in his just indignation had urged their disgrace upon the Pandits
and Gurus, otherwise these dignitaries would never have resorted to
such extreme measures with so distinguished a house. He took the
opportunity of turning them out upon the world, until such time as
they might be able to show substantial signs of reform. ‘For,’ he
said, ‘those who have read science in their boyhood, and who in
youth, agitated by evil passions, have remained in the insolence of
ignorance, feel regret in their old age, and are consumed by the
fire of avarice.’ In order to supply them with a motive for the task
proposed, he stopped their monthly allowance. But he added, if they
would repair to the neighbouring university of Jayasthal, and there
show themselves something better than a disgrace to their family,
he would direct their maternal uncle to supply them with all the
necessaries of food and raiment.
In vain the youths attempted, with sighs and tears and threats
of suicide, to soften the paternal heart. He was inexorable, for
two reasons. In the first place, after wondering away the wonder
with which he regarded his own failure, he felt that a stigma now
attached to the name of the pious and learned Vishnu Swami, whose
lectures upon ‘Management during Teens,’ and whose ‘Brahman Young
Man’s Own Book,’ had become standard works. Secondly, from a sense
of duty, he determined to omit nothing that might tend to reclaim
the reprobates. As regards the monthly allowance being stopped, the
reverend man had become every year a little fonder of his purse;
he had hoped that his sons would have qualified themselves to take
pupils, and thus achieve for themselves, as he phrased it, ‘a genteel
independence;’ whilst they openly derided the career, calling it
‘an admirable provision for the more indigent members of the middle
classes.’ For which reason he referred them to their maternal uncle,
a man of known and remarkable penuriousness.
[Illustration: They tried to live without a monthly allowance, and
notably they failed.]
The four ne’er-do-weels, foreseeing what awaited them at Jayasthal,
deferred it as a last resource; determining first to see a little
life, and to push their way in the world, before condemning
themselves to the tribulations of reform.
They tried to live without a monthly allowance, and notably they
failed; it was squeezing, as men say, oil from sand. The gambler,
having no capital, and, worse still, no credit, lost two or three
suvernas[134] at play, and could not pay them; in consequence of
which he was soundly beaten with iron-shod staves, and was nearly
compelled by the keeper of the hell to sell himself into slavery.
Thus he became disgusted; and telling his brethren that they would
find him at Jayasthal, he departed, with the intention of studying
wisdom.
[134] Gold pieces.
A month afterwards came the libertine’s turn to be disappointed. He
could no longer afford fine new clothes; even a well-washed coat
was beyond his means. He had reckoned upon his handsome face, and
he had matured a plan for laying various elderly conquests under
contribution. Judge, therefore, his disgust when all the women—high
and low, rich and poor, old and young, ugly and beautiful—seeing
the end of his waistcloth thrown empty over his shoulder, passed him
in the streets without even deigning a look. The very shopkeepers’
wives, who once had adored his mustachio and had never ceased talking
of his ‘elegant’ gait, despised him; and the wealthy old person who
formerly supplied his small feet with the choicest slippers, left him
to starve. Upon which he also, in a state of repentance, followed his
brother to acquire knowledge.
‘Am I not,’ quoth the thief to himself, ‘a cat in climbing, a deer
in running, a snake in twisting, a hawk in pouncing, a dog in
scenting?—keen as a hare, tenacious as a wolf, strong as a lion?—a
lamp in the night, a horse on a plain, a mule on a stony path, a boat
in the water, a rock on land?’[135] The reply to his own questions
was of course affirmative. But despite all these fine qualities,
and notwithstanding his scrupulous strictness in invocating the
housebreaking tool and in devoting a due portion of his gains to
the gods of plunder,[136] he was caught in a store-room by the
proprietor, who inexorably handed him over to justice. As he belonged
to the priestly caste,[137] the fine imposed upon him was heavy. He
could not pay it, and therefore he was thrown into a dungeon, where
he remained for some time. But at last he escaped from jail, when he
made his parting bow to Kartikeya,[138] stole a blanket from one of
the guards, and set out for Jayasthal, cursing his old profession.
[135] These are the qualifications specified by Hindu classical
authorities as necessary to make a distinguished thief.
[136] Every Hindu is in a manner born to a certain line of life,
virtuous or vicious, honest or dishonest; and his Dharma, or
religious duty, consists in conforming to the practice and the
worship of his profession. The ‘Thug,’ for instance, worships
Bhawani, who enables him to murder successfully; and his remorse
would arise from neglecting to murder.
[137] Hindu law sensibly punishes, in theory at least, for the
same offence the priest more severely than the layman—a hint for
him to practise what he preaches.
[138] The Hindu Mercury, god of rascals.
The atheist also found himself in a position that deprived him of
all his pleasures. He delighted in after-dinner controversies, and
in bringing the light troops of his wit to bear upon the unwieldy
masses of lore and logic opposed to him by polemical Brahmans who,
out of respect for his father, did not lay an action against him for
overpowering them in theological disputation.[139] In the strange
city to which he had removed no one knew the son of Vishnu Swami, and
no one cared to invite him to the house. Once he attempted his usual
trick upon a knot of sages who, sitting round a tank, were recreating
themselves with quoting mystical Sanskrit shlokas[140] of abominable
long-windedness. The result was his being obliged to ply his heels
vigorously in flight from the justly incensed _literati_, to whom
he had said ‘tush’ and ‘pish,’ at least a dozen times in as many
minutes. He therefore also followed the example of his brethren, and
started for Jayasthal with all possible expedition.
[139] A penal offence in India. How is it that we English have
omitted to codify it? The laws of Manu also punish severely all
disdainful expressions, such as ‘tush’ or ‘pish,’ addressed
during argument to a priest.
[140] Stanzas, generally speaking on serious subjects.
Arrived at the house of their maternal uncle, the young men, as by
one assent, began to attempt the unloosening of his purse-strings.
Signally failing in this and in other notable schemes, they
determined to lay in that stock of facts and useful knowledge which
might reconcile them with their father, and restore them to that
happy life at Gaur which they then despised, and which now brought
tears into their eyes.
Then they debated with one another what they should study.
* * * * *
That branch of the preternatural, popularly called ‘white magic,’
found with them favour.
* * * * *
They chose a Guru or teacher strictly according to the orders of
their faith, a wise man of honourable family and affable demeanour,
who was not a glutton nor leprous, nor blind of one eye, nor blind of
both eyes, nor very short, nor suffering from whitlows,[141] asthma,
or other disease, nor noisy and talkative, nor with any defect about
the fingers and toes, nor subject to his wife.
[141] Whitlows on the nails show that the sufferer, in the last
life, stole gold from a Brahman.
* * * * *
A grand discovery had been lately made by a certain
physiologico-philosophico-psychologico-materialist, a Jayasthalian.
In investigating the vestiges of creation, the cause of causes, the
effect of effects, and the original origin of that Matra (matter)
which some regard as an entity, others as a nonentity, others
self-existent, others merely specious and therefore unexistent, he
became convinced that the fundamental form of organic being is a
globule having another globule within itself. After inhabiting a
garret and diving into the depths of his self-consciousness for
a few score of years, he was able to produce such complex globule
in triturated and roasted flint by means of—I will not say what.
Happily for creation in general, the discovery died a natural death
some centuries ago. An edifying spectacle, indeed, for the world to
see; a cross old man sitting amongst his gallipots and crucibles,
creating animalculæ, providing the corpses of birds, beasts, and
fishes with what is vulgarly called life, and supplying to epigenesis
all the latest improvements!
In those days the invention, being a novelty, engrossed the thoughts
of the universal learned, who were in a fever of excitement about it.
Some believed in it so implicitly that they saw in every experiment a
hundred things which they did not see. Others were so sceptical and
contradictory that they would not perceive what they did see. Those
blended with each fact their own deductions, whilst these span round
every reality the web of their own prejudices. Curious to say, the
Jayasthalians, amongst whom the luminous science arose, hailed it
with delight, whilst the Gaurians derided its claim to be considered
an important addition to human knowledge.
Let me try to remember a few of their words.
[Illustration: An edifying spectacle, indeed, for the world to see: a
cross old man sitting amongst his gallipots and crucibles.]
‘Unfortunate human nature,’ wrote the wise of Gaur against the wise
of Jayasthal, ‘wanted no crowning indignity but this! You had already
proved that the body is made of the basest element—earth. You
had argued away the immovability, the ubiquity, the permanency, the
eternity, and the divinity of the soul, for is not your favourite
axiom, “It is the nature of limbs which thinketh in man?” The
immortal mind is, according to you, an ignoble viscus; the god-like
gift of reason is the instinct of a dog somewhat highly developed.
Still you left us something to hope. Still you allowed us one boast.
Still life was a thread connecting us with the Giver of Life. But
now, with an impious hand, in blasphemous rage ye have rent asunder
that last frail tie.’ And so forth.
‘Welcome! thrice welcome! this latest and most admirable development
of human wisdom,’ wrote the sage Jayasthalians against the sage
Gaurians, ‘which has assigned to man his proper state and status
and station in the magnificent scale of being. We have not created
the facts which we have investigated, and which we now proudly
publish. We have proved materialism to be nature’s own system. But
our philosophy of matter cannot overturn any truth, because, if
erroneous, it will necessarily sink into oblivion; if real, it will
tend only to instruct and to enlighten the world. Wise are ye in your
generation, O ye sages of Gaur, yet withal wondrous illogical.’ And
much of this kind.
Concerning all which, mighty king! I, as a Vampire, have only to
remark that those two learned bodies, like your Rajaship’s Nine Gems
of Science, were in the habit of talking most about what they least
understood.
The four young men applied the whole force of their talents to
mastering the difficulties of the life-giving process; and, in due
time, their industry obtained its reward.
* * * * *
Then they determined to return home. As with beating hearts they
approached the old city, their birthplace, and gazed with moistened
eyes upon its tall spires and grim pagodas, its verdant meads and
venerable groves, they saw a Kanjar,[142] who, having tied up in a
bundle the skin and bones of a tiger which he had found dead, was
about to go on his way. Then said the thief to the gambler, ‘Take
we these remains with us, and by means of them prove the truth of
our science before the people of Gaur, to the offence of their
noses.’[143] Being now possessed of knowledge, they resolved to apply
it to its proper purpose, namely, power over the property of others.
Accordingly, the wencher, the gambler, and the atheist kept the
Kanjar in conversation whilst the thief vivified a shank bone; and
the bone thereupon stood upright, and hopped about in so grotesque
and wonderful a way that the man, being frightened, fled as if I had
been close behind him.
[142] A low caste Hindu, who catches and exhibits snakes and
performs other such mean offices.
[143] Meaning in spite of themselves.
[Illustration: The bone thereupon stood upright, and hopped about.]
Vishnu Swami had lately written a very learned commentary on the
mystical words of Lokakshi:
‘The Scriptures are at variance—the tradition is at variance. He who
gives a meaning of his own, quoting the Vedas, is no philosopher.
‘True philosophy, through ignorance, is concealed as in the fissures
of a rock.
‘But the way of the Great One—that is to be followed.’
And the success of his book had quite effaced from the Brahman mind
the holy man’s failure in bringing up his children. He followed up
this by adding to his essay on education a twentieth tome, containing
recipes for the ‘Reformation of Prodigals.’
The learned and reverend father received his sons with open arms.
He had heard from his brother-in-law that the youths were qualified
to support themselves, and when informed that they wished to make a
public experiment of their science, he exerted himself, despite his
disbelief in it, to forward their views.
The Pandits and Gurus were long before they would consent to
attend what they considered dealings with Yama (the Devil). In
consequence, however, of Vishnu Swami’s name and importunity, at
length, on a certain day, all the pious, learned, and reverend
tutors, teachers, professors, prolocutors, pastors, spiritual
fathers, poets, philosophers, mathematicians, schoolmasters,
pedagogues, bear-leaders, institutors, gerund-grinders, preceptors,
dominies, brushers, coryphæi, dry-nurses, coaches, mentors, monitors,
lecturers, prelectors, fellows, and heads of houses at the university
of Gaur, met together in a large garden, where they usually diverted
themselves out of hours with ball-tossing, pigeon-tumbling, and
kite-flying.
Presently the four young men, carrying their bundle of bones and the
other requisites, stepped forward, walking slowly with eyes downcast,
like shrinking cattle: for it is said, the Brahman must not run, even
when it rains.
After pronouncing an impromptu speech, composed for them by their
father, and so stuffed with erudition that even the writer hardly
understood it, they announced their wish to prove, by ocular
demonstration, the truth of a science upon which their short-sighted
rivals of Jayasthal had cast cold water, but which, they remarked in
the eloquent peroration of their discourse, the sages of Gaur had
welcomed with that wise and catholic spirit of enquiry which had ever
characterised their distinguished body.
Huge words, involved sentences, and the high-flown compliment,
exceedingly undeserved, obscured, I suppose, the bright wits of the
intellectual convocation, which really began to think that their
liberality of opinion deserved all praise.
None objected to what was being prepared, except one of the heads
of houses; his appeal was generally scouted, because his Sanskrit
style was vulgarly intelligible, and he had the bad name of being
a practical man. The metaphysician Rashik Lall sneered to Vaiswata
the poet, who passed on the look to the theo-philosopher Vardhaman.
Haridatt the antiquarian whispered the metaphysician Vasudeva, who
burst into a loud laugh; whilst Narayan, Jagasharma, and Devaswami,
all very learned in the Vedas, opened their eyes and stared at him
with well-simulated astonishment. So he, being offended, said nothing
more, but arose and walked home.
A great crowd gathered round the four young men and their father, as
opening the bundle that contained the tiger’s remains, they prepared
for their task.
One of the operators spread the bones upon the ground and fixed each
one into its proper socket, not forgetting even the teeth and tusks.
The second connected, by means of a marvellous unguent, the skeleton
with the muscles and heart of an elephant, which he had procured for
the purpose.
The third drew from his pouch the brain and eyes of a large tom-cat,
which he carefully fitted into the animal’s skull, and then covered
the body with the hide of a young rhinoceros.
[Illustration: They prepared for their task.]
Then the fourth—the atheist—who had been directing the operation,
produced a globule having another globule within itself. And as the
crowd pressed on them, craning their necks, breathless with anxiety,
he placed the Principle of Organic Life in the tiger’s body with
such effect that the monster immediately heaved its chest, breathed,
agitated its limbs, opened its eyes, jumped to its feet, shook
itself, glared around, and begun to gnash its teeth and lick its
chops, lashing the while its ribs with its tail.
[Illustration: With a roar like thunder.]
The sages sprang back, and the beast sprang forward. With a roar
like thunder during Elephanta-time,[144] it flew at the nearest of
the spectators, flung Vishnu Swami to the ground and clawed his four
sons. Then, not even stopping to drink their blood, it hurried after
the flying herd of wise men. Jostling and tumbling, stumbling and
catching at one another’s long robes, they rushed in hottest haste
towards the garden gate. But the beast having the muscles of an
elephant as well as the bones of a tiger, made a few bounds of eighty
or ninety feet each, easily distanced them, and took away all chance
of escape. To be brief: as the monster was frightfully hungry after
its long fast, and as the imprudent young men had furnished it with
admirable implements of destruction, it did not cease its work till
one hundred and twenty-one learned and highly distinguished Pandits
and Gurus lay upon the ground chawed, clawed, sucked-dry, and in most
cases stone-dead. Amongst them, I need hardly say, were the sage
Vishnu Swami and his four sons.
[144] When the moon is in a certain lunar mansion, at the
conclusion of the wet season.
Having told this story the Vampire hung silent for a time. Presently
he resumed—
‘Now, heed my words, Raja Vikram! I am about to ask thee, Which of
all those learned men was the most finished fool? The answer is
easily found, yet it must be distasteful to thee. Therefore mortify
thy vanity, as soon as possible, or I shall be talking, and thou wilt
be walking through this livelong night, to scanty purpose. Remember!
science without understanding is of little use; indeed, understanding
is superior to science, and those devoid of understanding perish as
did the persons who revivified the tiger. Before this, I warned thee
to beware of thyself, and of thine own conceit. Here, then, is an
opportunity for self-discipline—which of all those learned men was
the greatest fool?’
The warrior king mistook the kind of mortification imposed upon him,
and pondered over the uncomfortable nature of the reply—in the
presence of his son.
Again the Baital taunted him.
‘The greatest fool of all,’ at last said Vikram, in slow and by no
means willing accents, ‘was the father. Is it not said, “There is no
fool like an old fool?”’
‘Gramercy!’ cried the Vampire, bursting out into a discordant laugh,
‘I now return to my tree. By this head! I never before heard a father
so readily condemn a father.’ With these words he disappeared,
slipping out of the bundle.
The Raja scolded his son a little for want of obedience, and said
that he had always thought more highly of his acuteness—never could
have believed that he would have been taken in by so shallow a trick.
Dharma Dhwaj answered not a word to this, but promised to be wiser
another time.
Then they returned to the tree, and did what they had so often done
before.
And, as before, the Baital held his tongue for a time. Presently he
began as follows.
THE VAMPIRE’S EIGHTH STORY.
OF THE USE AND MISUSE OF MAGIC PILLS.
The lady Chandraprabha, daughter of the Raja Subichar, was a
particularly beautiful girl, and marriageable withal. One day as
Vasanta, the Spring, began to assert its reign over the world,
animate and inanimate, she went accompanied by her young friends and
companions to stroll about her father’s pleasure-garden.
The fair troop wandered through sombre groves, where the dark
tamala-tree entwined its branches with the pale green foliage of the
nim, and the pippal’s domes of quivering leaves contrasted with the
columnar aisles of the banyan fig. They admired the old monarchs of
the forest, bearded to the waist with hangings of moss, the flowing
creepers delicately climbing from the lower branches to the topmost
shoots, and the cordage of llianas stretching from trunk to trunk
like bridges for the monkeys to pass over. Then they issued into
a clear space dotted with asokas bearing rich crimson flowers,
cliterias of azure blue, madhavis exhibiting petals virgin white as
the snows on Himalaya, and jasmines raining showers of perfumed
blossoms upon the grateful earth. They could not sufficiently praise
the tall and graceful stem of the arrowy areca, contrasting with
the solid pyramid of the cypress, and the more masculine stature of
the palm. Now they lingered in the trellised walks closely covered
over with vines and creepers; then they stopped to gather the golden
bloom weighing down the mango boughs, and to smell the highly-scented
flowers that hung from the green fretwork of the chambela.
It was spring, I have said. The air was still except when broken by
the hum of the large black bramra bee, as he plied his task amidst
the red and orange flowers of the dak, and by the gushings of many
waters that made music as they coursed down their stuccoed channels
between borders of many coloured poppies and beds of various flowers.
From time to time the dulcet note of the kokila bird, and the hoarse
plaint of the turtle-dove deep hid in her leafy bower, attracted
every ear and thrilled every heart. The south wind—‘breeze of the
south,[145] the friend of love and spring’—blew with a voluptuous
warmth, for rain clouds canopied the earth, and the breath of the
narcissus, the rose, and the citron, teemed with a languid fragrance.
[145] In Hindostan, it is the prevailing wind of the hot weather.
The charms of the season affected all the damsels. They amused
themselves in their privacy with pelting blossoms at one another,
running races down the smooth broad alleys, mounting the silken
swings that hung between the orange trees, embracing one another, and
at times trying to push the butt of the party into the fish-pond.
Perhaps the liveliest of all was the lady Chandraprabha, who on
account of her rank could pelt and push all the others, without fear
of being pelted and pushed in return.
It so happened, before the attendants had had time to secure privacy
for the princess and her women, that Manaswi, a very handsome youth,
a Brahman’s son, had wandered without malicious intention into the
garden. Fatigued with walking, and finding a cool shady place beneath
a tree, he had lain down there, and had gone to sleep, and had not
been observed by any of the king’s people. He was still sleeping when
the princess and her companions were playing together.
Presently Chandraprabha, weary of sport, left her friends, and
singing a lively air, tripped up the stairs leading to the
summer-house. Aroused by the sound of her advancing footsteps,
Manaswi sat up; and the princess, seeing a strange man, started. But
their eyes had met, and both were subdued by love—love vulgarly
called ‘love at first sight.’
‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed the warrior king, testily, ‘I can never believe
in that freak of Kama Deva.’ He spoke feelingly, for the thing had
happened to himself more than once, and on no occasion had it turned
out well.
‘But there is such a thing, O Raja, as love at first sight,’ objected
the Baital, speaking dogmatically.
‘Then perhaps thou canst account for it, dead one,’ growled the
monarch, surlily.
[Illustration: But their eyes had met.]