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?”
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.”
Raja Vikram took his son’s hand, unwilling to leave him in such
company; and, catching up a fire-brand, 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-toming 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]”
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 coin. 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.
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?”
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.
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?
“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.”
VIKRAM AND THE VAMPIRE
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 longtailed 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.
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]
--but 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.
The prince also left his companion sitting in prayer, and walked forth
into the forest. Suddenly the eyes of the Raja’s son and the Raja’s
daughter met. She started back with a little scream. He was fascinated
by her beauty, and began to say to himself, “O thou vile Karma,[51] why
worriest thou me?”
Hearing this, the maiden smiled encouragement, but the poor youth,
between palpitation of the heart and hesitation about what to say, was
so confused that his tongue crave to his teeth. She raised her eyebrows
a little. There is nothing which women despise in a man more than
modesty, [52] for mo-des-ty--
A violent shaking of the bag which hung behind Vikram’s royal back broke
off the end of this offensive sentence. And the warrior king did not
cease that discipline till the Baital promised him to preserve more
decorum in his observations.
Still the prince stood before her with downcast eyes and suffused
cheeks: even the spur of contempt failed to arouse his energies. Then
the maiden called to her friend, who was picking jasmine flowers so as
not to witness the scene, and angrily asked why that strange man was
allowed to stand and stare at her? The friend, in hot wrath, threatened
to call the slave, and throw Vajramukut into the pond unless he
instantly went away with his impudence. But as the prince was rooted to
the spot, and really had not heard a word of what had been said to him,
the two women were obliged to make the first move.
As they almost reached the tank, the beautiful maiden turned her head to
see what the poor modest youth was doing.
Vajramukut was formed in every way to catch a woman’s eye. The Raja’s
daughter therefore half forgave him his offence of mod----. Again she
sweetly smiled, disclosing two rows of little opals. Then descending
to the water’s edge, she stooped down and plucked a lotus. This she
worshipped; next she placed it in her hair, then she put it in her ear,
then she bit it with her teeth, then she trod upon it with her foot,
then she raised it up again, and lastly she stuck it in her bosom. After
which she mounted her conveyance and went home to her friends; whilst
the prince, having become thoroughly desponding and drowned in grief at
separation from her, returned to the minister’s son.
“Females!” ejaculated the minister’s son, speaking to himself in a
careless tone, when, his prayer finished, he left the temple, and sat
down upon the tank steps to enjoy the breeze. He presently drew a roll
of paper from under his waist-belt, and in a short time was engrossed
with his study. The women seeing this conduct, exerted themselves in
every possible way of wile to attract his attention and to distract his
soul. They succeeded only so far as to make him roll his head with a
smile, and to remember that such is always the custom of man’s bane;
after which he turned over a fresh page of manuscript. And although he
presently began to wonder what had become of the prince his master, he
did not look up even once from his study.
He was a philosopher, that young man. But after all, Raja Vikram, what
is mortal philosophy? Nothing but another name for indifference! Who was
ever philosophical about a thing truly loved or really hated?--no one!
Philosophy, says Shankharacharya, is either a gift of nature or the
reward of study. But I, the Baital, the devil, ask you, what is a born
philosopher, save a man of cold desires? And what is a bred philosopher
but a man who has survived his desires? A young philosopher?--a
cold-blooded youth! An elderly philosopher?--a leuco-phlegmatic old
man! Much nonsense, of a verity, ye hear in praise of nothing from your
Rajaship’s Nine Gems of Science, and from sundry other such wise fools.
Then the prince began to relate the state of his case, saying, “O
friend, I have seen a damsel, but whether she be a musician from Indra’s
heaven, a maiden of the sea, a daughter of the serpent kings, or the
child of an earthly Raja, I cannot say.”
“Describe her,” said the statesman in embryo.
“Her face,” quoth the prince, “was that of the full moon, her hair like
a swarm of bees hanging from the blossoms of the acacia, the corners of
her eyes touched her ears, her lips were sweet with lunar ambrosia, her
waist was that of a lion, and her walk the walk of a king goose. [53]
As a garment, she was white; as a season, the spring; as a flower, the
jasmine; as a speaker, the kokila bird; as a perfume, musk; as a
beauty, Kamadeva; and as a being, Love. And if she does not come into my
possession I will not live; this I have certainly determined upon.”
The young minister, who had heard his prince say the same thing more
than once before, did not attach great importance to these awful words.
He merely remarked that, unless they mounted at once, night would
surprise them in the forest. Then the two young men returned to their
horses, untethered them, drew on their bridles, saddled them, and
catching up their weapons, rode slowly towards the Raja’s palace.
During the three hours of return hardly a word passed between the
pair. Vajramukut not only avoided speaking; he never once replied till
addressed thrice in the loudest voice.
The young minister put no more questions, “for,” quoth he to himself,
“when the prince wants my counsel, he will apply for it.” In this point
he had borrowed wisdom from his father, who held in peculiar horror the
giving of unasked-for advice. So, when he saw that conversation was
irksome to his master, he held his peace and meditated upon what he
called his “day-thought.” It was his practice to choose every morning
some tough food for reflection, and to chew the cud of it in his mind
at times when, without such employment, his wits would have gone
wool-gathering. You may imagine, Raja Vikram, that with a few years of
this head work, the minister’s son became a very crafty young person.
After the second day the Prince Vajramukut, being restless from grief
at separation, fretted himself into a fever. Having given up writing,
reading, drinking, sleeping, the affairs entrusted to him by his father,
and everything else, he sat down, as he said, to die. He used constantly
to paint the portrait of the beautiful lotus gatherer, and to lie gazing
upon it with tearful eyes; then he would start up and tear it to pieces
and beat his forehead, and begin another picture of a yet more beautiful
face.
At last, as the pradhan’s son had foreseen, he was summoned by the
young Raja, whom he found upon his bed, looking yellow and complaining
bitterly of headache. Frequent discussions upon the subject of the
tender passion had passed between the two youths, and one of them had
ever spoken of it so very disrespectfully that the other felt ashamed
to introduce it. But when his friend, with a view to provoke
communicativeness, advised a course of boiled and bitter herbs and
great attention to diet, quoting the hemistich attributed to the learned
physician Charndatta,
A fever starve, but feed a cold,
the unhappy Vajramukut’s fortitude abandoned him; he burst into tears,
and exclaimed, “Whosoever enters upon the path of love cannot survive
it; and if (by chance) he should live, what is life to him but a
prolongation of his misery?”
“Yea,” replied the minister’s son, “the sage hath said--
“The road of love is that which hath no beginning nor end; Take thou heed
of thyself, man I ere thou place foot upon it.
“And the wise, knowing that there are three things whose effect upon
himself no man can foretell--namely, desire of woman, the dice-box, and
the drinking of ardent spirits--find total abstinence from them the best
of rules. Yet, after all, if there is no cow, we must milk the bull.”
The advice was, of course, excellent, but the hapless lover could not
help thinking that on this occasion it came a little too late. However,
after a pause he returned to the subject and said, “I have ventured
to tread that dangerous way, be its end pain or pleasure, happiness or
destruction.” He then hung down his head and sighed from the bottom of
his heart.
“She is the person who appeared to us at the tank?” asked the pradhan’s
son, moved to compassion by the state of his master.
The prince assented.
“O great king,” resumed the minister’s son, “at the time of going away
had she said anything to you? or had you said anything to her?”
“Nothing!” replied the other laconically, when he found his friend
beginning to take an interest in the affair.
“Then,” said the minister’s son, “it will be exceedingly difficult to
get possession of her.”
“Then,” repeated the Raja’s son, “I am doomed to death; to an early and
melancholy death!”
“Humph!” ejaculated the young statesman rather impatiently, “did she
make any sign, or give any hint? Let me know all that happened: half
confidences are worse than none.”
Upon which the prince related everything that took place by the side
of the tank, bewailing the false shame which had made him dumb, and
concluding with her pantomime.
The pradhan’s son took thought for a while. He thereupon seized the
opportunity of representing to his master all the evil effects of
bashfulness when women are concerned, and advised him, as he would be a
happy lover, to brazen his countenance for the next interview.
Which the young Raja faithfully promised to do.
“And, now,” said the other, “be comforted, O my master! I know her name
and her dwelling-place. When she suddenly plucked the lotus flower and
worshipped it, she thanked the gods for having blessed her with a sight
of your beauty.”
Vajramukut smiled, the first time for the last month.
“When she applied it to her ear, it was as if she would have explained
to thee, ‘I am a daughter of the Carnatic: [54] and when she bit it with
her teeth, she meant to say that ‘My father is Raja Dantawat, [55]’ who,
by-the-bye, has been, is, and ever will be, a mortal foe to thy father.”
Vajramukut shuddered.
“When she put it under her foot it meant, ‘My name is Padmavati. [56]’”
Vajramukut uttered a cry of joy.
“And when she placed it in her bosom, ‘You are truly dwelling in my
heart’ was meant to be understood.”
At these words the young Raja started up full of new life, and after
praising with enthusiasm the wondrous sagacity of his dear friend,
begged him by some contrivance to obtain the permission of his parents,
and to conduct him to her city. The minister’s son easily got leave for
Vajramukut to travel, under pretext that his body required change
of water, and his mind change of scene. They both dressed and armed
themselves for the journey, and having taken some jewels, mounted their
horses and followed the road in that direction in which the princess had
gone.