s
arms, at which it protested, with lusty voice, Kota watching it the
while with tenderest mother-eyes. Gokarna, holding the child up before
him, breathed three times upon it, and murmured: “Draw in thy breath
with the _Rik_, breathe within the _Yagus_, breathe forth
with the _Saman_.”
Then, handing the babe for a moment back to its mother, he left the
room, shortly returning with the articles of daily sacrifice:—honey,
melted butter, and barley mixed together in a small earthen dish, in
which stood also a spoon of beaten silver. Placing these on the floor
beside the bed, he seated himself, took the child again, and looked up
to Kota. “The name,” he said. “Find thou the omen for our name for him.”
Kota stirred uneasily. “Hark!” she said, listening, “what do they sing
there without:—what song?”
Somewhere in the village a chant was sounding, the words as yet
indistinct, but becoming gradually louder, till a little procession
passed Gokarna’s house, uttering these words, over their heavy and
sorrowful burden:
“Call on Rama! Call to Rama!
Oh, my Brothers, call on Rama!
For this dead
Whom we bring,
Call aloud to mighty Rama!”
“Rama!” echoed Kota, tremulously. “God of death!—Alas! Alas! That is
the omen.”
“It is surely an evil omen that a funeral should pass the house of
the new-born. Yet Rama is a god. He must be honored. Let the secret
name of the child be ‘Ramasarman.’ There are the four, holy Brahmanic
syllables. ‘Ramasarman.’ Say it with me, Kota.”
And the mother, with tears in her eyes and in her voice, repeated with
her husband the words that gave her first-born a secret name of death.
And when this ceremony was over, receiving the baby once more into
her arms, she wept over it, quietly and persistently, throughout the
afternoon.
CHAPTER II
OMAN THE CHILD
It was thus that the child of the head-man and high priest of Bul-Ruknu
entered the world and found his place there. But his subsequent baby
days did not bear out the dreary omens of the first. The whole town,
and a throng of farmers from the rice-fields to the north, were
present at the ceremony of the public christening of the child, who
was named Oman, and was thenceforward regarded by the village as their
prospective head and ruler. As such he became at once an important
little person, both in the community and in his father’s house.
Having been born a Brahman, Oman’s first year was punctuated with
ceremonies prescribed for every minutest change in his little
existence. In his sixth month, at the first feeding with solid food,
upon which the character of his future career was supposed to depend,
he was given, not rice, to bring him splendor; nor beef, to bring
him power; nor fish, to bring him swiftness; nor goat’s flesh, for a
fine physique; but a bit of white partridge breast, which is said to
confer upon a child the gift of mental purity. And from this time on,
every step in his education was for the purpose of making him a worthy
successor to his ascetic father. From his earliest babyhood he was
trained in rigorous ways of propriety and grave conduct. Much speech,
inarticulate or otherwise, was not sanctioned in Gokarna’s presence;
nor did the father sympathetically regard the manufacture of mud-pies,
or even the jingling of Kota’s ankle-bells and bracelets. The delights
of babyhood were indulged in secret, at times when Kota’s warm-hearted
motherhood overcame the unceasing dread of her husband; and she and the
baby found amusements that delighted them equally.
During the first three years of his life, Oman certainly gave no
evidence of unusual characteristics. When he was two, and his mother
nineteen, a girl was born into the family of the high priest, which
fact, however, in no way diminished Oman’s importance. He was now at
a delightful age; and even Gokarna sometimes fell from dignity and
allowed his son to drag himself to his feet by aid of the paternal leg,
and then, by means of the same member, permitted himself to be urged
out to witness the antics of some badgered kitten, or peep into the
first home of half a dozen tumbling puppies; which creatures the child
never molested, but would watch by the hour with solemn delight.
In his third year, little Oman underwent the ceremony of the
_Kudakarman_, or tonsure, by which his rough and tumbly black
hair was clipped close to his head, and thenceforth kept so:—a very
comfortable bit of religion, considering the climate of Bul-Ruknu. This
concluded the ceremonies of babyhood, and was the last he should have
to undergo till the day of the great initiation, or second birth, when
he would become a true Brahman, a student of the Vedas.
This period, from his third to his eighth year, was the happiest and
freest of his life. He was now emancipated from the close supervision
of his mother, and allowed to go forth alone to explore the wonders
and the glories of the town. All the simple and unfathomable joys of
childhood were there, awaiting his pleasure. First of all were the
children; for Bul-Ruknu swarmed with them; and, boy and girl, Brahman
or Sudra, they were turned out to live in the streets till it came
time for them to take up the duties of life:—the boys, from seven to
twelve, to begin their Vedic studies or their slavery; the girls, from
ten to fourteen, to marry. Little Oman, so far brought up to the most
rigid solitude, now entered the world, and found hordes of his own kind
awaiting him. Forthwith he offered himself to them. They accepted him
readily into their numbers, and let him find his own place there. They
ranked him nowhere, for their spirit was entirely democratic. They were
the only species of Indian humanity that did not, openly or secretly,
recognize caste. With them, it was not a Brahman who must lead, but the
boy who could fight best; it was not the girl of wealthiest parents
that was most popular, but she that had greatest talent for making
dolls out of straw and rags.
Among his kind Oman did not make astonishing progress. He proved
gentle and quiet, and made friends, in a mute sort of way, with those
of his own age or a little younger. He never attempted leadership.
As a matter of fact, such an idea did not occur to him. But he was
thoroughly intolerant of any sort of ruling. The boy that tried to
command his occupations, he regarded with astonished disapproval,
immediately renouncing the acquaintance of the would-be general. He
never fought,—had, indeed, been known to run away from the scene of a
struggle, and hide himself till it was over. Yet his spirit was not
generally considered cowardly. The result of this course was that,
gradually, Oman gathered around him a handful of little folk like
himself, among whom he always felt at liberty to do what he liked.
They were an odd little band. Among them were no concerted plans of
action, no organized raids, hardly even general games. Each child,
occupied with some pursuit of his or her own, would simply carry it on
in the proximity of others, because the feeling of companionship was
pleasant. Oman, indeed, after the first novelty of it had worn off,
did not always remain with his fellows. There were many things that he
found it eminently pleasant to do alone. For him the town held ever
fresh delights. He knew every donkey that came to the weekly bazaar.
He was also on friendly terms with the troops of dogs, the cats, and
the chickens of his immediate neighborhood. Animals liked him, and he
returned their affection with warm appreciation. Nor was he ever known
to harm, or even so much as startle, any living thing. And this extreme
gentleness was perhaps his most distinguishing characteristic.
In due time this child of high future approached his eighth birthday,
and, at that early age, entered upon the rigorous life of the Snataka,
or student of the Vedas. The ceremony of second birth, investiture
with the sacred cord of the Brahman, was the most important event of
his life, since he was universally looked upon as the successor of his
father, the future high priest of the village. The girdle of Menga
grass was fastened round his waist and the cord knotted over his left
shoulder. Into his hand they put a staff made of the polished bilva
wood prescribed for the Brahman student. Aside from these things, and
the single cotton garment that he wore, all the possessions that had
been his in the world were supposed to belong to his teacher, who was a
priest under Gokarna, a man named Asvarman, who had taken four pupils,
of whom Oman was the youngest.
It was at this time of the first separation from her oldest child that
Kota brought into the world a new son, who, for the time being, took
up all her thoughts. And from the hour of this boy’s birth, Oman’s
prospects, though he was unaware of the fact, assumed a different
aspect. His career depended now upon his own abilities; for he was no
longer indispensable to the ambitions of his father.
When a Hindoo boy begins his studentship, which lasts for an
indeterminate number of years, he is no longer regarded as an inmate
of his father’s house, but is wholly under the supervision of his
instructor, and is supposed to beg his food and lodging from persons
charitably inclined. As a general rule, the boy still eats at home;
but his meals are given him not in the name of relationship, but as
a charity asked for the sake of the gods. Beside this quasi-exile,
Oman found his life a very different matter from the former free
and comfortable existence. No longer could he call a single hour
of the day his own. His initiation as a student had taken place in
the early spring of the year 1215, and was immediately followed by
the great _Sravana_ festival for the planting of crops and the
_Adhya-Yopa-Karman_, or opening of the course of study. His part
in the religious ceremonies lasted for a week, during which time there
was much fasting and little sleep. Then, on the new-moon day of the
month of March, began the routine that was to last, almost unbroken,
for five years.
Every morning, between dawn and sunrise, Oman and his three
fellow-students assembled in the broad, sandy square near the apology
of a temple to Siva, and there replenished the sacrificial fires,
which were never extinguished. When the blaze was high and the sun had
reached the horizon, Asvarman would make his appearance, and, seating
himself before a fire with his face to the east, his pupils opposite
him on the other side of the blaze, would begin the morning recitation
of prayers—a dozen verses of the Rig-Veda, already familiar to the
boys. After this, the students were instructed in Pâli texts, generally
committing to heart each sentence as it was read. At noon they were
dismissed to beg a meal in the village; and, early in the afternoon,
they returned to continue their study, which lasted till sunset, when
the evening Agnihotra was performed and they were dismissed for the
night, burdened with an endless list of rules which they must not break
on pain of penance. The only relief from this monotonous existence came
on Uposatha days:—days of sacrifice to the new or the full moon; and
certain sacred festival days, when ceremonial took the place of the
usual study.
In a year, by means of this persistent application, the boys were able
to read with tolerable fluency, both in Pâli and in Sanscrit. But the
rigor of their labors was not lessened thereby. Rather, instruction now
took a severer turn; for, young as they were, the little students were
of Brahman birth, and, therefore, entitled to the highest education.
According to the law, Asvarman now began to expound to these pathetic
children the doctrines of the three mystic philosophies:—the Sankhya,
the Vedanta, and the Yoga—speculations of such profound abstraction
and such absolute intellectuality, that their effect on these childish
minds would have been amusing had it not been pitiable. Solemnly, with
his wide, unfathomable eyes fixed on the dull orbs of the priest, Oman,
now at the age of nine, informed his master that Nature was created
in order that the world-soul might become united with itself; that
contemplation is the soul’s highest duty till its time of liberation
from material fetters; and that only essence is infinite.
Just how much of this found some sort of home in the boy’s young mind,
to reappear long years afterward with new meaning attached to it, it
were difficult to say. Probably it was at this time, and through the
agency of those vast philosophisms, that Oman’s double self began dimly
to be shadowed forth. By the time he was eleven, and had been for three
years a Snataka, he commenced in his own fashion to meditate, and, also
in his own fashion, to suffer. Much that had hitherto lain dormant
within him began to stir. He realized that he could scarcely fathom his
own state. There seemed to lie within him two distinct natures: the
one strong, non-combative, but self-rebellious; the other gentle, and
weak, and shrinking. Until now he had had no clear idea of this. He had
been all things at once. But the elements were beginning to resolve
themselves. He had moods, of longer or shorter duration, during which
one set of characteristics or the other seemed to dominate him. Half
the time he wondered at himself angrily for his indecisiveness. The
other half he shrank from self-analysis, and from any effort at study
as well.
Immersed as he was in a self-conflict which he believed to be part
of everybody’s ordinary life, his attempts at understanding himself
tinctured all his thoughts, and his questions as to the philosophies
and their significance always bore a personal relation to himself and
his needs. Here he found not a little assistance. But with the Vedas
it was different. There was nothing there to apply in any way to the
inner life. The formal ritual, the Sutras, the Mantras, were all mere
objective texts. And, gradually, as he strove in vain to find in them
something personal, their meaningless intricacy impressed itself more
and more upon him.
His life, at this time, was far from happy. He was closely bound,
even as to his thoughts; and he had really no freedom. His state was
almost constantly one of melancholy; but he was subject to violently
changeable points of view; and, in his continual secret analysis and
meditation, he endured the first pangs of loneliness. How strongly he
felt all this, it would be difficult to say. At the time, his existence
seemed to him overwhelming. Later on, he could remember it with
yearning, as holding a peace and a contentment that would never come
for him again.
The years passed over the head of the boy, slowly for him, swiftly for
many around him; and when he was thirteen years old, and had been for
five years a Snataka, a heavy sickness came, and he was taken to the
home of his father, to be cared for there. He alone knew how, for many
days, his body and his mind were torn with strangest anguish. Dimly he
understood that the souls imprisoned in him were struggling mightily to
burst the bonds of flesh, and free themselves. Finally came the evening
that was always most vivid in his memory.
Toward sunset he was carried out into the vine-walled veranda of the
house; and he felt that people—two, three, four—stood around him,
looking upon him. He heard murmurings and exclamations, which gradually
melted away; and then only his father and mother were there, standing
on either side of him; and he felt afraid, and wept, in misery.
There, indeed, through the whole night, the man and the woman who had
brought him into the world stood over him in the agony of the crisis,
Kota shaken with sobs of affliction, Gokarna stiff and straight, hands
clenched, skin damp with sweat. There the father gave up his son, the
priest renounced his hope and his ambition. Lifting up his voice he
prayed Siva to take the life of Ramasarman; and this prayer the child,
and the mother of the child, dumbly echoed in their hearts. Yet, in the
clear, red light of dawn, the agony left Oman’s body, and his mind,
exhausted with a weight too terrible to bear, grew gradually quieter.
Kota and Gokarna, knowing nothing more to do, spent with weariness and
emotion, returned together in silence into the house, leaving Oman
alone in the half-light of early day.
The child’s first sensation was one of extreme peace. Pain had left
him; and the eyes, half curious, half horrified, that had watched
him through the night, were gone. The early air came fresh and sweet
to his dry lips; and it seemed to act on him as a powerful narcotic.
He grew languorous and drowsy. The spirit within him was still; yet,
somewhere, there was a tension. He could not quite give himself up
to insensibility. Was it habit:—the old sense of rising at this hour
to prepare the sacrifice? Not that. The Vedic ritual, and all its
infinite detail, lay quite outside his path just now. No; it was
rather a curious sense of expectation, of waiting for something to
come—what, he neither knew nor asked. But the waiting was not long.
From out of that clear, vermilion dawn-light, came flying a tiny, gray
bird,—Spirit-bird, Hindoos call it,—slender-necked, clean-winged. This,
hovering for an instant about the entrance to the veranda, darted
suddenly in and plunged, quivering, into Oman’s breast.
The boy gave a faint cry—expressive of unutterable things—and laid his
two hands with greatest gentleness upon the soft feathers, caressing
the creature, and uttering to it little, inarticulate sounds. With the
coming of this bird it was as if his being was suddenly complete. Now,
for the moment, happy with a happiness that is beyond mortals, still
clasping to his breast the feathered thing, which, under his touch, lay
perfectly still, he closed his hot and aching eyes and slept.
CHAPTER III
HIS SOLITUDE
When Oman woke, the sun was high in the heavens, and the bird had
gone. During his sleep some one—his mother, doubtless—had covered him
with a pliable mat, and had placed something soft under his head. Full
consciousness returned by degrees. A sense of physical discomfort was
the first thing he knew. Then came a faint memory of what had happened
before the dawn. Sunrise and the bird were inextricably mingled in
his mind. In his heart he believed that the bird and the peace it
brought had been a dream. Now that he was fully awake, there was no
peace. He was hot with fever; and soon his body began to ache again,
with a dull, numb pain that was hard to bear in silence. Moreover, he
panted for water. It was not long, however, before Kota came out into
the veranda, her little boy clinging to her skirts and retarding her
progress. Disengaging the child, who fell backward disconsolately, she
bent over the sick one, felt the burning of his hands and head, drew
from him confession of his pain and also of his hunger and thirst, and
at once retired into the house, to return in a few moments with a bowl
of millet and milk. She found the baby sitting beside Oman, who was
talking to it in his mellow, gentle voice. Kota hastily set the bowl
upon the ground, picked up the baby, carried him inside, and, on coming
back once more, found Oman lying on his face, shaken with sobs; nor
could she, for a long time, persuade him to turn his face to the light
and take the nourishment he needed.
Despite his mother’s furtively loving care, and the cessation of his
exacting duties, Oman did not grow better of his sickness. Instead,
his fever increased till delirium came, and for days he was out of
his mind. In his times of pain he would become violent, screaming
and struggling when any one approached him. He talked much. Snatches
of Vedic text, old Sutras and Mantras, philosophical premises, and
suggestions of his own self-struggle were jumbled together in wildest
chaos. Gokarna, dreading to have a woman’s ears hear the holy words
that are forbidden to women, dreading still more the alternative of
a masculine Sudra nurse, sure to carry gossip, had Oman carefully
guarded and tended within the house. In his heart, the father, bitter
with grief and worse than grief at the outcome of Oman’s student-life,
repeated many times his prayer for the child’s death; and had he been
in a state to realize anything, Oman would have echoed that prayer with
all his heart.
Desire, however, was vain. For four weeks Oman lay fever-stricken, and
then, suddenly, began to convalesce, and in a fortnight more was about
as usual. Spring was now nearly gone, and summer, with its murderous
heat, upon the town again. The crops were up, and the business of
irrigation begun in the fields; for all the luxuriant foliage of the
wild was withered and dry, parched for the rains that were not yet to
come for a month or more. Among the townsfolk, in the evening, the
great subject of gossip was always: “The Child of Gokarna—called Oman.”
“He has given up the life of the Snataka.” “No more does he study the
sacred books.” “Yet the ceremony of the cessation of study has not
taken place.” “Ah, yes, something is wrong. It is very strange.”
Oman still wore the sacred cord of the Brahman. How should he, knowing
so much of the holy Vedas, remove it? But he moved through his native
town a wanderer, an outcast, addressing none of the townspeople, who
would scarcely have answered him for fear of defiling their caste. How
this situation had come about, Oman could not have told. It had been a
gradual and natural growth. During his convalescence it had occurred
to him that his father and mother were ashamed of him. This idea he
tested in various ways, and found it to be true. Up to that time he
had been ashamed of himself: furiously, bitterly rebellious concerning
his weakness. But now, at once, the spirit of self-protection rose hot
within him. Others, his own parents, were ashamed of him. Should he
turn against himself? Never. The masculine instinct of self-defence
turned inward toward that other timid, shrinking nature that he longed
so to conceal. And when, at length, he was about again, his parents
found him wrapped in an impenetrable mantle of—was it pride?—was
it stupidity?—was it temper?—arrogance? He was unapproachable and
unsociable. He took not the slightest notice of those around him, never
speaking of his own accord, and doing his best to prevent the address
of others.
Gokarna held many periods of self-communion with himself as to his duty
toward this child, and especially about the matter of the sacred cord.
But time passed, and no special action was taken. Oman seemed to have
marked out his life for himself; and the father, bewildered, let him
pursue the course he would, and finally ceased to torment himself with
questions.
Through the rainy season, Oman spent most of his time close to his
father’s house. There was a place for him there, such as it was,
where he was never molested. In the first weeks of his recovery, his
over-worked mind found some delight in simple freedom from burdensome
tasks. Idleness, silence, absence of rules and binding regulations,
were sweet to him. He had the true Hindoo faculty for dreams, and would
sit for hours lost in contemplation of unknowable and unfathomable
things. Little objects—the bluish curl of smoke over a house-roof,
the distant, flickering flame of sacrificial fires at dusk, a flight
of heron toward the southern hills, the notes of the bulbul or the
koïl—such things brought him infinite pleasure, and formed subjects for
long contemplation. These were the periods when his mind was freest
from its burden. But there were hours—days—weeks, when the world gave
nothing to him; when melancholy held him for her own. At these times
life seemed a burden too terrible for any mortal, and the continuance
of such suffering as his, a thing beyond the endurance of spirits of
the blessed.
When the rains were over, and August came in, Oman began to spend much
time wandering through the countryside, returning to the village only
to eat and sleep:—sometimes not that. The country around Bul-Ruknu was
broken, fertile, and unusually picturesque for India. To the east and
southeast, at a distance of three or four miles, rose the northernmost
hills of the Vindhya range, which extended thence, southward, to the
Narmáda plain, fifty miles away. To the north and west were stretches
of fertile fields, fringed with woods, and watered by a little stream
fed by mountain brooks and springs, that went meandering through
bottom-lands, and was used by farmers for purposes of irrigation.
Very early in the course of his wanderings, Oman came upon this
little river. During his childhood he had exhibited the curious trait
of marked aversion to running water; but he found now that the old
dread of it lingered only in a half-fascinating fear lest some day,
out of very wantonness, he should plunge into the little stream and
resistlessly let himself be overwhelmed in its lucent depths. This
fascination did not diminish with time. He loved to explore its
windings through the countryside, and follow it up a little way into
its mountain fastnesses. In the hills, one day, he came upon a shadowy
glade, turfed with kusa-grass and canopied with a giant banyan grove, a
tree of a hundred trunks, that overspread two acres of ground. Here, in
the green twilight, in a spot to which human beings never penetrated,
Oman found his haven:—a haven of solitude where, for three or four
years, he spent the greater part of his time.
Of the struggles, the wretched inward conflicts of this isolated
mortal developing alone, unaided, avoided by humankind, it were
terrible to speak. Physical maturity had come before the mental; and
it was here, in this scene of lonely beauty, that he passed through
the first, fierce stages of the new awakening. He was most miserably
human; and all the faults of humanity raged within him, unrestrained
and uncomprehended. He yearned constantly for that of which he could
know nothing; and, helpless and half-mad, he was tossed upon a sea
of morbid and lonely imaginings. At such times, the fact that he was
an outcast seemed to him hideous and impossible. Rebelling, he would
rise up and curse himself and the God of his creation. Then, when he
had spent himself in tragical invective, the other side of him would
take possession of his mind, and he would melt into tremulous weeping:
weeping so piteous, so forlorn, that it would have melted the heart of
any woman hearing it. Again, Oman was filled with a gentle and eager
desire for something on which to expend affection:—a dog, a kitten, a
bird,—any living thing that would accept his love. But nothing came to
him. It seemed as if the very beasts avoided his haunts. A few apes
were occasionally seen within the banyan grove; but no other living
thing passed through there, nor even a snake slept in the shadow of
its stones. Yet the hills beyond were alive with wild creatures.
By night lions cried through the great darkness. Immense troops of
monkeys chattered in the trees. Both the tiger and the bear dwelt in
the ravines; and the buffalo and antelope found pasturage on sunny
hillsides. The steepest crags were the resort of myriad wild goats, and
birds of all kinds winged their way over the heights and found their
nests by hundreds in the jungle trees. But in the midst of all this
wild, free life, Oman dwelt alone, unsought, lost in the wilderness of
his solitude.
How, through three long years, he managed so to occupy his mind as to
keep at bay the madness that besets the absolutely solitary, he himself
knew best. Probably the first months seemed longest. The hours were
dismissed, one by one, while he busied himself over little things; for,
at his age, he was not able to create a systematic pursuit. His mind
worked in unaccustomed spheres, conning, vaguely and indefinitely,
problems that put him at a more or less safe distance from himself.
In time, the atmosphere of the deep banyan shade, with the near
tinkling and flashing of the brook, and the dim, greenish sunlight
that slipped through the interwoven foliage, became so beautifully
familiar that it was home to him. He bathed and floated in the chilly
water, and afterwards kindled a sacrificial fire and sat before it on
his knees, delighting in the high-leaping flames, feeling that the
play of the two elements satisfied his bent of mind. And during this
time, by unconscious cerebration, what Oman had learned in his five
years of studentship, all that mass of inert, half-decayed knowledge,
concentrated into living truths that fixed themselves firmly in his
brain and lay waiting to be used. Something further still came out of
the solitude:—a self-dependence, a strength, and a fortitude without
which, at a later period, he could not have lived.
Thus, until his sixteenth year, Oman spent his days. Then a change came
upon him, and he felt this life unendurable. Insensibly, a scene from
one of the old, heroic epics that he had read in his student days, came
to him, fastened itself in his mind, and would not be dislodged. It was
the picture of the “Sinner’s Road”, described with ghastly vividness by
a long-dead writer:
“A burning forest shut the roadside in
On either hand; and mid its crackling boughs
Perched ghastly birds—or flapped among the flames—
Vultures and kites and crows, with brazen plumes
And beaks of iron; and these grisly fowl
Screamed to the shrieks of Prets, lean, famished ghosts,
Featureless, eyeless, having pin-point mouths
That hungered, but were never full.”
Here, in the land where these dim spirits dwelt, Oman, in perilous
despair, beheld himself. He must die as he had lived, and live in death
as he had lived in life—miserable, desolate, desperate, without hope of
betterment. And then, as the days scourged him, he was finally driven
to take a stand, for sanity’s sake. Thus, one noontide, he girded
himself up and returned to Bul-Ruknu, and there, within his father’s
house, sought an interview with Gokarna.
It was a long and solemn talk. Since the days of his sickness, three
years before, Oman and his father had spoken scarcely a dozen words
together. True, he usually slept at home, and his mother always left
him food for the day in a corner of the veranda. But he was not of his
family. In the village he had come to be looked on as a recluse, almost
a hermit; and as such was in some measure respected. Now, however, Oman
had come to demand one of two things: speedy death, or a place in the
world. Gokarna was taken aback, demurred, finally offered his son a
menial position among the priests, which Oman straightway refused.
“My brain is sick of religion and the gods. My power of worship is
spent. Let me work.”
“Work! You are a Brahman.”
“Thou knowest I am not—cannot be.”
Gokarna glared at him, and muttered some sort of insult; whereupon Oman
rose and left his father, and within twelve hours apprenticed himself
to a weaver in the town, thereby renouncing caste and becoming one of
the Vaisyas, the lowest order to whom was granted the right of re-birth
and investiture with the sacred cord. Yet, in the village, Oman was
now regarded as a privileged being; and, after a week of banishment
from his home, during which time he worked steadily and well, Kota went
to him, and begged him to return to his father’s house, to sleep and
eat as he had been wont to do; and when Gokarna sent a message to the
same effect, Oman, for his mother’s sake, consented, and resumed the
old relations with his people. He could not, of course, eat in their
presence, nor sleep in the same room with one of them, nor take part in
the Agnihotra. But at night he was there, in the veranda, as of old;
and the heart of his mother was at peace.
Now, in the endless sunshine, Oman Ramasarman worked at his trade:
first combing and carding the wool, later dyeing it, then learning how
to mix the different threads for warp and woof, and finally sitting
down to the loom, where, under his skilful manipulation, the cloth was
turned off, smooth and strong and useful. And now, at last, Oman’s
thoughts were taken from himself, and he was like a busy child, playing
at work, working at play, till two swift years had rolled round again,
and it was the spring of the year 1224, with Oman in his eighteenth
year of expiative life.
CHAPTER IV
HUSHKA IN THE MARKET-PLACE
It was spring. The Sravana sacrifices were over. Farmers had finished
their planting, and the world ran with life. As yet, there was no
presage of summer heat. The nights were cool, and the mornings soft as
in winter. But the new foliage was delicately bright, and more tender
flowers had come to join the perpetual blossoms. Almond and apricot
trees were in bloom; and the breeze was perfumed with orchard breaths.
The mongoose and the turtle began their rovings. There was an air of
love and liberty in all things; and the heart of Oman was filled with
suppressed yearning. He worked as steadily as usual; but his thoughts
went wandering. For the first time since the day he had left the banyan
grove, he desired solitude. But it was solitude in a new form. He felt
in him the longing to wander, to roam the land, to penetrate distant
places that he had heard of:—great cities and fair plains, where
historic men had dwelt.
Gradually he fell into the habit of dreaming over this new ambition;
and by degrees strange pictures rose up before him:—pictures of places
that he had seen and known, somewhere, somehow, perhaps only as myths
in an epic, perhaps actually, in an old life. And with these pictures
was always the unattainable—a golden thread, running in and out of
all his dreams: the thought of that which he already had perceived to
soften the whole world,—love—the love of man for woman, the love of
woman for man. And dangerous as this brooding was, it grew so dear to
him that he could not relinquish it, but cherished it, secretly, as a
gift from the high gods.
There came an evening when he betrayed his thoughts, involuntarily,
resistlessly, to the one being in the world who would try to understand
them. And forever after he rejoiced that he had done so. He was sitting
alone in the veranda of Gokarna’s house, waiting for his meal of
millet-cakes and milk, which Kota presently brought. Then, when she
had laid it before him, she walked slowly over to the veranda entrance
and seated herself there, and looked off upon the swift-falling dusk.
In the misty radiance of the sunset, still more under the spell of the
rising night, spangled with white stars, the little village of mud and
straw lost its marks of poverty and squalor, and was softened into a
dream-city, of ineffable delicacy. As they sat looking out upon it
now, the thoughts of mother and son were alike, except that Oman was
regretting what he could never have, and Kota that which had not been
given her, for Gokarna was not such a man as the springtime loves. But
mother and son felt a sympathy with each other, and, under this sense,
the nature of each expanded.
“Ah, it is one of Krishna’s nights,” murmured Kota, dreamily.
For answer, Oman sighed; and the sigh came from his soul.
Kota turned and looked at the young man. Hitherto, Oman’s heart had
been strange to her; she had never thought of questioning the workings
of his brain. Now, suddenly, his humanity was apparent; and her heart
went out to his human sorrow as she asked, gently: “Dost thou mourn,
Oman?”
Oman, for whom no human voice had ever taken on this tone, felt a throb
of gratitude. But he answered: “I do not mourn, mother. I do not mourn.
And yet it is the time of love; and for me there is no love.”
Though caste forbade it, she went over and sat down at his side, and
took his two hands in hers. “Thinkest thou there is none to love thee?”
she asked, tenderly.
Oman’s head drooped to his knees; and, resting it there, he let some
part of his sorrow find expression for the woman, and her tears rained
down with his, while, forgetting all but her motherhood, she clasped
him to her heart.
After Oman’s emotion had spent itself, and he had become quiet, Kota
remained at his side, and together they looked off upon the village,
over which the half-grown moon was now shedding a bluish silver light.
The two sat silent, watching, till the moon was past mid-heaven, and
halfway down the sky. Gokarna had not returned. He would evidently
sleep that night with the snatakas and priests in the square of
sacrifice. But at last Kota, rising reluctantly, left the night behind,
and sought her rest in the house, while Oman lay down in his accustomed
corner of the veranda, and, after a little, slept.
When he opened his eyes again, the sun was nearly in mid-sky. He would
unquestionably get a beating from the master weaver, when he reached
his loom. However, it must be faced; and, without pausing for food,
he rose, thinking to make his ablutions at a fountain on the way.
Reaching the veranda step, however, he paused. A man was standing
there, silently: a man clad in mud-stained yellow robes, holding in his
hand a wooden bowl. Oman looked at him with some curiosity. A century
or two before, such men had overrun all India. Now, so rarely was
one seen that he was an object of interest to every beholder. In the
days when the wild Brahmanic leader, Kumarila Bhatta, had raised his
brethren against the Buddhists, it had been death to this man to stand
thus at a Brahman’s door; for, unquestionably, he was a Bhikkhu, a
Buddhist mendicant monk, come out of Bágh, the one remaining stronghold
of Buddhism in Malwa, one of the few left in all India. And the man
stood here, quite still, silently asking alms. Pity and curiosity were
nowadays the only sentiments with which even Brahmans regarded these
harmless men. And Oman, after a moment’s halt, would have hurried on,
but that he caught the expression in the wanderer’s eyes, and paused to
look again.
Certainly it was a remarkable face. The eyes were very large, and dark,
and long-lashed; and the look in them was such as one finds in oxen.
The man’s body was lean to emaciation; but his face, owing to the
round-cut hair, had more or less of a full appearance. His robes—which
he wore in the regular Buddhist manner, over the left shoulder, under
the right, and reaching to the heels,—were well worn, as were his
sandals, and the knotty, wooden staff in his hand. On his back was
a small bundle, fastened with a rope; and this, with an alms-bowl,
completed his equipment for the eight months’ yearly pilgrimage
prescribed for every Bhikkhu.
When his swift scrutiny was ended, Oman, following a sudden impulse,
went a little closer to the man, and said, gently: “Peace to your
heart, reverend sir. Let me fill your bowl with food.”
The Bhikkhu bowed, and silently handed his dish to the young man,
regarding him the while with grave scrutiny. Oman carried the bowl
inside, and requested his mother to fill it with whatever was at hand.
Kota, decidedly taken aback, complied with the request, albeit it was
the first Buddhist bowl ever filled in that Brahman household. Kota
prepared a dish for her son at the same time; and Oman carried them
both outside. The monk received his with humble thanks; and, squatting
on the ground where he was, without prayer or ceremony began his meal.
Oman watched him for a moment, and concluded that, since he was already
half a day late, another hour would make little difference. So he sat
down at some distance from the stranger, and himself began to eat. They
finished at the same time, and, rising, faced each other inquiringly.
This time it was the monk who spoke.
“For thine alms, I give thee thanks. One favor more I will ask of thee.
Tell me in what direction lies the bazaar; for thither I must go to
preach Dharma[5] to the people.”
[5] Dharma: Truth, the Word, the Law.
“O Bhikkhu, on my way to work I shall pass through the bazaar. If you
will walk with me, I will lead you thither.”
The monk looked astonished at this civility, but agreed at once to the
proposal; and, Oman having left his dish on the veranda, they started
down the winding street in the direction of the market-place. As they
went, they talked, scatteringly, and Oman found himself listening
with delight to the low, mellow tones of his companion’s voice. The
Bhikkhu’s name, he found, was Hushka. He was now returning from his
pilgrimage and on his way to Bágh, where he was to spend the summer
months, the Yassa season, in one of the Viharas there.
When they reached the bazaar, they found in it a busy throng of men
and women, buying, selling, shouting, laughing, wrangling, gossiping
together, each contributing in some way to the general tumult. Oman
wondered not a little how his companion was going to obtain hearing
here. Hushka, however, appeared as untroubled as if he had mounted
a platform before a respectfully attentive multitude; and Oman,
interested in the prospect, still lingered, watching his chance
acquaintance.
First, the Bhikkhu reminded Oman of his own personal neglect, by going
to the fountain in the middle of the square, and carefully washing out
his alms-bowl. When it was cleaned and dried, he still stood, resting
one hand upon the stone, looking thoughtfully around him. One or two
people, passing, caught his eye, and halted, uncertainly. Then three or
four middle-aged and old men drew out of the throng and stood still,
close at hand. They were those that had a curiosity concerning the
dying faith: perhaps even, in their secret hearts, leaned a little
toward it; and usually availed themselves of each rare opportunity of
listening to the Dharma.
Having now before him the nucleus of an audience, Hushka faced them,
his back to the fountain. Absently he stuck his flat bowl into the
pouch depending from his leathern girdle, fixing his eyes, the while,
upon Oman, who, fascinated by the man’s simplicity, still stood, apart
from the others, watching and waiting. And now the Buddhist lifted both
hands, clasped them high before him, and repeated, in tones of greatest
reverence, the Buddhist profession of faith, with which all mendicant
preachers were accustomed to begin their discourse:
“‘Of all things proceeding from cause, their causes hath the Tathagata
(Buddha) explained. The great Sramana (Buddha) hath likewise explained
the causes of the cessation of existence.’”
At these words, spoken in a low, melodious, monotonous voice,
addressed, not to the people, but, apparently, to Heaven, Oman,
unconscious of himself, took a step nearer to the speaker. After a
slight pause, Hushka, now removing his eyes from Oman’s face and using
them at discretion, began his sermon, choosing language that was clear
and simple, using figures calculated to appeal to the people, carrying
his hearers with him by means of his own personal magnetism, which
was never at so high a pitch as when he was engaged in this kind of
speaking. Gradually, his audience increased in numbers. The little
group of half a dozen became twelve, and then twenty, and then forty,
till the clamor in the market-place was strangely diminished, and
buyers and sellers alike stood still before the power of this wanderer
of alien and dying faith, surnamed, by his brethren of the Vihara,
“honey-throated”, and “golden-tongued”.
And this was the nature of his address; these the words that he spoke:
“Have you considered, O people, how all that we are is the result of
what we have thought? Our life is founded on our thoughts, made up
of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain
follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the
vehicle.
“‘I am abused, miserable, receive not my due in the world.’ For him who
constantly harbors such thoughts, there is unending discontent. But for
him who reflects: ‘I am happy in living, for the world is a spot of joy
and beauty,’ discontent will cease forever. And so, also, hatred will
never cease by hatred. Hatred ceases through love. This is an old rule.
Again, he who lives seeking pleasures only, his senses unbridled, his
nature through indulgence growing idle and weak, him will Mara (the
tempter) overthrow, as the wind blows down a rotten tree. But for him
who lives to labor and to love his fellows, his senses controlled, his
appetites moderate, faithful and strong in his work, him Mara can no
more overthrow than the wind blows down a rocky mountain-peak.
“Now I declare to you that truth is an image clearly to be seen only
by the pure in heart. And those that follow vain desires, imagine that
truth is untruth and see untruth in truth, and never arrive at truth.
But those whose aims are high, whose minds are unpolluted with vanity,
are able to distinguish between the false and the true, and delight in
truth. Therefore follow not after vanity nor the enjoyment of lusts;
for when ye have known truth for yourselves, therein will ye find great
joy.
“Earnestness and meditation bring in their train serenity and
happiness. By earnestness did Indra rise to the lordship of the gods.
And he who delights in sincerity, who looks with fear upon hypocrisy,
moves about like fire, burning all his fetters; and he that has
conquered himself by reflection, is close upon Nirvana.
“I would speak with you also concerning the tyranny of passion. For as
rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, so passion breaks through
the unfortified mind. Therefore it is necessary carefully to train the
mind, which is difficult to check and constantly rebellious, rushing
where it listeth. Yet, only a trained mind will bring happiness. Let
the wise man guard his thoughts, lest the torrent of passion, rushing
upon him, overwhelm him in its depths. The mind travels far, moves
about alone, without a body; and, to be freed from Mara, must often
hide in the chamber of the heart. But so long as man is under the
bondage of passion, so long is he exposed to the persuasions of Mara.
And so long as the desire of man toward woman, even the smallest, is
not destroyed, so long is his mind in bondage. Thou shalt also cut
out the love of thyself with thine own hand; for it is the greatest
tree in the forest of dangers. From its root springs desire. Its
foliage is wanton. From lust spring fear and grief; but he who is free
from lust knows not grief nor fear. Yet no man can free another from
these things. As by one’s self the evil is done, so by one’s self is
one purified. Is the struggle long? Is it lonely? Is it exceedingly
difficult? Fear not. By such measures only is serenity attained.
Well-makers lead the water where they will. Fletchers bend the arrow;
carpenters split a log of wood; but a good man doeth the greatest thing
of all, for he can fashion himself.”
Hushka concluded his discourse quietly, with a benign smile flickering
from his eyes and just touching his lips. The holy law that he
preached to men never failed to affect himself, and to uplift him.
And this, probably, was the secret of his power. Certainly, if it
took some courage nowadays to preach the word of the Buddha in India,
the preacher found his reward; for his audiences were held fairly
spellbound during the ten or fifteen minutes of the discourse; and,
under the magic smoothness of the golden voice, the disjointed nature
of his preachment had passed unnoticed. After a moment or two of
silence, more complimentary than any applause, the little throng began
to break up, and, five minutes later, the noise of the market-place
was as deafening as before. The Bhikkhu, his work here finished, was
turning to depart, when he perceived his companion of the noontide
still standing near, apparently watching a chance to speak to him
again. Hushka gazed at him inquiringly, and Oman came up, but stood
silent and a little confused before him.
“Is there any service that I can perform for thee?” asked Hushka, after
regarding him for a moment attentively.
Oman again gazed deep into the large, gentle eyes; and with the look,
a thrill of joy ran through him. “Tell me, if you will, O Bhikkhu, if
your order practises this Dharma? Are all Buddhist brethren free from
desire and from the pain of discontent?”
“It is our endeavor thus to free ourselves. We follow the teachings of
the great Master.”
“Sramana-Gautama?”
The Bhikkhu bowed his head.
“There are many Jainists that come here, saying that they also worship
the Buddha truly—”
“Jainists! Hypocrites!” for an instant, Hushka’s eyes flashed fire; but
he pressed his lips tightly together, and when he spoke again it was
quite calmly: “The Jainists are false Buddhists. The world has been
sadly overrun with hypocrisy; and they have been its devotees. They do
not follow Buddha, but Buddhaghosa; and their law is not our law, for
they do not possess the manuscripts of truth.”
Oman nodded, and there was a pause. Then the youth, his heart beating
rapidly, his throat quite dry, asked: “What is required of those that
would join your order?”
Hushka looked at him penetratingly, and said: “Come. Let us proceed out
of ear-shot of this tumult, where we may talk together in peace.”
Willingly Oman complied; nor did either speak again till they were in
one of the least frequented of the village streets. Even then, Oman
hesitated to begin. He was in such an inward turmoil that he could not
think of words in which to express himself. After a little waiting,
Hushka spoke for him:
“You have asked me, young man, what is required of one that wishes to
join our order. I answer you that nothing is required save the wish.”
“But Sudras—outcasts—the once-born—do you accept these into the
brotherhood?”
“In the eyes of the Sramana, any man and any woman may attain to
Arahatship.”
“Women! Then there is no caste among you?”
“Thus it is written in one of our sacred books: ‘A man does not become
a Brahmana by his family or by his birth. In whom there is truth and
righteousness, he is blessed, he is a Brahmana.’”
It was the first time that Oman had dreamed of such a thing as a social
order without caste; and the idea was so overwhelming that for some
moments he was silent out of sheer amazement. All his preconceived
notions went whirling in his head while he strove to adjust himself
to this. Never, until this Bhikkhu had spoken in the market-place,
had he had any idea of a religion built solely for the help of human
frailty, and for the consolation of human sorrow. Now, what a vista
was suddenly opened before him! Small wonder that he shut his eyes to
the first radiant flood of light. That he could see anything at all of
the possibilities carried in Hushka’s words, was due to the fact of
his three years of bitter solitude and lonely meditation. After a few
moments, during which Hushka kept a wise silence, Oman asked slowly,
with a trembling that betrayed itself on his very lips:
“Could—a weaver—a Vaisya—become one of you? Could I become a Bhikkhu?”
“Art thou a weaver? I had thought thee Brahman born.”
“That also is true. I was born a Brahman.”
There was a short silence. Oman was sick now with dread of a next
question,—that never came. Hushka was turning certain matters rapidly
over in his mind. From the first, Oman’s intense interest in his words
had been a mystery to him. Converts to Buddhism were seldom made, in
this day. It was now most rarely that the Bhikkhus brought novices
back with them for the Vassa; and the few that came were almost always
of Sudra caste. Oman, on the other hand, was apparently of high
breeding; and only some unusual fact could have brought him into his
present situation. Hushka scented some misdeed, crime, perhaps, that
had put the youth into present bad standing. But the misdeed of a
Brahman was no Buddhist’s affair. To make him a convert was the chief
consideration; for had not the great Buddha received into his order men
of dark past? There was excellent precedent for what Hushka wished to
do.
Later in his companionship with Oman, Hushka’s first suspicion of crime
was completely laid by the openness of his pupil’s behavior. But, in
justice to the Bhikkhu be it said, he had never, until the end, the
faintest suspicion of the real nature of Oman’s trouble.
Many thoughts and much reasoning passed rapidly through Hushka’s mind;
and then he turned again to the youth, and said to him: “Thou hast
asked me if thou canst become a Bhikkhu. I answer thee—yes. But first
you must know something of our lives, and the purpose of them. Then,
understanding all that is to be renounced, if you would still join us,
I will myself give you the first ordination, the Pabbagga, and will
take you as my pupil. I will be your master, your Upagghaya; for I have
instructed many youths through their novitiate. Later, you will be
given the second, the highest ordination, Upasampada, and so become a
Bhikkhu. But first you must understand whither I would lead you.”
“Tell me! Tell me,” besought Oman, looking into Hushka’s eyes, before
whose steady orbs his own suddenly fell.
And so, while they walked, the Buddhist expounded to the lonely youth
the simple doctrines of the great religion: the renunciation of desire,
of pleasure, of indulgence in the flesh, and the growth of that
serenity that leads gradually to Nirvana, the great extinction. And the
plan of it all, the eightfold abstinence, the fourfold path, seemed
to Oman a perfect conception. The whole doctrine was, to his troubled
soul, like balm on a deep wound, a draught of water to one perishing
in the desert. And in his delight, he was freed from traditional
prejudice, and gave himself up entirely to the new companionship.
Thus, through the whole afternoon, the two walked together, communing,
until, as the sun slipped under the western horizon, they paused
once more before the house of Gokarna. Hushka had reminded the young
man that his father and mother must be told of his wish to become
a Buddhist. Indeed, in the depths of his quiet mind, the Bhikkhu
apprehended insuperable difficulty here, yet knew that the matter
must be faced; and he let Oman decide the manner of its presentation.
To Hushka’s astonishment, Oman took it unquestioningly on himself,
asking Hushka to wait in the veranda while he went within to inform
his parents, or, in case Gokarna were absent, at least his mother,
of his great decision. Hushka made no protest, nor suggested his own
fitness to give a favorable impression concerning the Bhikkhu’s life.
Remembering Oman’s new-born enthusiasm and seeing in him no sign of
nervousness about approaching his guardians, Hushka reflected that
Oman might have been divinely fitted for this task. So, after a short
colloquy at the veranda step, the monk sat down in the vine-covered
retreat, and Oman went on into the house, where, contrary to his
expectation, he found both his father and his mother.
For a long time Hushka sat there in the falling night, cross-legged, in
the manner of the Sakyamuni, his hands on his knees, his head resting
against the wall of the house, meditating. And while he indulged
himself in hope, there came, through the open doorway, the low,
monotonous murmur of voices. They were never raised above the ordinary
pitch; and this Hushka perceived with increasing satisfaction. Once or
twice there were to be heard a woman’s tones, followed always by the
musical voice of Oman, and the heavier baritone of Gokarna. But the
discussion, if discussion there were, was carried on in an entirely
matter-of-fact manner.
During this time, outside, the hands of Nature had been at work, and
now the whole sky was robed in luminous, fleecy gray, strewn with
white stars, and crowned with the radiant half-moon, which shed silver
beams over the whole earth. The air was warm and fragrant with the
breath of spring. It was a night when the very atmosphere brought
intoxication. And gradually the expression of him sitting alone in the
veranda changed, and grew very sad; and a new light, one of sorrow and
yearning, shone in the depths of his large eyes.
Now the murmur of voices inside the house ceased. Oman’s task was
accomplished. After a moment of silence the three came out of the
firelit room, into the cool and shadowy veranda. It was a second or
two before any one of them could see Hushka, who had risen, and slowly
moved forward to them. Then Gokarna also advanced, and spoke:
“O Bhikkhu, Oman, my son, has told me that which my heart is sad to
hear. He wishes to receive from you Buddhist ordination and go forth as
your pupil.”
Hushka bent his head once. “That is true. The young man came to me
after I had discoursed upon the Dharma in the market-place, and asked
that he might become my Saddhiviharika, to listen daily to the Dharma
and become versed in the way of the great life.”
“So says my son; and, O Bhikkhu, so fervently doth he desire to enter
upon this life, that he hath won consent from us. So I bid you take him
for a pupil, and treat him with that forbearance that is a law of all
religions.”
Hushka bent his head again. “Let it be thus,” he said solemnly.
There was a stifled sob from Kota, who stood in the background, behind
her husband; and then Oman, who had embraced her, went forward to his
master, asking: “When shall I receive the ordination?”
“When thou wilt. Any time is a proper time for the Pabbagga.”
“Then let me be at once ordained, that we may set forth at an early
hour on the morrow.”
“Come then into the moonlight here before the step, that each may look
upon the face of the other. Yet,”—he glanced toward Kota and Gokarna,
who still stood close at hand,—“yet we should not act in the presence
of any but followers of Gautama.”
At this, the father and mother embraced Oman, and then, when Kota had
murmured to him that she should see him again in the morning, the two
retired for the night, leaving Oman and Hushka alone in the veranda.
Hushka was struggling with the bundle on his back, which Oman helped
him to remove. In it, wrapped in the mat used by Buddhists for many
purposes, lay a set of yellow robes, apparently new, yet mudstained to
a height of a foot above the hem.
“Whence come the stains? And how dost thou carry this set of garments?”
queried Oman, delighted that he was at once to assume the dress of his
new faith.
“Thus is it decreed that, in such emergencies as this, when we take a
pupil, we should have a robe for him. And the robes are stained with
earth, that no Bhikkhu or student shall vainly rejoice in his new
garment.”
Laying aside the yellow robes, Hushka bound up his mat again, this time
putting the little bundle to one side, on the veranda. Then he said to
Oman:
“Now must thou don this garb. It is our rule that the brethren shall
not look upon one another in the act of robing or disrobing; so I
turn my face from thee. Yet it will be necessary that I show thee the
required manner of passing the cloth about the upper part of the body
and over the left shoulder. Therefore, when the skirt is adjusted, call
me to thine assistance.”
Oman nodded; but, as Hushka turned toward the other end of the veranda,
Oman, who, in loosening his usual tunic, had accidentally touched the
cord that he always wore, called out to Hushka: “The cord—the Brahman
cord—must it be put off?”
“Let it remain,” answered Hushka, without turning around; and Oman in
his heart rejoiced.
When he was dressed and Hushka had taught him the trick of fastening
the end of the yellow cloth under his arm, Oman declared himself ready
for the ordination. Thereupon Hushka, in a solemn tone, once more
repeated to him the laws of abstinence for a novice; and then, Oman
having faithfully promised to observe them all, Hushka bade him sit
down, cross-legged, somewhat after the manner of a Yogi, and, when he
had raised his clasped hands to a level with his eyes, caused him to
repeat slowly, three times, these words:
“I take my refuge in the Buddha. I take my refuge in the Dharma. I take
my refuge in the Samgha (the community of brethren).”
This said, Oman repeated after his preceptor the creed that he had
heard for the first time that morning: “Of all things proceeding from
cause, their causes hath the Tathagata explained. The Great Sramana
hath likewise explained the causes of the cessation of existence. Let
him be forever worshipped.”
With these simple words, the ordination was completed; but Oman still
remained in the half-kneeling, half-sitting position, motionless,
silent, a little pale. It was as if the repetition of the creed had
wrought a change in his whole being. He experienced an inexplicably
strong emotion, an emotion amazing to himself, perhaps not so much so
to Hushka, who stood looking down on him with the silver moonlight in
his gentle, dark eyes. Oman found himself gazing into those eyes as if
they had been of the Buddha himself. After a little, however, Hushka
broke the spell, saying, quietly:
“Come, my pupil, let us seek our rest. On the morrow we must proceed
upon our way.”
Oman rose at once, and followed his master to that end of the veranda
where he was wont to sleep. Here, dressed as they were, the two lay
down, some distance apart, with no covering but their yellow garments
and the sweet night air. Very soon Hushka’s breath came evenly and
long; and the other knew that he slept. But Oman closed his eyes in
vain. He could not sleep; nor, indeed, did he desire to. His heart was
full. It had come, at last, all that he had dreamed of. The impossible
was come to pass. On the morrow he was going out into the world,—out
into the broad, shining world, in the companionship of a man that did
not scorn him, with a faith in his heart that he loved, that loved him,
that had been decreed for him and all the scattered brethren of the
lonely life.
CHAPTER V
YELLOW-ROBED
The moon had set before Oman finally lost himself in sleep. It seemed
to him that an hour could not possibly have passed when he felt a touch
on his brow, and, looking up, beheld Hushka bending over him.
“Up—up—my Saddhiviharika! The new day is here. Let us renew our faith.”
Oman, sleepy and confused, rose, and, following his master’s example,
knelt on one knee, lifted both his clasped hands, and repeated after
Hushka the short creed that he already knew by heart. Then the Bhikkhu,
rising, said:
“Let us now go and cleanse ourselves at a fountain. Is that in the
market-place the nearest?”
“No, my master. I will lead you to another, close at hand.”
“Come, then. And, as we walk, see that thou meditate upon this thought,
which should now be with thee constantly: the extermination of desire
for earthly things. For it is written in the book of the law: ‘Leaving
all pleasures behind, calling nothing his own, let the wise man purge
himself of troubles of the mind’.”
It was a fair morning. The sun was not yet above the horizon, but the
whole eastern sky glowed fiery crimson in the clear atmosphere. Gay
bird-notes filled the air; and a vagrant breeze shook the fragrance
from every jessamine and honeysuckle vine in Bul-Ruknu. It was an
ecstatic hour; and Hushka’s eyes were bright with the beauty of it when
he and Oman reached the well. As the young man filled Hushka’s bowl
with water, he turned to his master and said:
“The day, sir, is very fair. Does the Dharma forbid us to rejoice in
the beauty of the dawn?”
Hushka lowered his eyes, and answered softly: “We are told that the
extinction of feeling is the most desirable of all things. But, until
that comes, I think it can hurt no man to rejoice at the sight of a
sunrise sky.”
Their ablutions over, the two returned to the house of Gokarna, and
found Kota standing in the veranda, anxiously awaiting them. She had
prepared two large dishes of rice—a great luxury—and, as soon as they
came up, bade them sit and eat. Oman helped his master to the fullest
portion, and then ate his own from the wooden bowl in which it had been
prepared. This dish Kota offered to her son, to be used for his alms;
and Hushka himself thanked her for the gift to his pupil.
Oman, to his own surprise, found himself delaying the meal out of
sorrow at thought of leaving this home. He had never in his life
been more than twenty miles from Bul-Ruknu. Now, very probably, he
should never see the town again: never again look on his mother, his
father, or any of the familiar people among whom he had grown up. As
he reflected on this, the spoon dropped from his hand, and he bent his
head, conscious all the while that Hushka’s eyes were fixed on him. He
was blind with tears which he was struggling furiously not to shed,
when some one knelt beside him, and he felt two twining arms around his
neck, and a long kiss on his cheek. A thrill ran through his heart.
With passionate grief he returned his mother’s embrace. Then, breaking
suddenly from her clasp, a “Farewell!” choking in his throat, he ran
out of the veranda, down the street, and then halted, with clenched
hands, till Hushka should come.
Presently the Bhikkhu joined him, walking rapidly; and Oman perceived
that in his face there was no ridicule; only a mute sympathy. He
carried with him the two bowls, each of which contained some rice
which, he explained, they would keep for their midday meal. Oman took
his own dish, asking to carry both, which he was not permitted to do.
Side by side they went, through the narrow and ill-kept streets of the
town, till at length they came to its outer wall, and passed out by
the gate called after the street along which they had come: the street
which, outside of Bul-Ruknu, became a public highway leading straight
up into the Vindhyas.
“Ah! Go we up into the hills?” asked Oman, a note of joy in his voice.
“From now till we reach Bágh we shall be almost constantly in the
hills. And there are nearly three months of journeying before the
Vassa[6] can be begun.”
[6] Vassa: the customary sojourn in Viharas, or monasteries, from June
to October.
“I am glad. The hills are a delight to me!”
But no sooner had this simple thought escaped Oman’s lips, than he
repented of it; for he imagined that he should bring upon himself a
text commending the beauty of indifference to all things. But Hushka,
in the interval, had read his mind, and, smiling faintly, said: “Be not
afraid, Oman, that this religion will take from thee all thy delights.
Our lives, free from care, free from dread of the morrow, of any
concern for to-day, free from loneliness or the burdens of poverty,
want, and suffering, are almost wholly without pain; and this was the
great wish of the Buddha. We are taught to look charitably and kindly
on all living things, allowing each its place. And if, in our hearts,
we have cherished any evil thought toward any man, we are allowed the
relief of confessing it before the assembled Samgha. This frame of mind
is conducive to the greatest serenity. And you, O Oman, will find, in
one year’s time, that your whole attitude of mind is changed. You will
regard meditation on holy things, and the study of the Dharma, as the
highest privileges of life.”
Hushka paused, and Oman found in his words enough food for thought to
be glad of silence. They proceeded for a long time without speech. And
gradually, as Oman came out of his revery, he found his spirits growing
lighter. A sense of freedom had taken possession of him; and now every
step that increased the distance between himself and the home of his
unnatural and unhappy youth, increased also his delight.
When the sun hung in mid-sky, and they had reached the end of the first
pass and stood in a little valley, through which ran a stream of fresh
water, the two sat down to eat and take an hour’s rest. They seated
themselves on the thick grass, careful to disturb no insect visible to
the eye; and then, without any preliminary grace or offering to any
god, a matter as natural to Oman as eating, began their meal. They
faced each other, and Hushka kept an eye on his pupil to see that he
transgressed none of those rules of polite eating so minutely set forth
in the _Kullavagga_. But there was no fault to be found with the
student on this point. On the contrary, Oman ate as delicately as a
woman; and Hushka, after watching him for a moment or two, exclaimed
pleasantly:
“By the word of the Samgha, Oman, thou hast the look as well as the way
of a woman about thee, sometimes.”
Oman lifted his head, a gleam of terror in his eyes. “I am not a woman.
How, then, should I resemble one?” he demanded fiercely.
Hushka, still contemplating him, smiled, but did not answer the
question. Then Oman, distressed and angry, sprang to his feet, and
began to pace up and down the bank of the stream; and it was five
minutes before he could return to his meal.
At this time of his life, perhaps what Hushka said about Oman’s
appearance was more or less true. His slender figure, dreaming dark
eyes, face guiltless of any beard, and hair flowing to his shoulders,
might, indeed, have belonged to a woman of high caste. But there was
also something about him that was decisively masculine:—whether his
manner of carrying himself, the habit of looking any one piercingly in
the eye, or his taciturnity, it would be hard to say. But it is very
certain that the mingling of two elements in him had produced no weak
and vacillating creature, of meagre intellect and silly tongue. Freed
from the unhappy surroundings of his youth, Oman was likely henceforth
to command both interest and respect; and Hushka’s foregoing remark had
been nothing more than a thoughtless and haphazard jest.
Oman recovered himself before he sat down again; and, his rice
finished, he washed both bowls, and dried them with leaves. Then he
rose, supposing that they were to proceed. It seemed, however, that
this was the hour for meditation. In imitation of the Sramana, who was
wont to sit in concentrated thought for days at a time at the foot of
some forest tree, Hushka and his pupil, obeying one of the few rules of
“hours,” seated themselves, cross-legged, under different trees, and
remained there for a long time, motionless, wrapped in contemplation
of Nirvâna—the bliss of emancipation. It was the first time that Oman
had ever performed this especial act of worship, which is common to all
the higher Indian religions. He found it more interesting than he had
imagined it could be; and was glad to think that, at Bágh, much of it
would be required in his studies.
By two o’clock the wanderers were on their way again, and Hushka told
his pupil where they were to pass the night. Some miles farther on, in
a valley, was a large banyan grove, inhabited by hermits of various
sects, among whom were half a dozen Buddhists, who passed their lives
in rigid asceticism, but had abandoned the routine of pilgrimage and
Vassa.
For a long time they proceeded on their way, following the track of
the sun into the southwest, each wrapped in his own thoughts. Then
Oman, as much out of desire to listen to Hushka’s melodious voice as to
learn something of the Being both were worshipping, began to question
his master concerning the holy life. And Hushka, taking up his duty,
recited to his companion the history of the life of Gautama Sramana,
from the hour of his birth in the forest of Kapila-Vastu, until that
of his death in the forest of Tirhut, where he fell back into the arms
of his disciples, murmuring: “I am exhorting you for the last time.
Transitory things are perishable. Without delay, qualify yourselves for
Nirvâna.”
The life-story, told simply, but with an eloquence born of reverent
love, moved Oman powerfully. Here, indeed, was a man!—a man who had
lived a comprehensible life and had died naturally. To his mind,
crammed with legendary tales of Vedic demigods and monsters, with all
their meaningless miracles and overinterpreted allegorical deeds, there
was something in this remarkable, but perfectly credible history, that
brought conviction of the truth of the Buddha’s doctrines. The life he
had lived was enviable. Evidently he had seen clearly from the very
beginning; had known his course and had run it, gathering strength as
he went on. True, the Buddha had been born into honor and riches, and
had never had the terrible struggles of loneliness forced on him. But
he had chosen these for himself; and he had voluntarily made himself
outcast from men.
These musings occupied Oman till the sun was setting on their first
day’s journey. They were now descending the slope that led into the
valley of the banyan tree. When they reached its level, and could look
down the long aisle of trunks into the green twilight of this natural
temple, Oman felt a throb of pleasure, as one at home. They entered
in silence, and had not walked far before the light of a fire became
visible among the trees in the distance. Thither they bent their
steps, and, reaching it, found that it burned before the entrance of a
small building, built around the tree trunks. Beside this shrine and
before the fire were half a dozen naked men, their black hair wild and
dishevelled, their bodies caked with dirt and disfigured with scars of
flagellation.
“These are Agivakas. We do not stop here,” murmured Hushka, as they
approached.
Oman looked at the repulsive creatures curiously. They were passed,
however, without any salutation, with not even a look, so far as the
ascetics were concerned; and presently the yellow-robed were out of
sight of their dancing fire. The green interior of the grove was now
nearly dark. Hushka quickened his steps; and Oman, spent though he was
with unwonted exercise, followed bravely, knowing that they must reach
protection that night, since to sleep in the open, in this mountain
region, was a danger not lightly to be undergone. However, further
firelight among the trees presently reached them, and they proceeded
with new heart, soon arriving at the Buddhist retreat. Here was no
temple. Five tonsured men, clean-shaven, clad in worn yellow robes, sat
round their fire, partaking of a supper of millet-seed and water. This
meal the Upagghaya and his pupil received a cordial invitation to join;
and it was taken for granted that they would also sleep there. To Oman,
weary as he was, the mere fact of eating, of being near a shining fire,
of seeing around him friendly faces, of listening to talk from which he
was not excluded, brought an almost overpowering sense of happiness.
Here was such companionship as he had not known since his baby days.
Here were no curious, repellent eyes upon him. And, suddenly, the
feminine in him rose, bringing to his eyes tears which it took all his
angry self-control to keep from falling.
That night Oman slept the sweet sleep of healthy fatigue; but he
wakened early, and in a new world. The fire had died. Far overhead the
first glimmer of dawn shone down in a veil of translucent, deep green
light—like the light in the sea. The air was vibrating softly with the
twittering chorus of myriad birds that made their home in the banyan
tree. Otherwise, there was a great, morning silence. Oman, drowsy,
and unwilling to move, lay like one in a trance, looking, listening,
wondering, at the beauty around him. Presently it was transformed.
Every one was awake, and up and moving about; but the past half hour
lay deep in his heart, and the pureness of it remained with him always.
The morning repast was hastier than had been that of the evening; and
about sunrise the pilgrims, after many good wishes and farewells from
those they were leaving, set forth again on their way. This time they
took no food with them in their bowls; for in the early afternoon they
should reach a mountain village where, after Hushka had preached in
the bazaar, they were sure to obtain at least one meal. This morning’s
walk was difficult, for it lay steadily uphill. Hushka, however, kept
the mind of his pupil too much occupied for him to feel the weariness
of the road. The master talked to him of religion, explained the canon
of Buddhist law in its simple form, and repeated long passages from
holy books. Oman listened intently to everything. His new religion
delighted him anew. The laws that he heard seemed to him divinely wise,
so well were they adapted to human weakness. And all the time, in his
subconsciousness, he had another joy: that to-day he should again hear
Hushka speak to many people. The Bhikkhu’s conversation was precious;
but Oman, thirsting for a broader triumph, was waiting to watch his
magnetism again gather up an antagonistic audience and draw them to his
feet.
And Oman came to taste the fulness of this delight; for, wherever they
went, success followed Hushka’s preaching. What it was—the expression
of his great eyes, the low, musical, leisurely tones of his admirably
managed voice, or perhaps just the words he spoke—his pupil could not
determine: probably a measure of all three. At any rate, even in this
day of the fall of the great faith, in many towns from Bágh to Dhár and
even farther to the north, the annual coming of the Bhikkhu Hushka was
awaited as an event; and where he stopped for the first time, he was
remembered with delight, and his return hoped for. Nor, after one of
his discourses, was there to be found even a Brahman, that had heard
him, who had anything but words of praise for his eloquence.
March passed away and April followed, and still the two fought their
way through the mighty hills, surrounded by possible dangers, but
encountering none. The days were growing hot; and, when the moon was
full they sometimes travelled by night, but this not often, because of
the wild creatures that loved to roam abroad during the quiet hours.
The time passed too quickly. Oman, now inured to constant exercise,
throve on it and grew strong. His limbs began to show muscle, and his
body renewed its vigor, till he looked a straight and handsome youth.
And as his physique developed, so also his mind. Hushka never ceased
his instructions in the Dharma, nor did Oman fail to treasure his
master’s lightest precept. He was familiar now with what lay before
him during the Vassa season. He learned the mode of daily life; the
rules of procedure in the Samgha, or community of brethren; and also
the ritual of the general confession, the Patimokkha, held fortnightly,
on new and full moon days during the Vassa. But the multitude and
minuteness of the laws, and the petty tyranny they exercised, remained
happily unguessed by him; for Hushka was too wise to burden his mind in
the beginning with what would soon become a natural part of existence.
Oman’s present life was beautiful to him. The magnificence of the
scenery amid which they lived, the season of the year, when the earth
was at its height of joy, still more, perhaps, the beautiful influence
of Hushka’s companionship and the spirituality of what he taught,
combined to waken in Oman a buoyancy of spirit, a sense of hope and of
ideality, that furnished him strength to sustain the years of bitter
tribulation and trial that were still to be his.
At length one day Oman and Hushka, side by side, staves in hand,
reached the treeless summit of a high hill, up the side of which they
had toiled throughout the morning, Hushka for a purpose, Oman following
unquestioningly. When they stood upon the crest, there spread before
them a mighty prospect, fair and far-reaching in the clear light of
noon. In the distance, a mere sinuous, sparkling thread, was a river,
bordered by a strip of green plain. Nearer yet, a deep-hued patch of
foliage marked a jungle, dwindled by height and distance. Then came
foothills, curving round and out, like a rough causeway, toward that
fast-flowing river; and, in the midst of rocky cliffs and sudden tufts
of foliage, were to be seen the low roofs and white walls of many
buildings.
“Look,” said Hushka, gently: “yonder is Bágh. Our pilgrimage is over.
We have crossed the Vindhyas. June is here, and it is the Vassa season.
Art thou ready, Oman?” And he turned to examine his pupil’s face.
Oman neither spoke nor answered the look. He was beyond himself.
Suddenly, out of the dark fastnesses of the past, shot a gleam of
light. A new vista was opening before his eyes. Memory—fleeting,
evanescent—hovered over him. His mind was struggling to penetrate the
land of forgetfulness. The gates seemed still barred; and yet—here was
a key. That river—that shining river, yonder, in the light—he knew it
well,—so well that he was shuddering at sight of it.
“Oman,” repeated Hushka, disturbed at the look in his pupil’s eyes.
With that one word, the dream broke. Oman turned sharply, stared for a
second into his Master’s face, and then, in a voice of the far away,
answered: “Yes, I am ready, master. Let us descend. Let us enter the
Vihara of Truth.”
CHAPTER VI
THE VIHARA OF TRUTH
The town of Bágh, begun in a little valley, had gradually spread, up
an open hillside looking toward the southeast, and over and beyond
the jungle, to the Narmáda plain. The great Viharas were two or three
miles south of the village, built, all nine of them, in the flat of a
ravine, with wooded hillsides rising abruptly on either side. It was
not until the morning after their view from the hilltop that Hushka
and Oman made their appearance here. They had arrived in Bágh at dusk
the evening before, unusually wearied by an unusual day’s toil. Now,
after passing the night in Bágh, they had come, in the glow of a June
morning, fiercely hot, but filled with that glorifying sense of summer
that cannot be burnt away even by the deadly rays of an Indian sun, to
begin the Vassa season.
Along the path from the town, and through the ravine itself, they
met with what seemed to Oman, brought up to regard Buddhism as a
dead faith, a surprising number of Bhikkhus, all, apparently, like
themselves, returning from the pilgrimage. And Oman further wondered
by what feat of perfect calculation they had managed to arrive from
their wanderings on this particular day. As a matter of fact, some that
they passed had been in the neighborhood for a week or more; and others
would continue to arrive through the next week. There were perhaps a
hundred and fifty men in all, including fourteen or fifteen novices;
and there were few here who could remember a time when there had been
more in the valley. Yet tradition told a great tale. For, whereas now,
all these men lived in a single Vihara, the last in the row of the
great buildings, in the days of the past every one of the nine huge
monasteries had been filled to overflowing, and twenty-five hundred men
had passed their Vassa in the ravine.
Happily, to-day, none cared to dwell on the memory of old glories.
The Brethren were all busy greeting one another, and giving hasty
account of incidents of their various pilgrimages; for, through the
winter months, the Buddhists of Bágh were scattered over all Malwa, as
far north as Rajputana, and southward, through the plains, nearly to
the great ghats. Hushka was never alone, for he was one of the most
important and also one of the most popular monks of the Samgha. Oman,
indeed, following at his master’s heels, felt aggrieved and neglected.
He occupied himself in observation, finding high cause for wonder in
the vast, empty buildings lining the valley. They were immensely long,
narrow for their width, and built entirely of stone cut from the great
quarries near the river. Their verandas were wide, roofed and pillared
with stone; but the shade-mats of straw had long since rotted and
fallen away, and the interior of the mighty monuments stood open and
empty, deserted by their builders and their faith.
Gradually the two approached the last of the line of monasteries,
which, as Hushka had told him, was called the Vihara of Truth, and was
the only one still inhabited. This place presented a very different
appearance from that of its silent neighbors. As they came near the
central doorway, Hushka left off his conversation with a friend,
and turned to Oman. Taking him by the hand, he led him up the step,
to the spot where stood a large man, wearing a white cloak over his
yellow robes, and further marked by an air of extreme dignity and
condescension. Oman had observed his statuesque figure some moments
previously, and saw that, though he never moved from his place, every
Bhikkhu that approached made haste to go to him, to bow and receive his
greeting.
“That is the Sugata, the master of the Vihara, who has almost attained
to Arahatship, and remains in meditation throughout the period of
pilgrimage,” murmured Hushka in Oman’s ear, just before they reached
the great man.
Oman felt a thrill of reverence, and looked again, hoping to perceive
new marks of holiness. All that his eyes could see, however, was
a tall, stout person, with a round, benign-looking face, plump
and smooth-shaven. The Sugata was smiling, and Oman, hungrily as
he searched, could find in that countenance no traces of divine
spirituality. However, the great One’s eight months of meditation
seemed to have agreed with him uncommonly well.
Before this irreverent thought had taken root in Oman’s mind, he was
led up by Hushka and presented to the mighty one as a Saddhiviharika
who had received first ordination three months before. The Sugata fixed
his eyes upon the young man, who ingenuously returned the look, as the
master addressed Hushka:
“He appears young. Is he of age?”
“Of eighteen years, sir.”
“Let him study well the Dharma, that, in a year, he may receive
Upasampada.”
With this, Oman’s audience appeared to be at an end; and, a little
relieved to be out of the neighborhood of such holiness, he followed
Hushka across the veranda to a square, arcaded cloister, where,
directly in front of the entrance, stood a man with an open bag before
him, containing coins. Hushka took from his girdle the alms-purse
that he had worn for eight months, and emptied its contents into the
receptacle, at the same time exchanging greetings with the almoner.
Oman, looking on, understood that it was upon this money, received on
the pilgrimages, that the Bhikkhus lived in their monastery through the
Vassa season.
Hushka’s exchange of courtesies ended in the question as to where he
should find one Mahapra. Informed that he was in the Uposatha hall, the
monk went back, Oman still at his side, and, passing into the veranda
again, turned down it to the right, and, some distance farther on,
entered a room so vast that Oman stopped upon its threshold, staring.
Here, near the door, was gathered quite a throng, engaged in lively
altercation with one of their number, whose lean face wore a perturbed
and strained look. At sight of him Hushka began to laugh.
“It is, this year, Mahapra’s lot to assign the cells,” he explained to
Oman. And, leaving the young man where he was, Hushka himself plunged
into the crowd.
So long a time elapsed before he emerged, that Oman, tired and
bewildered by so much that was new, squatted down on the floor, to
the left of the entrance, to wait. Finally Hushka returned to him, a
look of satisfaction on his face; and, signing Oman to follow, walked
rapidly across the hall, through a small door at the end into the
cloister, across this open space, and finally down a narrow passage
that ended in another open square surrounded by small doors. Here
Hushka stopped, looking round him till he found a door inscribed with a
certain letter. This he threw open.
“Behold, Oman,” said he, “here is your home. This is the square of
novices, and I have got you a cell with an outer window. It will be
well that you should remain here for a time. The Vihara will be all
confusion to-day. But, if you come forth, do not forget the letter of
your door.”
Then, without further ado, Hushka turned and hurried away, having
himself much to accomplish before nightfall. Oman, peremptorily left
alone, looked around him, at his new abiding-place. The room was
extremely small, considering the size of the Vihara. Opposite the door
was a small window, with a straw shade rolled up from it and bound
round with a string. From the window could be seen a strip of hillside,
where the light of noon glared over shadowless gray earth, dotted here
and there with clumps of stunted bushes. This, with a bit of deep blue
sky, was his view. The furniture of the room consisted of a straw bed
with a sleeping-mat, an earthen water-jug, another jar, and, under the
window, on a low, stone platform a foot square, a small bronze image
of the Buddha. The stone walls of the cell were nearly covered with
carvings and bright-colored frescoes, which, crude as they were, gave
the room an air of comfort and furnishing.
Oman, accustomed to absolute simplicity, looked around him highly
satisfied with his dwelling-place. He was not, however, so well pleased
at the prospect of spending the whole afternoon without food; for his
breakfast had been scanty, and the morning long. Nevertheless, Hushka
had bidden him remain here, and Hushka’s slightest wish was law. So,
calling up some of the Vedic fortitude of his childhood’s fasts, he
remained for an hour or more gazing out of the window, considering some
of the features of the new life; and then, since there seemed nothing
better to do, let down the curtain over his window, threw himself upon
his bed, and, in a few moments, had lost himself in sleep.
* * * * *
The first week of the Vassa life passed without order, in a jumbling
way. Then, suddenly, as if by magic, everything changed, and existence
ran as if by clockwork. Without knowing how it had all come about,
the novices found their studies begun, and perceived that they were
living under stringent laws. Only Oman, among the twenty youths that
had received the Pabbagga ordination, found nothing to chafe him in
the rules of the day, which were enforced with a rigor that defied
disobedience. It was a long time, indeed, before the young Brahman,
occupied with the unusual joys of companionship and congenial work,
awoke to the fact of how much was being accomplished by himself and by
those around him.
At dawn—which was early enough at this time of year—the whole Vihara
was roused by the clanging of a bell, which rang till the most
persistent sleeper could no longer retain his drowsiness. Then monks
and novices alike made the prescribed ablutions and put on the outer
robe. After this came half an hour of meditation, each one sitting
alone in his open cell, while masters of the day passed through the
corridors at irregular intervals to make sure that meditation did not
lapse into sleep. This over, the whole company repaired to the Uposatha
hall, and, seating themselves on the floor in orderly rows, repeated
in concert the creed and prayers for the day. Now came a scramble to
the refectory, where a meal was served:—a meal such as could scarcely
have been duplicated in any Rajah’s palace. For if the Bhikkhus were
accustomed to begin the Vassa with yellow robes hanging on their
emaciated frames, they were sure of setting forth on their pilgrimage
in October well fortified for the rigors of the fasting season.
The morning meal at an end, monks and novices separated, and the
succeeding hours were occupied with varying tasks. The novices repaired
to the smaller audience hall, where they were taken in charge by
one of the four masters. Squatting in an orderly row on the floor,
they listened in decorous silence to the reading of passages of the
law, and then to a long lecture expounding all that had been read,
with paraphrases by certain of the more notable commentators. This
ordinarily occupied from two to three hours, after which followed
lessons in the Dharma, the novices themselves being called upon to
interpret chapters previously learned by rote. Then came a period of
silent contemplation of the longed-for state: the cessation of desire
and the extinction of feeling. This over, the second meal was served,
and after it came relaxation, the novices being allowed to watch the
distribution of the remains of the meal among the poor of the village
who, at this hour, came crowding to the Vihara gates. This was the one
period of unrestrained liberty in the day; and novices were permitted
to indulge themselves in games and amusements forbidden to the doubly
ordained.
By three o’clock this was over; and the two following hours were spent
in the library, in the perusal of sacred manuscripts, of which the
Vihara of Truth owned a large number. Of all the day’s occupations this
was, to Oman, the most deeply engrossing. He had a great advantage over
most of his companions, in being able to read easily both in Sanscrit
and the older Pâli; for the scholarship of his youth had not left him.
The working day was ended by the most difficult task of all:—three
hours of silent meditation on some tenet announced at the time. At
first, to those unaccustomed to it, these three hours seemed as long as
the eight months of the Sugata’s retirement; and the novices whispered,
and yawned, and eyed each other, and let their minds wander, till the
length of their penances became startling. But gradually the time
seemed shorter, the habit of abstract thought more fixed, until it was
sometimes a surprise to hear the great bell ringing out the close of
day, when all save penitents were commended to seek a needed rest.
This daily program was varied every two weeks, on Uposatha days, by the
ceremony of the recitation of the Patimokkha; which meant the reading
of lists of misdeeds punishable, the special penance for each offence,
and, finally, a general confession and fixing of penances. The whole
thing usually lasted from six to eight hours, and was very tiresome.
But the remainder of the day was a holiday, when rules were abandoned,
and monks and novices allowed to mix indiscriminately.
Such was the outline of Vihara life, which, in the beginning of the
thirteenth century, differed little from that maintained in the first
Buddhist monastery eighteen hundred years before. The circumstances
of the day were unvaried; but the details, for the individuals
living the life, were never the same. The occupations held infinite
possibilities, being perfectly adaptable to moods. The meditation that
one day seemed to stretch out into infinity, passed rapidly on the
next. If the incidents of the life of Gautama set forth in one day’s
reading were dull and dreary, on the next the excerpt might sound like
a fairy story, and the reading-hour prove all too short. For those
of dull, phlegmatic temperament, perhaps there was not, after all,
much difference. But Oman Ramasarman was everything but phlegmatic. A
creature of strange moods, stirred by many feelings incomprehensible
to the multitude, devoted to the working out of a mighty expiation,
as unknown to himself as it was to his companions, his four months of
Vihara life were a momentous period with him. He very soon came to
an understanding of what this wisely regulated existence might hold
for him. He perceived that here he might build a foundation for that
resignation to the actual that he needed so terribly to attain; and
forthwith he set himself, with all the determination of which he was
capable, to attain to a full appreciation of the worth of the Buddhist
teaching.
From the books of his religion Oman extracted much food for thought,
on which he dwelt during the hours of meditation. From the very first,
these periods of silence had been pregnant. In them, now, he found
answers to his infinite, unasked questions. They, first of all, had
awakened him to the import of the days. Perhaps, since Gautama’s first
conceptions of his great creed, there had been no proselyte so apt for
the faith as this poor, bewildered subject of a pitiless judgment.
Within Oman’s body two natures, both human, both filled with direst
cravings of humanity, had long struggled for supremacy. Now he had been
removed from the old life, where he beheld sense worshipped on every
side, and found himself in a community which taught, as an inviolable
law, the renunciation of all sense gratification as the only road to
happiness. A sudden austerity, born of the brain, began to work in
Oman’s heart. Self-denial and abnegation became a passion with him. It
was with deep delight that he graved upon his mind such verses as these:
“That middle path of knowledge which the Tathagata has gained, which
leads to wisdom and conduces to calm, is the holy eightfold path: right
belief, right aspiration, right speech, right conduct, right means of
livelihood, right endeavor, right memory, right meditation. This is the
path that conduces to Nirvâna.”
“And this is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, decay
is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering. Presence of
objects we hate, separation from objects we love, not to obtain what we
desire—all these are suffering. Briefly, the clinging to existence is
suffering.”
“Now hear the truth of the cessation of suffering: it will cease with
the cessation of thirst—a cessation which consists in the abandonment
of every passion. With deliverance from this thirst comes the
destruction of desire, the cessation of suffering.”
This was the subject on which, in his hours of contemplation, Oman
insistently dwelt. In his heart he knew that here lay his help; and
he felt it no wrong that he clung to one topic, disregarding many of
the others prescribed. The process of enforced and long-continued
meditation is a curious thing, and productive of strange results.
Thought is hardly governable, as volatile as a gas; and to keep
it fixed for any length of time upon a single point, requires a
power difficult of attainment. When it is gained, however, and then
persistently made use of, the character of the thinker is sure
to change in one of several ways; and it is axiomatic that, in a
meditative community, the individuals are never quite normal.
In Oman’s case, the effect of the silent hours, which began to be
visible after two months of Vihara life, was one of increasing dignity
and age. He had entered the Vihara a youth, of extremely boyish
appearance, with shyest manners. He had been thoroughly crude, and
so awkward before older men that he had given an early impression
of stupidity. Now all this was altered. He was quiet, grave-eyed,
thoughtful-looking; but his manner, filled with self-control, was
almost impressive. His grasp of the teachings of the Dharma had been
quick, his questions keen and pointed. Moreover, during the periods
of relaxation, he began to keep himself apart from his fellows, but
was often to be seen talking with his master, Hushka, or some one of
the older monks of Hushka’s faction. And it was among the novices, who
began to look up to him, that the idea first originated that Oman was
to receive his Upasampada at the end of the Vassa season, instead of
waiting the full year of novitiate.
By the first of August, with the Vassa half gone, Oman began to
perceive that he was happy:—happy as he had never believed happiness
itself could be. It seemed to him that he lacked no earthly joy.
Hushka, his Saint, the man he looked up to as the perfect model of
virtue and unselfishness, was one of his four masters; and Oman
was much with him. Apart from this companionship, he found that he
desired nothing. Solitude was not now loneliness. But though, with
the ineradicable instinct of the Brahman born, he kept himself aloof
from his fellow-novices, they seemed never to resent this, but rather
looked up to him as one of higher caste than they, and one that had,
consequently, a right to exclusiveness. Moreover, through the whole
Vihara, even by Sugata himself, Oman was spoken of as a scholar of
high promise, such a one as their decadent community now rarely saw.
Treated with respect on every hand, the memory of his old, marked days
growing dim within him, it seemed to Oman that his cup of happiness
was full. He was mastering the primal, the greatest difficulties of a
religion which, as it opened, became more and more beautiful to him. In
certain ecstatic hours he saw himself attaining to the highest state,
Arahatship, where pale Nirvana gleamed like a silver armor of repose
around the passionate soul. His nature was already under subjection;
and he no longer doubted that it was wholly conquerable. The way was
stretching out before him straight and smooth, the last boulder lifted
away, when, suddenly, out of the clear sky, came a thunder-bolt that
laid waste the fair country of his life, and left him standing alone,
terrified, a yawning chasm at his feet, the wilderness on either hand.
It happened very simply, and without any sort of preparation. He sat
one afternoon in the library, among a throng of monks and novices,
before him one of the Vinaya texts, the Mahavagga, a manuscript of
law rigidly adhered to by Buddhist and even by Jainist communities.
There, in the list of those creatures unfit to receive ordination, and
commanded to be driven from the Samgha if, unknowing, they had been
already ordained, he came upon the sixty-eighth section, wherein all
such as he were declared unfit for holiness, ineligible for Buddhism,
and therefore outlawed, absolutely, from the blessed life.[7]
[7] “Sacred Books of the East,” Max Müller edition, Vol. XIII, Vinaya
texts, Part I. Mahavagga, p. 222. (Trans. W. Rhys-Davids and H.
Oldenburg.)
He read the passage once, and then again, slowly. After that he leaned
a little farther over his book, no longer seeing the writing, hoping
only that none observed him. Stupidly he sat there, for an hour or
more, neither reading nor thinking, only conning over and over again
the two simple verses that had undone him. And when he had been
quiet for a very long time, an idea came, and he whispered it over,
lingeringly, wistfully, to himself: “I shall not confess. I shall not
confess; and so—they can never know.”
CHAPTER VII
THE WHEEL OF THE LAW
Four weeks passed, and Oman realized, dully, that September had come.
For him, Time had lost the power of flight. He took little note now
of the incidents in the life around him. He was in the grip of his
conscience, wholly absorbed in the pangs of a new suffering. The
consciousness that he was an outcast never left him for a single
moment. The All-knowing, the master, the Buddha, had declared him
ineligible for the serene life, had tacitly denoted him a creature
unfit to attain to any degree of peace. This, after the first shock
of discovery, was his chief thought. Instinctively, also, he clung to
another: the passionate decision that he should stand alone in his
knowledge. The broad inconsistency between these two points formed the
land of his misery. He dared not reflect on the workings of the Dharma.
He was forbidden, by every tenet of religion, to use his higher reason
in the criticism of religion. But he knew that he was, by decision of
the law, unfit for the Samgha; and that in the Samgha he intended,
bitterly, to stay.
For long periods his brain went numb with the pressure of thought
refused. Gradually his behavior took on an aspect of guilt; and he
slunk among his fellows like one who had committed far worse than a
Dukata offence. He fell off, wofully, in his work, in his comprehension
of the Dharma. He went through his meditations dull-eyed, palpably
unthinking; and the masters of the novices began to comment on his
behavior. Finally, he got into the habit of torturing himself, daily,
after the last meditation was over, by waiting till every one had left
the hall, and then getting out the manuscript of the Mahavagga and
reading his death-sentence over again, to make sure of every keenest
pang that lay in it, every drop of poison hidden in its innocent
characters. And after he had seen it, and found that it was real, that
he had not been under the influence of some baleful misapprehension, he
would steal silently to his cell, and wear the night away in woman’s
tears or fierce rages of rebellion that left him, at dawn, a bundle of
trembling nerves.
The load that he carried became nearly unendurable. It was lightened by
only one thing: when, occasionally dragging his mind from himself, he
looked around him at his high superiors, the doubly ordained. These, in
their dignity, their approachment to Arahatship, gave cause for highest
wonder at and admiration of their freedom from all worldly concern. He
envied, indeed, the lowest of the novices. But it seemed to him that,
if he could only receive the Upasampada ordination, he might, in some
way, cheat both himself and his god into believing in his fitness for
the honors of the holy life.
Poor Oman! It had been infinitely easier for him had he known to
how little serenity those envied men had actually attained! In
the strangeness and isolation of his lot, it was not given him to
understand that there is never a creature that must not bear its burden
and suffer under it, believing it a little heavier, a little less
adaptable, than that of any one else.
The poor novice thought that Upasampada opened the door upon a life in
which a tranquil and scholarly mounting to perfection, untroubled by a
single jarring incident from the outer world, was a natural sequence.
Those high beings, advancing with rapid paces toward Nirvâna—surely
their hearts and minds knew nothing of the battles, the uprisings of
self, the human desires and yearnings that he was forever struggling
against! Perhaps, indeed, the monks of the Samgha knew no such troubles
as these. Their difficulties were usually of a more ignoble kind. As
in the monasteries of another faith, in the far west, the Buddhist
Viharas, even during their pathetic decadence, were too often seething
hot-beds of rivalry and inward strife, thinly whitewashed with an outer
coat of obedience to precept and renunciation of the fivefold clinging
to the world. In the Vihara, a man desirous of attaining to Nirvâna had
not only his own weakness to conquer, his own nature to strengthen; but
he had before him the long battle of rivalry with those who, for every
step he advanced, strove to make him take two backward. The result
was, that the Samgha became a place of inner plots and counter-plots,
intrigues worthy of a royal court, stealthy meetings and conversings of
one faction or another, where obstacles innumerable were devised for
any man who desired to mount to a higher and holier estate.
Of all the men in the Vihara of Truth, probably no one had received
more of the miserable stabs of envy and jealousy than had Hushka,
the honey-throated. Greatly beloved—by more than Oman—he was also
passionately hated. It was now twenty years since his Upasampada
ordination; and in all that time he had known scarcely an hour when he
was not enduring the malicious jealousy of a rival. For a long time
now his opposing faction had been led by Mahapra, a man who had passed
his Upasampada a year earlier than Hushka, and who had caused him more
and bitterer disappointments and humiliations than any dozen of his
other enemies. And there were those of his friends who whispered that,
had Mahapra been out of the way, it had not been Sugata who stood now
an Arahat, at the head of the Samgha. Never came there a Pavarana,
scarcely even an Uposatha day, that Hushka was not made to taste the
venom of his enemy; and there was surely no heart-sickness that he had
not endured. He had suffered as few of his companions could suffer; for
his nature was delicately organized, and he was sensible to the most
refined stings of misery. With all this, Mahapra himself rarely caught
a glimpse of the wounds he inflicted; for Hushka had the power of
concealment, and the wisdom never to burden any one with a recital of
his own unhappiness. It was thus that, to an outsider, his life could
scarcely seem other than beautiful.
During the last weeks of the Vassa season the constant, hidden strife
that went on in the Samgha centred itself, curiously enough, around
the figure of Oman. In the early months Hushka, through Oman, had
enjoyed a triumph, for having brought from the pilgrimage a novice,
of Brahman caste, and, moreover, a pupil of such high intelligence
and one so devoted to the Dharma. The Sugata himself had complimented
Hushka on his pupil’s progress; and at this point Mahapra’s bitterest
ire and fear were roused. Too soon Oman began to give opening enough
for criticism and belittlement. His laxity in effort and the falling
off in his work and behavior became grossly apparent during the latter
half of August, while whispers and comments from the adverse faction
penetrated even to the Chaitya hall. From day to day Oman, absorbed in
his own misery, pursued his course unconscious of notice. And day by
day Hushka’s eyes followed him, in doubt and dread.
Long Hushka forbore to speak; though through the demeanor of his
pupil he suffered as he would scarcely have believed it possible that
he still could suffer. The Bhikkhu had lately been allowing himself
to believe that the thankless labor of years was about to find its
reward. And now as, little by little, that belief was broken down, it
seemed to carry with it his very vitality, till he had lost courage
to engage with Mahapra any more in the slightest controversy over the
commentators or the higher criticism of the holy books. Indeed, the
honey-throated was aging, visibly; and this Oman woke at last to see.
On the 3d of September the last meditation of the novices ended rather
earlier than usual, at about seven o’clock. Hushka, who was master of
the day, came in to dismiss them. He stood leaning against a pillar,
near the door, wearily watching them file by, till the last had gone.
Then Hushka turned to glance over the room, and beheld Oman still
standing at its far end, his face gleaming pale in the waning light.
Hushka gazed at him for a moment or two, and then moved slowly toward
his pupil. Oman stood perfectly still, trembling a little, till the
other halted within a foot of him. The two looked at each other till
the novice dropped his eyes.
“Oman,” said Hushka, after a heavy pause; “Oman,” and he paused again,
while the guilt-laden one grew cold, “art thou ill?”
For one, swift instant Oman looked at his master. “No, reverend sir, I
am not ill,” he murmured.
“Oman! Oman! Repentest thou of thy faith?”
Oman gave a quick cry. “No!” he answered.
“Yet something troubles thee. Canst thou not confide in me? Shall not
I, thy master, give thee help? Tell me, Oman, tell me what it is that
lies in thy heart. Do not fear. I have suffered too long, too well, not
to know compassion.”
Oman’s head drooped low. He clasped his two hands tightly over his
breast, and then suddenly threw them out as if in supplication. Hushka,
not understanding that Oman would have warded him off, took the hands
gently in his own. The warm, living clasp suddenly broke through
Oman’s carefully built barrier of concealment. He sank to his knees
upon the stone pavement, and his brain burned with the fire of his
knowledge. He was losing his self-control. As tears fell from his eyes,
his thoughts also flowed, till he was overwhelmed in the torrent of
his wretchedness, and crouched, rent with emotion, at the feet of the
troubled man who supported him.
The dusk deepened. Through the long, carven hall, eerie shadows fell,
and the orange light of the west melted to purple and then to black,
till the two were alone in darkness. Hushka now knelt by Oman’s side,
and soothed the youth with fragmentary words, till he was quieter in
his grief. There followed silence, pregnant and foreboding. Hushka
would not break it. Heavy-hearted, dreading unknown things, he bowed
his head, waiting. And gradually it was borne in upon Oman that
there was no longer any way of concealment. He must give utterance
to the truth: his tragedy. How he began, how he told it, he could
not afterwards remember. At first the words choked him, then they
came faster, finally in fury, till the pent-up emotions of years were
finding expression beside that of the remorse of yesterday. Hushka
remained at his side, silent, stunned, at first, by the feeling
displayed by this youth, this child to life. It was the first thing
that impressed him:—the silent suffering that Oman must have known.
Hushka could understand him there so entirely! He knew each smallest
phase, each bitter turn of the wheel of solitary misery! In his heart,
as yet, was only pity.
Oman came at last to the end of his strength and his confession.
Crouching there, numb, blind with tears, swollen-lipped, breathing
thickly and in gasps, he found himself, like one groping in a fog,
uttering vague questions—doubts—hopes.
“But it is true? Those words—are they the law, then? Must Oman follow
them? Must I be thrust forth? Master!—Help me!—Master!” And Hushka felt
the wretched creature clasping his knees in the darkness.
Then silence fell. Only Oman’s breath could be heard, rushing in
and out, like that of a dying dog. At this sound, Hushka felt a
sudden revulsion, a sudden despairing anger with him. Was Oman to be
pitied:—Oman, who had wrecked his, Hushka’s life, as well as his own?
The monk rose from his knees, walked across the hall, and stood at one
of the unscreened openings, staring out into the starlit night. Here,
silently, he struggled with himself:—struggled for justice toward Oman,
justice toward the Samgha, toward himself. Oman had not moved from the
place where he was at first. Only now he lay prone on the floor, and
his breathing was quiet. He was waiting, without any feeling, without
any emotion, for his sentence.
The suspense continued for a long time. Hushka’s heart was full, and
his brain reeling. Now he addressed himself passionately to Gautama,
now he turned to his own judgment. Prayer and reasoning, however, led
him alike to one conclusion—a conclusion pitiless to himself, pitiless
to Oman. Nay, the cruel result was inevitable. Oman had dared formulate
nothing to himself; but Hushka was obliged to face the situation.
After a long time, then, the monk went back to his pupil, sat down
beside him, laid a trembling hand on the prostrate shoulder, and began
to speak, softly, as a mother might:
“Thou knowest, Oman, that the word of the Mahavagga is our law. If the
Samgha knew this thing that thou hast told me, thou wouldst suffer
public exposition and expulsion. I, knowing, dare not let thee remain
here. Thou must escape to-night, quietly; and I will be here to—to
accept the consequences of thy going. I can do no more for thee. But
the blessed Buddha, the Sakya—”
He broke off, suddenly, for Oman, raising himself halfway from the
floor, had begun to laugh. Hushka shuddered as he listened. It was
so high, so harsh, so quavering, that it seemed as if it must go on
forever. But suddenly it broke, and melted into a long, heart-broken
wail. Oman was going to pieces; and Hushka sanely set to work to stop
it. How it was accomplished he scarcely knew. Under sharp command
and gentlest soothing Oman was presently quiet again, save for the
trembling of his body, and the little, broken moans that involuntarily
escaped him. Now that he had pulled himself together, Hushka left him
for a quarter of an hour, and then reappeared, carrying over one arm an
old and much-worn garment that was not yellow. In the other hand he had
a small millet loaf.
Oman was dimly aware of being stripped of his robes, of having the
other garments put upon him. Then he received into his hand the food.
After that he followed his preceptor quietly out into the empty
veranda. Behind them the monastery was still. Over the great world
beyond, the golden moon was slowly rising. In its light, Oman turned
a dumb face to the man he had so worshipped. He saw that Hushka was
suffering—suffering as perhaps high Sakyamuni had not suffered. Neither
one of them, however, could speak. Hushka, with an air of benediction,
pressed his fingers, once, to the cold brow of the outcast. Then,—he
was gone. Oman was alone on the brink of the world, irrevocably and
forever shut out from the protecting walls behind him. Outcast of men,
he stood, facing life. And, since he had already drunk the dregs of
feeling, mercifully his heart was numb. After a little he moved off,
unsteadily, into the faint-starred blackness of the ravine: halted,
went on again to the edge of moonlight, and then paused once more,
struck by some new thought, expectant, his head uplifted. Out of the
night came the sound of whirring wings. He opened wide his arms,
and into them flew a small, gray bird that nestled to his breast as
if it had been at home. Holding the mysterious creature close, Oman
proceeded, staggering, through the night, down and down the ravine,
till all the Viharas were passed, and a few lights, twinkling in the
distance, showed him the town of Bágh. Then, utterly exhausted in body
and mind, he crawled, on his hands and knees, under a spreading bush,
and, with the bird still warm in his bosom, gave himself up to merciful
sleep.
CHAPTER VIII
THE OUTCAST
Blank hours passed. The glimmer of false dawn came and went again.
At last the day, inevitable, rose, like an opal, out of the East.
The silent world was overspread with clear light; and, in its first
moments, the bird, which till now had lain motionless on Oman’s breast,
fluttered up, hovered for a second over the quiet form, and then took
flight, winging away into the invisible. Oman was still sleeping: a
heavy, transitional sleep.
Day swept up the sky, and the blazoning sun whirled from the heart
of the hills. Now, at last, Oman opened his eyes, sat up, looked
around—stared, indeed, and all at once remembered fully. For the moment
memory unnerved him. Then the strain proved again too great; and, with
a renewed sense of dulness, he rose. The bird was gone. He seemed to
have known that before. He wished now to discover his whereabouts. In
the darkness he had reached the end of the ravine, and was at the edge
of a long, barren slope, to the west of Bágh. The houses of the town
began not far away. He could see people moving about there; and the
sight of them reminded him that he was hungry. He felt faint, a little
weak, and shaken, with the after effects of last night’s tumult. He
determined not to enter Bágh. With an undefined weight of grief and
ruin upon him, he began to toil upward along the slope, turning his
face to the north, where the high hills rose. And, as he went, he ate
the millet-loaf that Hushka had put into his hand.
It was a fair morning, hot, cloudless, blazing. Oman wilted in the
heat, but his steps went on, mechanically. He had already determined
in his mind to reach the hills that day. As he went, he found his
thoughts groping vaguely in once-accustomed ways: loneliness—fear of
people—hatred of those that shunned him—hunger—physical discomfort—all
the old details of that solitude that he knew so well. And still his
feet did not falter. It was his masculine nature that upheld him now;
but, adding to his dread, he felt the feminine, knocking—knocking at
his heart, at his brain; and he fought desperately against admittance,
knowing that, when it came, his suffering would be trebly increased.
His old training with Hushka stood him in good stead to-day. He made
progress. By noon, seven miles stretched between him and Bágh, and he
was now among the foothills of the great Vindhyas, which, so far as
he knew, stretched eastward before him into infinity. In this thought
there was something like comfort. Those dark-wooded wilds meant refuge
from men and the haunts of men. There should be no day in his life to
come when he would not be able to plunge into some deep ravine, or
mount some thickly jungled steep, knowing, in his heart, that whither
he went no curious, human eyes could rest on him, no living creature
follow. He felt just now that never again, while he was doomed to
remain on earth, would he suffer a glance from human eyes.
At noon, after a few moments’ rest, Oman plunged into the woods and
began to move upward to the heights. The underbrush was not too
thick to prevent progress; and the trunks of young trees afforded
grasping-places for his hands. In this sort of country snakes were
supposed to abound; but he moved on without any fear of them. No wild
thing would molest him. Only man he feared.
After a while he found refreshment. In the dense undergrowth were
bushes and trees bearing fruits; and many of these were at their
ripening season. Mangoes and custard apples there were in plenty, and
tamarinds and a few bananas. He was also presented with a cocoanut,
delivered by an interested monkey, who first flung it at him, and then
came hurrying to the ground to see what had happened. The incident
proved unfortunate, however. The suggestion of fellowship about the
little, bright-eyed thing, unnerved Oman for the space of a second.
In that second he was undone. The door opened to the woman. Tears
flooded his eyes, and, throwing himself upon the ground, he yielded
to an outburst of the wildest grief. The monkey, who had seated
himself near at hand, scratching his black head and chattering volubly
to the stranger, now looked on sorrowfully, and shed a few tears
himself:—wherefore, who can say? After a time, when Oman had recovered
again, the grotesque little creature broke the cocoanut against the
tree trunk, and solemnly offered half of it to his new friend. There
in the jungle they ate together; and presently, when the monkey had
run off to rejoin his tribe, Oman rose and moved on, comforted and
fortified.
The incident had turned his thoughts away from himself; and the
afternoon passed rapidly. At nightfall he halted once more, near the
summit of a hill, ate again of the fruits of Mother Earth, and lay
down in the solemn stillness, not to sleep very readily this time.
Physically, he was very tired. Mentally, he was waking. He must
now—alas!—begin to weigh his loss, and face the future. His thoughts
travelled back through the few intervening months to the spring, when
he had wandered southward with Hushka. Then he reviewed the early part
of the Vassa, and began to see how his life had broadened before him.
There had taken place his first struggles against himself; and there
could be marked his first victories. He recalled to mind passages of
the Dharma, which he had loved to think were made for him alone. And,
with this memory, the bitterness became intolerable. He lifted his arms
toward the stars and wailed his woe. And passively the stars shone on,
nor heeded him. The parts of nature, so imperturbable, so enduring, so
changeless,—were they satisfied? Had they received enough of God? Oh,
surely, yes! On all save him had the Creator showered blessings, to all
given gifts and mercies. He, only, was marked out for constant woe,
constant disappointment, constant misery. Having thus grieved through
long hours, the outcast finally closed his eyes upon his first day of
probation, and once more slept.
On the morrow he found himself able to make less progress. His
nature, lately accustomed to over-nourishment, demanded something
more substantial than fruit and nuts. He began to realize that, until
he became inured to this life, he must occasionally have a little
grain, or meat. Also, the utter loneliness of the vast jungle through
which he travelled, began to appall him. He had so lately known the
constant companionship of many men, that there hung over him a sense
of direst oppression, in this uninhabited wilderness. His recently
engendered dread and hatred of humankind was already giving way to an
unconquerable longing for the sight of a human face.
On the third morning he woke almost to desperation. Should nothing
happen to him to-day, he felt that he must break under the strain of
thought:—that empty, beating thought—of nothing. Meantime, there crept
upon him the insidious desire to try again, only once again, if men
would not accept him; if, knowing nothing of him, his mark must be
apparent to a point of instinctive aversion. And, at the same time with
this, he was coming to something that he had not had to endure before.
He was beginning to hate himself for what he was. His restless longing
to be respected among men turned him away from that rebellion against
them which had long possessed him; and, in the revulsion, he went to
the other extreme: hating himself because he could not be as others.
The whole afternoon of the third day he spent in toiling up a great
hill, the summit of which was reached at sunset; and from this
height he gained recompense for the long travail. Around him—to the
south—to the east—to the west, rolled great hills, verdure-clad. No
sign of plain or level land was visible. On three sides of him the
hills stretched away, a little lower than that on which he stood. But
in front, to the north, rose a series of gigantic, rocky heights,
which towered infinitely upward, bringing him a realizing sense of
his own pygmy unimportance. And now his eyes, travelling downward,
perceived the deep ravine that separated him from the first of the high
mountains; and, looking, his heart leaped within his breast. For there,
in that gulf, were houses:—mud huts, wooden ones—two, three, a score;
and beside them ran a swift mountain stream, the murmur of which rose
up to him through the stillness.
“I will go down! I will go down to them, for they are built of men!”
he said to himself, eagerly, like a child. And forthwith he began his
descent, walking with a new buoyance. As he proceeded, his way grew
difficult. The houses, far below, were hidden from his view in the
thickness of the undergrowth. The light was melting away; for the sun
lay on the edge of the horizon, behind the hills. Still he pressed on,
a tempered joy in his heart that was not to be stilled by reason.
Though he hurried, darkness was on him before he reached the level; and
then, indeed, it seemed as if he must resign himself to another night
of solitude. Nevertheless he fought, still refusing to abandon his
hope. And suddenly, from a more open space on the slope, he looked down
and saw, but a little way below, half a dozen shining lights—flames of
sacrificial fires. And after that no falls, no bruises, no difficulties
of the precipitous way, could keep him back. An hour after sunset he
stood at the edge of the clearing where the village was.
The first hut was near at hand: a square one, tiny, tumble-down,
even squalid. Yet it was roofed over with wood, and within the open
doorway firelight shone. There must be human creatures there; and
there Oman was determined to enter. He approached, almost reverently,
and halted before the door. Within, was only one person—a woman, or
girl, of perhaps sixteen. Her dress proclaimed her widowhood, and
her caste was too easily recognizable. Oman, however, accustomed to
such matters, thought of nothing but that she was a woman—kneading
barley-cakes before her fire; and, as he watched her, his heart warmed
with humanness, and he smiled. After a moment she, lifting her head,
perceived him, dimly outlined near the doorway. At once she rose,
though without any welcome in her eyes, and advanced, with respectful
salute, saying, in a voice that was pleasantly modulated:
“Enter, sir, enter. I have entertainment for him that desires it.”
Oman shook his head. “I come from out of the hills. Nor have I any
money,” he added, suddenly aware of his destitution.
But the girl only saluted him again: “The reverend One is a
Brahmana.[8] Enter, then, in the name of the gods.”
[8] Wandering fakirs of any religion were called “Brahmanas,” a word
to be distinguished from “Brahmans.”
Once more, though slowly and with deep reluctance, Oman shook his head.
“I am neither Bhikkhu nor Brahmana,” he answered. “I am—an outcast.”
For a moment the woman turned away her head, and Oman’s heart sank.
But, all of a sudden, she ran to him, taking him by the hand, and
looking at him so that he perceived the gentleness of her face and
eyes. “Enter,” she whispered. “I am lonely. I will share my cakes with
you. And there is milk.—But my husband’s brother must not know this
thing. He is of the weaver caste; and he is very proud.”
Chattering in a subdued voice, she led him in, and placed him before
the crackling fire, the smoke of which escaped through a hole in the
roof. The cakes which she had just kneaded and shaped lay on a board
before the fire, baking questionably. Now she ran to a cupboard in the
corner and took therefrom a large jar of meal, a little of which she
put into an earthen pot, near at hand. Water, from another jar, was
poured over the grain; and then she set the dish in the fire, where the
simple porridge was soon steaming pleasantly.
Oman sat silent on the floor, looking on with rising emotions. It was
such an unspeakable luxury to watch her, low-caste and poverty-stricken
as she was, moving about in the one-roomed hut which was none too
tidy in its simple arrangements, that he could not be ashamed of his
beggary. The meal was soon ready; but, before he ate, the wanderer,
suddenly realizing what his appearance must be, took occasion to make
use of some of the contents of the water-jar for his face and hands.
The girl brought him a piece of cloth on which he dried himself; and,
when he turned to the fire again, she cried out:
“Why! Thou art beautiful! And—ah! You are not an outcast!” And, leaning
over, she laid her hand on the Brahman cord still fastened over his
left shoulder.
Oman looked at it—and flushed. He had a momentary impulse to tear the
thong away. But the impulse passed, and it was not done. His father
had not removed it. Why should he? So, without answering the girl’s
exclamatory question, he turned again to the fire, and she, with great
forbearance, refrained from pursuing the subject.
It was a pleasant meal,—the pleasantest, perhaps, that Oman had
ever known. The girl, who gave her name as Poussa, chattered to him
unrestrainedly:—of her life; of her brother-in-law, who took most of
her wages, and beat her when these were too little; of the doings of
the little village; and a thousand details of the people therein, that
brought new warmth to Oman’s heart. In return he told her something of
himself:—that he had been a weaver, but had gone to join the Bhikkhus,
with whom he had now tired of living. She seemed satisfied with what he
said, and they talked, comfortably, while she cleared away the remains
of their meal, and then, returning, seated herself in front of him, and
took his two hands and kissed them.
“See how my heart inclines to my lord. I love him,” she said, simply.
Oman started to his feet, shaking her from him violently. Then he
strode to the doorway, and stood there, staring into the night, till
Poussa, frightened, crept to him again, and, kneeling at his feet,
timidly sought his pardon.
“Nay, Poussa, nay, there is no fault. But I must not remain with thee,
for I am not of thy kind—not like other men.”
“Lord, I know it well. Thou art far above me; yet I beseech thee to
remain, and I will trouble thee no more. Ah, let my lord incline
himself to my forgiveness!” And so prettily did she entreat, and so
weak was he with the yearning for sympathy, that, in the end, he did as
she asked, and returned into the hut, where they fell to talking again.
Before he slept that night, however, Oman learned something of the
personal life of his pathetic little hostess. They were still before
the fire, but their talk had grown fitful and full of pauses, when,
out of the blackness beyond the open door appeared a man, lean, ill
shapen, but well clothed. His face was not good to look upon, and his
expression made it worse. In the doorway he halted, apparently not
intending to come in, after he had seen Oman. Nor did he speak; but
stood still for a moment, looking hard at Poussa. Words from him were
unnecessary. Oman and the girl saw him at the same moment, and she,
her face instantly losing its tranquil look, sprang to her feet, and,
running to the door, saluted the newcomer with profoundest respect. The
man snarled some words at her, the purport of which Oman caught. They
related to money—apparently a demand to see what she had earned during
the day. Poussa fell upon her knees, pleading, in a low tone, that
her guardian would refrain from altercation in Oman’s presence. The
man seemed to accede to her request, and, after a few words more, the
lowered tone of which did not lessen their ugliness, strode off again
into the darkness.
Oman, relieved at the departure, looked up, prepared to find Poussa
smiling again. He was disappointed. The girl finally rose from her
knees and came back again. But her head was bent, and her whole
attitude one of deep dejection. Indeed, by the glow of the low fire,
Oman perceived that slow tears were rolling from her eyes, and that her
hands were clasped as if in pain.
“Why do you weep? He is gone. You are safe,” he began, half timidly.
Poussa looked up at him with eyes full of misery. “Early to-morrow he
will come again. And then—I shall be beaten. Oh, I shall be beaten!”
“But why—why will he beat you?” he demanded, in astonishment.
“Because—no, it is nothing.” She would not speak.
Oman took her by the shoulders. “Why will he beat you?” he asked,
stupidly.
“He is my brother-in-law,” she responded, as if that were quite
sufficient to explain any cruelty.
“He desired money,” muttered Oman to himself. “Ah—ah—I see! _I_
have no money for you! _I!_”
Poussa quivered under his touch, and her answer was only a faint moan.
“Oh! Oh! It is unendurable! Do you hear? It is unendurable! Let me go
after him! I will tell him.”
“No.” The word was firm. “No. He would only beat you. He is master in
this village. I am used to it. See, I will not weep—I weep no more.
Come, we will sleep now. Let us sleep.”
But Oman was not satisfied. He had too much of the woman in him to
be indifferent to the prospect of a woman’s suffering. Because of
charity to him, a woman was to be beaten! The thought was too much.
In his agitation, he began to pace up and down the little room,
thinking—suffering—once again cursing his fate. Suddenly something
caught his attention. In the dark corner of the room, beside the
unshuttered window, was a rough hand-loom, half filled with a piece of
badly woven cloth. Before this Oman paused, considering.
“Thou sayest thy husband’s brother is a weaver?” he asked.
“Yes. He is a weaver. He caused this loom to be built in my house,
that I might occupy my idle hours in working at it. But I cannot weave
evenly enough for him to sell the cloth I make. Therefore only my own
garments can be fashioned from what I do,” she explained, in a dreary
tone.
Oman, however, had suddenly recovered himself. “It is well, Poussa. I
shall repay thy brother for thy charity. Come, I beseech thee, do not
weep.” He laid a hand upon her shoulder, smiled into her eyes, and
presently, in spite of herself, she was comforted; and, through Oman’s
gentle words, forgot her trouble. In a little time they went to rest,
Poussa lying upon her accustomed bed, Oman on the floor near the door.
And both of them being weary with the day, they shortly slept.
In the first gray of morning, however, Oman was astir. While the light
in the hut was still too faint for him to see clearly, he took the
empty water-jar from its place, ran down through the still, shadowy
hamlet to the edge of the mountain stream, into which he first plunged
himself, coming out shivering and gasping, but refreshed; and then,
after drying himself in the air, he replaced his tattered garments,
filled his jar with water, and returned to Poussa’s hut, where a bright
daylight now threw the meagre furniture into bold relief. Poussa
herself still lay upon the pallet, sleeping like a child. And Oman,
after looking at her for a moment with a sudden tenderness in his
heart, sat himself down at the loom, and, with a thrill of independence
and pleasure, set to work, first remedying and straightening the
knotted and uneven warp already stretched; and then, seeing that there
was plenty of yarn left for the weft, began to throw it on.
A full hour later Poussa woke to the “hock-hock-hock” of the loom,
before which sat her guest of the previous evening. The shuttle was
flying fast over the straight and even threads, and, under Oman’s
fingers, which had lost none of their skill of five months before, the
finished cloth was slowly gathering in the frame: as fine a bit of work
as her brother himself could have put forth. After a moment’s staring,
to wake herself from a supposed dream, Poussa, with a little cry, ran
to the loom and gazed into Oman’s face.
“Thou! Thou an outcast! Thou’rt even Krishna himself!” she cried,
throwing herself on her knees before him, while he ceased his work and
bent over her, smiling and protesting.
“In this way I pay my debt to thee. Tell me! When I have worked all
day, and have produced a piece of cloth that will bring twenty copper
pieces, will he then forbear to beat thee?” he asked.
Poussa stooped over the loom, examining the work at first anxiously,
then with delight. “Yes—ah yes! It is more than enough. Thou hast saved
me!” and, throwing herself on the floor, she touched Oman’s feet with
her brow. Then, when he had raised her up, she began, joyously, the
more useful task of preparing breakfast.
Oman was true to his word. All the morning, barring the half hour in
which he and Poussa broke their fast, he toiled at the loom, till
Poussa’s guardian came for the expected money. The interview with him
Oman undertook, making as much explanation as he saw fit, and allowing
Salivan to examine his handiwork critically. Salivan was satisfied.
His own vanity could not deny that the work was good. Though the
man’s words were few and not overgracious, Poussa’s face, after his
departure, all radiant as it was with relief and pride, doubled Oman’s
reward, and he toiled from pure pleasure to the last moment of the
light.
In the early afternoon Poussa, whose work began late in the day,
went to the forest to gather firewood; and Oman, left alone at the
loom, began to meditate. His first musings were vague: instinctive
impressions rather than definite ideas; but he was too much master of
this art of thought to leave them, as most Hindoos would, in embryo.
As his shuttle flew in and out of the warp on the loom, so were his
thoughts busy weaving a new pattern on his fabric of life. But, in
his imagination, there grew two distinct possibilities, one of which
must soon be made a fact, the other discarded. One was the natural
existence of a man among his fellows—himself, settling quietly down in
this world-sheltered spot, to weave away his life in tranquil monotony.
The other presented to him a strange aspect, beginning in hardship, in
loneliness, in unceasing trial and probation, and ending in—he knew not
what. And perhaps just in this uncertainty lay the fascination that,
from the beginning, made the harder course seem so much more attractive
than the other. After all, he was not as other men; and, by the
arrangement of inscrutable providence, life could never look to him as
it looked to those who had been given individual lives and individual
chances.
For many hours Oman’s fancy played thus with destiny; and all the
while, in his inmost heart, he knew that, when the choice came,
he should not hesitate. He knew that Fate enwrapped him, grim,
unconquerable. And he knew that he should run the course prescribed by
her, though all the temptations of humankind were placed in his way.
For so much of the scheme of his life disclosed itself to him.
At dusk, Poussa returned, staggering under a weight of boughs. Oman
met her at the door, and took half of her load from her, as a woman
might, she standing by the while, wondering what manner of man it was
that would help her at such a task. When the Agnihotra was burning the
two sat down, cross-legged, beside the fire; and she, assuming for a
moment, unconsciously, a rôle of Fate, began to try him, tempting:
“O High-born, listen! It has been spread about through the village
that thou, a master weaver, art come among us. Soon my brother-in-law
will ask you to take up your abode with him, that you may jointly ply
the trade. My master, say not again that thou art outcast of men. Come
thou and dwell near me, and let me serve thee, who will then have the
happiness of thy nearness. As Krishna pities women and protects them,
so do thou!”
It was thus that she brought up a new battle in Oman’s soul. Two forces
struggled again within him: one, man’s natural need; the other—what?
The summoning of the higher law? The half-conscious necessity for the
fulfilment of his mission? Something of these. Something that would
not yield the battle. Something that had taken possession of Oman’s
mind, and would not lessen its hold, but forced from him words that
were scarcely his own. Yet even secretly rebelling, he recognized the
power that had hitherto held him. He perceived that it was the first
choice that had been given him:—his first glimpse of the two roads
that stretch before every living thing. And, in gratitude for this new
trust, he yielded to the power, and spoke as Prophets speak:
“Nay, Poussa. I may not dwell among you. My way lies upward and on. My
destiny cannot be the destiny of men; for I travel the road of those
that have sinned. ‘A burning forest shuts my roadside in.’ One more
night I shall remain with you, and then I set out again—up—to the
heights above, there to finish my soul’s travail. Yet I shall see thee
again; for, in my weakness, I must return to thee for help. Do not
grieve. For what I do has been already decreed, and is now turning from
the wheel of present time. Let us speak of it no more.”
Poussa obeyed him. Nor was he to be moved by the suave arguments of
Salivan, who returned, that evening, to examine his work, and to lay
the proposition of partnership before him. Yet, in the silent watches
of the night, doubts came, and he wondered at himself for his choice.
The morning scarcely brought comfort; and how it was that he fulfilled
his word, it would be hard to say. But it is true that, while the day
was young, he withdrew himself from Poussa’s clasp and set out, alone
once more, into the world, up, toward the great mountain that overhung
the village to the north, and was called of men the “Silver Peak”.
Thither went Oman, driven by destiny, to attain to the heights that
held for him, though he knew it not, on the one hand the scourge of
suffering and blind wandering for the soul; on the other the crown of
victory and life.
CHAPTER IX
THE STRUGGLE ON THE HEIGHT
In all great mountain ranges there are what might be called heights of
man and heights of nature. There are always hills that seem to invite
the puny human agility: that hold at their summits resting-places
whence men may obtain their “view” and begin their descent again,
filled with pride at the conquest of inconsequent difficulties. But
there are other heights that were not made for such: places which,
even should man attain to them, refuse him his vain reward, bind him
about with a spell of bewildered awe, and, if he safely reach his
earth-kennel once more, leave him with the sense that he has been
refused his due.
Heights such as these owe nothing to humanity. They are the
retreating-places of defeated nature. To man they are not natural.
Their high glory is not for him. Towering into regions above
slow-drifting clouds, where sun and stars and moon lean close on high,
they are in communion with eternity. Nor is their secret of the ages to
be borne away and exploited in the depths below.
Such a height as this rose up beyond the little hamlet of the mountain
stream. Its peak, a spirelike pinnacle, not so lofty when compared
with Himalayan or even Alpine heights, rose up from a high, rounded
plateau which itself lay above the tops of the surrounding hills.
On the far side of the mountain the slope ran gradually down to the
basin of a tiny mountain lake, that lay five hundred feet above the
valley level. But on the south end of this heavenly plateau, rocks
jutted down in a vast, tumbling mass, to a depth of three thousand
feet. Alone in its far summit, sunlit, glorious, the strange mountain
top might have been hailed king of the whole range. And, indeed, it
was one of the few mountains of the Vindhyas distinctive enough to
possess a name. The valley dwellers called it the “Silver Peak”; and
its name fitted it well. The eastern slope was densely wooded. The
rocks at the base of the peak on the plateau were filled with caves;
yet animals and reptiles shunned these easy abodes. Only sure-flying
birds, eagles and falcons and kingfishers and floriken, swept through
its forests and over its height, unawed by the inviolable stillness.
But this stillness, unbroken since the day the mountain rose from the
earth’s seething surface, was something to be feared. Here man had been
defeated in the moment of his triumph. His blatant voice, lifted upon
this royal height, had shrunk to a faint whisper; and he had fled his
sacrilege in shame.
It was midday on the height. Overhead blazed a September sun,
infinitely brilliant. The plateau, bathed in gold, lay drowsy in the
noontide. Below, a few shreds of silvery cloud clung about the rocks,
veiling higher mysteries from the lower world. The loneliness was
absolute. Neither eagle nor cormorant dared the sun at this hour;
and it seemed as if living things had never existed here. Not one
world-murmur sent its vibration through the tranquil atmosphere.
Man and the works of man were forgotten or undreamed-of. Here was
such peace as the flesh-clothed spirit cannot know: the peace that
terrifies, because it was declared primevally of God.
Up to this height from the depths below came Oman, mounting slowly,
all but overcome with the long toil of nearly twenty hours. From the
torrent, through cloud fringes, out of forest darkness came he, upborne
by his strange will. Reaching at last the level, he walked on it till
he emerged from the trees into an open space, on one side of which rose
the rocky wall of the peak, pierced with its little caves. Far to the
east, down the long, slow slope, twenty-five hundred feet below, the
lake lay glittering with golden ripples. Beyond it hills rolled, on and
on, till, in the far morning-land, they ended in a deep, violet mist.
Here, in the open, Oman paused and looked. As he stood, gaunt and
tall, clad in the floating, tattered raiment of some long-dead
Bhikkhu, in his right hand a stout staff, in his left a small bag
of millet—Poussa’s gift, the two spirits in him looking out through
his great eyes, there was no suggestion of triumph about him. He was
overcome by the wonderful beauty of the surrounding scene; but he
also betrayed a terrible fatigue, the fatigue of mind, as well as of
body. The mountain lazily surveyed him as he stood, and perceived that
he carried the key to the gate of solitude. He was not to be denied
admittance. Deserted of mankind he had come unto Nature, asking shelter
from the world; and Nature, pitying, could not refuse.
Still actuated by the spirit that seemed distinct from himself, Oman
moved slowly toward the rocky ridge, and entered one of the caves
that pierced it. Here was a place that would shelter him from storms;
and here, should nights prove cold, a fire would always live. In the
cave’s mouth he sat, for a long time, musing on the possibilities of
making an abode in this strange place. There seemed to be only one
vital lack. There was no sign of water anywhere about. Should that not
exist, he must descend again. This thought caused his heart fairly to
sink. Obeying a quick impulse, he set out in search of water; and it
was nearly an hour before, fifty feet down the eastern slope, he found
a spring that sent a tiny, falling thread down in the direction of the
lake, till it was lost under the earth, a long way below.
The last obstacle was gone now. This place was fitted to be his abode.
Here, far from the reach of his kind, he would dwell, till he had
fashioned for himself a life that should be impervious to the shafts of
wanton injustice and cruelty. Here he must fight the great battle of
his dual nature, the outcome of which he himself could not foresee.
This much settled, he turned to practical needs. After a long draught
of water, he went back to his cave, and began the tedious process of
building a fire after the fashion of the woodsman:—twirling a small,
pointed stick, like a drill, into a close-fitting hole made in a piece
of harder wood; feeding the heat with fine dust particles and crumbled
dead leaves, till at last a flame appeared. It was a matter of an hour
or more before his fire was ready; and by this time Oman was famished
with hunger. He parched some of his millet on a flat stone, ate it with
eagerness, and finished the meal with some mangoes gathered on the
mountain side. Then, his faintness relieved, though his hunger was not
wholly satisfied, he lay down and slept, waking again just as the sun
was setting.
The wonder of the following hour made an impression on him that was
indelible: that bound him about with a spell which lasted as long
as he dwelt upon the mountain top. Far away in the great west, from
the palpitating flame in which the sun had set, spread a vast cloud
of deepening crimson that slowly broadened, through the air and over
the hills, clothing peak after peak with rose-gold, its misty glow
shimmering over the whole earth, till every crag, every tree-top, every
eagle’s wing, was transcended with the light. Gradually the color
shifted, changed, sunk to a paler pink, encompassed with gray and
violet shadows that shrouded the form of Night, who presently set on
high her beacon: the diamond-pointed evening star, hanging, tremulous,
in the deep-tinted west. And lo! as the swift Indian twilight died, the
sister stars one by one flashed into view, till the sky was crowned
with them, and the day lay dead under a velvet pall.
Slowly Oman turned and walked back into his cave, his sense of
exaltation changing into oppression: a realization of his infinite
littleness before the immensity of the changeless world. Night after
night such a scene as he had just witnessed was unfolded here, where
no mortal eye was supposed to look on it. He felt himself an intruder
in a holy shrine. His presence was the sacrilege of an inviolate fane,
the retreating-place of God. And the loneliness, the oppression of his
senses, was like the weight of the whole mountain on his soul. Still,
through it all, was a joy: the joy of the knowledge of those things
that no man knoweth, the splendor that man cannot parallel.
All that night Oman scarcely slept; and yet the hours were not long.
His mind wandered unrestrained through space. His thoughts were of a
great and solemn beauty, of which he was scarcely conscious. In the
first glimmer of dawn he left his rocky bed, and went out again into
the open, this time turning his face to the east. And there was enacted
before him another indescribable drama, which lasted till the sun was
high in the heavens. Then he returned to eat another meagre meal of
parched grain, supplemented with water. That bare sustenance seemed the
only permissible food in the face of the ascetic splendors of sky and
mountain-top. All through the day he moved quietly about the plateau,
feeling more and more that it would be impossible now for him to leave
the enchanted place. And the mountain, still watching how he moved and
communed, humbly, within himself, sanctioned his presence, and bade him
welcome to her undisciplined heights.
Such was the beginning of his sojourn on the Silver Peak, which lasted
not weeks nor months, but years—how many years, Oman never knew. The
tale of this life might be compassed in a line, if one dealt only with
events; but the mental phases through which he passed are scarcely to
be transcribed. Life was sustained in him by the meagrest food. He
lived as the Chelahs live: upon his soul; and was satisfied therewith.
In the beginning, he was forced to return some dozen times to the
hamlet in the valley, where he wove on Poussa’s loom, to earn grain
enough to live on. But, early in his hermit’s life, he ploughed himself
a field on the plateau, planted millet-seed therein, and, after that,
reaped two scanty crops a year:—enough to live on. And from the period
of his first harvest, he descended no more into the valley, where
Poussa mourned for him as dead.
To one choosing, or chosen for, the life Oman had elected, dwelling
in utter solitude from year to year, two courses are open. If the
physical in him predominates, he draws out of the nature around him
all that is animal, savage, or untamed, gradually loses his powers of
thought and articulation, finally, the very habits of man, becoming
a creature wilder than the wild things themselves. But, if he be of
the spiritual type, a dreamer or religious fanatic, he draws toward
him the soul of Nature; his mind expands as his body dwindles; and it
is said that strange psychical powers come to him. With Oman, in the
beginning, it seemed doubtful which he was to become: beast or angel.
Buddhism had not uprooted the passion and the animal instincts of his
dual spirit; but it had at least opened his eyes to the spiritual life.
For many months—two, or perhaps three years, even—the battle of the
two forces raged within him. And probably it was the mere fact that he
was able for so long a time to retain spiritual remembrance, that gave
him victory in the end. At first his moods alternated. For days at a
time he would sit wrapped in a state of impenetrable calm, meditating
as Gautama had meditated. Then, without any warning, the brute in him
would rise, and, driven by it, he would range through the mountain
woods like a demon, climbing, goat-like, over crags and precipices,
and performing feats of physical strength that were almost superhuman.
Again, suddenly, in one breath, he would break into a tempest of tears
and cries, and, flinging himself on the ground, wherever he happened to
be, would lie there, shaken with sobs, till sheer exhaustion brought
quiet. Reaction never failed him, however; and it was always the same.
Quietly, like a numb, dazed creature, he would rise and drag himself
back to the open summit and his cave, and there would sleep, for an
uncalculated period. When he woke he ate; and, in the torpor that
followed, the great calm would descend on him again.
His tempests were always a source of deep trouble and dejection to
him. That incomprehensible womanishness that lived within him he half
despised and half deplored. When she was uppermost, she was pitiable
enough. Her high, wailing voice roused the dreariest echoes among the
surrounding rocks; and one hearing them might have fancied himself
listening to a chorus of damned souls wandering along the road to
Kutashala Mali. This weaker spirit used, in the beginning, to be
roused by the thunderstorms which, from time to time, raged across
the heights. With the first hissing fire-streak that crossed the sky,
Oman’s frame would be shaken by a quiver of terror, and he would cower
away into his rude habitation, and, covering his face, remain moaning
and trembling with every crash, every blaze of lightning, every fresh
onslaught of cold rain. To him it was as if these phenomena brought
back some experience of the dimly veiled past, when, in words that
smote his ears like the near thunder itself, he had heard pronounced on
him a doom, and had thenceforth been plunged into deepest night.
After the passing of the storm, when the stars came radiantly forth
upon the newly refreshed sky, or the sun shone through an upstretched,
radiant bow, there would steal upon the stricken creature of the cave a
sense of comfort and consolation almost repaying the evil hour of fear.
At such times, Oman would put away his sense of wretchedness and shame;
and his heart would open out in praise. What he should praise, whom,
which of the gods his life had known, he could not tell. None of them
all—Siva, Vishnu, Indra, not the Buddha himself—could satisfy his new,
groping sense. But the searching, seeking, wondering after the unknown,
the greatly desired, usually led him back into his state of meditation,
where he could claim himself again a man.
In the end, it was this search that brought him into the kingdom.
Brahman born, a Vedic student, instructed also in the three great
philosophic systems, and, later, introduced to Buddhism, he had at
hand a great fund of religion, and a variety of hypotheses on which to
meditate. As soon as he began to perceive that he must find some creed
to lean upon, he set to work consistently to analyze and compare these
different systems. And from that time, when he felt himself occupied
with a real work, the tempests of his unconquered self came less often,
and were far less fierce, till, by degrees, they ceased entirely, and
he found himself master of his solitude. Now, truth began to disclose
herself to him. Gradually he discovered that he understood a few
things. He perceived life to be a period of trial and probation. The
beginning and the end are good. One comes into the world innocent, pure
at heart, untroubled by sordid doubts and fears. One leaves it calmly,
having ceased to desire the things of life. In the interval many phases
hold possession of the soul: ambitions of various kinds (lusts and
loves, for which one pays with blood and tears), and the worshipping of
many idols. But one by one these break and crumble away. Men perceive
that they are false, and cease to search for them; and their lack—the
loss of riches, power, even love,—are not to be felt as evils. The soul
is self-sufficient if it know its god. This is the story of life.
Afterwards came higher considerations:—cause, purpose, natural law,
finality. Deep were Oman’s meditations on these matters, and strange
the answers that he found. The twenty-five principles of the philosophy
of Kapila he reduced to two—matter and essence. From the combination
of these the universe has risen. The great fountain of Spirit,
situate in the heart of the rolling worlds, sends forth a constant
spray, each drop of which is a soul, which, entering a material form,
begins its long pilgrimage back, through imprisoning matter, into
the fountain-head again. Into such form, after long and troubled
study, did Oman work his truths; and then, still unsatisfied with the
infinitude of existence involved in the idea, sought further solution
to unsolvable things.
Six, seven, eight years went by; and Oman was no longer young. Yet his
appearance was still not that of a man. His face was without any trace
of beard; nor was his expression one borne by world-dwellers. His eyes
glowed with an inward fire. There were certain lines about his mouth
and eyes that gave his features the droop of constant melancholy. His
form was tall and gaunt; but his fine skin was still untoughened by
exposure to sun and wind. Save for a cloth about the loins, he now went
unclothed, unconscious of nakedness, exposed to no observing eyes. His
muscles stood well up on his lean body, for he was a tiller of the
soil. In his whole life there on the mountain he had never known one
day’s sickness; nor did it occur to him to consider health in the light
of good or evil. His solitude had effect on him in infinite ways; but
he kept himself from forgetting speech by frequently talking aloud. His
thoughts, however, were not at all those of men. He made companions out
of the natural objects round him, and regarded the phenomena of nature
as beautiful scenes in which he himself had a part. He called greetings
to the rising sun and to the moon, which looked on him with jovial,
distorted face. Wild creatures that lived in the lower woods—bears,
small, burrowing animals, even snakes, moved near him without fear and
without any threat of battle. During his long residence in the open, he
had never knowingly injured a single sentient thing; and for this his
reward came in the shape of companionship with the wild. The tenth year
of his mountain solitude had passed, when, suddenly, all things were
changed for him.
In some mysterious way, how, cannot be explained, for the rumor could
have had no other origin than the wind, it was spread among the
scattering mountain villages that, on the summit of the Silver Peak,
there dwelt a Chelah, or hermit, of great holiness and wonderful
powers. And thereupon pilgrimages thither began.
The meeting of Oman and the first stranger that penetrated his solitude
was unique. It was more than ten years since Oman had looked upon
the face of one of his kind or heard the sound of any voice other
than his own. He had for a long time felt neither need nor desire for
companionship; and his mind had become quite deadened to the necessity
of reëntering the world. One afternoon, returning from a short walk
down the eastern slope after fruit, he found himself face to face with
a man, standing near the entrance of his cave, who, seeing him, began
to prostrate himself rapidly. Oman stopped perfectly still, looking at
him with wonderment in his face. After a while, seeing that the holy
one did not speak, the man began:
“O most excellent, reverend sir, accept my worshipful homage of your
learning and holiness. I am come to ask of you the fate of my wife, who
is sick of the white plague. All doctors I have rejected, and come to
you, on the top of this amazingly high mountain, to ask your aid. And,
that I may not seem to be wanting in reverence, I bring with me a jade
anklet,—which may the reverend One accept!” and forthwith he proffered
his gift.
Oman looked at him long and steadfastly, striving to master the
emotions that were welling up within him, the foremost of which seemed
to be acute displeasure. He hesitated also to speak; for he realized,
on listening to the speech of the man, that his own articulation had
become almost unrecognizably altered. An answer seemed, however, to be
a necessity; so, presently, he nerved himself to the effort, and said,
slowly, with great difficulty:
“Do not bow down before me, O man, nor before any being like yourself.
Return to your wife and keep your place beside her bed; nor neglect to
obtain doctors for her in her sickness. I will not take your gift, for
what need have I of jade? Return to your dwelling and trouble me no
more.”
Vainly the man protested, tried propitiation, prayer, demand. Oman
would pretend to no knowledge concerning the sickness of his wife. But
when the stranger asked for food before beginning his arduous homeward
journey, Oman could not refuse him, but offered what he had; and, when
they had eaten together, the man continually exclaiming that he was not
worthy of the honor, he departed, unsatisfied, carrying with him his
jade anklet.
Oman was left in a state of great agitation. The single hour of human
companionship had brought down on him, in a torrent, all the old
desires, fears, worries, hopes, in fine the inevitable emotions of
human life; and he was whirled into the stream of the old problem.
That day, and the next, and three or four nights, were filled with
restlessness. Then, as time passed, and he found himself unmolested,
calm returned, and the thoughts of the other life faded again.
Nevertheless, the spell had been broken, and he was not destined to
a much longer period of solitude. Less than a month had passed when
another visitor appeared upon the Silver Peak, this one with no higher
purpose than a desire to look upon the hermit. He also, however,
brought with him a gift, and remained and ate with Oman, who conversed
with him without much constraint, out of a kind of eager desire to
convince himself that the life of men was really as troublous as of
old. This fellow departed, carrying with him a glowing report of the
tractability of the holy man, and the great wisdom he had gained from
conversing with him. And this tale destroyed Oman’s peace; for it
brought upon him a perfect deluge of visitors, of every degree, male
and female, whom, in the beginning, he helplessly received, and gave of
his store of wisdom, replying to their innumerable questions with the
patience of a child. Among these pilgrims to his shrine were Poussa and
her guardian, who, when they learned that he still dwelt so close above
them, lost no time in seeking him. And Poussa, indeed, Oman greeted
with real pleasure; providing her with the choicest of his fare, of
which he by now had some variety; for many of his visitors brought
gifts of food, which, his stock of grain running low under the demand,
he perforce accepted. Moreover, he was now clad in a new robe, finer of
texture and richer as to border than any he had ever worn. From Poussa,
however, he would accept nothing, reminding her that she had long since
made him her debtor for what he could never repay. And the girl and her
guardian left the mountain top after promising to repeat their visit.
For some weeks, buoyed up by the thought of genuine friendship, Oman
continued to let himself be seen, treated his visitors with courtesy,
and occasionally accepted some of their gifts. But after another
month of it, he grew sick of the servility of his visitors and the
transparent curiosity with which they regarded him; and, taking with
him only a pouch full of grain from his small store, he disappeared
into the forest of the east slope, and remained there for a fortnight,
till hunger drove him home again. It was sunset of an October day when
he reappeared upon the height, and, arriving at his cave, found it
already tenanted. Across the threshold, motionless, unconscious, lay
the body of an old man, shrunken and pitiably emaciated, clad in a
tattered robe, a much-used staff lying at his side.
Oman’s anger at sight of the intruder quickly melted to pity. Kneeling
beside the prostrate body, he lifted one of the limp hands and began
to chafe it back to warmth. This being of no avail, he hurried to
the spring, returning with a wooden vessel full of water, which he
sprinkled upon the worn face and poured down the parched throat. It
had its effect. The stranger stirred uneasily, muttered a few words,
and suddenly opened his eyes. Oman, with a momentary throb of memory,
perceived that one of these eyes was brown, and the other a faded blue.
CHAPTER X
THE WANDERER
For a long moment Oman bent close over the intruder, staring into those
strange orbs, his mind groping back, back, into the dim past, wondering
where it was that he had known them before. Then, as the old man
uttered a faint moan, he started to himself again, asking anxiously:
“You are better? You can speak?”
“I am better. Help me—to rise,” answered the other, feebly.
Oman, newly compassionate, lifted the light form in his arms, carried
it farther into the cave, and laid the unbidden guest upon his own
grass bed in the far corner. Then he set about the tedious task of
making a fire. Before his sticks were ready, however, the newcomer,
summoning him, in a high and querulous voice, to the bed, gave him a
flint and steel, and a piece of inflammable substance that he carried
in his pouch. These Oman thankfully made use of, and presently a fire
burned again in the rude habitation. Then, out of his stores, the
hermit prepared a meal for both of them: rice and dried fruits, which,
with fresh water, formed a repast that seemed luxurious enough in
Oman’s eyes. When it was ready he approached the stranger, and asked
gently if he desired to be fed. For answer the old man drew himself
into a sitting posture, and then, after a moment’s effort, rose to his
feet, walked to the fire, and sat down; but before Oman had placed his
portion of the meal before him, he looked into the young man’s face,
and said, in a harsh and trembling tone:
“This is charity that you give. I cannot repay you for the shelter. I
am a mendicant, old, feeble, very near to death.”
“And I am a hermit. The lonely have need of little. What I possess,
therefore, I will share with you.”
So they began their meal. It was a silent one. The stranger did not
make any effort to talk; and Oman, watching him, sank by degrees into
a fit of abstraction in which his memory moved, groping, searching,
wandering back through time to find the clew to his recognition of
this man. The stranger himself, though probably he had been in a
half-starved condition, showed no great eagerness for his food. He ate
slowly and little, and seemed to droop forward, while he sat, with the
weariness of age; and Oman began to wonder how he had ever reached such
a height as the Silver Peak.
While they sat there at their meal, the sun set, and the swift twilight
faded. And when the old man rose and moved toward the mouth of the
cave, the stars were shining, close overhead. After gazing for a moment
at the shadowy lines of hills stretching away to the east and west, the
old man turned to his host, and said:
“I will go out now and spend the night upon the mountain. For the
hospitality you have given me, I thank you, in the name of Siva.”
“Out upon the mountain! Why, thou wilt perish there! The nights are
cold at this height. Nay, surely my cave is large enough for two.
Remain here till dawn, at least, O stranger.”
The old man turned on him those peculiar eyes, in which there now
lurked an expression of suspicion, of craftiness, of secrecy:—the
expression of a dotard; and there was an evil smile upon the old,
trembling lips as he said: “No, no. I shall sleep alone. There is no
one to prevent me. Hermit, it is thirty years since I slept in a human
habitation. No, no. No one shall get the better of me in my sleep. No,
no. And look you,” his tone grew querulously savage, “look you that you
do not try to seek out my bed!” As he spoke these last words, one hand
crept up to a string that was about his throat, its end lost under his
robe, and the other went to his girdle, wherein a knife was stuck.
Believing him now to be insane, Oman made no further protest; and
the man, with another look at him, went out into the darkness of the
eastern slope, with a step that tottered with weakness.
Amazed by the strange incident, Oman turned into his cave again, and,
worn out with many days of privation and discomfort, lay down to sleep.
All night his dreams were troubled. The personality of the old man
had laid strong hold upon him, and he appeared in his sleep: now in
the guise of some grewsome spirit of evil, now as a guardian angel
shielding him from mysterious dangers. Oman woke at dawn, troubled
and scarcely refreshed, the old man still uppermost in his thoughts.
Possibly he had been feverish through the night; for his mouth was
parched, and he longed for water. In the cool twilight of new day he
rose, crossed the open plateau, and went a little down the eastern
slope to the spring. As he reached his destination, his ear caught a
faint sound that came from some distance to the right:—the sound of a
human voice, moaning, as if from pain.
Oman hurriedly started toward it; and, after some moments’ search, came
upon the body of the wanderer, lying in a smooth space surrounded by
trees. His eyes were closed, his color ghastly, and, from his parted
lips there came, with every breath, the deep moan that had drawn Oman
thither. The hermit knelt beside his strange visitor and lifted one of
the cold hands. At the touch, the prostrate one opened his eyes, as
it were with an effort. Seeing Oman beside him, he murmured, with a
suggestion of relief in his tone:
“Hermit—is it thou?” and immediately relapsed into a state of
semi-consciousness.
Oman did, at once, the only thing to be done. Lifting the body in his
arms again, he carried it up the slope and back into the cave, where
the fire still smouldered; and, laying the old man again on his grass
bed, began to work over him.
The day passed without his returning to a normal state. Oman knew that
he was very ill, but whether with some disease, or simply as the result
of old age and exposure, he could not tell. He warmed him, fed him,
bathed his brows with water, and sometimes caught what he took to be a
murmur of gratitude from the feeble lips. As night came on, he began to
fear lest the stranger should make some attempt to leave him again; but
the fear proved groundless. With the setting of the sun, a hot fever
rose in the aged and world-weary body. The sick one’s mind wandered
through far-off regions, and he talked, loudly, of fragmentary things.
For Oman there was no sleep that night. With a great pity for the
helplessness of his guest, he watched over him tenderly, doing for him
those things that only a woman would have thought of. During that night
of anxiety, there rose up in the heart of the hermit something that for
many years he had been striving vainly to kill. It was the hunger for
human love and affection, a desire for something to care for. Suddenly,
this last had been given him. This old man, querulous, evil-eyed,
unlovable bodily and mentally, had become sacred in his eyes, an object
of trust for which he should be answerable; and, in this thought, all
the starved affection in Oman’s nature welled up within him, till his
heart was full and overflowing with pain and joy.
On the evening of the second day of the stranger’s illness came the
rains; and Oman knew that now, for the space of a month, at least, they
were safe from intrusion. He and his charge were alone at the mercy of
Nature; and, far from being dismayed at the prospect, Oman hailed it
with joy. For him, who was now become veritably the mountain’s child,
the old fear of the tempest was quite gone. Lightning and wind and rain
were his brothers, when they sported across the peaks; and, since they
brought him security against the impertinence of the people of the
valleys, he blessed them anew for their presence. Thus, relieved from
any untoward anxiety, he turned with all his strength and all his will
to the assistance of the worn and world-weary creature whom chance or
God had sent him to be his charge.
In the beginning, Oman always hoped that a few days would see the old
man recovering, in some measure, his strength. But little by little
that hope faded away. The illness, however, was never very alarming.
By night there was always low fever, by day sometimes an abnormal
chilliness, which Oman frequently strove to overcome by the heat
of his own body. He would lie by the hour stretched along the bed,
clasping the old form to his own, literally feeding his strength into
the other. The stranger never tried his patience, at least. He was
perfectly passive, obeyed every suggestion of his guardian, ate and
drank whatever was given him, and never asked for more. Much of the
time, indeed, Oman was in doubt as to whether he knew what was going on
around him. By night his mind wandered, and he talked in his dreams;
but by day he generally lay like one in a stupor, heeding nothing
that passed. The one hour when he seemed to regain possession of his
faculties, was at sunset. Usually, at this time, he would open his
eyes, and, if Oman were not already beside him, would call for him, and
ask a few questions, or address him on topics of interest to himself,
the significance of which was lost on his listener. For a few days,
just at first, he would often ask to sleep apart from his companion,
would suggest vague dangers that were surrounding him, and certain
suspicious circumstances that he believed himself to have noticed.
From the general tenor of this talk, Oman gathered that he was in
constant fear of being robbed; and, from watching the hands that were
forever fumbling and playing with the string about his neck, he guessed
that this string must be attached to the object of his anxiety. He
was, therefore, scrupulously careful never to mention, and, so far as
was possible, not even to look at this string; and the result of his
consideration was what he hoped for:—very soon the old man dropped
his suspicions, and seemed to feel for Oman a spirit of friendliness,
almost affection.
The latter half of October and the first fortnight in November were
wild weeks on the mountain top. It seemed as if the very elements were
struggling over that soul in the cave. Never had such storms of hail,
rain, wind, and snow raged round the Silver Peak. In all that time,
however, Oman’s weaker nature never once manifested itself. He was
using all the man and all the strength in him for the wanderer, whom
the wild weather greatly disturbed. Indeed, often, during the storms,
he would lie cowering with terror in his far corner of the shelter,
talking deliriously of strange things, or uttering wild and terrified
cries that wrung Oman’s very heart.
It was early in the afternoon of a mid-November day that one of the
fiercest of these storms began, and lasted till early evening, when a
great and unexpected peace descended upon the earth. Remarkably, the
working of Nature was paralleled within the cave by an inexplicable
scene. All through the morning the stranger had been conscious, sane,
and unusually tranquil. After the noon meal he lay back on his bed
with the avowed intention of sleeping; and Oman seated himself in the
doorway of the hut, to watch the clouds roll up from the west and
swirl close round the peak, in moisture-laden mists. For some moments
the storm had been imminent; and Oman’s nerves were keyed for the
first rush of the wind. His back was toward the bed. He could not know
that the figure of the old man was suddenly upright. He could not see
the fire of madness burning in the weird eyes, nor perceive that the
shrunken muscles were as tense as those of a panther about to spring.
But, in the first roar of the blast, with the first, fierce sweep of
hail across the mountain top, the storm within also broke. Oman felt
himself seized about the throat in an iron grip, and heard the shouting
of the madman above the fury of the gale.
The half hour that followed he never clearly remembered. There was a
fierce, almost mortal struggle. Locked in each other’s arms, the two
reeled and rolled about the cave, like animals. Oman fought simply
to preserve himself; but he was pitted against a madman’s strength.
Blinded and half-stunned by the suddenness of the attack, it was many
minutes before he got full control of his own forces. He soon became
aware that a flood of wild ravings was pouring from the old man’s lips;
and finally, at the very climax of the battle, when Oman felt his
strength giving way, the wanderer suddenly dropped his arms, and his
maniacal force seemed to throw itself into words, which he screamed out
till they sounded high above the gush and clamor of the storm:
“Thou shalt not have it—thou shalt not, dog! Nor thou! Nor thou!—It is
mine! The Asra ruby is mine own, given me in payment for work.—Ah—ye
shall not take it from me! Faces—faces—faces!”
The last words sank, grewsomely, to a whisper, as he struck out once
and again into the air at the phantom forms that closed him round.
Then, suddenly, without any warning, he flung both hands over his head,
reeled, and dropped in a heap at Oman’s side.
For a moment or two the hermit stood perfectly still, exhausted by the
struggle that had passed. Then he took the unconscious man by the arms,
and dragged and pulled him back to the bed, on which he placed him,
limp and unresisting. Afterwards he went to replenish the fire, over
which he busied himself for some minutes. Finally he returned to the
doorway, and seated himself so that he could watch both the bed and the
world without.
He was thoroughly tired. He could not remember ever experiencing such
a battle as the one just passed; and it had taken all his strength. In
the corner, the stranger had now begun to moan, faintly; but Oman made
no move to go to him. Just now he felt no desire to help a creature who
had so lately attempted his life. Rather, there was a new bitterness in
him. Had it not been always thus—a return of evil for good? This was
all that unselfishness or self-sacrifice had ever brought him. Where
was the divine justice to be found? Where was that universal law of
compensation? Alas! Experience was once more accomplishing its work,
narrowing its victim down to the little present, blotting out all the
breadth of view that reflection and solitude had brought.
For many hours Oman sat there, musing bitterly, till the cloud-veiled
sun was down, and night, still filled with the rush of tempest,
advanced. Then, at last, he turned within, replenished his fire, and
cooked himself a meal of rice. As he ate, he glanced over toward the
stranger, who, however, made no sign. When he had finished, Oman crept
quietly to the bed, and looked down at his charge, to see if he had
need of anything. But he found the old man fast asleep.
After a time he returned to his post in the doorway. He found the
night changed. Through torn and shimmering mists, the golden moon came
rolling up out of the hills, bringing with her a court of stars, and
driving the heavier clouds away down the western slope of the sky.
Peace had come upon the height. The ruin wrought by the storm was being
atoned for now. It was the hour of Nature’s repentance. Oman looked,
and his own soul grew calm. This scene was so familiar to him! How
many times, in his long sojourn on the height, had he not gazed upon
it thus, gloried in it, loved it? But to-night, when its mission had
been accomplished, and he had been restored to tranquillity, he turned
his thought to other things—one other thing:—a strange, foreboding
sense of recognition of some of the words spoken by the wanderer: “The
Asra ruby is mine own—given me in payment—” And it was Oman himself
who involuntarily added, in thought, the last words that his charge
had uttered: “Faces! Faces! Faces!” What were the faces rising round
him here, in the firelit night? What pale ghosts of the long ago were
taking shape? What was it now burning behind his brain, struggling
to break the barrier of the past? Oman bent his head, and clasped
it in his two hands, thinking in vain, yet ever with the sense that
remembrance was imminent. He was at a high pitch of nervousness when
the unwelcome voice reached his ears:—a voice faint, and weak, and low,
as if it came out of the depths of the bygone years:
“Hermit—art thou there?”
With a passing shiver, Oman rose and went to the bed where the old
man lay. As he approached, the stranger lifted one hand slightly, and
murmured:
“Fear not, hermit. I am not now mad. Nay—all things are clear before
me, for I am approached by Rama.”
Oman knelt beside him, and gazed earnestly into the gaunt,
white-bearded face, across which the fire cast a flickering light that
brought out every smallest line and wrinkle. An ashen pallor pinched
his features, giving them the unmistakable, waxen look that comes only
to those whose souls are poised for flight. Oman saw at once that death
was near; and his heart contracted, painfully:
“Yes,—thou seest it,” said the wanderer, quietly, as he looked into
Oman’s eyes. “It is time. My spirit is glad of its release.”
He lapsed into silence again; nor had Oman any desire to break the
stillness over which, as he knew, Rama brooded. The wanderer retained
his consciousness: seemed, indeed, to be lost in a revery, while Oman
sat watching him. After a time, in the course of his musing, the dying
man’s hand crept up to that string which was about his neck; nor, this
time, did his touch stop with the string. With an air of delivering
himself of a heavy secret, he drew, from beneath his loose garment, a
tiny, golden box. Lifting this in his thumb and first finger, he turned
his face to Oman, and began to speak, disjointedly, at first, as if he
were thinking aloud; then, by degrees, launching into narrative form,
with a story that held Oman spell-bound at his side.
“Look—it is here,” he observed, quietly. “Here is the Asra ruby; the
great stone that I have kept my own for thirty years. Here it is, in
this box, safe to the end. And Fidá is gone—and I cannot—See, hermit!
It lies in this little box, that treasure. Thou hast never made move
to take it from me since I have dwelt with thee; and therefore it
shall be thine after my death. Yes, I have said it. Thine. But take
it not from me until I have passed. Dost thou hear, hermit?” His tone
grew threatening and harsh. “I am dying, and thou mayest take it from
me dead.” He glared again into Oman’s face; but, seeing the gentle
expression there, lost his sudden angry fear, and dropped again into
the lighter tone.
“The years—the years are many since it came to me. I was not then a
young man; and I had done much wrong in the world. My name—no one knows
it now. I have never told it since that night. But I may speak it at
last. My name is Churi, and I was a slave, a doctor, in the palace of
Mandu.”
“Mandu!” echoed Oman, quickly, in a strange tone.
“Yes, I was a doctor there, as well as a slave; and I was valued
and trusted by my Rajah. But I wanted my freedom. I planned to buy
my freedom, that I might no longer be called ‘slave’. And then Fidá
was brought thither. The Rajah, returning from war in the north,
brought back a noble captive who was made royal cup-bearer, and
afterwards raised to high favor in the palace. But Fidá loved. Ha! He
loved a woman of the zenana—not a slave, mind, but a wife, and the
_favorite_ wife. And she loved him also. And because I guarded a
door of the zenana by night, he gave me the ruby to open the door to
him. And I, hoping by it to buy my freedom, accepted it, knowing that
it was the life of his race.”
“This man—his name,” suggested Oman, trembling a little.
“His name?—I have said it,—Fidá el-Asra. That was his name; and the gem
was the gem of the Asra. When he gave it away, he became cursed; and
the evil fell on all of us. For many weeks I sanctioned the crime in
the zenana: for months played I traitor to my Rajah, for the sake of
the ruby, and because I loved Fidá and Ahalya, and because they were
happy together. Then at last the slave fell sick of a sickness that
would not be cured, though I even returned the ruby to him to be worn,
in order that he might be well again. But it could not help him then;
and he gave it back to me.
“It was spring. I hoped daily for the coming of a certain merchant
to whom I would sell the ruby for the price of my freedom. But alas!
freedom and vengeance came upon me together, without the selling of the
stone. There was a new war. Rai-Khizar-Pál marched away, leaving his
favorite slave to be guardian of the young lord Bhavani, his son. Then,
in the fair April, it fell upon us:—death! death! death!
“We found it in the early dawn,—Kasya and I. We found the body of
Ragunáth, dead, in the champak bushes, by the water-palace. He was
lying in his blood.—And Ahalya and Fidá had not come back from him.
They were gone. Soon everything must be known; and I should surely be
betrayed to my death when Kasya learned the things that I had done;
for there was a little Arab slave—Ahmed—who also knew. Therefore, by
night, I stole away from Mandu, and out—out—into the hills, carrying
the ruby with me. Blood was upon it. Blood it had brought, and with
the fire of blood it gleamed. I dared not part with it. It ate into my
flesh, and yet I could not sell it. I suffered from heat and from cold,
from hunger and thirst and nakedness, while I bore on my body this
great wealth. For thirty years, hermit, I have wandered over the earth,
carrying fear with me. Each man has worn for me the mask of Rama. Each
bite of food has had for me the flavor of poison. I have wandered the
Vindhyas over, from east to west, from Dumoh to Khambot. And ever
Mandu has drawn me back toward her. Terror and death have dogged my
footsteps; yet have I lived long, till I am very old. Suffering,
hardship, sickness, most hideous remorse—all these I have known, and
still have clung to life. My spirit was broken long ago; but I have not
wanted to die. I should have fought with any that threatened to take
life from me. Tell me, Wise One, what is this love of living? Why have
I, most miserable of creatures, clung so long to it?
“But behold—behold—the face of Rama stares at me, from the shadow
yonder! Back, Rama! Back yet for a little! Back!” For a second, the old
man lifted himself from the bed, and levelled a tremulous hand at the
haunting visage. Then he fell, weakly, and for a long time was still.
Oman, sitting beside him, still under the spell, could not speak.
Finally Churi himself broke the silence again, this time in a voice
that had faded to a thin whisper:
“I am dying, hermit. Rama’s face grows brighter in the gloom. The
visage is less fearful, now. My madness is gone. I see clearly. But for
many years I have been mad. It is the ruby. It holds evil in it for all
but the race of Asra. I had dreamed of returning it to them. But thou,
who hast sheltered me and fed me, to thee I say: the ruby is cursed. I
warn thee of it. Better burn it on my body.—Hark!—hark!—the drums of
Rama! I am dying, hermit. Take me by the hand!”
Feebly he held out his shrunken fingers, and Oman clasped them close
and steadied him. Then Rama and his hosts came by, and halted for a
moment at the cave till their number was joined by one. Thereafter they
moved on again, beating their muffled drums. And Oman was left alone on
the Silver Peak, with the body of Churi, the dying fire, and the gem,
enclosed in its golden box. Long Oman sat there, beside the body of the
vagabond, thinking. Finally, when the dawn was still three hours away,
he rose and made ready for his task. But first, perhaps unconscious of
what he did, he loosened the treasure from the stiffening fingers of
the dead, and slipped the string, with its yellow box, about his own
neck.
CHAPTER XI
SUNRISE
By night, on the eastern slope, Oman, under the light of the stars
and moon, built a great funeral pyre of dry wood, brought from his
store in the cave. There was in it neither sandal nor aloes, nor yet
frankincense, nor any fragrant spice to cover the stench of burning
human flesh. But the dry fagots would blaze high and fast; and the gay
flames would quickly purify the long-tenanted body. When all was ready,
Oman returned to the cave, and, lifting the still form of the old man,
bore it out into the air of heaven and laid it on the pyre, its face
turned toward the west, where the moon was now quietly sinking. Then,
with a blazing stick brought from the cave, he lighted the funeral pyre
and stood watching the flame-wreath that rose in a halo round the hoary
head.
To an Indian, this purification by fire is no infamy, nor is there
anything horrible in it. It is his sacred ceremony for the beloved
dead. While Oman made his preparations for it, he had suffered no
repulsion. And yet now, as he watched the dead form—so pinched, so
pallid, so unreal, lying complacently on the great fire-bed, with the
flames curling around the flesh: now, as the long beard and white hair
were singed away, and the blackened visage grinned in horrid baldness,
a thrill shot through Oman’s breast, and, stifling a cry, he turned
and ran from the spot, up, up, through the wood, and into the open, on
the height. There he threw himself down, beside a giant boulder, and,
burying his head in his arms, gave himself up to a new repulsion and a
new heart-sickness.
The moon had set; and the world was very still. The crackling of the
fire and the hiss that went with it were the only audible sounds.
Animal noises had ceased. A far, faint breeze stirred the tree-tops;
but there was no suggestion of the fierce rains of the previous day.
The whole sky was softly luminous with waning moon-light and the
redoubled splendor of stars. Far below, the valleys and the base of
the hills were lightly swathed in mist. Peace brooded over the great
Vindhyas; and gradually Oman’s horror was swept away. The sweet night
air cooled his frame and dried the tears that had wet his face.
Weariness overcame his excitement at the events of the day and night;
and he fell into a kind of stupor. He was not asleep, for he was still
conscious of the workings of nature:—the setting of the moon, the
dark hour, the dying glow of the fire, whose work was done, and the
heavy wheeling through the sky of two or three night birds. His brain,
however, was numb. He neither thought, nor felt the desire to think.
His head rested against the rock, and his eyes closed. An hour passed;
and, by degrees, the darkness gave way to a faint, shadowy light. The
night was over. Day was at hand.
In this first grayness, Oman lifted his head and opened his eyes. Then
he rose and looked down to the wood, where the fire had been. For a
moment he hesitated, but finally turned away. He could not go there
yet. For a few moments he paced up and down the broad, treeless space
on the height, and then returned to his rock, and set his face to the
wondrous east.
The far horizon was streaked with palest rose and yellow, melting into
a shadowy sky. Above this bed of color, the starry rushlights one by
one melted away. Only the morning star, the jewel in Ushas’ frontlet,
remained, flashing in the now deepening crimson, till Ushas herself,
having opened the sun-gates, passed from the sky and returned into the
land of the gods. The colors were intensified as new light crept up
the heavens; and above the gold was a band of pale, clear green that
merged softly into the upper blue. Now, down the slope, and over all
the wooded hillsides, rose a musical murmur, the song of waking things:
birds, and insects. And fearlessly they performed the morning hymn,
undisturbed by any thought of man. By now the creatures of the jungle
had returned to their lairs, the night’s prowling ended; and the world
was waking from dread to the joy of new day.
There was a long, still pause. The clear light grew clearer, the
crimson deepened with inner fire, two or three little cloud-boats near
the horizon were gay with rosy glow; but the shimmering valley mists
had passed quietly away. The world was ready and waiting. Yet still
Surya, rejoicing in the magnificence of his pageantry, delayed his
coming, till the man upon the mountain top, impatient of the time,
bethought him of his treasure, pulled the golden box from beneath his
robe, opened it, and let the contents fall into his hand. The ruby
seemed a talisman; for, as Oman held the clear stone against the sky,
the first fire-beam shot above the horizon, and the great, flaming
wheel rolled up from behind a far-off hill. The world broke into the
climax of its morning song; and, in his heart, Oman also sang: strange
words, fitted to a wondrous melody. Then, by degrees, he was silent
again, his eyes, lowered from the too dazzling light, fixed upon the
fiery heart of Churi’s legacy—the Asra ruby.
As Oman gazed into the scintillating depths of this rare and wonderful
stone, he was thrown into a kind of waking slumber, a trance, in
which scenes of a dim-lit past crowded upon him. Churi’s tale
returned:—the young prince in captivity, who had bought his love with
this stone:—Fidá el-Asra. Oman saw him, clearly, standing in a small
and richly furnished room, beside a woman clad in clinging, scarlet
draperies, a wreath of poppies woven in her heavy hair. This woman’s
face grew more distinct, and shone almost transparent, till, as she
gazed into the face of the man, a faint smile lighted her lips. But
there was a mournful sadness in her lustrous eyes; and, seeing these
eyes, Oman’s heart throbbed with understanding.
This man and this woman, burning in the depths of the ruby, were no
vision. Nay, he knew them both: _he_, Oman, the outcast, the
hermit. But how explain the reality of the dream? Had he sheltered the
twain in his own breast? How else came he to know their suffering:
to suffer with them? How else was it that he saw the dark shadow of
crime lying on both their hearts? How else that a gurgle and rush of
water sounded in his ears, and that he shuddered as he felt the chilly
contact? How else could he realize the terror of helplessness that had
been upon these two souls, as they rose together from the embracing
waters, to that space where water could not hide their deed? How,
finally, was it that, straightway after this, he was himself again,
standing upon the height where his battle had been fought and won,
and where the vision had appeared? The jewel was still glowing in his
fingers; the sun was only just upon the edge of the horizon;—but he had
lived a year in three minutes. Did this mendicant’s gem hold within it
some baleful magic? With a sudden sense of revulsion he dropped the
ruby back into its box, thrust it out of sight under his robe, and,
shaking away the still clinging dream, walked slowly back into his cave.
Fortunately his fire had not quite gone out; and, with a little effort,
he revived it. Then he cooked himself some food, ate, threw himself
upon the bed where Churi had died, and fell into a deep sleep.
When he awoke, it was afternoon. Clouds were rolling up the west, and
there was promise of more rain. Oman went slowly out of his cave, with
a new sense of desolation on him. The air was cold. The surrounding
hills lay wrapped in still, gray shadows. All the morning joy had left
the world. Reluctantly, with dread in his heart, Oman made his way
down the eastern slope to the place of the funeral pyre. There lay a
heap of wood ashes, mingled with white bones, a few scraps of cloth,
and some pieces of charred and blackened flesh. That was all. The fire
had done its work well. A week of rains and wind, and no trace would
remain of him who had ascended the Silver Peak to die. The sight was
less dreadful than Oman had feared; and he returned to his cave with a
lighter heart.
During the remainder of the daylight, Oman occupied himself in a
desultory way by reviewing his depleted resources. His fire-wood was
nearly gone; and, the woods around being soaked with rains, it would be
a month or more before a new stock could be gathered and sufficiently
dried to burn. His food supply was also very low. This fall he had
neglected to care for his grain field; and the crop, which, by this
time, should have been harvested, still lay in the soil, draggled with
mud and mildewed with wet. He had yet a little millet from the last
season, and some rice and dried dates brought by visitors, before the
rains. But, fast as he might, these could not suffice for the winter.
Tired and heavy-hearted, he sat in the doorway of his cave and watched
night and the storm come on together. Then, while the rain beat into
his shelter, and a fierce wind raged without, he rekindled his fire
in the farthest corner of the cave, and lay down upon his grass bed,
thinking to sleep.
But rest was not yet for him. By degrees he was seized with a great
restlessness of mind and body. He tossed and turned, nor was able to
shut his eyes, which stared wide into the light-streaked gloom. His
brain burned, and was filled with chaotic visions. The spirit of Churi
moved close beside him; and he chilled with dread. Where was the calm
of his former high estate? Alas! It had of late become a mockery. On
his breast the ruby burned; and at length he took it out and gazed
at it by the light of the fire. Again it brought upon him strange
thoughts, bathed him in a stream of remembrances so vivid that he felt
himself of another life. Under this influence, after a long time, he
fell asleep, only to find his dreams taking the same direction as
his waking visions. He found himself standing on a great eminence, a
vast plateau, rising sheer out of a fertile plain. Behind him were
rice-fields, trees, running water, and vast buildings. He was standing
with his back to one of these buildings, which was half hidden in
clustering tamarinds and bamboo; and the structure was called, in his
dream, the water-palace. In the dying light of day he stood there,
looking down over the far plain, to a broad river that rushed through
the fields. His old calm was upon him, for he was at home. This, he
perceived, was the land of his desire, the place where he should
find welcome and rest. And so the vision faded and his sleep became
dreamless.
When he awoke, the morning was well along. He found that he still
clasped the ruby in his right hand; and, returning it to its box, he
prepared to go about the duties of his day. He was determined now to
force himself to a long period of reflection, as a remedy for the
restlessness brought about by recent happenings. But, to his great
disturbance, he found his determination easier made than carried out.
True, he meditated. Long habit had not so basely deserted him. But his
meditations were no longer satisfying, and, when they were over, the
dreaded mood, a restless loneliness, an unquenchable yearning, crept
upon him again, till he soothed himself anew with thoughts of the ruby,
the power of which never failed.
All this could end only in one way. For three weeks longer he dwelt on
his height; and then, suddenly abandoning a useless battle, made ready
to leave the mountain top. At dawn of a December day he stood for the
last time on the summit where he had dwelt for so many years; and then,
at last, not without a pang of regret, he turned his steps downward,
toward the haunts of men.
CHAPTER XII
MANDU IN MALWA
Late in the evening of the same day that he had left the height,
Oman appeared at the door of Poussa’s hut; and found that the years
had changed it little. Poussa, now a woman of some authority in the
village, though she was not yet thirty, received him with joyful
acclaim, and with a reverence that she gave neither to the head-man
nor to the priest of her community. She feasted him on rice and curry,
millet bread, dried fruits, and sweetmeats, and gave him to drink out
of a jar of mellow (not too precious) wine. They ate alone, he and she;
and he slept the whole night in her hut before she deigned to acquaint
the village that the great hermit was among them.
Oman, who had expected to spend the next day at the loom, to pay his
debt of food to Poussa, found himself, instead, a centre of attraction
to the whole village, and was obliged to submit, for a matter of twelve
hours, to the entertainment of the chief citizens of the hamlet, and
as many visitors as had time to reach him that day. At dusk he was
borne to the room of the gods in an old palanquin, carried on the
shoulders of eager Vaisyas. And there a sacrifice was conducted, and
Soma was drunk, and fires were lighted in the council square. They also
demanded of him an address; and Oman talked, preaching a little of his
own creed, couched in the simplest language. His audience, accustomed,
like all Hindoos, to thoughts of the broadest abstraction, gave close
attention, and, getting his meaning, approved it, because of the
novelty of his ideas. Later he was borne back, triumphant, to Poussa’s
hut.
That night Oman could not sleep for very joy. Here at last was—success.
At last men had given him free right of brotherhood, and more. He had
known the respect, the reverence, of his own kind. By a miracle, the
outcast was become the acclaimed among men. The cost of it, those
bitter years of loneliness and despair, was not counted now. Oman knew
only that he was welcome, was honored among the people; and his heart
went out to them in praise and thanksgiving.
Nevertheless, he stayed only a day longer in this mountain hamlet. His
departure was not easy. Through Poussa it had become known that he
was Brahman-born; and immediately a post as second priest was offered
him by Nala himself. Here Oman might have ended his days, universally
revered and beloved. But Fate was pulling at his sleeve. The yearning
for the dreamland, the land of the Ruby, had not left him; and his
heart told him that it actually existed, while Fate whispered in his
ear, bidding him go find it. Thus, obedient to the voice, he said
farewell to his new friends, detached Poussa’s clinging hands from his
knees, smoothed the rough hair back from her face, pressed his lips to
her brow, and then set off, alone, into the jungle.
Now began his period of wandering:—the long progress through the
Vindhyas, which occupied many months. It was not a time of suffering.
Long inured to the greatest hardships of the body, neither fatigue nor
hunger dismayed him, nor did the mountain woods and ravines hold for
him any terror. The animals of the wild would not molest him. Indeed,
he encountered singularly few. The winter weather was pleasant; the
sun’s rays mild. With a stout wooden staff in his hand, he journeyed
leisurely, halting at any villages he came to, finding welcome and
acclaim wherever he arrived; for his appearance proclaimed his
estate. It became his regular custom to preach in the market-place;
and he never lacked an audience. Perhaps from the memory of Hushka,
perhaps out of the depths of his own solitude, he had drawn a kind
of picturesque eloquence that rushed upon him as he began his talks,
and drew his listeners to him like a magnet. An Indian will listen to
any fantastic creed, interest himself in any philosophy, nor deem it
heresy to his million gods. It is, with him, either the instinctive
knowledge that Truth in any form is good; or else, and more probably,
a kind of inconsequential, dreamer’s grasping of all happily expressed
maxims that bear the stamp of understanding. At this time, Oman made no
attempt to get to the root of his success. It was enough for him that
it existed. Joy walked with him on the road; and the stimulus of his
popularity seemed to know no reaction.
Fortunately, he never felt any desire to take up a permanent abode in
these mountain towns. Some of them were of fair size, boasted of a
petty ruler, and had some military force. Many had open offices for
such as he, where he might have taken a place of rank. Almost all were
set in surroundings of great natural beauty, calculated to appeal
strongly to Oman’s inbred love of nature. But he never entertained the
least idea of settling in one of them. His early purpose, vague as it
was, lay enshrined in his heart. He was a pilgrim to the land of vision
and memory: a high and holy place, peopled with ghosts of beloved
dead, a shrine that all twice-born love to carry in their hearts. For
months he hid his desire. He longed constantly to make inquiry of the
men among whom he passed, but he always hesitated, fearing to be taken
for a fool should he speak of a country the name of which he could not
tell, and no part of which he could definitely describe.
The winter months drew along pleasantly; but, with the coming of spring
and the thought of the hot weather, his restlessness and the vision in
his heart grew, till one day he was driven to speech. He was walking
through a narrow valley, a long strip of which had been recently
ploughed for the first time; and a man was at work there, sowing
millet. On the edge of the field Oman paused, till the farmer, bag at
belt, right arm working mechanically in and out, came slowly toward
him, and then halted.
“Fair spring and a rich crop to thee!” said Oman.
“Alas! It is too late in the year for a heavy crop! But a peaceful
journey to thee, reverend sir,” returned the man, civilly.
Then Oman, resolutely putting away his fears, began, in haste: “Friend,
I am seeking a far country:—a kingdom that lies on the edge of the
hills, high in the sunlight, while below it are a broad plain and a
great river. Canst thou tell me the name of such a place?”
The man looked at him, first surprised, and then puzzled, but not
asking a closer description. “A high kingdom,” he muttered, knitting
his brow. Oman’s chance words had caught his imagination. “Ah!
Perhaps—there is a plateau, lying five days’ journey to the west and
south, that is called Mandu—”
“Mandu! Mandu! It is the name! Churi said it! Tell me, stranger, tell
me again! The place lies west and south? A plateau! Thou hast been
there?”
The farmer shook his head. “Nay, I am newly come from the north. But
traders and mendicants have spoken of it. It is well known:—a Rajah’s
land. South of it, below, is the Narmáda, the holy stream. Doubtless
thou wouldst bathe there. But Mandu, I have been told, is to be reached
from the mountains by a causeway. Yes, I have heard much of that place.”
Oman’s face was alight, and he longed for money wherewith to repay
the man for his information. The farmer, however, expected no such
unusual thing as money out of a mendicant, and hoped for no more than
a blessing from this one, which he got. Then Oman passed on, his face
turned to the southwest.
For five days, and more than five, he journeyed toward the sunset. He
was all aflame with eagerness and delight; but he would ask his way no
more. He had a strange notion that it would be a shame to him were he
unable, now, to find the country of his heart’s desire; and he kept his
eagerness within himself, never allowing himself to say to any one the
words that burned on his lips: “I go south, to Mandu! To the plateau of
Mandu!” though the pride in him was almost too great to be restrained.
It had served him better, indeed, if he had put away his hesitancy.
For he was now in the region where all men knew Mandu, and he might
have saved himself a weary walk. At the end of six days’ journeying,
about the full-moon day of the Sravana month (March), he came to the
southern boundary of the Vindhyas, and, through an opening on the
slope, looked out over the Dekkhan. It was the first time in eleven
years that he had seen the plain; and there was joy in the sight,—but
anxiety also. For where was Mandu, high Mandu, “that stands on the
edge of the plain”? Had he come too far to the west, or was he yet too
near the rising sun? Fortunately, a little below him, on the hillside
above the flat land, he perceived a town, whither he directed his
steps, and there, because it was become a necessity, asked his way.
He was answered, readily, that Mandu was still a day’s journey to the
east; and he was furthermore given directions so minute, that, pausing
only to eat a piece of bread and drink some goat’s milk offered by a
hospitable peasant, he started again that same night, under the light
of the radiant moon. Again he took his way up into the hills, following
the course laid out for him, until, about dawn, he found a well-kept
roadway such as he had not before seen in the Vindhyas. And now, his
uncertainty banished at last, he lay down beside the road, in the
shadow of a pipal tree, to sleep.
When he awoke, it was noon. For a little while he lay still, puzzled
and thinking, for he had slept heavily. Suddenly it rushed upon him,
the great sense of finality. And, with a prayer in his heart, he rose
up, and took the road, starting southward at a rapid pace. The way
wound round and down, through a rocky gorge which he had a vague sense
of having passed through before. Then it began to re-ascend, and Oman’s
excitement grew. He felt that he was nearing the climax of his life. It
was just this that he had unconsciously waited for through the years.
And now it had come! At the top of the eminence the veiling trees
suddenly parted, and, in the flooding light of afternoon, he found
himself looking along the stone-built causeway that Rai-Khizar-Pál,
returning from triumphant war in the north, had crossed, with his
captives, thirty-one years before.
Faint, quick-breathing, Oman halted, leaning on his staff, to gaze
upon the scene. It appeared to him most natural, most right, that, at
this moment, with its familiar little whirring sound, a slender-winged
gray bird should come hovering up from the wood and seek shelter in
his breast. With the advent of this companion creature, his vision was
doubled. Twice before had he known this road. There had been a bride of
Dhár, and a captive from Delhi. The feelings of both were mingled in
him:—bitter pain, veiled joy, curiosity, hope, weariness. He saw the
bright pageants pass slowly before him; and then, leisurely, he moved
downward to the bridge.
All was exactly as it had been, thirty years before. From the
watch-towers the soldiers looked out and up into the hills, taking
no notice of the solitary, toil-worn mendicant who passed toward the
plateau. If they perceived the bird in his bosom, they only thought
him some dealer in magic who had trained the creature to be his
oracle. Nor, indeed, did Oman notice them. They were part of the whole
scene, but not to be singled out. His eyes rested on the fields that
stretched along beside two roads that wound, one to the right, the
other to the left, along the plateau. Which of the roads to choose, he
scarcely knew. Memory did not serve. The fields, already planted, were
empty; and he bethought himself that it was the time of the Sravana
ceremony, when all the people would be in the town, sacrificing and
celebrating in temple and bazaar. At a venture, he turned to the left,
and walked for some time past fertile rice-fields, and through a
patch of woodland; and all the while, as he went, his heart was full
to bursting, and his eyes were bright with tears. For he had come
home—home. This land was home. He knew the feel of it. The very air
was familiar to his cheek. The little sounds of animal and bird life
were as the sounds of childhood heard again after many years. A great
restfulness pervaded him. The tears that were in his eyes fell, slowly.
Then his heart swelled with a mighty prayer of joy and thanksgiving.
His way had been very long, very dark and dreary; but it was traversed
now. His struggle and his loneliness were over. Behind him lay the
wilderness, and all about him was the promised land.
CHAPTER XIII
A BROTHER OF THE SOUL
Thirty years had passed over Mandu since that strange time of death,
when, in a single day and night, a Rajah, his minister, his Ranee, and
his favorite slave had perished, each in his own way. During those
thirty years Bhavani, the only son of Rai-Khizar-Pál, had been nominal
ruler of Mandu. A boy of eleven at the time of his father’s death, he
had of his own will placed himself and Mandu under the guardianship of
Manava, a minister grown old in service, who acted as regent till, on
his twentieth birthday, the young man took the cares of government upon
his own shoulders. So well did Manava acquit himself during the nine
years of his regency, that, at the end of that time, had he chosen to
take the throne from Bhavani and install himself thereon, Mandu would
willingly have hailed him Rajah. But if Manava had been capable of such
an act, he would not have been the ruler he proved himself to be; and
he had his reward for faithful labor in seeing, before he died, his
young charge come to be called “beloved” by his people.
Bhavani, indeed, spite of many evil influences that surrounded his
youth, had grown into a beautiful manhood. From some unknown source he
had gained that kind of spirituality that is not inherited, and yet
is scarcely to be acquired. His father before him had been high judge
of his people. Bhavani was their friend. If Rai-Khizar-Pál had been
absolutely just, Bhavani was more than that: he was charitable. The
old Rajah had been most of all a warrior, loving the sound of battle,
first for himself, and afterward for the glory it would bring his
people. Bhavani hated war, because it carried with it death; and for
death he cherished a horror of which he never spoke. It had been born
in the moment when, stealthily following Kasya and Churi in their dread
morning’s search, he had looked on the body of Ragunáth, stiff and
bloody, under the champaks near the water-palace, where he had himself
left the Lady Ahalya the evening before. No one had ever got Bhavani to
tell what he knew of the happenings of that night. In the beginning,
he did not himself understand the part he had played in the tragedy;
but the horror of it was rooted deep in his secret soul. And, little
by little, as he came to manhood, he began to realize something of the
drama that had been played before his childlike innocence; though, with
strange perversity, his interpretation did injustice to the slave. And
the memory of the two he had loved, Ahalya and Fidá, became embittered;
for he endured for them all the shame that they had never known
themselves.
The influence of this dreadful incident of his childhood had had
an incalculable effect on his character. To it Mandu owed the
fastidiousness of this beloved ruler. There was but one misdeed in the
calendar of crime toward which Bhavani was immovably severe. By him
adulterers were punished to the fullest extent of the law. Nor had he
ever been known to consider an extenuating circumstance. He was himself
a man of the most rigid chastity; and, though he conformed so much
to custom as to marry while still very young, he had but one wife,
attended by women only. And, there being no zenana in his palace, he
employed no eunuchs elsewhere.
These things considered, one strange act of his extreme youth must also
be recorded. When, after three or four days of expectancy and dread,
the bodies of those two who had drowned themselves together were washed
ashore, by Narmáda waters, many miles to the west, Manava, following
the old Hindoo superstition, prepared to burn the body of the Ranee
there on the shore, and to erect over her a fitting tomb, where, on
the anniversary of her death, a sacrifice might take place for the
salvation of her soul. Young Bhavani, then under the close supervision
of instructors, heard, in some way, of this plan of the regent, went to
him in the council hall, and commanded, by the blood of his father that
flowed in his veins, that the body of Fidá should be burned with that
of Ahalya, and their ashes buried together. Manava heard him in shocked
silence; and then explained that a Ranee might not be so dishonored.
Useless objection. Bhavani insisted. And, after a time, he won his
way. Thus, now, for thirty years, the two had slept in a little stone
temple, by the bank of the river which still chanted in their dead ears
its plashing song.
Since the death of Rai-Khizar there had been no war in Mandu. After the
battle on the plain of Dhár, in which, in spite of the fall of one of
the Indian leaders, the Mohammedans had sustained a heavy defeat, the
invaders had not again penetrated so far into Malwa. They were still
within their northern strongholds; and the Dekkhan, hearing naught of
the crossing of the Gunga, nor of Agra, nor Benares, the merciless
conquest of the holy of holies, went its way placidly, catching not
so much as an echo of the far-ringing warcry of the men of Yemen with
their Prophet’s sword. The relations between Dhár and Mandu, always of
the friendliest, had been further cemented by the marriage of Bhavani
with a daughter of the neighboring province. But, happily for Bhavani’s
views, the brother state had no enemy against whom Mandu was supposed
to take part.
The years passed in peace and well-doing until the Rajah attained his
five and thirtieth year. Then came an event which, for a long time,
seemed to have turned the severely upright ruler quite out of his
course, and to have made him a man of men, erring and weak. From some
distant land, none knew where, there came to Mandu one of those purely
Indian characters, known long before the time of the great Buddha: a
religious courtesan, a woman of supreme beauty and magnetic power,
by name Zenaide. How, by what means, she got her first audience of
Bhavani, no one knew. But within a month after that, she was installed
in the long empty water-palace, where she dwelt as a queen among men,
or, as men whispered, the Queen of a King. That whisper was an ugly
one, but it found ear for a long time. Bhavani, immovable by wiles,
impervious to temptation, adamant against force, seemed voluntarily to
have fallen to this woman; and it was not till after his death that
his people perceived how their Rajah, unconquered by her, had been her
conqueror, ruling her beauty and her will by the inviolable purity of
his mind. But, at the time when Oman came to Mandu, in the Rajah’s
forty-second year, no one understood what were the relations between
the mistress of the beautiful little palace, and the King of the great
building near by. They were much together. Zenaide, indeed, was with
no one else. How, then, should men not wonder, and watch, and whisper
together?
It was March, and the half-dead world had been undergoing its annual
rejuvenescence. In the late afternoon, when the shadows are long, and
bird-calls are beginning again, Bhavani, the day’s state at an end,
went walking slowly down the open garden that bordered the road between
the two palaces, and finally halted at the stone parapet built along
the edge of the plateau. Two slaves followed the King, but halted at a
respectful distance as he paused, gazing down over the green plain and
its shining river. After a few seconds he noticed that another than he
stood near by, also leaning upon the parapet:— a man, tall and gaunt,
clad in a much-worn garment, his head and feet bare. Something about
the figure drew Bhavani’s attention, and, looking farther, he suddenly
caught the man’s eyes—great, limpid eyes, laden with the sorrow of
the world. A significant look passed between the two. Oman had also
swept the figure before him, upward, from the embroidered shoes, over
the rich dress, to the face, finely chiselled, but cast in a mould of
melancholy. There he who had won purity through the flames of hell,
gazed upon him to whom birth had given all good, and who had taken upon
his slender shoulders some of the burden of the world. In the first
instant of the meeting eyes, each found kinship in the other.
Bhavani moved a little toward the stranger, and asked, in a suppressed
voice:
“Thou art newly come to Mandu?”
“I crossed the causeway two days since.”
“Whence art thou come?”
“Out of the hills.”
“And whither—art thou going?”
“I do not know, Lord Rajah.”
“Thou knowest me!”
“Thou—art Bhavani,” muttered Oman, softly, to himself.
The Rajah recoiled a step or two, gazing at Oman earnestly. Then he
asked, in a new voice: “_Who art thou?_”
Oman had now recovered himself enough to reply to Bhavani’s question
literally. “I am called Oman Ramasarman. I was born a Brahman.—I have
been a Bhikkhu, and a hermit, dwelling in the hills, whence I descended
to Mandu.”
For a moment, Bhavani’s expression was puzzled. Then he shook himself,
slightly, woke from his dream, and observed: “Thou lookest younger than
I. What is thine age?”
Oman shook his head. “My lord, I do not know. When I went up to dwell
on the Silver Peak, my age was nineteen years. But how long I lived
there—fifteen, twenty years, perhaps,—I cannot say. It is a lifetime,
and yet again it seems to me as if I had not lived there at all: as if
I had only known a great vision, that has faded away.”
“Thou wast young, very young, to go up into the hills alone. And, from
thy face, it was indeed many years before thou camest down. Then tell
me, Oman: was that solitude very terrible to endure?”
Oman’s eyes grew vague. It was as if he looked into the infinite as he
replied: “Yes, it was terrible. I am told that not many can live as
did I, in utter solitude, and, at the end of five years, still retain
reason and speech. The Chelahs that go up into the fastnesses, for
prayer and the study of sacred manuscripts, go two together, and, by
companionship, preserve their minds. But I had no companion. I was
outcast of men.”
“Outcast! Thou? A Brahman?”
“Outcast! Of what do ye speak?” came a woman’s voice, from behind them.
Both men turned, instantly; and Oman drew in his breath. Before him
stood the most beautiful woman that he had ever dreamed of. She was
tall and voluptuously built; and her coloring was radiant. According
to the privilege of her class, she wore no veil over her face; and as
a covering for her heavy, red-gold hair, she had only an openwork cap
of turquoise-studded gold, bordered with a broad band of the polished
stones. Her dress was of blue, heavily embroidered; and a wide sash, of
palest willow-green, spread smoothly over her hips, and was clasped low
in front with a turquoise crescent.
The two gazed at her in involuntary, silent admiration; and she bore
the look easily, as one accustomed to it. Presently, however, Bhavani
returned to himself, and addressed her:
“Thou art well come, Zenaide. Behold, here is Oman Ramasarman, a sage,
who has come out of the hill fastnesses, to dwell in Mandu.”
Then, turning to Oman, he added: “This is the Lady Zenaide, most
beautiful, most wise: my friend.”
Oman looked at her again, and made his salutation. It was not necessary
that he should be told her estate:—that she belonged to the only
educated class of women in India. And, in spite of himself, the sight
of her gave him a strong feeling of mingled pleasure and of pain, that
had in it a further reminiscence of this land. There had been a time
when looks like hers had been for him.—But how?—and where?
If the two men were preoccupied, Bhavani with Oman, Oman with his own
thoughts, not so Zenaide. She was in the lightest of her moods, and
she talked rapidly, her musical voice sounding like running water in
Oman’s ears, as she addressed now one, now the other, now neither
or both of them. To the wanderer, she had added the crowning touch
to the scene:—the long, shadowy valley, far below, over which the
crimson dusk was stealing; and, behind them, the delicate structure of
the water-palace, its clear outlines softened by high-climbing vines
and great clumps of feathery tamarind and bamboo. It was the land of
enchanted dreams, and with him were its King and Queen:—this royal man
with the quiet eyes, and the superb woman, crowned with her glory of
hair—the henna-dyed locks that Oman had never seen before. But the hour
passed like a breath. He remembered little of her careless talk; but
he listened with intense interest when she fell into a discussion with
Bhavani. She had been speaking lightly of the beauty of the evening,
when, suddenly, without any reason, she made an abrupt transition to a
matter in which the Rajah was deeply interested.
“My lord, I have been thinking all day of the matter of Lona, the
woman, and her child; and it is my wish that thou send the child to me.
He shall become one of my household. Because he was taught theft from
his infancy, shall he be punished for it? Let the woman meet what fate
my lord wills. But send the boy to me. Is not this a solution of thy
trouble?” and she smiled upon the King.
“It is well thought, Zenaide. I will send him to thee. And yet the
woman troubles me more.”
“And wherefore? Did she not sin knowingly? Disobeyed she not the law?”
answered Zenaide, with a little shrug of indifference that was almost
scorn.
Bhavani’s expression grew sad. “She sinned, but she knew also that her
suffering could only be saved by sin. She stole first of all for her
child. To her it meant that they should know hunger and nakedness no
more. She had been brought into the world, and, in her turn, bore a
boy. But the world refused her sustenance. Had she no right to take
it, then? Listen, sage, to what I say; and tell me which is right: the
woman, or the law? If a creature starve, and so steals bread from one
that does not starve, shall she receive the ten lashes that the law
provides?”
Oman bent his head a little. “Could she not work?” he asked.
“She is a widow. There is but one vocation open to her; and that I have
forbidden in Mandu.”
“Then is it not the duty of the Lord Rajah to provide for those whom he
has deprived of a means of livelihood?”
Bhavani flushed, deeply; and Zenaide burst into a ringing laugh. “My
lord, thou art reproved!” she said, looking at Oman for the first time
with interest.
“Yea, I am reproved, and deservedly. Hermit, thou art wise and just
also. Alas! all my life of training hath never led me to this simple
perception of the truth. But it shall be as thou hast said. Henceforth,
every one that hath been deprived of his means of livelihood through
me, shall by me be provided for. This mother and child shall be
pardoned, and shall live together.”
“But have I not said that the boy should enter my service?” demanded
Zenaide, suddenly displeased.
Oman opened his lips to speak, but Bhavani was before him: “This
man, Zenaide, hath shown more wisdom than either thou or I. Let us
acknowledge the truth of his words without any anger or false pride.
Thus it seems good to me.” He turned a gentle look on Oman as he spoke;
but the woman, her face obstinately set, turned away and walked to the
parapet at some little distance, and stood leaning upon it, staring
moodily off upon the darkening world. A faint, half-anxious smile
curled Bhavani’s lips; but Oman, who was far from smiling, felt moved
to say:
“Lord Rajah, you do me too much honor. My word should not be accepted
at once against that of the beautiful woman. Least of mortals am I.”
“Most humble, but most wise!” exclaimed Bhavani. Then, after an
instant, he added: “Fruitful hath been my walk to-night. Thou shalt
be my guest at the palace, Oman, and later I will come to thee and we
will talk. For I would know much more of this life of thine.” Then,
with a little gesture that put Oman from him, he went to Zenaide and
stood beside her for a moment, speaking to her; though what he said
and whether she spoke at all, Oman could not tell. Finally Bhavani
drew Oman to him again, and the two moved slowly away, through the
star-spangled dusk, to the palace.
The next half hour was to Oman a dream. How much of what he felt was
memory and how much revelation, he had no means of knowing; but there
seemed to be no unfamiliar corner in this great building. They entered
the central courtyard, where, as of old, a fire burned by night. Before
them was the open entrance to the carved and pillared audience hall. To
the left, rose the north wing, with its long corridor and tiny entrance
to the triangular zenana courtyard; and, on the right, the south
wing, with its temple room, official suites, and barracks. Behind it,
Oman knew, without any doubt, lay the slave-house. Bhavani, guessing
nothing of what his companion was undergoing, presently left him, with
a slave to whom he had given directions concerning Oman’s lodging and
entertainment.
It was with a feeling of tremulous awe at his profound sensations that
Oman followed his guide into the north wing, down the broad hall,
and up the old, familiar passage, till they halted before what had
once been the apartments of Ragunáth. The doorway was still heavily
curtained. But within, all was changed. The room that had been an
antechamber, was now cut off from the others of the suite, and was
evidently where Oman was to lodge. The little place was richly
furnished. Around two sides ran a low, broad divan, many-cushioned.
Walls and floor alike were covered with heavy rugs. Round stands,
piles of pillows, a tall incense burner, a huqua, and a little shrine
containing an image of Vishnu, completed the furniture; and the whole
place, which was windowless, was lighted night and day by three
swinging lamps.
Once in this room, the slave demanded of Oman whether he had any
commands to give; and, receiving a negative, speedily retired. For some
moments Oman stood quite still, gazing around him, his mind filled with
wonder. He was back in the present now, realizing that never in his
life had he thought to see a room like this. He had always regarded his
childhood as the most comfortable and luxurious period of his life; and
now, to him coming out of the long years of hardship and privation when
he had looked for no better provision than a meal of parched grain and
a bed of grass in a cave, this luxury was scarcely to be believed.
After a little, Oman began to move slowly around the room, feasting
his eyes on every passing phase of richness. And finally, with a
hesitation born of timidity, he ventured to lie down on the divan,
resting his head and shoulders on cushions, and drawing up his knees,
after the universal custom of the Orient. Then, all at once, a feeling
of naturalness came. Luxury was no longer strange. The glowing lights,
the subdued color, the faint aroma of stale incense, induced ghostlike
dreams of what had been, of things to come. His eyes were half closed.
Languor and drowsiness stole on him. It was the most delicious hour he
had ever known.
After a time, Oman had no idea of how long, a slave entered, carrying
a tray on which was such a meal as the wanderer had not seen since
he left the Vihara of Truth. Without making the least sound, the
white-robed servitor placed one of the low, round stands beside the
divan, laid the meal thereon, and disappeared for a moment, to return
with a silver basin and ewer, and a broad, fringed napkin. Oman held
his hands over the bowl. Perfumed water was poured over them. He dried
them on the cloth, and then, with a look, dismissed the slave. For a
few seconds more he lay quiet, hesitating to eat. Then he turned upon
his elbow and began the lazy meal, not like a hungry man—which he
was—but after the fashion of palace dwellers, who feast five times a
day. When he was satisfied, he lay back again, and the slave reappeared
with sherbet and a jar of wine. Leaving these on the stand, he removed
the remnants of the meal, and departed again, this time for good.
Oman touched neither the sherbet nor the liquor, but stretched himself
out on the couch, clasped his hands over his head, and gave himself up
to the dreams that were still haunting him. That he had been in Mandu
before was certain. But how, and where? The tale that Churi had told
upon his death-night, of the slave prince and the young Ranee, seemed
in some way to have taken root in his heart, until their story and his
own dreams of this place had become inextricably intertwined. Why were
they so close to him? What vaguest suspicion was fluttering through his
mind? Above all, how came he to be so familiar with the plan of the
palace? Questions—questions—questions! They crowded upon him till he
could no longer think: till his brain was fairly numb.
Then, gradually, under the influence of the quiet and solitude, he
fell into that stupor of profound meditation which is natural to the
Hindoo only. His head rested on the cushions. His knees were drawn
up under him. His eyes burned brilliantly under their half-closed
lids. And his mind, once more under control, wandered far, through
unfathomable space. Time passed. The hour grew late, and the busy life
of the palace was stilled. Oman heeded nothing, nor remembered what
surrounded him. He had forgotten Mandu, the day, the woman of gold, the
beauty of Bhavani—everything; and had slipped back into the old freedom
of his days on the Silver Peak. Humankind was infinitely far from his
thoughts. But humankind had not forgotten him. Suddenly the curtain of
his doorway was thrust aside, and Bhavani came quietly into the room.
The Rajah was not now in royal raiment, but clad from head to heels in
spotless white, the purity of which seemed a fitting frame for his fine
physique and the spiritual dignity of his face. At sight of the figure
on the divan before him, he paused for a few seconds, and then spoke,
gently:
“Oman Ramasarman, I am come hither—thine host.”
For a moment, Oman seemed not to have heard. Then, with an effort, he
rose, and stood submissively before the Rajah, evidently waiting for
him to speak again. This Bhavani did.
“O stranger, I have come to talk with you on the subject of wisdom; for
this is the only time at my disposal for the pursuit of those things
that I have most at heart. And it is for this reason that I break in on
thy revery. Sit there, then; and I will place myself thus, that we may
look into each other’s eyes. Ah—now we may talk together freely.”
Obedient to the request, which was really a command, Oman seated
himself, his knees crossed under him; and Bhavani took his place on a
pile of cushions three or four feet away. There, for a time, they sat,
looking at each other silently. Bhavani had come into the room, his
brain teeming with thoughts and questions; but he was quick to feel the
chill of Oman’s mood. The wanderer, indeed, was thoroughly disturbed at
Bhavani’s interruption of his meditation; and he showed his displeasure
by a silence that the Rajah found it impossible to penetrate. After
a little while, however, realizing his ungraciousness, Oman forced
himself out of his stolidity, and said, in a muffled voice:
“My lord hath sought me. What doth he require?”
For a moment Bhavani looked at the immovable face, and then replied, in
a tone the gentleness of which Oman had never heard equalled: “I have
proffered hospitality to the stranger, and now violate the privilege of
solitude. Let him forgive me!”
“Do not say it! It is the right of the host at any time to seek the
presence of his guest! What wilt thou of me, O King? Speak, and what I
have is thine.”
A faint smile shone for a moment in Bhavani’s eyes, but was instantly
succeeded by an expression of deep thoughtfulness: “There is much,
stranger, that thou canst give me, who am a beggar of minds. Thou
saidst that thou wast come out of the hills. What wealth hast brought
with thee from them?”
“What wealth—of thought?”
“Yea, of thought.”
“Ah, much, great Rajah. Much. There, in the vast wilderness, is peace.
I ascended the height toil-worn, weary of the world, outcast of men.
And in the great Silence was a balm for every wound. Peace I obtained,
and strength, and calm. And after a while came Truth also. Creeds and
philosophies of men I had studied in my youth, in temple and Vihara.
But it was there, on the height, that my soul found itself, and gave me
a belief that had not come before.”
“Tell me of this belief.”
“It is a system, long and complex.”
“There is time. The night is young. Tell me, I beg of thee,—Oman.”
Oman looked at Bhavani thoughtfully, and wondered. For many months
he had preached his creed to men, in the market-place, and it had
seemed good to him, and high, and true. Yet now he was confronted
by a ruler of men:—a King, one who exercised over him a peculiar
fascination. Perhaps he felt a desire to open himself entirely to
this melodious-voiced Rajah; and yet, on the other hand, a new sense
urged him to prudence, to silence, to secrecy in that which intimately
concerned himself. After a little he asked, almost humbly: “Tell me
then, noble One, why thou seekest of me my—faith?”
“For many years it has been my delight and my desire to learn all
that I can of the many forms of Truth that live in the minds of the
thoughtful. I have also a son, nearing manhood, for whom I have founded
a school here in my palace, which has been taught by very learned men.
This school I overlook myself; and I have been accustomed to search
among every class of men for new thought that can be laid before the
noble youths of my kingdom. For them, and for myself, I ask thee to
expound to me thy creed.”
“And likewise for Zenaide, the woman of red gold?” demanded Oman, with
a flash in his eye.
But Bhavani did not wince. “For her also, who is my sacred charge.”
“Hear, then, O Rajah, the Dharma that came to me in the wilderness:
“In space are, and from the beginning have been, two elements: one,
that which we call spirit; the other, matter. And spirit, which lives
and feels and does not change, struggles constantly after knowledge.
In the beginning, Spirit entered matter and ruled it, and out of chaos
brought form, and conceived and organized the laws of Nature. But,
having entered matter, Spirit found itself encumbered and bound about
by the inert substance that is foreign to it; and it learned also that
its great Unity had been broken into various particles, each of which
was now enclosed in a form. And thereupon perceiving itself caught by
the encumbering mass, it set itself to dominate matter, and so to rule
it that in time the fetters should disappear. But this was, and still
is, difficult. Matter is subject to change and to decay. Moreover, it
is the exact opposite of that which has taken possession of it. And
the spirit in the clay finds itself ever and again freed and ever and
again seized anew and enclosed in another form, until, after infinite
experience, certain units of spirit found themselves actually dominant
over the evil element, and free to pursue their natural vocation of
perfect power and stainless happiness. And these, uniting together to
give what aid they might to their still unconquering brethren, are the
only God: that which we should all pray to for strength.
“We, Bhavani, are spirits still encompassed by matter; and we struggle
from life to life, from form to form, still hoping, still aspiring,
still achieving, still advancing a little along the road to victory
over the evil element, till, in the end, we shall come into a state of
perfect dominion over our enemy.
“This is the Dharma that I have found in the wilderness.”
“And it is good. Yes, it is good. Yet thy creed is pitiless, O sage.
Tell me: what of those that yield their lives to matter, that give
themselves up wholly to the evil influence? Is there no punishment for
them?”
“Those that travel backward along their road must, with double pain and
suffering, retrace their steps. That is their punishment.”
“But there is no Kutashala Máli—no place of everlasting punishment?”
“How can there be? Spirit is good. Spirit cannot die. And the only
power in matter is its inertia. Who is there to decree such a place as
that?”
“Listen, Oman, while I tell thee the story of two that I knew and loved
in my childhood, who sinned together past forgiveness. Thou shalt tell
me if they yet strive toward happiness; whether they do not still walk,
helpless and despairing, along the Sinners’ Road. For of such sin as
theirs, thou surely canst know naught.
“My father had a wife, the fairest and the youngest in his zenana,
brought from Dhár, but of Persian blood, so that her skin was pale,
like the lotos petal. She was called Ahalya; and every one that saw
her, loved her. She had been a bride for two years when my father
brought hither, out of the north, a noble captive of the invading
race:—by name, Fidá el-Asra. And my father favored him greatly, and
came in time to value him above all his other slaves. And at last he
was made my master, my guardian in my father’s absence. By some means
that I do not know, this slave once saw Ahalya, the lady of my father’s
heart; and, like all men, he loved her. Then, because he was young and
a captive, she loved him also, through pity. And here he dwelt, for
many months, deceiving the King who had so trusted him. More than this,
Ahalya, like all women, weak, also gave herself up to wickedness. Thus
these two loved until they sinned themselves even unto death. For they
died together, at last, by drowning in the Narmáda stream, after the
slave had murdered one of my father’s counsellors, who, I believe, died
in defending the honor of his King. Now tell me, Oman, if thou canst,
what these two found waiting for them beyond the river of death?”
“They found,” answered Oman, slowly and distinctly, “a life of the
deepest woe, a constant suffering, a shame that they can never escape.
For those two, unlawfully joined in one life, are, in the next,
inseparably united. Their two miserable souls inhabit but one body,
in which they have struggled vainly for release. And,” here Oman rose
and lifted his face, straining upward as if the words he spoke were
received from some invisible source, “and thus they shall exist till
they have drunk the cup of retribution to the very dregs. But, in the
end, they shall escape their bondage. In time they will complete the
expiation and know the blessed end:—freedom from travail and from woe.
For they will regain their right to move forward alone, on the road to
the Great Release.”
With the last words, he sank back upon the divan, and a silence
followed. Bhavani sat amazed at the absolute conviction with which
this man had spoken; and he was again seized with strange wonders and
suspicions concerning the stranger’s identity. After a long pause the
Rajah, groping for his words, asked, hoarsely:
“Wilt thou remain here in my kingdom and in my palace, master, and lay
the foundation of thy faith in the heart of my son?”
For answer, Oman solemnly bowed his head. He knew it to be written that
he should remain in Mandu.
CHAPTER XIV
THE ANCIENT FLAME
So Oman took up his abode in the palace; nor were the circumstances
of his settling there very surprising to himself. From the first it
had seemed as if, in the natural course of things, this should become
his home; and the new duties and new habits of life were acquired
mechanically. His intuition of the link that bound him to the past,
however, though at times it was strong on him, proved evanescent; so
that there were weeks when he lived wholly in the passing hour, without
any memories of bygone days. But he knew that Fate had been kind to
him. He was wrapped in impenetrable serenity: the outcome, the reward,
of his years of solitude; and he felt that no mischance could disturb
this again.
On the first morning after his arrival, the Rajah himself introduced
him to the palace school, held in that room which, in the old Rajah’s
day, had been a theatre:—the place where the slave Fidá had first
looked upon poppy-crowned Ahalya. Whatever its former glories, this
room, on the morning that Oman first beheld it, presented a pleasanter
picture. Save for a great rug upon the floor, and the teacher’s cushion
on a daïs at one end of the room, the place was quite unfurnished. On
the floor sat an orderly company of young men, between the ages of
fifteen and twenty: all of them clad in white, with scarlet sashes
around their waists, and red shoes on their otherwise bare feet. These
youths were engaged in a variety of occupations: some of them studying
manuscripts of various kinds, many simply sitting in meditation,
still others indulging, rather surreptitiously, in games. Among them,
without any distinction as to dress or position, was Bhavani’s son,
Viradha, the heir of Mandu: a pleasant-faced youth, but not remarkable
for any special wit or wisdom; for he had inherited the disposition
of his grandfather, and was fonder of the chase and the table than of
reflection on the doctrine of atoms[9] or the working of the primordial
soul.
[9] The foundation of the Nyaya system, originated by Kanada.
Up to to-day, the palace school had been conducted on a very irregular
plan, Bhavani bringing various men of wisdom or holiness to lecture
one or two days a week, the rest of the time being occupied with
indiscriminate reading from philosophic or poetical manuscripts.
On this day, as soon as the youths had assembled, Bhavani and Oman
made their appearance together. The Rajah offered a few words of
introduction and explanation: setting forth the fact that at last they
were to have a permanent master, who would reduce their hours of study
to some sort of system and order. During his speech, every eye in the
room was fixed upon Oman’s tall, gaunt figure, clad in white garments,
his serene face, with its deep-set eyes, and his broad, lined brow, on
each side of which fell masses of thick, black hair. At the end of the
introduction Oman came forward a little and the young men advanced to
him, and, one by one, kissed his hand. Then they returned, expectantly,
to their places; and Bhavani, able to spare no more time from matters
of state, hurried away, leaving Oman to his new task.
It was the most difficult morning that Oman had ever spent. He had had
no preparation for his situation, no time to arrange a course of work.
Hitherto he had preached in small towns, to mere handfuls of uneducated
men and women. Now he stood before a critical assembly of young
noblemen, all of whom had had considerable instruction in abstract
thinking and reasoning: far more, no doubt, than he himself had ever
known. That he impressed them all, immediately, as a man of dignity and
wisdom, of wide knowledge of men and high purity of mind, was again
probably due to his years of miracle-working solitude.
To his own keen satisfaction, Oman felt that he had begun well with
his school; and he determined, in his heart, that the end should be
better still. For a month or more, then, he was invisible to every one
save his pupils. He found that a full and detailed exposition of his
creed to thinking and sometimes sceptical men, demanded a new labor of
thought, a new working out of little things that had hitherto been mere
suggestions in his own mind; the rejection of some ideas that proved
themselves impossible; and the admission of others that he had not
hitherto acknowledged. This work, while difficult, gave him the keenest
delight; for the breadth and fulness of his logic was coming home to
him; and he perceived that this creation of his brain was no puny
shadow, but a thing finely formed, capable of proper development. He,
the seeker after Truth, had found it; and from the heights was bringing
it to men. It was its own greatest reward.
At the end of six weeks, his labors began to be less exacting. He had
reduced his own thinking to a system; and he now began to introduce
other studies than philosophy into this school, where arithmetic of
the simplest kind, and writing in any living language, were considered
not as necessaries but as arts. Oman found time now to see something
of the palace and of its Rajah, who eagerly sought his society. A few
days wrought great changes in his quiet existence; and presently an
incident, entirely unexpected, brought him a revelation which, for some
time to come, eclipsed every other interest in his mind.
During the six weeks of close work, the circumstances attendant on his
first meeting with Bhavani had slipped from Oman’s mind. He no longer
thought of the scene by the parapet behind the water-palace, or of
Zenaide, the woman with wonderful hair. But now, in mid-May, she was
recalled to him. One noon, as he sat in his room meditating through the
hot hours, a slave-boy broke in upon him and delivered to him a message
to the effect that the lady Zenaide desired the presence of Oman the
sage, that she might hear the creed he taught.
Oman, taken by surprise, had an impulse to refuse the request. A
moment’s reflection, however, changed his mind. She had asked for
his creed. Believing as he did, he had no right to refuse her the
knowledge. Besides, was she not under the special protection of
Bhavani? Bhavani was his patron, nay, his friend. Whom Bhavani loved,
Oman would not deny. So he sent an answer by the little slave that he
would come that day; and the child departed, leaving him in chaos.
Oman spent the next two hours in the greatest confusion of mind. Never
in his life had he been brought into contact with such a woman as he
knew this one to be:—such a woman as the great Indian romances love to
concern themselves with. He thought of the incident of the Buddha’s
entertainment by the woman of Vesali, the beloved of Ajuta-Satra, and
of her conversion to the faith. Had the Sakyamuni found danger in her
presence? Was her hair of golden red? And then, suddenly, Oman started
up, resolutely turning his mind to other things. Hurriedly he bathed
and clothed himself in a fresh gown of white linen, girt himself with
a broad, yellow sash, and wound a white turban around his head. Then,
without pause, he set out for the water-palace.
The afternoon was late, and the shadows lay long and golden across the
road. Full summer was already on the land, and Mandu was a riot of
verdure. Oman’s mood responded easily to the scene. Under the spell of
the surrounding beauty, his thoughts grew lighter, till, when he paused
before the open doors of the waterpalace, he no longer looked like an
ascetic. The sombre fires in his eyes had brightened, and his face was
softened with a smile.
In the curtained doorway stood a tall slave, clad in rich livery, who
addressed Oman with an air of profound respect, and at once made way
for him to pass within. Oman found himself following the slave across
a broad, square hall, in the centre of which was a marble tank filled
with clear water; and thence they proceeded to the end of a short
corridor, where, before another curtained doorway, Oman was left alone.
After a moment’s hesitation he lifted the curtain, and crossed the
threshold. He was facing a long, narrow room, stone-paved, lighted
from the top, the walls hung with embroidered silks of delicate hues.
There was an air of unusual lightness and airiness about the whole
place; and Oman’s eyes wandered for some seconds before he perceived
that, at the far end of the room, in front of a long, amber-colored
divan, half hidden by a screen, stood Zenaide. Oman uttered a short
exclamation, and started forward, observing, as he approached her,
that there was no smile on her lips. His eyes estimated her again; and
they found much that was new. She was clad to-day in a long garment of
silvery green, that showed her more slender than he had thought. She
was also paler. Her hair was woven into a crown upon her head, but was
without ornament; and in her dark eyes there was no expression of the
voluptuary. Oman found himself newly puzzled as he seated himself, at
her bidding, on the divan, while she sank upon a low pile of cushions
on the floor. They had not yet spoken when a slave entered, with a
tray of sherbets and sweetmeats which Oman refused, and Zenaide, not
pressing him, herself waved away. When they were alone again, she rose,
impulsively, ran down the room, and lowered a double hanging before
the door. Then she turned, slowly, facing Oman, who was watching her.
For some moments she neither advanced nor spoke. Oman perceived that
she was in a state of repressed agitation, for her fingers twined and
intertwined, and her clinging garments betrayed a nervous quivering of
her body. It seemed as if it were impossible for her to speak; yet, as
Oman did not help her, she had, perforce, to make a beginning. She had
examined him minutely, face and figure, before she exclaimed, abruptly:
“Art thou indeed as learned as they tell me, O sage?”
Oman’s expression changed. “Not in thy lore,” he answered.
“My lore? And what is that?”
“Art thou not a woman? Thy lore is love.”
“Ah!” The expression escaped involuntarily. It was a betrayal.
“Ah!” echoed Oman. “It was for that you sent for me! Know, then, that I
am not a faquir, not a mag—”
“No, no!” Reading the scorn in his tone, she came forward swiftly
and sank down in the cushions at his feet. “Think not that of me. I
know something of thy creed. Bhavani has expounded it to me. I have
considered it, carefully. But it is very pitiless. Thinkest thou not it
is pitiless to the weak? Wouldst thou leave no sweetness in life?” Her
eyes lifted themselves to him searchingly, and he felt the spell of her
magnetism.
Shaking himself free from the impression, he looked down upon her with
a quizzical calmness that disconcerted her. “What wouldst thou of me,
Zenaide?” he asked.
Again, overcome by her nervousness, she rose and began to pace up and
down before him. “Nothing.—Nothing,” she answered; but her words did
not indicate a pause. For a moment or two she walked, but finally faced
him, frankly. “Is love—true love—so ignoble, then?”
Oman, taken aback, did not immediately answer. Then, many memories
overcoming him, he cried out painfully: “Unless it be lawful, yes.
Surely yes!”
“Lawful! Love hath no law save itself.”
Oman’s lip curled. “Doubtless thou knowest more of it than I. Wherein
am I to help thee? Hast thou left this love of thine? Return, then, to
the land where he dwells.”
Zenaide listened, and a far-away look came into her eyes. She was
standing now with her back against a stone pillar, and, as she began to
speak, Oman felt himself gradually fascinated by the perfection of her
beauty and by the abandon of her manner, which, in the beginning, had
been held in restraint, but grew more and more impassioned as, carried
out of herself by her own emotion, she forgot everything but her theme.
“The land of my love—lies here, Oman. I came out of the east,
seeking love, journeying through broad countries. To many I brought
happiness, but I found it never for myself. Then came I to Mandu. And
here, in a breath, I knew that it awaited me. My soul was lighted
as by a torch; and I am still consumed by its increasing flame.
I love. And him I love rejects me. I, the priestess of love, am
unloved! Am I so ugly?—so old?—so young?—so ignorant? Am I surpassed
by another? I, Zenaide, consumed with fire and tears, pour out all
my wealth on him, and he knows it not. Daily he looks on my face,
hears my voice, reads mine eyes, and still I am not known. Oh, my
beloved—adorable—transcendent—Bhavani—”
She stopped short. Her passion had carried her beyond herself. She had
more than betrayed, she had proclaimed, her secret. But now, suddenly
brought back to consequences, all her force died, and she stood
trembling, fearful, before Oman, whose face was stern and angry. There
was silence for a long, pulsating moment, while Zenaide realized that
the teacher of men had become her judge. Oman, indeed, felt his anger
growing within him, and presently gave it voice:
“Hast thou dared to defile the purest of men with thy love? Hast
thou known him, lived near him for more than two years, seen all the
strength of his white soul, and still dreamed he could so dishonor
himself and thee? Shame to thee! Thou hast, moreover, sullied him in
the eyes of his people; for many say what is false, that he yielded
long ago to thine eyes and thy red-dyed hair. He has housed thee like a
queen. He has paid thee greater honor than if, indeed, he loved thee.
Shame, then, woman, for thy thoughts! Shame to thee!—What—thou weepest!”
For Zenaide, sinking slowly to her knees, bent her head upon her hands,
and Oman saw two or three bright tears run through her fingers and fall
to the floor. Her frame was shaken and convulsed with ill-restrained
sobs. After gazing at her for a moment, Oman, unable to judge of the
sincerity of her pose, went on more quietly:
“Thou hast confessed to love the ruler of his people, a man standing in
the eyes of men for all that is upright—more than upright. And now thou
callest upon me, his servant, a lover of truth, to condone thy sin. How
couldst thou think thus of me?”
“No—no! Listen! Not to condone—” she lifted her head, and he perceived
that her face was stained and distorted with real grief. “Not to
condone. I sent for thee because, despairing—” she gave a little
convulsive sob—“despairing of bringing his love to me, I long to cure
myself of the malady. Thou art wise. I wish to learn wisdom of thee.
Thou art good. So I also would be. Bha—Bhavani has sought to teach me
wisdom, to teach me strength. But I—could never learn but love from
him. O stern—O wise one—cast me not away! Help me, and I will honor
thee all my days!”
Her pleading was eloquent because it was sincere. Her voice was not
smooth. The words were forced out like sobs; and in them Oman read
the struggle she had endured before she sent for him. Her abandon
showed this, indeed; for, had he not been her final hope, she would
never have laid her soul bare before him in her stress. And seeing all
these things, his anger was softened, and he was moved to some sort
of feeling, less pity than sympathy. Kneeling beside her as she still
crouched upon the floor, he soothed her a little, and raised her up,
and led her, unresisting, to the divan, where he caused her to sit
down. Then, himself taking her former place upon the cushions, he began
to talk. His voice was low and smooth, and flowed along monotonously.
At first he cared not so much what he said, as that his manner should
quiet her. In this he succeeded. And when he saw her, forgetful of
her tears, sit up and lean forward, listening to him, he took up a
text on which he had never spoken before—on which he had scarcely
permitted himself to meditate, yet concerning which all knowledge
seemed to be stored away in his heart and brain. It was the ceaseless,
rebellious yearning of woman for man, of man for woman: that insistent,
unreasoning desire that has caused chaos in the world. Of himself and
his own abnormal struggles, he did not speak. But it was from them that
he drew his words:—the words that Zenaide knew to be expressive of
universal truth. For some time Oman talked broadly on this theme; and
then, waiving generalities, he continued:
“And it is thus that you have suffered in your soul, desiring for a
companion the noblest of men. But, because you would match your heart
with such as him, so you must become his equal, worthy of him. Let
his own nobility illumine you. It is unlawful, in the light of the
higher law, that you two should love. Show yourself his peer, then, in
quenching this desire, and, dwelling near his brain, seek not to unlock
the chamber of his heart. Let it not be said that, through you, his
high nature has been weakened and defiled.
“Nay—speak not yet. I see it in your eyes—how cold my words are to you;
how hard. It is true that I feel within me no fire burning. I know
little of that restless pain. But, hearing many speak of it, I believe
in it; and yet, above, see plainly the great Dharma shining. Receive,
then, the truth. Be not defeated in your struggle. Go your way knowing
that the blessing of Brahma is upon you for your keeping of the law.”
“But, in the end, what reward shall there be for this, my sacrifice?
What in the wide world could repay me for the delight of one hour—of
one moment, in the strength of his arms?”
“The reward is great:—greater, indeed, than any that receive it not can
fathom. It comes in the earthly Nirvâna, the high, conscious strength,
the calm, the tranquillity, that permeates the soul as water permeates
and renews a parched and dying plant. With this peace comes the death
of yearning and desire. The pursuits of man and the objects of his
struggles—love, power, wealth, fame—these are little to those that
feel their futility. And I assert this not as the Dharma, nor as what
has been told me; but I speak of what I know. For, Zenaide, that same
reward is mine. Many years I labored for it, fighting such battles
as you could scarcely understand. But in the end it came;—the great
Relief; and, knowing that at last I should be safe to dwell among men,
I returned to them, and shall remain among them till my death. The
reward is always with me. It cannot leave me now.”
“But—” Zenaide sat studying him, his seamed face, his deep-set eyes,
his black hair, shaded here and there with a thread of white; and when
she spoke, there was a pathetic childishness in her tone: “But thou art
old. Thou hast seen life. Desire dies out of the hearts of the aged.”
Oman shook his head. “I am not an old man. I was not twenty years old
when I went up into the mountains. I dwelt there for many years; but
still I am not more than five and thirty. I am younger than Bhavani,”
he added, thoughtfully.
To this the woman made no reply. Oman had expended all his comfort; and
now he sat waiting for her to speak again. She remained quiet, however,
her chin resting on her clasped hands, her elbows on her knees, her
face thrust a little forward. Her brow was contracted, and she seemed
to be thinking, deeply. Her cheeks bore the marks of tears. Her hair
and dress were disarranged. But she was oblivious of her appearance.
Oman sat studying her, and did not realize how long the silence had
lasted when, without changing her attitude, she said slowly:
“It is a creed for men, only for men, that you preach, O sage. It is
cold. It is hard. It is relentless. What need have I of tranquillity
and calm? I am a woman of red blood. Preach you to me resistance of
the emotions? Think you that bloodlessness, quietude, loneliness seem
beautiful to me?—Ah, yes—it is true! It is true! He is like that, and
I wish to be like him. I will be like him, Oman Ramasarman! I will, I
will—dost hear? I will!”
“What is it that thou wilt, Zenaide?”
Oman and the woman sprang to their feet, as Bhavani walked quietly into
the room.
“My lord!” cried Zenaide, faintly; and Oman went hastily forward, with
an irrelevant remark which Bhavani answered, wondering. While this was
in progress, Zenaide’s hands were busy with her hair, with her face,
with her dress; and presently she approached, mistress of herself
again, so quiet, so self-contained, that Oman could only marvel at her
power.
Bhavani did not stay long, nor would he permit Oman to depart before
him, however much Zenaide wished it. He seated himself beside the
woman, and talked with her about one or two personal matters; while
Oman, standing apart, covertly watched the two. He tried hard to
discover in Zenaide some sign of the feeling she had so lately
displayed. But, search as he would, he could find nothing in her
bearing that remotely suggested her true state. If she was always thus
with Bhavani, there was surely little to fear. From her the hermit’s
eyes moved to the Rajah. He was talking as he would have talked to a
man whose friendship he valued. Seeing them both thus, Oman took heart.
Surely an unlawful emotion could not be very strong in either heart.
It was after sunset when Bhavani rose to go; and he and Oman took leave
together, Zenaide begging Oman, in an undertone, to come again to
her that she might talk with him further. Oman promised readily; and
then, arm in arm, he and the Rajah set out into the starry half-light.
As they left the water-palace behind them, there fell on both an
unexpected silence:—such a silence as, coming from the mind and will
of one, is not to be broken by his companion. It settled over Oman
oppressively; for where Bhavani was concerned, he was quick to feel the
slightest change in mood. Encompassed by uneasiness, they moved on in
the evening light, and Oman perceived that Bhavani’s steps lagged. It
was as if he loitered to get courage to speak. Oman had a sense that
some revelation was pending; but instinct told him that he might not
question, might not make the slightest advance toward confidence. They
proceeded till they were within a few yards of the palace, and Oman
began to think his feeling a mistake, when suddenly Bhavani halted,
and, turning to his companion till, even in the dim light, Oman could
see how drawn and pale was his face, he said, in a muffled voice:
“Zenaide sent for thee to-day?”
“Yes.”
“And wherefore? Wherefore? What did she want of thee?”
For the shadow of an instant Oman hesitated. Then he answered, quietly:
“She had heard that I taught a new creed. She desired to hear it.”
“Is that all?” The words shot from Bhavani’s lips.
“That is all,” was the tranquil rejoinder.
Bhavani found no reply to this, yet he did not move on. Oman stood
waiting, with fear in his heart. He heard Bhavani say, in a voice that
was monotonous with repression: “She had been weeping. I could see it.
She had wept.” Then, all at once, he flung both arms over his head,
and cried out, in a voice deep with long-endured anguish: “How long,
O Brahma! How long? My strength fails me at last. I can endure it no
more. I shall fall—I shall fall!”
“Wherefore?” murmured Oman, at his shoulder.
“Can you not see? Do you not perceive?” whispered Bhavani, hoarsely. “I
love her. I love her, Oman. I love Zenaide.”
Then Oman began to laugh. He laughed till Bhavani, seizing him by the
shoulder, shook him like a rat, crying to him the while to speak. And
Oman obeyed him, saying, in a tone of bitter mockery: “Thou lovest her,
Bhavani, thou, Rajah of Mandu! Thou lovest her whose heart has been
given in turn to half a hundred; who loves thee to-day for thy gold,
who will love me to-morrow for my creed: _Thou_, son of Rajahs,
stoop to _such_?” And again he laughed.
Bhavani straightened up, and his face grew hard and set. “Ah, thou
speakest well. It is folly indeed to talk to thee of love. But have no
fear. I am Bhavani, a prince, the son of princes. I have not stooped,
nor shall I.”
With that speech his expression was not pleasant to look upon. But
Oman felt a sudden relief. He had won a battle in behalf of the law.
Yet, a few moments later, as he shut himself into his room, he felt a
new confusion and a new bitterness in his heart; and he repeated over
and over to himself these words: “And these—and these—the greatest
and the best, know still the struggle, still faint before it, still
call on high for the Reason that never comes. Was it so wonderful that
I—we—failed?”
CHAPTER XV
THE RIVER TEMPLE
The events of that afternoon, which formed the unpremeditated climax of
two years of restraint on the part of both man and woman, threatened
consequences that did not actually come. For some time after Oman’s
bitter reproach, Bhavani did not go at all to the water-palace. And
Mandu wondered and rejoiced. But to Zenaide, these weeks were the most
terrible she had ever known. It was probably Oman who kept her from
suicide; for, little as Oman could understand her or her passion, she
seemed to cling to him, and to him only, in her stress. He felt himself
both cowardly and hypocritical when she moaned to him of Bhavani’s
sudden hatred of her; but he nevertheless held to his tenets as her one
possible safeguard. At times, indeed, when he could see clearly, he
felt that these two creatures had been given into his hands; that it
was for him to keep them both from a relationship which would, in the
end, shatter them morally and mentally. With Zenaide he dealt tenderly,
for she showed herself to him in lights of unselfishness unsuspected by
any one else. But he never concealed from her the fact that he would
himself exert all his power to keep her true feelings from becoming
known to the Rajah. And the woman after a time accepted, miserably, his
view, and acquiesced in all that he told her about the necessity of
constant struggle, constant watchfulness, constant self-restraint.
After some weeks it came about that Bhavani recovered his strength and
went again to the water-palace, where, by degrees, the old relations
were resumed. For this was possible, in that neither of the two
entertained any suspicion of the other’s feeling. In these new days
Oman was, by common desire, much with them. And nothing, probably,
could have made the lonely creature happier than this. With these two
people he found entire satisfaction. The two sides of his nature got
sustenance; and he experienced for the first time the delights of true
companionship:—a full and complete companionship, such as few normal
people have the happiness to find. From the first it was plain that
there was little danger of betrayal between the man and the woman. Oman
watched their self-possession, wondering. Zenaide was no less steady,
no less impenetrable, than the Rajah. Not a look, not a gesture, not
a tone, ever conveyed to Bhavani her feeling for him. And Oman began
to believe that she was really conquering her nature. The three spent
many hours in the discussion of problems political, judicial, or
philosophical; and, their minds being in harmony each with the others,
these periods became the fullest in their lives.
To Oman, especially, had come the deep joy of unbreakable tranquillity.
His life was flowing smoothly, in chosen ways. He had the assurance
that his living was not in vain; and he knew also that he had succeeded
in conquering himself. Bhavani, loving and honoring him, would have
loaded him with gorgeousness. But Oman’s sense of fitness did not
desert him. He had no desire to go unkempt; but he accepted only the
state that a lower official of the royal house was entitled to hold.
Gifts of precious metals or gems he refused. But, early in his coming
to Mandu, he took the Asra ruby from its concealing box, and caused it
to be set in a thin, golden chain which, henceforth, he wore about his
neck; till it became known to all the plateau as his badge. The story
of how it had come to him—from a mendicant who had died in his cave—he
told, readily enough, to Bhavani. But anything further, the mendicant’s
name, or the strange powers possessed by the stone, he kept to himself.
The matter of reawakened memory, indeed, had come, little by little,
to be a constant part of the secret understanding that was always with
him. He knew that it had been decreed that he should learn something of
the vast scheme of life and progress; but he knew also that this inner
knowledge must not be taught to men.
Months passed quietly away. Summer came, with furious rains; and then
the hot autumn, when the nights were cooled by winds from the hills.
The late monsoon followed, and the fields were green as with spring.
Mountain torrents plunged from the heights and over the plain to join
the turbulent Narmáda stream. And winter was there again:—the mild,
sunny winter of the upper Dekkhan, the winter of flowers, the winter
of Eden. Great riches brought these seasons to the man who had come, a
year before, out of the hills to Mandu. He was known now to every soul
in the plateau; and he viewed his adopted land with enchanted eyes.
He knew places and parts of Mandu that were not known to men born on
its soil. Often he walked alone through the still palace, living amid
scenes of the long past, seeing in silent rooms faces of those long
since consigned to crematory flames. There were days when memory was
on him overpoweringly: when Rai-Khizar-Pál and Ragunáth walked abroad
through the corridors and assembly halls; when the Ranee Ahalya,
attended by Neila, sat at her embroidery in the tiny room, dreaming
of him who was to come to her by night; when Fidá, the slave, watched
near the zenana door, waiting, with trembling limbs, for the hour when
he might seek his love. These times of vision laid hold of Oman like
dreams that are not to be shaken off. But he pursued his way quietly,
in the face of the double life decreed for him by his distorted Fates.
The winter passed. Spring stole upon the land, and grew, and proclaimed
herself again, and got joyous welcome from all the earth. And it was
only now, when he had been a year in Mandu, that Oman learned of a
strange custom of the new rule. Down upon the shore of the Narmáda,
five miles west of Mandu, at the spot where, thirty-three years
before, the bodies of the Ranee Ahalya and Fidá had been washed ashore
close locked in each other’s arms, there had been raised a little
stone temple, whither, once in two years, on the anniversary of the
death, the Rajah of Mandu, his officers, and the Brahmans repaired to
serve the high gods for the souls of the sinful twain. This custom,
inaugurated during the regency of Manava, had been continued through
his reign by Bhavani, in whom the act was the one sign of countenance
granted toward any one guilty of the degrading sin. The alternating
anniversaries of the quadruple death were given to mourning services
at the magnificent tomb of Rai-Khizar in the palace temple. And the
incongruity of the two acts was much whispered about, but never
mentioned before the Rajah.
It was the year of the river pageant, for which preparations were begun
a week or more before the fourth of April. On the morning of that day,
the whole palace was astir by dawn; and, in the early light, a large
company set out on foot to descend from the plateau; for horses could
only await them in the plain, below. Oman found that the descent was
easy enough, for, directly behind the palace, where the slope was less
steep than anywhere else, a long flight of steps had been cut in the
rock, and the plain could be reached thereby in less than half an hour.
Oman and Bhavani started first and were on level ground in advance of
the rest of the party. There, at the base of the plateau, they found
horses and donkeys assembled, all yellow-caparisoned, and wearing high
funeral plumes in their crests. Presently there was a general mounting:
priests, lords, and officials, according to their rank, ranged two and
two on their steeds; and after them, on foot, a number of villagers
and country-folk, for whom the day was a holiday. In the first hour of
sunrise the cavalcade was set in motion and began to wind across the
plain to the river bank:—a long, slow-moving line of pinkish yellow,
that saddest of Indian colors.
To Oman, the sensation of riding was novel enough, and far from
unpleasant. Everything—the sweet, early morning air, the silvery
mist on the plain, the rushing river-song, the rolling hills in the
distance, and the grave-eyed, silent man beside him, all worked
themselves into his mood, deepening the impression of the hour. By nine
o’clock the little temple was in sight. When it first appeared, a dim,
bluish blot in the flat distance, the heart of Oman rose within him.
His face grew very white. On his breast the Asra ruby burned, and the
light of it, shining blood-red in the sunlight, or the fact that he
had gazed too long at the temple, or perhaps some still more natural
cause, made him suddenly dizzy and faint. In the whirl of his feeling,
he looked toward Bhavani beside him. The Rajah sat stiffly in his
saddle, his yellow turban throwing into pale relief his stern, set face
and deeply glowing eyes. He gazed unwinkingly forward, and Oman’s look
followed his.
Directly in front of them it lay now,—a small, square building of
grayish white stone cut in heavy blocks. The top of the structure
was flat and square, but from the middle of it rose a conical,
pagoda-like dome, also of stone:—to the Indian eye a sufficiently
symmetrical finish to the whole. The entire building was ornamented
with innumerable bas-reliefs, flutings, and carvings, crude enough in
themselves, but, taken in the mass, giving an effect of considerable
richness. Neither wing, veranda, nor jut marred the straight lines
of the side walls; and for this, the temple was probably unique in
the jumbling architecture of its period. As it stood here, silent,
deserted, on the edge of the wild-rushing stream, surrounded by shadowy
plain and backed by high-reaching hills, it gave an impression of
loneliness that no momentary spectacle of trooping horses and men could
shake off.
It was some time before ten o’clock when the procession halted and
dismounted at its destination. There was a pause, while the priests
opened the long-locked doors and kindled a fire inside, before the
small, stone image of the god. Then, Bhavani leading the way, with Oman
close behind him, the throng passed into the stone-lined chamber. Oman
entered with closed eyes. There was an oppression on him that would not
be shaken off. He shook and shivered in the chill of the little place.
When he finally looked about him, the chant of prayers had begun, and
he was surrounded by silent, motionless men. There were no windows,
and little light entered through the doorway, which was occupied by
villagers who strove to hear something of the service. The audience,
therefore, could see only by means of the flickering firelight.
Everything—roof, walls, floor, and the image of the god, were of the
same grayish-white stone, polished, but not carved. In the centre of
the floor, however, close to where Oman stood, was the marble tomb that
had been built over the ashes of the two whom they came to mourn. The
whole of this sarcophagus was covered with inscriptions and carvings
gracefully arranged. And this was all that the temple held. A single
glance was enough to take it in. Oman saw it so; and then he stood
listening dully to the meaningless words of the chant, while the ruby
burned upon his breast, and his brain throbbed with the pain of memory.
When the prayers were finished, every one left the temple and went out
into the open, where a meal was to be served. But, while priests and
people ate, in separate groups, Oman and Bhavani, who were of one mind,
returned to the building, and silently reëntered it. Advancing to the
sarcophagus, they paused, one on either side of it, Oman resting both
hands on the chilly marble. The eyes of the two met, and each found
in the other’s look what lay in his own:—bitterness and sadness. When
they had stood there for a long time, each wrapped in his own thoughts,
Bhavani murmured, quietly, as if to himself:
“I loved them—both. Ahalya, thou beautiful one,—lying here,—what hath
been thy Fate in death?”
The last words were barely audible; for it required courage to
break the silence of that room. The stillness of it seemed almost
supernatural. It was scarcely broken by the faint fluttering of a
winged creature that skimmed in through the half-open doorway. Oman
looked up and perceived a slender, gray bird, of peculiar shape,
hovering under the roof above his head. It was his companion, he knew
at once. Bhavani seemed not to have noticed the intrusion; and Oman did
not mention it. But the scene was suddenly complete for him. He felt
comforted. And he realized also that here, some day, he should himself
yield up his imprisoned souls, and in this silent place enter upon his
well-earned rest. Looking into Bhavani’s eyes, he said, quietly:
“Lord Rajah, let thy father’s ashes be some day laid within this room.
Many years have passed since these two committed their sin against
him. To their troubled souls it would be forgiveness should he, whom
they so wronged in life, come to them in death, and lie beside them,
peacefully.”
So gently did Oman say this, and with such conviction, that Bhavani
could not be shocked by the idea. After a long, thoughtful silence, he
only observed: “Thinkest thou so, indeed?” And then he relapsed again
into thought. Shortly afterward, without further speech between them,
they passed out of the tomb, closing the door behind them.
A little later the company rode away from the lonely place, their
faces turned toward Mandu. It was a quieter journey than that of the
morning; for the service in the temple-tomb had not failed to make its
impression on the most careless. Oman and Bhavani were again side by
side, still silent and thoughtful, gazing into the cloudy east. When at
last they left the river and struck across the plain, Bhavani, leaning
toward his companion, said, in a muffled voice:
“Thou hast spoken of peace to the twain were my father laid beside them
there by the river. Why, rather, should not their ashes be carried up
into Mandu, and placed in the palace temple, where their Rajah lies?”
Oman hesitated for a moment, stroking his horse’s mane. Then he
answered, dreamily: “That is their place there, by the river. It is
a peaceful sleep. They would not rest well near the palace of their
treachery.”
Bhavani bowed his head, and seemed as if about to reply; but he closed
his lips again without having uttered any word.
Thus ended Oman’s first visit to the tomb: an incident that brought
much into his life. It proved the beginning of intangible things that
carried changes in their train. There was at first a new relaxation of
mind; for it seemed as if some final touch had been put upon his own
existence. Less than ten miles away was his own resting-place, waiting
his coming. He knew this intuitively; and it seemed to him that,
however long he should still live, there could be no further pilgrimage
for him. His life at Mandu was not for a mere Vassa season. He had
attained his Arahatship; and need not any longer dread the privation
months each year.
During the following summer Oman went twice, alone, to the tomb; each
time spending the night there and returning, next day, on foot. What he
did in those times, or why he went, no one knew. But he had been given
a key to the temple doors, and men might see, if they wished, that he
carried it always in his girdle. Zenaide once ventured to ask him of
the purpose of his journeys, and he smiled, and answered her:
“I go there to pray to the great Brahma for two erring souls.”
“The souls of the Ranee and the slave who were drowned together?”
Oman bent his head.
“And dost thou not think, O Oman, that for such sinful ones there must
be hundreds of reincarnations to expiate their crimes?”
“Was there happiness enough in their sin to repay a thousand years of
suffering?” he asked, bitterly. “Nay, woman, I tell thee that thirty
years of sorrow and struggle hath more than paid—more than paid! There
is a strict justice over all things. The Divine Soul alone knows the
real measure of happiness and misery meted out to each of us. He also
knows in how much the crime carries with it its punishment.”
“Thou art a strange man, Oman,” she answered, looking at him curiously.
“Sometimes I could think thee mad if thou wast not so—so assured.
Whence come these thoughts of thine? Art thou inspired?”
“Nay, Zenaide. Knowledge must come to all who, by bitterness and tears,
have drawn near the infinite. Suffering brings much beauty to the soul.
I begin to think that men shun it too much.” And then Oman smiled, and
went away, fearing lest he had spoken too plainly to one who, through
her nature, might understand.
Much to Oman’s surprise, and to the amazement and consternation of
the whole plateau, Bhavani, after six months of deliberation, acted
upon the impulsive suggestion made by Oman, in the river temple on the
anniversary of the death of Ahalya and Fidá. In the autumn of that
year the ashes of Rai-Khizar-Pál were removed from their tomb in the
palace, and borne down the river to a new grave. The act came very
near to causing a general uprising. Bhavani’s own son pleaded with his
father on his knees not to dishonor the great warrior, his grandfather,
and thus bring infamy upon himself and the whole line. It was in vain.
Oman’s secret idea had taken root in Bhavani’s heart; and a revolution
would not have turned him from his object. In the month of October,
just before the rains, Rai-Khizar’s ashes were laid beside those of his
dead wife, in a new marble tomb, the magnificence of which a little
consoled the people for the disrespect to their warrior king.
It was Oman who was charged with the matter of the reinterment; and,
when the priests had finished their service after the burial, he went
down to the river bank, and at the risk of his life began to talk
to the angry mob that waited there. It was a dramatic scene. In the
beginning his voice was completely drowned by the roars and cries that
rose from the usually passive and obedient people. Probably only the
presence of Bhavani saved the hermit, as he was called, from personal
violence. But Oman held doggedly to his place; and, after a time his
very appearance, as he stood upon a block of stone twenty yards from
the temple, silenced the noise, and brought the people, against their
will, to listen to him. As he began to speak, his voice was like the
melodious ripple of a summer stream. He talked of wrong-doing and the
forgiveness of sin; and the doctrine that he preached had never been
heard in the east at all. One long before, in the west, had spoken such
words; but they had not lived truly in the hearts of men. Before Oman
paused, however, he had brought all the throng literally to his feet,
because of the things he said and the way he said them. And, in that
hour, Oman won his place with the low castes of Mandu, among whom,
henceforth, he was privileged to much that their priests could not
obtain of them.
By this unpremeditated act, Oman made possible for himself something
that he had desired long and earnestly. It opened the way for him
to go down among the humbler people, and cause them to reveal their
souls to him, that he might give them his truths. In the next months
he studied, ardently, the nature of mankind, in the hope of finding
means of escape from temptation for those too weak to resist it, and
of giving proper strength to those who could still struggle against
themselves. But, even while he labored, a new discouragement came upon
him. He succeeded only too well in probing the natures of those who
sought his help. To him, whose severe and troubled life had been exempt
from the complicated wrong of living, the constant discoveries made to
him of selfishness, pettiness, deceit, of warped and perverted notions
of right and wrong, thrown before him in all the chaotic tangle of
actual existence, brought revelations that overpowered him with their
barefacedness. All alone he wrestled with problems that have neither
beginning nor end; where, from the first, all has been so wrong that
there is no hope of setting it right. He saw almost as the Almighty
must see:—the terrible falsity of each individual; and, the reason for
it, the reason for the fact of existence, being withheld from him, he
fainted under the burden of seemingly irreparable wrong. It was no joy
to him to reflect that, compared with most men, he had lived the life
of a saint. Oblivious of himself since his victory was won, he tried
to take up the battle for others too ill-equipped for resistance. And
thus, after all, Oman showed himself not very wise; for he had not
learned that, by the first law of creation, man works out his destiny
alone. But this new problem proved to be also his last turning-point.
He had ceased to live for himself. Henceforth all his desire was for
others. It is the last lesson:—one that men are not often trusted here
to learn.
CHAPTER XVI
“LA-ILAHA-IL-LAL-LAHA”
Ten years glided away. Oman was more than forty, and Bhavani about
fifty-five. To the worker among men the time had seemed longer than
that spent on the Silver Peak. There he had, after a little, won
faith in himself. Here he came gradually to perceive that he was
accomplishing nothing of that which he had set out to do. Little by
little he was made to realize that those who are wholly of the world
can get no help out of the great, abstract truths: the high standard
of religion. This at last he perceived. But he would stoop to no creed
petty enough to catch the belief of his people. It was, indeed, only
what is discovered by all men who seek to bring high truths home to
narrow minds:—that the great, polluted religions have, by slow process
of retrograde development, been constituted by the masses for the
masses, who must thenceforth only be left alone to peck over and over
the heap of chaff from which the last kernels of truth have been long
since snatched away.
Fortunately, during this period of thankless labor, Oman had not lost
touch with a wider world. Bhavani and Zenaide, the man and the woman,
were still his refuge. To them he carried some of his weariness, and
from them got constant renewal and refreshment. Their lives had become
tranquil,—singularly so, indeed. Only Bhavani, as he grew older,
sometimes chafed at the thought that he alone, of all Manduvian rulers,
had been peaceful, had brought no glories of conquest and plunder home
to his people. He fretted lest Mandu’s prestige had been dimmed by his
policy; though he could not deny that he had trebled the strength of
his kingdom in wealth and in population.
“Ah,” he would sometimes say, “at my death the country will be fit for
Viradha’s rule. He will find her ready to give him soldiers and gold
for his wars. He will be what my father was. With all thy teachings,
Oman, thou hast never eradicated in him the warrior spirit.”
And Oman would shake his head, his eyes growing sad; for he was not a
lover of war.
This matter of the long-continued peace in Mandu was not wholly owing
to the policy of its present Rajah; for, during all the early part of
his reign, there had been quiet in the turbulent north. Now, however,
sinister rumors began to spread and grow. It was, indeed, a time of
universal disquiet; for this was the middle of the constructive period
of Indian history: the time of the fusion of two great races. Conquest
had begun two hundred years before, under the great lord of Ghazni.
The second conqueror, Mohammed Ghori, had been dead but forty years.
And, since then, the first line of slave kings, founded by Aybek, had
been broken by another slave:—Balban, the mighty minister of studious
Mahmoud. Under him began the first concerted campaigns into Gujerat and
Malwa, which were eventually to result in the conquest of everything
north of the Dekkhan. In Delhi, now the capital of Moslem India, there
dwelt more than one powerful general of the Prophet’s faith. Among
these, Osman-ibn-Omar, the Asra, had won high reputation for the
courage and daring that were, indeed, characteristic of his race. In
his youth he had known Lahore, even mountain-built Ghazni; and now,
his father long ago honorably dead in battle, the son, himself more
than sixty years old, dwelt in Delhi, yearning for new wars. And it
was eventually he, still bearing in mind an old, disastrous campaign
of Dhár in the Vindhyas, who now, in the year 1249, swore to his lord
a mighty oath that in him Malwa should find its conqueror. He would
go down to the south, and learn whether a cousin of his, whilom head
of the Asra race, were still, by any chance, alive and in captivity
among the unconquered natives. But of this matter the folk of Mandu,
peacefully engaged in the garnering of rice and millet, knew nothing,
and as little cared.
Oman, perhaps, had some premonition of what was about to come. At any
rate, during this winter, his spirit was restless. He had recourse to
many long-abandoned methods of tranquillizing himself. He felt that he
was becoming world-troubled. The still waters of his nature had been
disturbed and set into motion by a too intimate knowledge of various
matters. And all his efforts after calm brought him but temporary
relief.
Part of his trouble lay in the sad knowledge of Bhavani’s state. The
beloved of Mandu was afflicted with a mortal disease, slow in its
fatal progress, but so sure that no man knew of a single prayer, a
single sacrifice, that could prove efficacious. Zenaide and Oman, much
depending on each other, did not scruple to speak of the inevitable:
the shadow of death that hovered daily over them. Zenaide grew strong,
now. It was that strength of despair that upholds us at the last. Even
Oman, knowing, as he did, her inmost heart, marvelled sometimes at the
calm that possessed her. She was no longer young; but, unlike most of
her race and class, middle age had not made her ugly. She had lived
too well for that. Beauty of spirit, gathered during her years of
painful youth, the time of her sacrifice, brought its reward, clothing
her with a dignity and a serene beauty that mere happiness cannot
give. Bhavani’s wife was dead: had died as she had lived, among her
embroideries and her trivialities, regretting to the last the zenana
life in which she had been brought up. Bhavani, always reverent toward
her in life, felt no acute sorrow at her decease, and, after her
burial, returned to his usual way of life, affecting nothing. There
were still those in Mandu who wondered if he would not take to wife
the woman to whom he had been far more devoted than ever he was to the
daughter of Dhár. But Bhavani never entertained a thought of marrying
her who had been the greatest courtesan in Malwa. Nor did Zenaide
herself regard marriage as a possibility. Youth had passed both from
her and from him who, all unknown to her, had passionately loved her.
The fire of youth, quenched in its height, had found another life,
had been transmuted into a deep and holy affection that demanded no
closer bond than that of friendship. If the thought of marriage ever
came to the woman, it was only with the wish that, in the suffering he
endured almost constantly, she might comfort him as only women can.
But Bhavani preferred to die as he had lived: austerely and alone. If
he was aware how closely his people watched him, he gave no sign. Oman
sometimes wondered if the Rajah dreamed of the storm that his marriage
with Zenaide would have raised among the people. Only Oman, from his
constant intercourse with the lower classes, knew how blindly and
how bitterly the woman of the water-palace was still hated. But Oman
himself, had the two chosen to unite themselves, would have uttered not
one word of remonstrance:—would, indeed, have given his life in their
defence. So had time changed his earlier, rigid views.
It was in this year 1249 that Viradha-Pál, the young prince, began to
take his place in the government of Mandu as a person of importance.
Indeed it was time that he came into his own. Bhavani had kept him too
long in the background. Mandu was beginning to whisper that he should
have been at war for them these five years past: that it behoved a
Kshatriya to follow his profession. And Viradha, allowed liberty of
action, proved himself worthy of his people by quickly claiming his
own. Bhavani let him go; for he knew that the spirit of the old warrior
kings was upon the youth; and he knew also, still better, that the
time approached when a warrior would be sorely needed in Mandu. For
Bhavani, in his peacefulness, was by no means blind to the outlook of
India; and it was no surprise when Viradha came to him with tales of
Mohammedan invasions in the north, and demands of an army with which to
march against the alien race. Bhavani acceded to his demands, making,
however, one stipulation. Viradha must marry. _Then_ he might
leave his wife and go forth to battle. Such was the rule in the Orient.
Thus it came about, after all, that there were marriage feasts that
year in Mandu. A princess was brought from Mandaleshwar, on the north
bank of the Narmáda, far to the east. And there was a great Brahman
sacrifice, and the usual three days of ceremonial. The deserted
zenana was opened once more, and a new woman installed there in her
loneliness. One week her husband tarried by her side. Then he took his
man’s privilege, and left her alone in her state, while he marched away
at the head of his little army—fifteen hundred men—into the echoing
north. The benedictions and the adoration of all Mandu followed him.
Old Bhavani had been a good ruler, the kindest, the most just of
men. But, after all, men were made for war, and it was better that
the princes of men should be generals than judges. Alas for Mandu!
Rejoicing in its newly raised standards, shouting itself hoarse with
its own battle-cries, deaf to presentiment, to rumor, to the prophecies
of the gods, what wonder that it heard nothing of that faintly-echoing
cry that was ringing out over all the plains and heights of India? The
cry that had risen out of the black Kaaba of far Mecca, and now rolled,
in one continuous shout, from western Granada to Benares, the holy
city, transcending speech by its sharp fanaticism, finding by force a
home in every land: “_La-ilaha-il-lal-laha!_” This was the cry
that Viradha had gone forth to oppose. It was the same cry to which
Viradha’s grandfather had answered with his death.
The young prince went away in the middle of the Ashtaka month
(December). His going made no change in Mandu, save that it gave the
people an added interest outside their monotonous lives. The pleasant
winter passed slowly away. Bhavani had begun to depend much on his
appointed teacher of men; and Oman left his unheeded labors among the
lowly in order to watch over his dearly loved lord. Bhavani was sad;
missed his son; suffered keenly, but did not complain. Oman himself
never suspected how much that royal soul endured, silently. But, as the
days passed, he became more and more aware of a changing aspect in many
things. There was in him a sense of foreboding, a feeling of finality,
indefinable, omnipresent. Zenaide also felt it, and her melancholy
became unconquerable. She knew what the outer senses could not tell
her; and even Oman’s quietly proffered sympathy was repelled. Bhavani
doubtless guessed all that passed in their minds; but he could not take
their burden from them. He knew himself to be too near the end. He
could only spare them anxiety by the silent endurance of pain.
The end came sooner than even he, perhaps, had expected. It was in
February, about the middle of the month; and early thrills of spring
hung in the air. On the eighteenth day, at noon, Oman, who was in his
own room after a long morning in the school, was roused by Bhavani’s
favorite slave and conducted swiftly through the palace to Bhavani’s
bedroom. Bhavani was on his couch; and Oman, who had not seen him
since the previous evening, at once knew everything. The room was in
confusion. Evidently many people—doctors, priests, slaves—had been
there recently. Why they were now gone, Oman could not surmise. Bhavani
lay breathing in long, heavy gasps, with intervals of startling length.
His face wore the gray hue of death. His eyes were closed; but he felt
Oman’s entrance, for he put out his hand, and Oman took it and fell
upon his knees beside the bed.
“Let me summon help for thee,” he said, in a low, clear voice that
suggested nothing of what he felt.
“No,” gasped the dying one. Then, after an effort, he added: “I hear
Brahma’s voice. Shall I not—answer it?”
Oman could not speak. He buried his head near the face of his friend.
It seemed to him, at that moment, that Fate had found a cruelty too
great for passive endurance. For Oman loved this man as he had never
hoped to love in life. It was like tearing his heart in two to watch
that inevitable, resistless advance of death. Yet, with the heroism
that was in him, he accepted Bhavani’s own decree: feeling, indeed,
that there was no human help for his King.
Moments passed:—an hour:—and still Oman knelt by the bed. Suddenly it
seemed as if the Rajah’s breath was coming a little more easily, a
little less terribly. Quickly he lifted his head, and looked. There was
a change. Bhavani looked older, grayer, more shrunken. But his eyes
were half unclosed, and he seemed to be in less pain. While Oman gazed,
unable to speak, scarcely to think, a shadowy smile crossed the Rajah’s
lips, and he began to murmur a few unintelligible words. Oman bent to
catch them, and Bhavani’s eyes rested on his face.
“Fidá,” he whispered, low, but distinctly: “we played together—with
Ahalya—”
“Yes. Yes!” answered Oman, hoarsely.
“Brave things. Let us play again. I always Arjuna. Thou, O Fidá,
Yudishthir, the King.—Ahalya, the beautiful Draupadi. I have won her
from all the rest. But now—we are marching away—from Hastinapur. We
are seeking heaven. It is a long journey. We reach the sea. Dost thou
remember all the places, Fidá? Agni stops us awhile; and then—we come
into the plain that leads to Himavan. I have read it many times.
See,—they are gone, all of them! Nakula and Bhima and Draupadi are dead
in the desert. But I go on alone into the hills—and—yes, this time he
is there!—Sakra—O God!—I come!—Behold, I come!”
Smiling, gasping out these words of one of his childhood’s games, that
was, in fact, an epic of the pilgrimage of life, Bhavani, holy among
men, slipped away out of existence, perhaps ascending in Sakra’s own
chariot, that had so often awaited him in his young imagination.
Till long after he knew that Bhavani was gone from him, Oman knelt
there, by the bed, gazing blindly on the still, waxen face. Presently
he became aware that there were others in the room. Slaves crept in
and out, and brought doctors and officials, and those who were to
care for the high dead. Then, dazed and bowed down with his weight of
grief, Oman rose and passed out, through the palace, between little
knots of whispering men who made way for him and looked after him,
longing but not daring to question. He left the palace behind and went
on to the duty that was his. The heart in him bled. There were no
thoughts of help or of comfort in his brain; yet he knew that none but
him could tell the woman of their common woe. So he turned toward the
water-palace, where he was always admitted without delay.
Zenaide was in the wide, central court of her dwelling, lying on a pile
of cushions placed beside the marble pool. In her hand she held a piece
of millet cake, which she had been crumbling for the fishes in the
water. At Oman’s entrance, however, she rose, and went to him, hastily.
As she looked into his face, Oman, without speaking, watched her
expression change from gayety to wonder, and so to fear, till he knew
that there was not much to put into words. Now she reached out both her
hands, and Oman took them into his own.
“Tell me,” she said, faintly.
“Dost thou not know?” he asked, his voice seeming to him to come from
another world.
“Bhavani,—” she began; but her voice broke.
“There is no longer a Bhavani,” he answered, wondering at himself for
the speech.
She took it quietly, letting his hands drop from hers, and turning
away so that, for some seconds, he could not see her face. Then she
moved nearer him again, and said, in tones not natural, but still well
controlled: “Come, let us go into a smaller room.”
Oman assented in silence; and she led the way down a short passage to
that apartment in which they had held their first interview, many years
before. And there she caused him to sit down upon the broad divan,
while she took her place at his knee. Again, in their woe, their hands
met. And then Zenaide, bowing her head, let tears come. Oman could not
weep. His grief was deeper: far more terrible, indeed, than he had
believed it could be. His own great creed brought him no comfort.
* * * * *
Bhavani was entombed in the temple room of the palace, in the place
whence his father had been lately removed. The ceremonial of cremation
was magnificent; but there was one grave lack in it. No willing women
accompanied him into the flames. There were no blood relatives, no
children, to mourn at his bier. The spectators, who could remember his
father’s entombment, compared with this the wailing concourse which had
assembled about that funeral pyre, on which lay the body that had been
carried all the way back to Mandu from the disastrous plain of Dhár.
Here was no terrible grief of dying concubines and dust-covered widows:
no deep-throated sobbing of warrior sons. Two aliens, man and woman,
stood together, hand in hand, beside the frightened little bride of
Viradha; and these were all, beside the people, that mourned Bhavani’s
death. Truly, the royal line of Mandu was fading away! The long
ceremony brought to every heart a feeling of emptiness, of forlornity,
that was not easy to overcome. The people felt it, and even the
Brahmans; and there were those who covertly wondered if young Viradha,
returning home, would find his own awaiting him.
Fortunately for himself, Oman had no time, in the next few weeks,
to grieve. Not knowing just how it came about, he found himself in
the position of regent, all Mandu having voluntarily demanded their
government of him. There being no other hand ready for the helm, he
accepted the place, constituting himself keeper of Viradha’s state,
guardian of his honor, treasurer of his heritage: holding himself ready
at any moment to deliver all these into the hands of the young King. He
clung closely to Bhavani’s methods, finding himself little at a loss
to fill a place the duties of which, from constant observation, he had
learned so well.
Thus a month passed away. Oman, occupied almost day and night, saw
little of Zenaide, whose burden of grief was hers to bear alone. Oman,
even in his sadness, had found consolation in an unexpected effect of
his labor of the past ten years. He perceived that what he had hoped
for against hope was true: the people loved him. Through his years of
work among them they had treated him ill. They had been deaf to his
teachings; they had mocked at his laws; they had reviled him for heresy
to their faith. He had come to believe that he had brought good to not
one soul. And now, suddenly, upon the accession of a little pomp, they
went to him, sought his counsel, obeyed and loved him more than they
had ever obeyed and loved even Bhavani. Oman took their devotion for
the best that it brought; and rejoiced that his way was made easy for
him. Now he longed only for the return of Viradha, which could not be
much further delayed. He had gone away in December. It was now the end
of March. Surely the thought of his young wife must draw the warrior
homeward soon. Nay, Oman had a presentiment that the course of events
would force him back.
Oman was right. Viradha did return, shortly. It was the last week
in March, and the spring was in its loveliest, early beauty. Was it
right that this renewal of youth, these ever-recurrent love-yearnings
of nature, should be broken by the harsh voices of war, an autumnal
woe of blood and death? Yet this came: so swiftly, so overwhelmingly,
that there was no time for consideration or planning. Only action was
necessary; and only action was taken.
The first premonition of disaster came upon the afternoon of the second
day of April, when two or three wounded and exhausted fugitives reached
the haven of Mandu, bringing the startling news that Viradha and his
little army were close at hand, in full retreat before a victorious
Mohammedan horde, who had pursued them clear across the mountains. It
was a thunderbolt; for none had ever dreamed that the plateau, defended
by the whole wide range of the Vindhyas, could be in danger from the
conquerors of Delhi. But the word of the fugitives had to be accepted.
Their plight was unquestionable. Within twenty-four hours Viradha and
his men would be in Mandu, where something, no man said what, must
happen.
Through the night, every soul on the plateau labored as never before.
Even the children were pressed into service; and Brahman and Sudra
worked side by side, placing barriers along the causeway, which, when
the Manduvians had reached the plateau, could be thrown across the
narrow bridge, and the invaders shut away. It was the only plan of
defence that occurred to Oman as feasible; and none of those that sat
in council with him could find a better. All was uncertain. They could
only busy themselves as best they could;—and wait.
The waiting was not long. Through the whole of the morning of the
third, fugitive soldiers continued to pour in from the mountains,
bringing word of the valiant, the desperate bravery of Viradha in his
retreat, and of the overwhelming force of the invaders. Oman sat in the
great audience hall, questioning every soldier that came in, ordering,
thinking, planning, till, about one o’clock in the afternoon, there
came to his ears the sounds of a great, confused clamor:—the distant
battle-din that proclaimed the arrival of the Rajah and his army.
Then, had any one been there to watch, he might have thought that the
Saint of Mandu had gone suddenly mad. A spirit of fury had, indeed,
rushed upon Oman. He ran out of the palace into the courtyard, where,
by his command, a horse was waiting for him. He sprang upon it. All the
man, all the one-time Asra bravery of Fidá, was seething in his blood,
beating in his brain. From a staring slave-boy he seized a shield and
spear, but waited for no armor. Clad in his accustomed white garments,
a white turban on his head, and, for his one ornament, the great ruby
hung about his neck, he started away, at full gallop, down the road
toward the causeway. As he advanced, the sounds grew nearer: the noise
more hideous. And above it all, from time to time, like a sentence
of doom and death, came the strange accents of that strangest of all
battle-cries: “_La-ilaha-il-lal-laha!_” which, twisted, means:
“There is no God but God.”
CHAPTER XVII
THE SIGN OF THE RUBY
The galloping horse, with its white rider, dashed round the curve
in the road that opened upon the great stone causeway; and Oman
perceived that he was none too soon. It was upon that narrow bridge
that the long, horrible retreat of the young Rajah of Mandu had
reached its climax. Here he made his last stand against the invincible
Prophet-horde. The scene on the causeway was indescribable. Oman had
one moment’s survey of it: one moment, during which all his strength,
all the fury of race and loyalty that were in him, rushed into his
two arms, into his brain, into his eyes. Then, without pause, he was
carried down into the writhing, struggling mass.
The plan of defence prepared over night for Viradha’s assistance had
come to naught. The two armies had fought their way, hand to hand, all
down the rocky defile that led to the plateau; and they reached the
causeway in an inseparable mass. It had taken the whole morning for the
Moslems to force the defenders from the entrance of the pass, two miles
above, to the bridge. The men of Mandu, knowing well the consequence
of defeat, had fought as never men fought before; and now, on the
threshold of their homes, they made the supreme effort. The retreat was
over. The fight on the causeway was the death struggle. When it ended,
there would be no more resistance to the followers of Mohammed.
Like others on that bridge, Oman too had gone mad. He did not think,
he did not feel. He was a machine. His horse, trained to war, had
plunged into the very thick of the battle. On every side men were
fighting together: man to man, two to one, three to one, but always
without concerted action, always as in a series of duels. Of those in
the mêlée, Oman was the only one who wore no armor; and how, during the
first ten minutes, he escaped with his life, it would be impossible to
say. After that, his shield was omnipresent, his sword all-pervading.
Man after man went down before him. Those of Mandu that saw him,
marvelled. Their Saint had become inspired by a demon. The Mohammedans
regarded him with suspicious fear. Was this an angel, a Jin, come from
heaven to defend a chosen country? It seemed, for a few minutes, as if
his appearance might turn the tide of battle. But victory was not for
Mandu. Where the war-cry of the Prophet now rose in India, it was not
to be stilled by any bravery, any heroism. Just now, no one looking at
that close-writhing mass of combatants could have told which way the
fight was going. But there was, for the Indians, a very _sense_ of
defeat, a gradually increasing fear, born of presentiment. Oman felt it
with the rest; but still he fought, with the fierceness of despair.
Not yet, in the closely packed company, had he caught a glimpse of the
young Rajah. Dealing out his blows and parries almost mechanically,
Oman found time to wonder in which of the heaps of dead and dying piled
against the high balustrades of the causeway, the son of Bhavani lay.
But presently the horror of that thought was removed. Just before him,
upreared on a bleeding horse, helmetless, blood-smeared, worn almost
beyond recognition with the work of the last week, was Viradha, closely
beset by a powerful Moslem, whose rich accoutrements and shining
scimitar proclaimed him of rank. In a kind of maze, Oman watched the
young man parry blow after blow, saw the terrible weapon finally
plunged down with undefensible stroke, and, in the same instant, waking
from his trance, flung himself forward across the young man’s body and
lifted his face to that of the Mohammedan. There was a strange shock.
The Moslem recoiled from the blow he had dealt, his eyes fixed in
fascination on something that shone on Oman’s uplifted breast:—the Asra
ruby, blazing in the sun.
Oman recovered himself swiftly, and drew back from the body beneath
him. His attempt had been vain. Viradha lay supine upon his horse,
limp and motionless, the bright life-blood gushing out of his very
heart. He was dead. Oman knew it before he looked. The hope of Mandu
was gone; and, in the same instant, the battle was ended. Like one in a
dream Oman heard the din gradually fade into silence, and saw the great
Moslem chief lean over, draw his weapon from the young body, and then
straighten up and look about him with a half smile. The Manduvians,
those that remained, had lowered their arms, and were piteously begging
for quarter. But Mohammed spares not the unfaithful. Oman, perceiving
what a hideous, silent carnage was beginning, felt a new rush of fury,
and hurled himself at the Mohammedan leader, the slayer of Viradha. At
once two other Arabs fell upon him, from the right and from the left,
and Oman surrendered, as the general gave two or three sharp orders,
and the soldiers, stopping short in their attack, seized Oman by the
arms, lifted him forcibly from the saddle, and dragged him down till
he stood on his feet. Then they led him back along the causeway to one
of the empty watch-towers. Into this they climbed with him, bound him
fast, hand and foot, with his own sash and two leathern straps from
their accoutrements, and then, with some words incomprehensible to him,
they descended to the bridge again, leaving him alone. For a moment his
thoughts swam through seas of blood. After that, the deadly reaction of
passion setting in, he mercifully fainted.
He was unconscious for a long time. When he came to himself again,
there was a singular stillness around him:—the stillness of many
dead, not to be broken by the faint, indistinguishable sounds of the
horde on the plateau. It was late in the afternoon; for the sunlight
was pouring through an opening in the west wall of the watch-tower.
Oman looked into the yellow light till he was half blinded. Then he
closed his eyes. He was in great pain; and half of him was numb with
lying for so long in one position. Unknown to himself, he had, in the
battle, received one or two wounds, not serious, unfelt, indeed, in the
excitement, but which now troubled him severely. This, and the ache of
his arms and ankles where the fetters held him, threw him into a kind
of stupor of pain. He could hear the flies buzzing over his blood; but
he could not think of anything. Why should he? Everything was gone;
and the mass of fact was too overwhelming to be realized. His brain,
recently overactive, was as weary as his body. He was aware only of the
lengthening afternoon, his own pain, and his rising thirst.
After a while the sun set, the swift twilight passed, and the young
moon shone in the west, above the dead, sunset colors. Oman was sleepy.
It seemed fitting that, with night, he should rest. He wondered a
little if he was to die in the watch-tower, forgotten, and raving
for water. To his dulled mind it made little difference, just now.
Wondering, stupidly, he fell asleep.
Oman had, however, been by no means forgotten. Shortly after moonset,
which was very early that night, he was waked by two men—soldiers—who,
penetrating his retreat, undid his bonds by the light of a torch, and
addressed certain sharp words to him in their unknown tongue. Oman,
obeying the instinct of common sense, rose to his feet, swayed and
reeled with numbness, and was promptly pummelled into sensibility by
one of the men who seemed to understand what he needed. So, presently,
the three of them, Oman with a soldier on either side, descended the
narrow stone steps of the tower and came out upon the causeway. Here
was a sight to try the nerves of the Mohammedan conqueror himself.
All was deathly still, yet already men were working by the light of
torches, the sickly, flickering glare of which cast streaks of light
and shadow over the horrid scene. The whole width of the bridge reeked
and steamed with blood; and here and there separate bodies blocked
the central path. Against the high balustrades, on either hand, were
great, inextricable heaps of slain. At the sight, Oman’s gorge rose;
but, at the same time, there shot into his mind the question: “Why am
I not lying here? What was it that preserved me from death?” He had
seen Osman’s look; but he could not account for it. He only knew that
quarter had been given him where nobody else was spared; and, even
before this scene of horror, he sighed; for he had long since been
ready to face the Unknown Beyond.
It was a long walk to the end of the plateau. Oman wondered a little
why the conquerors had made the palace, instead of the town, their
headquarters, never dreaming that, in six hours, Osman and his army
had swept Mandu from one end to the other, after the manner of a race
long accustomed to conquest. When the prisoner and his guides passed
the water-palace, Oman gazed sorrowfully upon its dark outline and its
empty door. Where was Zenaide, the Lady of Mandu? Alas! Who could say?
Finally, when the captive was on the verge of exhaustion, they reached
the palace courtyard, and here, at last, found a scene of life. In the
centre of the court, where so many holy sacrifices had burned to Agni
and the Hindoo Trinity, was an immense bonfire, at which torn and weary
soldiers were cooking food. Everywhere were men, talking, shouting,
laughing in their barbarous tongue. But nowhere could Oman find a
familiar face. Where were all the slaves that had been wont to pass and
repass through this court by night and day? Where were the officials?
Had they followed the fate of their defenders? At the thought, Oman
trembled like a woman. However, he and his guides crossed the square,
and entered the audience hall, where there was a scene indeed.
The place was lighted by a hundred torches and hanging-lamps that threw
a yellow, smoky glare over the confusion below. An impromptu feast had
been prepared for the general and his officers; and, the wine-cellars
found and rifled, these good Moslems for one night waived the tenets
of their creed and celebrated the day’s carnage after the Delhi[10]
fashion, by drinking themselves either maudlin or insane. As Oman, in
his blood-stained robes, appeared upon the threshold, Osman, the great
general, not so drunk as his men, was walking toward the daïs at the
head of the room, where stood the royal throne. Catching sight of the
figure in the doorway, however, the conqueror paused, with one foot on
the step and turned a little toward him. Oman got a distinct picture
of him there. The leonine head was bare, and the heavy, whitish hair
and beard framed a face of fierce and vigorous strength. Most of his
armor had been removed; and he was clad in a crimson robe, heavily
embroidered and studded with jewels. His undertunic was a vivid green;
and in his belt was stuck a dagger, the hilt of which flashed with
emeralds and blood-stones. This was Osman ibn-Omar el-Asra, head of
that perishable race; and he turned, in his hall of conquest, to meet
the deep-eyed gaze of him who wore the lost charm of the Asra.
[10] The law against drunkenness was never strictly kept by the
Mohammedans during the conquest of India. The Delhi kings were
notorious for debauchery.
Lifting his voice above the general clamor, the conqueror summoned Oman
to him. The captive obeyed, moving slowly forward till he could have
touched the hand of his captor, who still stood gazing at him. Again
their eyes met; and this time, before the penetrating glance of the
hermit, the eyes of the warrior fell. After an instant, however, they
were lifted again, and Osman, speaking in perfect Hindustanee, said:
“Thou art he whom they called, this afternoon, the white Demon?”
“I do not know what men called me.”
“Thou wouldst have saved the young Rajah from my scimitar?”
“Assuredly,” answered Oman, scowling; and the conqueror laughed.
In a moment, however, he was serious again, and, dropping all
preliminaries, demanded: “That stone—the ruby that you wear upon your
neck—what is it called? Where found you it?”
A sudden flash of understanding, of more than understanding, rushed
over Oman. Out of the long, long ago came remembrance of this same man
that now stood before him; and he asked, suddenly, the involuntary
question:
“Art thou Osman ibn-Omar el-Asra?”
“Yes. By the Prophet, how knewest thou I was ibn-Omar?”
Oman did not answer. He took from his throat the chain on which hung
the great ruby; and, with an indescribable gesture, he went forward and
slipped it over the head of the Mohammedan. “It is the Asra ruby,” said
he. “It has found its race again. My trust is finished.”
Then, without another word, he turned and walked out of the room; nor
did any one attempt to stop him. Osman, confounded, dazed, indeed, by
the assurance of Oman’s act, remained motionless, staring after him.
The two guards who had brought him from the tower, and had watched the
scene with speechless astonishment, seeing that their lord gave no
commands about his recapture, stepped aside to let him pass. And the
others in the room never noticed him at all.
Heeding nothing of what lay behind, entirely fearless of the
conquerors, Oman left the hall in which Rai-Khizar-Pál, and Bhavani,
and lately he himself, had been wont to sit in council, crossed the
broad courtyard where the slave Fidá had so often watched, and finally
reached the road, which was silent, and lighted only by the stars. The
palace of Mandu was behind him, but he had yet one other mission to
fulfil. He went on to the water-palace, which, a little while before,
he had beheld, still with the stillness of death. Was Zenaide there?
Or whither was she gone? He must know. For she had now only him in the
world to look to.
When he came to the door of the building he found, to his amazement and
consternation, that it stood open. No slave was on guard; but within,
near the marble pool, hung a burning lamp that cast a faint light round
about. Oman halted beneath it, and listened intently for some sound.
There was one:—the softest, intermittent sighing:—a low cry, like the
wailing of a new-born child. Unhesitatingly Oman followed the direction
from which it came—followed through room and passage, till he had
reached the inner apartments of Zenaide, and penetrated to the sanctum:
her sleeping chamber. Here he found her.
All that he at first perceived was a long, narrow room, the walls hung
with palest blue, on which were embroidered white flocks of doves.
There were many tiny lights round about, and against the walls knelt
half a dozen women, wailing and beating their breasts. Beside these
were one or two of the male slaves, standing about dejectedly, but
uttering no sound. This was Oman’s first glance. Then he perceived
something else, which instantly swallowed up every other thought. At
the far end of the room stood a bier, hung with blue embroideries; and
upon it, quiet, peaceful, still as a marble figure, lay the priestess
of Radha, in her last sleep. The great eyes were shut. The wonderful,
red-dyed hair was bound smoothly into a high crown above her brow,
and one or two white lotos flowers were fastened above her ears. Her
garments were all white, her feet encased in white shoes. There was but
one spot of color anywhere. Over her heart, beneath her left breast,
was a stain of moist crimson, that widened and spread a little, even as
Oman gazed. It told him all that he would have asked. He stood silent
over her, while the women and slaves crept close, looking up to him
with some sign of hope in their heavy eyes. But, for the first time,
perhaps, Oman had no hope to give. His thoughts, indeed, were not here.
He was thinking of the slow order in which every one that he had known
and loved in his life had passed into the other land. It was beginning
to come home to him that his own hour of liberation was near. His eyes
travelled slowly over Zenaide’s perfect form, from her face, which now,
in its repose, showed the marks of time and sorrow, down her white
arms, and to her white-clothed feet. Then, suddenly lifting his hands
over her, he said, softly: “Rest thee, rest thee, in peace!”
Then he turned to go. But the living ones crowded about him, demanding
what they were to do.
“The invaders cannot forbid the right of burial. On the morrow let
her be burned, and the ashes placed in an urn. By night let one of ye
convey this to the palace temple and lay it upon the tomb of the Lord
Bhavani. Thus they shall meet in blessed death.”
Then Oman would have gone, but that one of the women, Zenaide’s
favorite attendant, ran to him and laid her hand upon his arm, saying:
“And thou, my lord, whither art thou going?” Her voice sank to a
whisper, for she felt her presumption.
“Whither I go ye know not. Sufficient it is that ye see me for the last
time. I commend your mistress to your care. Farewell.”
Then Oman, in his stained garments, with the marks of fetters on his
wrists and ankles, left the room of mourning and passed through the
house till he came again to the central room. Here, the crises of the
day at last ended, his body was overcome with weariness; and he lay
down beside the marble pool, and slept.
CHAPTER XVIII
SUNSET
When Oman opened his eyes again, red dawn was just breaking upon a
silent world. Kneeling at the pool, he performed his ablutions, and
then walked to the open door. How fragrant the morning was! The air
was rich with the perfume of flowers. Even in the early freshness
there was a promise of heat; and drowsy bird twitterings complained of
it. But Oman, standing quiet in the door of the water-palace, thought
not of nature. He was looking out across still Mandu, the conquered
land; and the heart in him bled and ached. Yesterday he had fought
for his people, his country, his lord. To-day there remained only the
bitterness of irretrievable defeat. And Oman’s one thought now was
for the people:—the men and women of the fields, who were left to
bend beneath the conqueror’s yoke. These lowly ones, for whom he had
labored so long, he could help no more. If he went among them to-day,
and listened to their plaints, he should have no comfort for them,
could counsel nothing but that which it were best for them to learn for
themselves:—submission.
Oman, faint from long fasting, leaned his head against the door, and
looked out across the quiet fields. His thoughts were turned to strange
things. He remembered that it was the fourth day of April:—the day when
Mandu was accustomed to worship at the distant tombs of Rai-Khizar-Pál,
the Woman, and the Slave. There would be no prayers offered there
to-day. What matter? What mattered anything? To the strange one,
leaning upon the dawn, came a great peace. Perhaps he slept. Certainly
he dreamed; for there passed before him, in the faint light, a pageant
of those whom he had known. And they called to him, softly, and
welcomed him with greetings. First of all, from out of the long ago,
came Kota, his mother, who looked on him with tender eyes, as one who
had worshipped her first-born; and, with gentle motions, she beckoned
to him. Next was Hushka, the Bhikkhu, clad in worn, yellow robes,
with a pale nimbus round his head. There was peace in his shining
eyes, and Oman knew that he no longer dreaded the weary eight months’
pilgrimage. He had won his eternal Arahatship. Then followed Churi,
madness no longer written in his haggard face. He smiled upon Oman, and
called a greeting, in friendly voice. After him came Bhavani, looking
as in life, an expression of high dignity mingling with the infinite
affection in his face. Behind, moved young Viradha, with many wounds;
and Zenaide, newly dead, with lilies in her hands. Slowly, slowly they
passed from sight: phantasms, perhaps, of Oman’s brain. He thought them
gone, when, out of the gray mist, came two more, hand in hand, spirits
interlocked, faint, shadowy, as if they did not live even in their
ghostly land: a man and a woman. Seeing them, Oman shuddered violently,
and shut his eyes. When he looked again upon the world, there was
nothing there. He felt only a great warmth in his heart, a burning
eagerness to answer the calling of his dead. Thus he straightened
up, and started forth, looking neither to the right nor left, in the
direction of the great palace.
His way was lonely. He met no one till he had passed round the building
where the Asra chieftain lay asleep. Behind the palace sat a little
group of slaves, eating a meal of millet cakes and milk, which they
timidly offered to share with Oman. Oman sat with them, and broke their
bread, and drank of their simple beverage; then, rising, he offered
them a ring which he wore in memory of Bhavani:—a circlet of plain
gold; all that he had upon him of any value. Wondering, the simple
creatures accepted it, not in payment for what he had eaten, but
because high lords walk always abroad with gifts for the poor. And,
proffering thanks to Oman and to Vishnu indiscriminately, they watched
the hermit begin his descent of the plateau.
It was nearly noon when he stood at last upon the plain. He had been a
long time coming down; for he had been often obliged to pause and rest.
He began to realize that he was shattered by the struggle of yesterday.
Body and nerves played him false, and the result of his many years of
austere living suddenly threw itself against him and broke his force.
Nevertheless, he proceeded, walking feebly across the plain toward the
river bank, wondering a little how, when he had reached the river, he
was going to finish his journey. None seeing him would have believed
that he could walk five miles more. Yet that was what he had set out
to do. He wished to go to the river temple, to pray for the three that
were buried there.
His passage across the plain was strangely solitary. The rich fields,
in which stood crops already a foot high, the young spears calling for
water, were deserted. Here also was the trace of the invader. All the
people of the lowland, quickly getting news of Mandu’s disaster, had
driven together their herds of cattle and buffalo and retreated with
them into the jungle:—a heedless, sheeplike retreat, that lost them
their half-year’s crops, but could not make encounter with the soldiers
of the Prophet less inevitable.
An hour after noon, weary and faint, tottering, indeed, as he moved,
Oman reached the bank of the bright-flowing Narmáda. Here he found that
his providence had not deserted him. On the shore, close at hand, drawn
a little up from the swift water, lay one of the broad, flat-bottomed
boats used occasionally by peasants for ferrying the stream. The
guiding-poles lay in it—a fact that told much. Those that had used the
boat would not use it again, else they had taken the poles with them.
Oman stared at it for a few moments, uncertainly. Then he waded into
the water, and dragged it, with great effort, after him. When it was
afloat, he threw himself upon it, took one of the poles, pointed his
barge down-stream, and then, as the current took it with a rush, lay
down supine, folded his arms across his breast, and shut his eyes.
The afternoon of the first day of Mohammedan Mandu was growing late.
Yellow shadows lengthened across the fields. To the south, the flat,
alluvial plain stretched away, dotted now and then with a mud town,
or fringed with the jungle into which, in the India of that day, all
civilization sooner or later resolved itself. In the north, not very
far distant, rose the great rock of Mandu, crowned with her circle of
stone palaces; and back of that, a silent, threatening horde, stood the
dark Vindhyas, barriers of the Dekkhan.
Of these things Oman saw none. He knew that they were there, but his
eyes were at rest, and the troubles of life and of conquest had left
his heart. He was floating swiftly into the sunset. His boat, guided
as if by magic, swept on, down the rushing current, till the tiny,
dark blot of the temple-tomb grew, and took shape, and drew near upon
the right bank. After a time Oman stood up to watch, waiting for a
moment when he could beach the boat beside the building. But help was
not demanded of his hands. As they neared the destination, the river
curved; and suddenly, driven by some counter-current, the boat whirled
off and ran aground, exactly in front of the tomb. It was, perhaps,
the selfsame twist that had, more than forty years before, thrown the
bodies of the man and woman up out of their grim refuge. To him that
was waiting to enter the temple, it was a miracle. He felt that he had
chosen a true way; that his act in leaving Mandu had been approved by a
higher mind than his.
Now, in the golden afternoon, he stood alone before the tomb. A vast
stillness encompassed him as he moved forward and unlocked the heavy
doors. There, in the dim mustiness of the long-closed place, stood the
two sarcophagi; and, as always, when he came alone hither, he had a
feeling of intimacy with the dead. But this sense had never been so
strong as now. He knelt beside the ashes of Ahalya and Fidá, and prayed
to the great Brahm; and, as he prayed, there arose in his breast an
overmastering desire:—the desire to lay himself down in the shadows
of the little place and sleep. After a time he passed over to the
resting-place of the old Rajah, and dumbly craved his forgiveness for
the wrong done him by his wife and his slave. Then, finally, he went
outside again, and stood upon the bank of the stream.
Sunset had come. The Narmáda rushed by: a tempestuous flood of crimson
and gold. The world was alight with fiery glory. It was the sign of
the conqueror in the land. Only the being who stood alone in his
surrounding solitude, the long years of his expiation and atonement
behind him now, could turn his face fearlessly, without dread, toward
that coppery sky. As he gazed into it, the gray and violet shadows came
stealing out over the splendor. The day was dying. It was again the
prophecy of the India that should, in time, conquer its conquerors.
With a palpitating heart, Oman gazed about him, overcome by the
strangest emotion. It was as if his souls were straining at their
fetters. Yet still there was a sense of desolation, a lack of something
that was to come. Darkness was around him. Then suddenly, out of the
west, from the now hidden fires there, it appeared:—the slender,
gray-winged bird, the mysterious complement of his souls. As of old,
straight to his breast it flew, trembling and warm. Clasping it close,
Oman lifted his head and murmured softly:
“Lord, it is finished. Let me now go.”
Then he turned, and slowly, very slowly, walked into the temple. One
outside, looking in through the shadows, might have perceived that he
laid himself down upon the tomb of the two that had sinned of old;
and that the bird upon his breast was still. A little later, moved,
perhaps, by the evening wind, the doors swung gently to upon the body
that had now delivered up its long-imprisoned souls.
* * * * *
What befell on High I do not know. But the hermit of the Silver Peak,
the Saint of Mandu, was gone. Nor was he seen upon earth again.
THE END
NEW FICTION
THE CROSSING
By WINSTON CHURCHILL
_Author of “The Crisis,” “Richard Carvel,” etc._
With Illustrations in Colors by Sydney Adamson and Lilian Bayliss
Cloth 12mo $1.50
The theme of Mr. Churchill’s new novel is largely the peaceful conquest
of the great Louisiana Territory by American settlers during the
years from the purchase of Louisiana onward. The book’s timeliness is
obvious; but what is more to the point is that the story portrays the
immigration of Americans into the Louisiana Territory, their settlement
therein, and the gradual, sure way in which they brought the empire
sold to us by France under American rule, and implanted in it American
social and political ideas. Mr. Churchill also describes the life of
that age in the States bordering on the east bank of the Mississippi,
and the ideals and standards which actuated the people of those States,
and puts into the form of fiction the whole American spirit of the
early years of the nation. This is the second novel in point of time in
the series of novels dealing with American life which Mr. Churchill is
writing. “Richard Carvel,” which dealt with the Revolutionary War, was
the first, and “The Crisis,” which dealt with the Civil War, was the
fourth.
DAUGHTERS OF NIJO: A Romance of Japan
By ONOTO WATANNA
_Author of “A Japanese Nightingale,” “The Heart of Hyacinth,” etc._
With Illustrations and Decorations in Colors by Kiyokichi Sano
Cloth 12mo $1.50
Two delicate and dainty love stories woven into one narrative. The plot
turns on the marvellous resemblance between two step-sisters, the one
a royal princess, the other supposedly the daughter of middle-class
people, but really also a “Daughter of Nijo”—Nijo being a prince of
Japan. By an odd fatality each of the sisters loves the man to whom the
other has been betrothed by the relatives. The sisters meet one another
for the first time, and discover this. The happy inspiration occurs to
them to exchange clothes and places; but they are careful not to inform
their respective lovers until after a good many things have happened.
It is a pure romantic story, alive with genuine charm, and written in
excellent English with just a touch of naïve quaintness.
THE BEST NEW NOVEL
THE ADVENTURES OF ELIZABETH IN RÜGEN
_By the author of “Elizabeth and Her German Garden,” etc._
Cloth 12mo $1.50
“Elizabeth in Rügen is well worth the time it takes to read it. Its
optimism, its wholesome outlook, its bubbling merriment, its frank joy
of living—all are so genuine.”—_The Record-Herald_, Chicago.
A LITTLE TRAITOR TO THE SOUTH
A War-time Comedy with a Tragic Interlude
By CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
With Illustrations in Colors by A. D. Rahn, and Decorations by C. E.
Hooper
Cloth 12mo $1.50
“A charming story of war-time in Charleston, one in which is breathed
the atmosphere of the quaint old town, and from which is gleaned
an excellent conception of the spirit of her people.”—_Augusta
Herald._
THE SINGULAR MISS SMITH
By FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY
_Author of “Titus: A Comrade of the Cross,” etc._
With Illustrations by Will Grefe
Cloth 12mo $1.25
This new story by Mrs. Kingsley is full of human interest. A rich young
orphan endeavors to find out how working women live. So she goes out to
service and has various adventures, during which she meets a foundryman
who seems to be above his station. Finding that she is falling in love
with him, she returns to her own social sphere. Afterwards she meets
him on board ship, and he turns out to be a teacher of sociology in
Harvard; and they begin life together with the joint determination to
spend all of her money in doing good.
THE FAITH OF MEN, AND OTHER STORIES
By JACK LONDON
_Author of “The Call of the Wild,” “The Children of the Frost,”
etc._
The inspiration to write came to Mr. London first on the Klondike
trail. His stories of miners and adventures in contact with Alaskan
natives and Esquimaux won him instant fame and popularity; and they
rank among the more enduring recent American fiction. Critics have said
that Mr. London’s short stories are among the most virile and artistic
in the language.
THE MERRY ANNE
By SAMUEL MERWIN
_Joint author of “The Short Line War” and “Calumet ‘K’”_
With Illustrations and Decorations in Colors by Thomas Fogarty
A story of action pure and simple, virile and vigorous in its movement.
As a bit of story telling, the book has decided grip and force.
THE AMERICAN PRISONER
A Romance of the West Country
By EDEN PHILLPOTTS
_Author of “Children of the Mist,” “My Devon Year,” etc._
With Illustrations by Claude A. Shepperson
Cloth 12mo $1.50
“Intensely readable ... perfectly admirable in its elemental humor and
racy turns of speech.”—_The Spectator_, London.
THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY
By SARA ANDREW SHAFER
Cloth 12mo $1.50
“This is one of the pleasantest books of the year.... The story leaves
an impression of cleanness and coolness and sweet living on the
memory.”—_New York Evening Post._
THE STORY of KING SYLVAIN and QUEEN AIMÉE
By MARGARET SHERWOOD
With Illustrations and Decorations by Sarah S. Stillwell
Cloth 12mo $1.50
“All those who have a secret longing for the broad sky and the open
road, and at times rebel against stone walls and the ceremonies
and restrictions with which modern civilization has hedged itself
in, will find a rare charm in ‘The Story of King Sylvain and Queen
Aimée.’”—_New York Globe._
THE FAT OF THE LAND
The Story of an American Farm
BY JOHN WILLIAMS STREETER
Cloth 12mo $1.50 net
“There is a cheerful spirit throughout, and the book strengthens our
love of the soil and of ‘getting close to nature.’”—_The Outlook._
THE PRICE OF YOUTH
By MARGERY WILLIAMS
Cloth 12mo $1.50
“The story is markedly original ... and is admirably told, in a manner
that is really convincing.”—_The Louisville Post._
NEW FICTION
THE QUEEN’S QUAIR
By MAURICE HEWLETT
_Author of “Richard Yea-and-Nay,” “The Forest Lovers,” etc._
Cloth 12mo $1.50
The love story of Mary Queen of Scots has always fascinated. Probably
no other woman in the world has been so violently attacked or so
stanchly defended. Wonderful indeed her fascination and charm must
have been. Certainly no one can read the history of her times without
realizing that she exercised over men a sway that has hardly been
rivalled by any other woman since the world began. Three centuries
after her death she still sways men’s minds and hearts. It is the
love story of this fascinating woman which Mr. Hewlett has taken for
the foundation of his new novel; which opens while Mary, a widow of
nineteen, is still at the Court of Catherine de’ Medici, and continues
through all the stormy era of her life in Scotland. The story is
vital with interest and alive with action; and plot, intrigue, and
counterplot mingle and cross and move toward the end. Through it all
walks Mary, magnetic, passionately alive, and very human woman.
THE COURT OF SACHARISSA
By HUGH T. SHERINGHAM and NEVILL MEAKIN
Cloth 12mo $1.50
This is a piece of gentle, delicate fooling; as the sub-title puts it,
“a midsummer idyl compiled out of the traditions of the Irresponsible
Club.” Purely fanciful, and light as air, the tale is instinct with the
grace and charm which make Henry Harland’s recent books so captivating.
Besides, it contains real humor.
THE WOMAN ERRANT
_By the Author of “The Garden of a Commuter’s Wife” and “People of
the Whirlpool”_
Cloth 12mo $1.50
The same unfailing charm pervades “The Woman Errant” which readers of
“The Garden of a Commuter’s Wife” and “People of the Whirlpool” will
so well remember. Less a garden book than its predecessors, and more a
novel, this new story reveals a growth in power that will delight the
admirers of the author’s preceding work, while it will also attract
many new friends. One of its phases touches on a curious social
phenomenon of the present day, which has become strongly marked, yet
which is absolutely untouched hitherto in fiction—the challenge of the
woman domestic by the woman errant.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Flame-Gatherers" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.