A little company of pilgrims were trudging along the hot, dusty
road. Where a large tree offered a resting place, there for a few
minutes, squatting in the shade, the little company would stop while
the mother, taking her naked baby from her hip, astride of which he
had been carried during the journey, would let him stand beside her,
and the father would take a fresh chew of pan, spitting out the red
juice upon the roadside. But the young girl of the party would sit
apparently unwearied, with bright, eager eyes fixed upon the road
and with caressing fingers fondling the bracelets which adorned her
arms.
It was an unusual thing for Shama Sahai to be clad in a gay sari, to
have necklaces of beads about her neck, a glass-set stud in her
nose, pretty, brass rings in her ears, bracelets upon her arms,
metal circlets upon her fingers, large anklets upon her feet, and
rings even on her toes. But most unusual was it for her to be
leaving her village home of mud huts and with her parents-in-law and
baby brother to be taking a journey; for from early childhood Shama
Sahai had been but a despised and neglected widow in the home of
her dead Hindu husband. She knew that they were going to some place
afar off to worship the god Krishna and that some special blessing
was coming to them for making this journey. She knew that her father
and mother and she herself had worked hard in the fields that they
might earn the money needed to pay the visit to the sacred city. She
knew, too, that a large portion of this money had been spent upon
her own adornment. So she felt very proud and very happy, but most
of all very eager to reach the wonderful place to which they were
going. Shama Sahai was young and strong, accustomed for many of her
sixteen years to the heat of the noonday sun in the fields. To make
greater haste she would offer to carry the baby and settling more
comfortably the bundle which she carried upon her head, she would
take the baby astride upon her hip and start off at an energetic
pace.
[Illustration: "Shama Sahai was not happy"]
For several days they journeyed thus, at night sleeping by the
roadside, each wrapped in an extra covering which Shama carried in
the bundle on her head during the day. Often they met other
pilgrims, or sacred fakirs who, each with a pair of tongs in his
hand, would be measuring their length along the road with naked,
ash-smeared bodies, seeking by such self-torture to win rest for
their souls. Sometimes they would meet ox-carts loaded with produce
for the city market; at other times, bands of coolies carrying
sugar-cane or bundles of fuel cakes upon their heads. It was all of
interest to Shama Sahai, who, pulling her sari down over her face,
would peep out between its folds and eagerly watch every passer-by.
Sometimes, however, she would be frightened as a "chug-chug" would
sound upon the air and a great motor car would whiz by and all she
could see would be a cloud of dust whirling along before her.
On the long journey before they could reach Kamadabad Shama was
afraid that her pretty finery would be spoilt, because her sari soon
began to get wrinkled and one of the stones in her prettiest finger
ring fell out. Therefore, every evening, when just at sundown they
stopped in front of a little wayside temple, the names of whose gods
she did not know, and lost an hour of travelling before dark while
they put flowers upon the necks of the idols, poured a little oil
upon their bodies, and lighted tiny lamps before them, she begrudged
the time. She was not interested either in the terrible din, the
beating upon gongs and the ringing of bells with which the Hindu
priests awakened their gods for worship. Her thoughts were of
Kamadabad and the wonders that awaited her there.
At last on a bright morning they reached the city with its narrow,
black streets lined with dirty-white, plastered houses and tiny
shops. As the streets were full of people crowding this way and
that, Shama Sahai kept as close to her parents as she could. At once
the little company hurried to the great temple which was by far the
most wonderful building that Shama had ever seen. It was enclosed by
high walls and above the gate was a tower tapering upward many
stories, on each story of which stood figures of gods, many of whom
the girl knew and feared, but others whom she had never seen before.
Passing under this tower they entered a court and from there went
under another tower to another court and on until, entering a
covered building in the centre, they found the god, a great black
figure, reeking with oil and garlanded with flowers. All around were
young girls, no older than Shama herself, who, with faces
shamelessly uncovered, stood there alone, without their parents.
Priests, almost naked, were going through ceremonies before the
idol. So dark and weird did it all seem and so many strange looking
people were passing back and forth that Shama Sahai was half
frightened.
After the little company had presented its offerings to the gods and
the father had spoken aside to a big fat priest who kept looking at
Shama Sahai, the mother announced that they must bathe in the
sacred pool. So they returned to the outer court of the temple where
was a tank about two hundred feet square containing foul and slimy,
but none the less exceedingly sacred, water. Into this tank they
stepped and with prayers and the reciting of charms bathed with the
throng of worshippers. Carefully they washed out their mouths with
the filthy water and then drank of it. During all this time the fat
priest kept close to them and it seemed to Shama that his eyes were
always upon her. His were not attractive eyes nor was his face
pleasing and the girl was thoroughly frightened when, after the
cleansing ceremony, he bade them good-bye with a caressing hand upon
her shoulder while a bestial smile distorted his face.
That night Shama Sahai was not happy although she had reached the
place where she had so longed to be. The memory of the priest's face
haunted her and she could not keep from thinking of those girls in
the temple. Towards morning her mother was taken ill. And the groans
of the woman kept her awake. She stole out upon the door-step, but
the sounds of the city were so strange that, little country girl
that she was, she drew back and preferred to lie down again beside
her moaning mother.
The mother was no better in the morning. Then the man of whom they
rented the lodging suggested that Shama Sahai should go up to the
house of a white memsahib who could make people well and ask for
help. The memsahib could do wonderful things, the man said, and
without doubt would cure the sick woman. Although very timid, Shama
could not refuse to go for her mother's sake. So, taking her baby
brother on her hip and guided by the landlord's child, she took her
way along the narrow streets until she came to a high brick wall
with a large open gateway. Within she saw a number of people
standing before a long, low building. The boy, her guide, having
pointed to that building and by so doing having done his whole duty,
set himself to the pleasant task of chasing some chickens which were
running at large in the compound. Shama Sahai had to approach the
building alone. As she came nearer the little knot of people, she
noticed that every one of them looked ill and almost every one
carried a little bottle in his hand. Through the open door of the
building she could see a white memsahib in a blue striped dress,
sitting at a little table, writing slips of paper and handing them
out to the sick people. Occasionally the lady would touch one of the
patients and he would run out his tongue. It was all very queer but
interesting to Shama and even the baby watched quietly. When
Shama's turn came to enter, she was so embarrassed that she could
hardly speak, but, encouraged by the memsahib's speaking kindly to
her in her own tongue, she finally stammered out a brief but none
too lucid account of her mother's illness. But the lady seemed to
understand. After writing in a book and speaking to a native woman
who stood behind a sort of table near by, with more kind words she
put a small bottle of medicine into the girl's hands. Assured that
her mother would soon be well and with orders to come the next day
and report the condition of the patient, Shama Sahai went home very
much pleased.
But the mother did not get well at once and for several days the
girl paid a daily visit to the dispensary, each time losing a little
of her timidity and each time being more attracted by the white lady
who was so kind to her and called her by name and who, one day when
there had been but a few patients and Shama Sahai had lingered
behind, had told her beautiful stories about a new god that was not
an ugly black image.
However, after a while the mother did get so much better that she
could go to the temple again and Shama Sahai's visits to the
dispensary ceased. She hoped that they would soon go home. By this
time so frightened had the girl become in the great city that she
was almost as anxious to leave Kamadabad as she had been to reach
there.
One night as she lay, apparently asleep, in her corner of the room
near the outside door, she heard her father and mother talking as
they came up on the door-step. She opened her eyes and listened.
"We'll go home to-morrow. I made final arrangements with the priest
to-day. My, but he's a hard one to drive a bargain with! We will
settle the money part in the morning so that we can get a good start
before night," said her father.
Shama Sahai gave a sigh of relief at the prospects of an early start
for home and was about to close her eyes so that she might sleep and
be rested for the journey, when she heard her mother say: "Where are
we to leave her?"
"The priest said to take her to the inner court of the red temple
with the offerings. He will perform the necessary ceremonies in a
short time and we can leave her there," answered the man. "I wanted
it done to-day so that we could get off on the road in the cool of
the morning, but he would not have it so."
"Have you bought our food yet? We won't need so much rice without
Shama, you know," said the mother.
"I haven't forgotten that when that's just what we are getting rid
of her for, you may be sure. Yes, I bought it this afternoon. We'll
miss the girl in carrying the load, I suppose, but you can carry it
and the baby too just as well as not. How much better it is to get
rid of a widow in this way and have one less to feed than to have
the cursed creature always around in the way. We'll not go hungry
now. A good business we've done here at Kamadabad, old woman,
although you did waste a lot of time and money by being sick, for of
course we had to pay extra for the longer stay. That old
rupee-snatcher of a landlord wouldn't give in an anna because you
had been sick. He said that he really ought to have charged more,
for when people are sick they lie down longer and so wear out his
floor more quickly. You were a fine one, you were, to get sick!" the
man snarled.
"Yes, but you wouldn't have been here at all or have thought of
bringing the girl, if I hadn't suggested it," snapped the old woman
in her turn.
Shama Sahai lay perfectly quiet as the couple, still mumbling unkind
remarks at each other, came in and lay down on the floor. She
scarcely breathed for fear that they should find out that she was
awake. But when she knew that they were asleep, she crept
out-of-doors and darting around a corner sank down upon some steps.
She knew from what she had overheard that her parents-in-law were
planning to go home in the morning without her and that the priest
was to have her. As she remembered the evil, swollen face of the man
who had watched her that first day at the temple, she shuddered and,
drawing her sari more closely about her, crept farther back into the
doorway.
Only one thought would come--she must run away where the priest
could not get her and she must go at once. Peeping out from the
doorway, she looked up and down the street. No one was astir; only a
quiet form here and there on the little porches could be seen in the
dim light of the street lamps. She would go to the white memsahib.
The memsahib and the new god would surely save her.
Like a spirit the girl took her flight through the streets, the
lightness of her footfall awaking not the most restless of the
sleepers.
When she reached the familiar compound, she did not hesitate, but,
running up to the veranda, shook the sleeping chokidar.
"Where is the memsahib? Quick, tell me, quick!"
The watchman, ashamed at having been caught asleep and thinking it
nothing strange that a girl should call the doctor in the night,
hastened to show Shama Sahai the stairs leading to the roof of the
bungalow.
"You'll find her up there. She always sleeps on the roof in the hot
weather."
The girl was soon beside the doctor's cot and with frightened sobs
was telling her story. "I've come to you and you must save me," were
her final words.
Events happen quickly sometimes, especially when an energetic woman
is helping them along. As the earliest morning train pulled out from
Kamadabad for Mattera, a native Christian woman with a Hindu girl,
disguised in the slightly different garb of a Christian, was on
board, and the white doctor-memsahib was taking her chota hazri with
fear in her heart.
What would be the fate of the poor young girl who had fled to her
for refuge? That was the question which was troubling the doctor
that morning. Although she was used to witnessing crises in people's
lives with real, professional calm, this morning her outward
calmness was assumed, for this was a case which her degree of M. D.
had, perhaps, not qualified her to handle.
Throughout the long day the doctor waited expecting searchers for
the girl, but no one came to make any inquiries of her. As she was
leaving her compound gate towards evening for her daily exercise,
she met a man and a woman, the latter carrying on her hip a baby
whom the doctor recognized. The man was saying in Hindustani to the
woman:
"The priest stole her. I know he stole her! Well, it's much the same
after all, I suppose, for we're rid of her anyway. Of course he
pretended he had not seen her and was angry because I had not
brought her. Well, well; it's hard to deal with the priests."
"Whoever has her, may bad luck go with her!" exclaimed the woman.
But the woman's malediction did not bring fear to the doctor who,
stopping short in her walk, could scarcely restrain a shout of joy.
For this man and woman were Shama Sahai's parents-in-law going home
without her, believing that the priest had stolen the girl. Instead
of going on to the river for her usual evening constitutional, the
doctor-memsahib hastened to the station where she caught the last
afternoon train for Mattera that she might tell Shama Sahai that she
was safe.