To so moral a speech the lapidary replied, ‘Maharaja![36] thou
hast said truly; whoever possesses virtue, possesses everything;
virtue indeed accompanies us always, and is of advantage in both
worlds. Hear, O great king! each gem is perfect in colour, quality
and beauty. If I were to say that the value of each was ten million
millions of suvarnas (gold pieces), even then thou couldst not
understand its real worth. In fact, each ruby would buy one of the
seven regions into which the earth is divided.’
[36] Maha (great) raja (king): common address even to those who
are not royal.
The king on hearing this was delighted, although his suspicions
were not satisfied; and, having bestowed a robe of honour upon
the lapidary, dismissed him. Thereon, taking the young merchant’s
hand, he led him into the palace, seated him upon his own carpet in
presence of the court, and began to say, ‘My entire kingdom is not
worth one of these rubies: tell me how it is that thou who buyest and
sellest hast given me such and so many pearls?’
Mal Deo replied: ‘O great king, the speaking of matters like the
following in public is not right; these things—prayers, spells,
drugs, good qualities, household affairs, the eating of forbidden
food, and the evil we may have heard of our neighbour—should not
be discussed in full assembly. Privately I will disclose to thee my
wishes. This is the way of the world; when an affair comes to six
ears, it does not remain secret; if a matter is confided to four ears
it may escape further hearing; and if to two ears even Bramha the
Creator does not know it; how then can any rumour of it come to man?’
Having heard this speech, Raja Vikram took Mal Deo aside, and began
to ask him, saying, ‘O generous man! you have given me so many
rubies, and even for a single day you have not eaten food with me; I
am exceedingly ashamed, tell me what you desire.’
‘Raja,’ said the young merchant, ‘I am not Mal Deo, but
Shanta-Shil,[37] a devotee. I am about to perform spells,
incantations and magical rites on the banks of the river Godavari,
in a large smashana, a cemetery where bodies are burned. By this
means the Eight Powers of Nature will all become mine. This thing I
ask of you as alms, that you and the young prince Dharma Dhwaj will
pass one night with me, doing my bidding. By you remaining near me my
incantations will be successful.’
[37] The name means, ‘Quietistic Disposition.’
The valiant Vikram nearly started from his seat at the word cemetery,
but, like a ruler of men, he restrained his face from expressing his
feelings, and he presently replied, ‘Good, we will come, tell us on
what day!’
‘You are to come to me,’ said the devotee, ‘armed, but without
followers, on the Monday evening the 14th of the dark half of the
month Bhadra.’[38] The Raja said: ‘Do you go your ways, we will
certainly come.’ In this manner, having received a promise from the
king, and having taken leave, the devotee returned to his house:
thence he repaired to the temple, and having made preparations, and
taken all the necessary things, he went back into the cemetery and
sat down to his ceremonies.
The valiant Vikram, on the other hand, retired into an inner
apartment, to consult his own judgment about an adventure with which,
for fear of ridicule, he was unwilling to acquaint even the most
trustworthy of his ministers.
[38] August. In the solar-lunar year of the Hindu the months are
divided into fortnights—light and dark.
In due time came the evening moon’s day, the 14th of the dark half of
the month Bhadra. As the short twilight fell gloomily on earth, the
warrior king, accompanied by his son, with turband-ends tied under
their chins, and with trusty blades tucked under their arms ready for
foes, human, bestial, or devilish, slipped out unseen through the
palace wicket, and took the road leading to the cemetery on the river
bank.
Dark and drear was the night. Urged by the furious blast of the
lingering winter-rains, masses of bistre-coloured cloud, like the
forms of unwieldy beasts, rolled heavily over the firmament plain.
Whenever the crescent of the young moon, rising from an horizon sable
as the sad Tamala’s hue,[39] glanced upon the wayfarers, it was no
brighter than the fine tip of an elephant’s tusk protruding from the
muddy wave. A heavy storm was impending; big drops fell in showers
from the forest trees as they groaned under the blast, and beneath
the gloomy avenue the clayey ground gleamed ghastly white. As the
Raja and his son advanced, a faint ray of light, like the line of
pure gold streaking the dark surface of the touchstone, caught their
eyes, and directed their footsteps towards the cemetery.
[39] A flower, whose name frequently occurs in Sanskrit poetry.
When Vikram came upon the open space on the river bank where corpses
were burned, he hesitated for a moment to tread its impure ground.
But seeing his son undismayed, he advanced boldly, trampling upon
remnants of bones, and only covering his mouth with his turband-end.
Presently, at the further extremity of the smashana or burning
ground, appeared a group. By the lurid flames that flared and
flickered round the half-extinguished funeral pyres, with remnants
of their dreadful loads, Raja Vikram and Dharma Dhwaj could note
the several features of the ill-omened spot. There was an outer
circle of hideous bestial forms; tigers were roaring, and elephants
were trumpeting; wolves, whose foul hairy coats blazed with sparks
of bluish phosphoric light, were devouring the remnants of human
bodies; foxes, jackals, and hyenas were disputing over their prey;
whilst bears were chewing the livers of children. The space within
was peopled by a multitude of fiends. There were the subtle bodies
of men that had escaped their grosser frames prowling about the
charnel ground, where their corpses had been reduced to ashes, or
hovering in the air, waiting till the new bodies which they were to
animate were made ready for their reception. The spirits of those
that had been foully slain wandered about with gashed limbs; and
skeletons, whose mouldy bones were held together by bits of blackened
sinew, followed them as the murderer does his victim. Malignant
witches with shrivelled skins, horrid eyes and distorted forms,
crawled and crouched over the earth; whilst spectres and goblins
now stood motionless, and tall as lofty palm trees; then, as if in
fits, leaped, danced, and tumbled before their evocator. The air was
filled with shrill and strident cries, with the fitful moaning of the
storm-wind, with the hooting of the owl, with the jackal’s long wild
cry, and with the hoarse gurgling of the swollen river, from whose
banks the earth-slip thundered in its fall.
In the midst of all, close to the fire which lit up his evil
countenance, sat Shanta-Shil, the jogi, with the banner that denoted
his calling and his magic staff planted in the ground behind him.
He was clad in the ochre-coloured loin-wrap of his class; from his
head streamed long tangled locks of hair like horsehair; his black
body was striped with lines of chalk, and a girdle of thigh bones
encircled his waist. His face was smeared with ashes from a funeral
pyre, and his eyes, fixed as those of a statue, gleamed from this
mask with an infernal light of hate. His cheeks were shaven, and he
had not forgotten to draw the horizontal sectarian mark. But this
was of blood; and Vikram, as he drew near, saw that he was playing
upon a human skull with two shank bones, making music for the horrid
revelry.
[Illustration: He was playing upon a human skull with two shank bones.]
Now Raja Vikram, as has been shown by his encounter with Indra’s
watchman, was a bold prince, and he was cautious as he was brave.
The sight of a human being in the midst of these terrors raised his
mettle; he determined to prove himself a hero, and feeling that the
critical moment was now come, he hoped to rid himself and his house
for ever of the family curse that hovered over them.
For a moment he thought of the giant’s words, ‘And remember that it
is lawful and right to strike off his head that would slay thee.’ A
stroke with his good sword might at once and effectually put an end
to the danger. But then he remembered that he had passed his royal
word to do the devotee’s bidding that night. Besides, he felt assured
that the hour for action had not yet sounded.
These reflections having passed through his mind with the rapid
course of a star that has lost its honours,[40] Vikram courteously
saluted Shanta-Shil. The jogi briefly replied, ‘Come sit down, both
of ye.’ The father and son took their places, by no means surprised
or frightened by the devil dances before and around them. Presently
the valiant Raja reminded the devotee that he was come to perform his
promise, and lastly asked, ‘What commands are there for us?’
[40] The stars being men’s souls raised to the sky for a time
proportioned to their virtuous deeds on earth.
The jogi replied, ‘O king, since you have come, just perform one
piece of business. About two kos[41] hence, in a southerly direction,
there is another place where dead bodies are burned; and in that
place is a mimosa tree, on which a body is hanging. Bring it to me
immediately.’
[41] A measure of length, each two miles.
Raja Vikram took his son’s hand, unwilling to leave him in such
company; and, catching up a firebrand, went rapidly away in the
proper direction. He was now certain that Shanta-Shil was the
anchorite who, enraged by his father, had resolved his destruction;
and his uppermost thought was a firm resolve ‘to breakfast upon his
enemy, ere his enemy could dine upon him.’ He muttered this old
saying as he went, whilst the tom-tom-ing of the anchorite upon the
skull resounded in his ears, and the devil-crowd, which had held its
peace during his meeting with Shanta-Shil, broke out again in an
infernal din of whoops and screams, yells and laughter.
The darkness of the night was frightful, the gloom deepened till
it was hardly possible to walk. The clouds opened their fountains,
raining so that you would say they could never rain again. Lightning
blazed forth with more than the light of day, and the roar of the
thunder caused the earth to shake. Baleful gleams tipped the black
cones of the trees and fitfully scampered like fireflies over the
waste. Unclean goblins dogged the travellers and threw themselves
upon the ground in their path and obstructed them in a thousand
different ways. Huge snakes, whose mouths distilled blood and black
venom, kept clinging around their legs in the roughest part of the
road, till they were persuaded to loose their hold either by the
sword or by reciting a spell. In fact there were so many horrors and
such a tumult and noise that even a brave man would have faltered,
yet the king kept on his way.
At length having passed over, somehow or other, a very difficult
road, the Raja arrived at the smashana, or burning place pointed
out by the jogi. Suddenly he sighted the tree where from root to
top every branch and leaf was in a blaze of crimson flame. And when
he, still dauntless, advanced towards it, a clamour continued to be
raised, and voices kept crying, ‘Kill them! kill them! seize them!
seize them! take care that they do not get away! let them scorch
themselves to cinders! let them suffer the pains of Patala.’[42]
[42] The warm region below.
Far from being terrified by this state of things the valiant Raja
increased in boldness, seeing a prospect of an end to his adventure.
Approaching the tree he felt that the fire did not burn him, and
so he sat there for a while to observe the body, which hung, head
downwards, from a branch a little above him.
Its eyes, which were wide open, were of a greenish-brown, and never
twinkled; its hair also was brown,[43] and brown was its face—three
several shades which, notwithstanding, approached one another in an
unpleasant way, as in an over-dried cocoa-nut. Its body was thin and
ribbed like a skeleton or a bamboo framework, and as it held on to
a bough, like a flying fox,[44] by the toe-tips, its drawn muscles
stood out as if they were ropes of coir. Blood it appeared to have
none, or there would have been a decided determination of that
curious juice to the head; and as the Raja handled its skin, it felt
icy cold and clammy as might a snake. The only sign of life was the
whisking of a ragged little tail much resembling a goat’s.
[43] Hindus admire only glossy black hair; the ‘bonny brown
hair’ loved by our ballads is assigned by them to low-caste men,
witches, and fiends.
[44] A large kind of bat; a popular and silly Anglo-Indian name.
It almost justified the irate Scotchman in calling ‘prodigious
lecars’ those who told him in India that foxes flew and trees
were tapped for toddy.
Judging from these signs the brave king at once determined the
creature to be a Baital—a Vampire. For a short time he was puzzled
to reconcile the appearance with the words of the giant, who informed
him that the anchorite had hung the oilman’s son to a tree. But soon
he explained to himself the difficulty, remembering the exceeding
cunning of jogis and other reverend men, and determining that his
enemy, the better to deceive him, had doubtless altered the shape and
form of the young oilman’s body.
With this idea, Vikram was pleased, saying, ‘My trouble has been
productive of fruit.’ Remained the task of carrying the Vampire to
Shanta-Shil the devotee. Having taken his sword, the Raja fearlessly
climbed the tree, and ordering his son to stand away from below,
clutched the Vampire’s hair with one hand, and with the other struck
such a blow of the sword, that the bough was cut and the thing fell
heavily upon the ground. Immediately on falling it gnashed its teeth
and began to utter a loud wailing cry like the screams of an infant
in pain. Vikram having heard the sound of its lamentations, was
pleased, and began to say to himself, ‘This devil must be alive.’
Then nimbly sliding down the trunk, he made a captive of the body,
and asked ‘Who art thou?’
[Illustration: He once more seized the Baital’s hair.]
Scarcely, however, had the words passed the royal lips, when the
Vampire slipped through the fingers like a worm, and uttering a loud
shout of laughter, rose in the air with its legs uppermost, and as
before suspended itself by its toes to another bough. And there it
swung to and fro, moved by the violence of its cachinnation.
‘Decidedly this is the young oilman!’ exclaimed the Raja, after he
had stood for a minute or two with mouth open, gazing upwards and
wondering what he should do next. Presently he directed Dharma Dhwaj
not to lose an instant in laying hands upon the thing when it next
might touch the ground, and then he again swarmed up the tree. Having
reached his former position, he once more seized the Baital’s hair,
and with all the force of his arms—for he was beginning to feel
really angry—he tore it from its hold and dashed it to the ground,
saying, ‘O wretch, tell me who thou art?’
Then, as before, the Raja slid deftly down the trunk, and hurried
to the aid of his son, who, in obedience to orders, had fixed his
grasp upon the Vampire’s neck. Then too, as before, the Vampire,
laughing aloud, slipped through their fingers and returned to its
dangling-place.
To fail twice was too much for Raja Vikram’s temper, which was
right kingly and somewhat hot. This time he bade his son strike the
Baital’s head with his sword. Then, more like a wounded bear of
Himalaya than a prince who had established an era, he hurried up the
tree, and directed a furious blow with his sabre at the Vampire’s
lean and calfless legs. The violence of the stroke made its toes
loose their hold of the bough, and when it touched the ground,
Dharma Dhwaj’s blade fell heavily upon its matted brown hair. But the
blows appeared to have lighted on iron-wood—to judge at least from
the behaviour of the Baital, who no sooner heard the question, ‘O
wretch, who art thou?’ than it returned in loud glee and merriment to
its old position.
Five mortal times did Raja Vikram repeat this profitless labour. But
so far from losing heart, he quite entered into the spirit of the
adventure. Indeed he would have continued climbing up that tree and
taking that corpse under his arm—he found his sword useless—and
bringing it down, and asking it who it was, and seeing it slip
through his fingers, six times sixty times, or till the end of the
fourth and present age,[45] had such extreme resolution been required.
[45] The Hindus, like the European classics and other ancient
peoples, reckon four ages:—The Satya Yug, or Golden Age,
numbered 1,728,000 years; the second, or Treta Yug, comprised
1,296,000; the Dwapar Yug had 864,000; and the present, the Kali
Yug, has shrunk to 832,000 years.
However, it was not necessary. On the seventh time of falling, the
Baital, instead of eluding its capturer’s grasp, allowed itself to
be seized, merely remarking that ‘even the gods cannot resist a
thoroughly obstinate man.’[46] And seeing that the stranger, for the
better protection of his prize, had stripped off his waistcloth and
was making it into a bag, the Vampire thought proper to seek the most
favourable conditions for himself, and asked his conqueror who he
was, and what he was about to do?
[46] Especially alluding to prayer. On this point, Southey justly
remarks (Preface to _Curse of Kehama_): ‘In the religion of the
Hindoos there is one remarkable peculiarity. Prayers, penances,
and sacrifices are supposed to possess an inherent and actual
value, in one degree depending upon the disposition or motive
of the person who performs them. They are drafts upon heaven
for which the gods cannot refuse payment. The worst men, bent
upon the worst designs, have in this manner obtained power which
has made them formidable to the supreme deities themselves.’
Moreover, the Hindoo gods hear the prayers of those who desire
the evil of others. Hence when a rich man becomes poor, his
friends say, ‘See how sharp are men’s teeth!’ and, ‘He is ruined
because others could not bear to see his happiness!’
‘Vile wretch,’ replied the breathless hero, ‘know me to be Vikram
the Great, Raja of Ujjayani, and I bear thee to a man who is amusing
himself by drumming to devils on a skull.’
‘Remember the old saying, mighty Vikram!’ said the Baital, with a
sneer, ‘that many a tongue has cut many a throat. I have yielded
to thy resolution and I am about to accompany thee, bound to thy
back like a beggar’s wallet. But hearken to my words, ere we set
out upon the way. I am of a loquacious disposition, and it is well
nigh an hour’s walk between this tree and the place where thy friend
sits, favouring his friends with the peculiar music which they love.
Therefore, I shall try to distract my thoughts, which otherwise might
not be of the most pleasing nature, by means of sprightly tales and
profitable reflections. Sages and men of sense spend their days in
the delights of light and heavy literature, whereas dolts and fools
waste time in sleep and idleness. And I purpose to ask thee a number
of questions, concerning which we will, if it seems fit to thee, make
this covenant:
‘Whenever thou answerest me, either compelled by Fate or entrapped
by my cunning into so doing, or thereby gratifying thy vanity and
conceit, I leave thee and return to my favourite place and position
in the siras-tree, but when thou shalt remain silent, confused, and
at a loss to reply, either through humility or thereby confessing
thine ignorance, and impotence, and want of comprehension, then
will I allow thee, of mine own free will, to place me before thine
employer. Perhaps I should not say so; it may sound like bribing
thee, but—take my counsel, and mortify thy pride, and assumption,
and arrogance, and haughtiness, as soon as possible. So shalt thou
derive from me a benefit which none but myself can bestow.’
Raja Vikram hearing these rough words, so strange to his royal
ear, winced; then he rejoiced that his heir-apparent was not near;
then he looked round at his son Dharma Dhwaj, to see if he was
impertinent enough to be amused by the Baital. But the first glance
showed him the young prince busily employed in pinching and screwing
the monster’s legs, so as to make it fit better into the cloth.
Vikram then seized the ends of the waistcloth, twisted them into a
convenient form for handling, stooped, raised the bundle with a jerk,
tossed it over his shoulder, and bidding his son not to lag behind,
set off at a round pace towards the western end of the cemetery.
The shower had ceased, and, as they gained ground, the weather
greatly improved.
The Vampire asked a few indifferent questions about the wind and
the rain and the mud. When he received no answer, he began to feel
uncomfortable, and he broke out with these words: ‘O King Vikram,
listen to the true story which I am about to tell thee.’
THE VAMPIRE’S FIRST STORY.
IN WHICH A MAN DECEIVES A WOMAN.
In Benares once reigned a mighty prince, by name Pratapamukut, to
whose eighth son Vajramukut happened the strangest adventure.
One morning, the young man, accompanied by the son of his father’s
pradhan or prime minister, rode out hunting, and went far into
the jungle. At last the twain unexpectedly came upon a beautiful
‘tank’[47] of a prodigious size. It was surrounded by short thick
walls of fine baked brick; and flights and ramps of cut-stone steps,
half the length of each face, and adorned with turrets, pendants,
and finials, led down to the water. The substantial plaster work and
the masonry had fallen into disrepair, and from the crevices sprang
huge trees, under whose thick shade the breeze blew freshly, and on
whose balmy branches the birds sang sweetly; the grey squirrels[48]
chirruped joyously as they coursed one another up the gnarled
trunks, and from the pendent llianas the long-tailed monkeys were
swinging sportively. The bountiful hand of Sravana[49] had spread
the earthen rampart with a carpet of the softest grass and many-hued
wild flowers, in which were buzzing swarms of bees and myriads of
bright-winged insects; and flocks of water-fowl, wild geese, Brahmini
ducks, bitterns, herons, and cranes, male and female, were feeding on
the narrow strip of brilliant green that belted the long deep pool,
amongst the broad-leaved lotuses with the lovely blossoms, splashing
through the pellucid waves, and basking happily in the genial sun.
[47] A pond, natural or artificial; in the latter case often
covering an extent of ten to twelve acres.
[48] The Hindustani ‘gilahri,’ or little grey squirrel, whose
twittering cry is often mistaken for a bird’s.
[49] The autumn or rather the rainy season personified—a
hackneyed Hindu prosopopœia.
The prince and his friend wondered when they saw the beautiful tank
in the midst of a wild forest, and made many vain conjectures about
it. They dismounted, tethered their horses, and threw their weapons
upon the ground; then, having washed their hands and faces, they
entered a shrine dedicated to Mahadeva, and there began to worship
the presiding deity.
Whilst they were making their offerings, a bevy of maidens,
accompanied by a crowd of female slaves, descended the opposite
flight of steps. They stood there for a time, talking and laughing
and looking about them to see if any alligators infested the waters.
When convinced that the tank was safe, they disrobed themselves in
order to bathe. It was truly a splendid spectacle——
‘Concerning which the less said the better,’ interrupted Raja Vikram
in an offended tone.[50]
[50] Light conversation upon the subject of women is a personal
offence to serious-minded Hindus.
——but it did not last long. The Raja’s daughter—for the principal
maiden was a princess—soon left her companions, who were scooping
up water with their palms and dashing it over one another’s heads,
and proceeded to perform the rites of purification, meditation, and
worship. Then she began strolling with a friend under the shade of a
small mango grove.