OF THE THIEF WHO LAUGHED AND WEPT.
Your majesty (quoth the demon, with unusual politeness), there
is a country called Malaya, on the western coast of the land of
Bharat—you see that I am particular in specifying the place—and in
it was a city known as Chandrodaya, whose king was named Randhir.
This Raja, like most others of his semi-deified order, had been in
youth what is called a Sarva-rasi;[95] that is, he ate and drank and
listened to music, and looked at dancers and made love much more than
he studied, reflected, prayed, or conversed with the wise. After the
age of thirty he began to reform, and he brought such zeal to the
good cause, that in an incredibly short space of time he came to be
accounted and quoted as the paragon of correct Rajas. This was very
praiseworthy. Many of Bramha’s vicegerents on earth, be it observed,
have loved food and drink, and music and dancing, and the worship of
Kama, to the end of their days.
[95] Literally, ‘one of all tastes’—a wild or gay man, we should
say.
Amongst his officers was Gunshankar, a magistrate of police, who,
curious to say, was as honest as he was just. He administered equity
with as much care before as after dinner; he took no bribes even
in the matter of advancing his family; he was rather merciful than
otherwise to the poor, and he never punished the rich ostentatiously,
in order to display his and his law’s disrespect for persons. Besides
which, when sitting on the carpet of justice, he did not, as some
Kotwals do, use rough or angry language to those who cannot reply;
nor did he take offence when none was intended.
All the people of the city Chandrodaya, in the province of Malaya, on
the western coast of Bharatland, loved and esteemed this excellent
magistrate; which did not, however, prevent thefts being committed so
frequently, and so regularly, that no one felt his property secure.
At last the merchants who had suffered most from these depredations
went in a body before Gunshankar, and said to him:
‘O flower of the law! robbers have exercised great tyranny upon us,
so great indeed that we can no longer stay in this city.’
Then the magistrate replied, ‘What has happened, has happened. But in
future you shall be free from annoyance. I will make due preparation
for these thieves.’
Thus saying Gunshankar called together his various delegates, and
directed them to increase the number of their people. He pointed
out to them how they should keep watch by night; besides which he
ordered them to open registers of all arrivals and departures, to
make themselves acquainted by means of spies with the movements of
every suspected person in the city, and to raise a body of paggis
(trackers), who could follow the footprints of thieves even when they
wore thieving shoes,[96] till they came up with and arrested them.
And lastly, he gave the patrols full power, whenever they might catch
a robber in the act, to slay him without asking questions.
[96] These shoes are generally made of rags and bits of leather;
they have often toes behind the foot, with other similar
contrivances, yet they scarcely ever deceive an experienced man.
People in numbers began to mount guard throughout the city every
night, but, notwithstanding this, robberies continued to be
committed. After a time all the merchants having again met together
went before the magistrate, and said, ‘O incarnation of justice! you
have changed your officers, you have hired watchmen, and you have
established patrols: nevertheless the thieves have not diminished,
and plundering is ever taking place.’
Thereupon Gunshankar carried them to the palace, and made them
lay their petition at the feet of king Randhir. That Raja, having
consoled them, sent them home, saying, ‘Be ye of good cheer. I will
to-night adopt a new plan, which, with the blessing of the Bhagwan,
shall free ye from further anxiety.’
Observe, O Vikram, that Randhir was one of those concerning whom the
poet sang—
The unwise run from one end to the other.
Not content with becoming highly respectable, correct, and
even unimpeachable in point of character, he reformed even his
reformation, and he did much more than he was required to do.
When Canopus began to sparkle gaily in the southern skies, the king
arose and prepared for a night’s work. He disguised his face by
smearing it with a certain paint, by twirling his moustachios up to
his eyes, by parting his beard upon his chin, and conducting the two
ends towards his ears, and by tightly tying a hair from a horse’s
tail over his nose, so as quite to change its shape. He then wrapped
himself in a coarse outer garment, girt his loins, buckled on his
sword, drew his shield upon his arm, and without saying a word to
those within the palace, he went out into the streets alone, and on
foot.
It was dark, and Raja Randhir walked through the silent city for
nearly an hour without meeting anyone. As, however, he passed through
a back street in the merchants’ quarter, he saw what appeared to be
a homeless dog, lying at the foot of a house-wall. He approached it,
and up leaped a human figure, whilst a loud voice cried, ‘Who art
thou?’
Randhir replied, ‘I am a thief; who art thou?’
[Illustration: As, however, he passed through a back street....]
‘And I also am a thief,’ rejoined the other, much pleased at hearing
this; ‘come, then, and let us make together. But what art thou, a
high-toper or a lully-prigger?’[97]
[97] The high-toper is a swell thief, the other is a low dog.
‘A little more ceremony betwen coves in the lorst,’[98] whispered
the king, speaking as a flash man, ‘were not out of place. But, look
sharp, mind old Oliver,[99] or the lamb-skin man[100] will have the
pull of us, and as sure as eggs is eggs we shall be scragged as soon
as lagged.’[101]
[98] Engaged in shoplifting.
[99] The moon.
[100] The judge.
[101] To be lagged is to be taken; scragging is hanging.
‘Well, keep your red rag[102] quiet,’ grumbled the other, ‘and let us
be working.’
[102] The tongue.
Then the pair, king and thief, began work in right earnest. The gang
seemed to swarm in the street. They were drinking spirits, slaying
victims, rubbing their bodies with oil, daubing their eyes with
lamp-black, and repeating incantations to enable them to see in the
darkness; others were practising the lessons of the god with the
golden spear,[103] and carrying out the four modes of breaching a
house: 1. Picking out burnt bricks. 2. Cutting through unbaked ones
when old, when softened by recent damp, by exposure to the sun, or
by saline exudations. 3. Throwing water on a mud wall; and 4. Boring
through one of wood. The sons of Skanda were making breaches in the
shape of lotus blossoms, the sun, the new moon, the lake, and the
water jar, and they seemed to be anointed with magic unguents, so
that no eye could behold, no weapon harm them.
[103] This is the god Kartikeya, a mixture of Mars and Mercury,
who revealed to a certain Yugacharya the scriptures known as
‘Chauriya-Vidya’—Anglice, ‘Thieves’ Manual.’ The classical
robbers of the Hindu drama always perform according to its
precepts. There is another work respected by thieves, and called
the ‘Chora-Pancha-shika,’ because consisting of fifty lines.
At length having filled his bag with costly plunder, the thief said
to the king, ‘Now, my rummy cove, we’ll be off to the flash ken,
where the lads and the morts are waiting to wet their whistles.’
Randhir, who as a king was perfectly familiar with ‘thieves’ Latin,’
took heart, and resolved to hunt out the secrets of the den. On the
way, his companion, perfectly satisfied with the importance which the
new cove had attached to a rat-hole,[104] and convinced that he was a
true robber, taught him the whistle, the word, and the sign peculiar
to the gang, and promised him that he should smack the lit[105] that
night before ‘turning in.’
[104] Supposed to be a good omen.
[105] Share the booty.
So saying the thief rapped twice at the city gate, which was at once
opened to him, and preceding his accomplice led the way to a rock
about two kos (four miles) distant from the walls. Before entering
the dark forest at the foot of the eminence, the robber stood still
for a moment and whistled twice through his fingers with a shrill
scream that rang through the silent glades. After a few minutes
the signal was answered by the hooting of an owl, which the robber
acknowledged by shrieking like a jackal. Thereupon half a dozen armed
men arose from their crouching places in the grass, and one advanced
towards the new comers to receive the sign. It was given, and they
both passed on, whilst the guard sank, as it were, into the bowels
of the earth. All these things Randhir carefully remarked: besides
which he neglected not to take note of all the distinguishable
objects that lay on the road, and, when he entered the wood, he
scratched with his dagger all the tree trunks within reach.
[Illustration: After a few minutes the signal was answered.]
After a sharp walk the pair reached a high perpendicular sheet of
rock, rising abruptly from a clear space in the jungle, and profusely
printed over with vermilion hands. The thief, having walked up to it,
and made his obeisance, stooped to the ground, and removed a bunch of
grass. The two then raised by their united efforts a heavy trap-door,
through which poured a stream of light, whilst a confused hubbub of
voices was heard below.
‘This is the ken,’ said the robber, preparing to descend a thin
ladder of bamboo, ‘follow me!’ And he disappeared with his bag of
valuables.
The king did as he was bid, and the pair entered together a large
hall, or rather a cave, which presented a singular spectacle. It
was lighted up by links fixed to the sombre walls, which threw a
smoky glare over the place, and the contrast after the deep darkness
reminded Randhir of his mother’s descriptions of Patal-puri, the
infernal city. Carpets of every kind, from the choicest tapestry to
the coarsest rug, were spread upon the ground, and were strewed with
bags, wallets, weapons, heaps of booty, drinking cups, and all the
materials of debauchery.
[Illustration: The two then raised, by their united efforts, a heavy
trap-door.]
Passing through this cave the thief led Randhir into another, which
was full of thieves, preparing for the pleasures of the night.
Some were changing garments, ragged and dirtied by creeping through
gaps in the houses; others were washing the blood from their hands
and feet; these combed out their long dishevelled, dusty hair; those
anointed their skins with perfumed cocoa-nut oil. There were all
manner of murderers present, a villanous collection of Kartikeya’s,
and Bhawani’s[106] crew. There were stabbers with their poniards hung
to lanyards lashed round their naked waists, Dhaturiya-poisoners[107]
distinguished by the little bag slung under the left arm, and
Phansigars[108] wearing their fatal kerchiefs round their necks. And
Randhir had reason to thank the good deed in the last life that had
sent him there in such strict disguise, for amongst the robbers he
found, as might be expected, a number of his own people, spies and
watchmen, guards and patrols.
[106] Bhawani is one of the many forms of the destroying goddess,
the wife of Shiva.
[107] Wretches who kill with the narcotic seed of the stramonium.
[108] Better known as ‘Thugs,’ which in India means simply
‘rascals.’
The thief, whose importance of manner now shewed him to be the chief
of the gang, was greeted with applause as he entered the robing
room, and he bade all make salaam to the new companion. A number of
questions concerning the success of the night’s work was quickly
put and answered: then the company, having got ready for the revel,
flocked into the first cave. There they sat down each in his own
place, and began to eat and drink and make merry.
After some hours the flaring torches began to burn out, and
drowsiness to overpower the strongest heads. Most of the robbers
rolled themselves up in the rugs, and covering their heads, went to
sleep. A few still sat with their backs to the wall, nodding drowsily
or leaning on one side, and too stupefied with opium and hemp to make
any exertion.
At that moment a servant woman, whom the king saw for the first time,
came into the cave, and looking at him exclaimed, ‘O Raja! how came
you with these wicked men? Do you run away as fast as you can, or
they will surely kill you when they awake.’
‘I do not know the way; in which direction am I to go?’ asked Randhir.
The woman then showed him the road. He threaded the confused mass of
snorers, treading with the foot of a tiger-cat, found the ladder,
raised the trap-door by exerting all his strength, and breathed once
more the open air of heaven. And before plunging into the depths
of the wood, he again marked the place where the entrance lay, and
carefully replaced the bunch of grass.
Hardly had Raja Randhir returned to the palace, and removed the
traces of his night’s occupation, when he received a second
deputation of the merchants, complaining bitterly and with the
longest faces about their fresh misfortunes.
‘O pearl of equity!’ said the men of money, ‘but yesterday you
consoled us with the promise of some contrivance by the blessing of
which our houses and coffers would be safe from theft; whereas our
goods have never yet suffered so severely as during the last twelve
hours.’
[Illustration: Treading with the foot of a tiger-cat.]
Again Randhir dismissed them, swearing that this time he would either
die or destroy the wretches who had been guilty of such violence.
Then having mentally prepared his measures, the Raja warned a company
of archers to hold themselves in readiness for secret service, and
as each one of his own people returned from the robbers’ cave, he
had him privily arrested and put to death—because the deceased, it
is said, do not, like Baitals, tell tales. About nightfall, when he
thought that the thieves, having finished their work of plunder,
would meet together as usual for wassail and debauchery, he armed
himself, marched out his men, and led them to the rock in the jungle.
But the robbers, aroused by the disappearance of the new companion,
had made enquiries and had gained intelligence of the impending
danger. They feared to flee during the day time, lest being tracked
they should be discovered and destroyed in detail. When night came
they hesitated to disperse, from the certainty that they would be
captured in the morning. Then their captain, who throughout had
been of one opinion, proposed to them that they should resist,
and promised them success if they would hear his words. The gang
respected him, for he was known to be brave: they all listened to his
advice, and they promised to be obedient.
As young night began to cast transparent shade upon the jungle
ground, the chief of the thieves mustered his men, inspected their
bows and arrows, gave them encouraging words, and led them forth from
the cave. Having placed them in ambush he climbed the rock to espy
the movements of the enemy, whilst others applied their noses and
ears to the level ground. Presently the moon shone full upon Randhir
and his band of archers, who were advancing quickly and carelessly,
for they expected to catch the robbers in their cave. The captain
allowed them to march nearly through the line of ambush. Then he gave
the signal, and at that moment the thieves, rising suddenly from
the bush, fell upon the royal troops and drove them back in confusion.
[Illustration: The king was cunning at fence, and so was the thief.]
The king also fled, when the chief of the robbers shouted out, ‘Hola!
thou a Rajput and running away from combat?’ Randhir hearing this
halted, and the two, confronting each other, bared their blades and
began to do battle with prodigious fury.
The king was cunning of fence, and so was the thief. They opened the
duel, as skilful swordsmen should, by bending almost double, skipping
in a circle, each keeping his eye well fixed upon the other, with
frowning brows and contemptuous lips; at the same time executing
divers gambados and measured leaps, springing forward like frogs and
backward like monkeys, and beating time with their sabres upon their
shields, which rattled like drums.
Then Randhir suddenly facing his antagonist, cut at his legs with a
loud cry, but the thief sprang in the air, and the blade whistled
harmlessly under him. Next moment the robber chief’s sword, thrice
whirled round his head, descended like lightning in a slanting
direction towards the king’s left shoulder: the latter, however,
received it upon his target and escaped all hurt, though he
staggered with the violence of the blow.
And thus they continued attacking each other, parrying and replying,
till their breath failed them and their hands and wrists were numbed
and cramped with fatigue. They were so well matched in courage,
strength, and address, that neither obtained the least advantage,
till the robber’s right foot catching a stone slid from under him,
and thus he fell to the ground at the mercy of his enemy. The thieves
fled, and the Raja, throwing himself on his prize, tied his hands
behind him, and brought him back to the city at the point of his good
sword.
The next morning Randhir visited his prisoner, whom he caused to be
bathed, and washed, and covered with fine clothes. He then had him
mounted on a camel and sent him on a circuit of the city, accompanied
by a crier proclaiming aloud:
‘Who hears! who hears! who hears! the king commands! This is the
thief who has robbed and plundered the city of Chandrodaya. Let all
men therefore assemble themselves together this evening in the open
space outside the gate leading towards the sea. And let them behold
the penalty of evil deeds, and learn to be wise.’
Randhir had condemned the thief to be crucified,[109] nailed and
tied with his hands and feet stretched out at full length, in an
erect posture until death; everything he wished to eat was ordered to
him in order to prolong life and misery. And when death should draw
near, melted gold was to be poured down his throat till it should
burst from his neck and other parts of his body.
[109] Crucifixion, until late years, was common amongst the
Buddhists of the Burmese empire. According to an eye-witness, Mr.
F. Carey, the punishment was inflicted in two ways. Sometimes
criminals were crucified by their hands and feet being nailed to
a scaffold; others were merely tied up, and fed. In these cases
the legs and feet of the patient begin to swell and mortify at
the expiration of three or four days; men are said to have lived
in this state for a fortnight, and at last they expired from
fatigue and mortification. The sufferings from cramp also must be
very severe. In India generally impalement was more common than
crucifixion.
In the evening the thief was led out for execution, and by chance the
procession passed close to the house of a wealthy landowner. He had a
favourite daughter named Shobhani, who was in the flower of her youth
and very lovely; every day she improved, and every moment added to
her grace and beauty. The girl had been carefully kept out of sight
of mankind, never being allowed outside the high walls of the garden,
because her nurse, a wise woman, much trusted in the neighbourhood,
had at the hour of death given a solemn warning to her parents. The
prediction was that the maiden should be the admiration of the city,
and should die a Sati-widow[110] before becoming a wife. From that
hour Shobhani was kept as a pearl in its casket by her father, who
had vowed never to survive her, and had even fixed upon the place and
style of his suicide.
[110] Our Suttee. There is an admirable Hindu proverb, which
says, ‘No one knows the ways of woman; she kills her husband and
becomes a Sati.’
But the shaft of Fate[111] strikes down the vulture sailing above
the clouds, and follows the worm into the bowels of the earth, and
pierces the fish at the bottom of the ocean—how then can mortal man
expect to escape it? As the robber chief, mounted upon the camel,
was passing to the cross under the old householder’s windows, a fire
breaking out in the women’s apartments, drove the inmates into the
rooms looking upon the street.
[111] Fate and Destiny are rather Moslem than Hindu fancies.
The hum of many voices arose from the solid pavement of heads: ‘This
is the thief who has been robbing the whole city; let him tremble
now, for Randhir will surely crucify him!’
In beauty and bravery of bearing, as in strength and courage, no
man in Chandrodaya surpassed the robber, who, being magnificently
dressed, looked, despite his disgraceful cavalcade, like the son of
a king. He sat with an unmoved countenance, hardly hearing in his
pride the scoffs of the mob; calm and steady when the whole city
was frenzied with anxiety because of him. But as he heard the word
‘tremble’ his lips quivered, his eyes flashed fire, and deep lines
gathered between his eyebrows.
Shobhani started with a scream from the casement behind which she
had hid herself, gazing with an intense womanly curiosity into the
thoroughfare. The robber’s face was upon a level with, and not half a
dozen feet from, her pale cheeks. She marked his handsome features,
and his look of wrath made her quiver as if it had been a flash of
lightning. Then she broke away from the fascination of his youth and
beauty, and ran breathless to her father, saying:
‘Go this moment and get that thief released!’
The old housekeeper replied: ‘That thief has been pilfering and
plundering the whole city, and by his means the king’s archers were
defeated; why, then, at my request, should our most gracious Raja
Randhir release him?’
Shobhani, almost beside herself, exclaimed: ‘If by giving up your
whole property you can induce the Raja to release him, then instantly
so do; if he does not come to me, I must give up my life!’
The maiden then covered her head with her veil, and sat down in the
deepest despair, whilst her father, hearing her words, burst into a
cry of grief, and hastened to present himself before the Raja. He
cried out:
‘O great king, be pleased to receive four lakhs of rupees, and to
release this thief.’
But the king replied: ‘He has been robbing the whole city, and by
reason of him my guards have been destroyed. I cannot by any means
release him.’
Then the old householder finding, as he had expected, the Raja
inexorable, and not to be moved, either by tears or bribes, or by the
cruel fate of the girl, returned home with fire in his heart, and
addressed her:
‘Daughter, I have said and done all that is possible; but it avails
me nought with the king. Now, then, we die.’
In the mean time, the guards having led the thief all round the city,
took him outside the gates, and made him stand near the cross. Then
the messengers of death arrived from the palace, and the executioners
began to nail his limbs. He bore the agony with the fortitude of the
brave; but when he heard what had been done by the old householder’s
daughter, he raised his voice and wept bitterly, as though his
heart had been bursting, and almost with the same breath he laughed
heartily as at a feast. All were startled by his merriment; coming as
it did at a time when the iron was piercing his flesh, no man could
see any reason for it.
When he died, Shobhani, who was married to him in the spirit, recited
to herself these sayings:
‘There are thirty-five millions of hairs on the human body. The woman
who ascends the pile with her husband will remain so many years in
heaven. As the snake-catcher draws the serpent from his hole, so
she, rescuing her husband from hell, rejoices with him; aye, though
he may have sunk to a region of torment, be restrained in dreadful
bonds, have reached the place of anguish, be exhausted of strength,
and afflicted and tortured for his crimes. No other effectual duty is
known for virtuous women at any time after the death of their lords,
except casting themselves into the same fire. As long as a woman, in
her successive transmigrations, shall decline burning herself, like a
faithful wife, in the same fire with her deceased lord, so long shall
she not be exempted from springing again to life in the body of some
female animal.’