would be of a value proportioned to its bearer; and tell me quickly what
it is, for I am curious to learn.
And the _sannyásí_ looked at him significantly, as it were with a wink
of the eyes. And he said: O deity of Love, who knows better than thyself
that a high caste lady, when she goes to an assignation, wraps herself
up, and fastens her bangles and her anklets, to prevent them even from
jingling? And there are words, and names, unfit to be heard, by any
other ears than thine. Were I to speak, among all these ears, thou
wouldst be the very first to punish me for my indiscretion.
Then Atirupa was filled with curiosity, and he said to himself; It is as
I thought, and he is an emissary, and one, moreover, well suited to his
task. And he turned, and exclaimed: Chamu, take every one away. And
then, the _sannyásí_ looked attentively at Chamu, as they went. And he
said, in a low voice, to Atirupa: Maháráj, for I have heard of Chamu,
that he is thy _widushaka_,[44] let him be at hand: for with thy
permission, he and I will settle all the details of this negotiation, as
soon as it has received thy own approval.
[Footnote 44: As we should say: Père Joseph, or _âme-damnée_.]
And Atirupa said: Chamu, be ready, when I call. And when they were all
gone, he exclaimed with impatience: Now then, O _sannyásí_, to thy
business, without any more delay. Who is thy employer? And the
_sannyásí_ said: Aranyání: and if thou hast forgotten her, she has not
forgotten thee. But having abandoned her own body, she has entered mine,
to give thee, as I said, the kiss of death.
And then, as Atirupa stared at him with amazement; that _sannyásí_
leaped upon him, with a yell, and seized him, and threw him suddenly on
his back. And he knelt on his throat, like a very mountain, and taking
from his waist a knife, he plunged it, with blows like those of a
carpenter that hammers in a nail, over and over again into his heart.
And then, as the retainers came running in, summoned as though on
purpose, by his own yell, with Chamu at their head, he started to his
feet. And as they looked towards him, lo! that _sannyásí_ began to
laugh. And he put up suddenly his hands, and seized, with one, his hair,
and with the other, his beard, and tore them from his head.
And as Chamu stopped short, gazing at him with stupor and recognition,
he stood for a single instant absolutely still, as if to let him see.
And then, he leaned suddenly towards him, and he lifted his finger and
he whispered very low: Hark! Dost thou not hear Aranyání calling, out of
the other world? So now, then, we will go together, to seek her, along
the great road. And he threw himself suddenly on Chamu, and took him by
the throat, with huge hands whose fingers resembled the roots of a
_wata_ tree.
And as he felt the throat of that ill-doer in his hands, there came over
him like a flood madness, that resembled the intoxication compounded of
delight, and fury, and despair, as if his life-long devotion to
Aranyání, and his wrath at her ruin and his own, had waited till that
very moment to mingle with the rapture of revenge, and filling his soul
with the ecstasy of the strength of a giant, had then become
concentrated to pass into his hands. And as he squeezed, he muttered,
not knowing what he said: Laugh, weasel, laugh now at Aranyání. And in
the meantime all the others, to whom he paid no more attention than as
if they were not there, seeing absolutely nothing before him but the
eyes of Chamu that were starting from his head, fell upon him all
together in a body, like a swarm of bees, and stung him, as it were, to
death, exactly as they chose, cutting him to pieces with swords and
knives. But for all that they did, they could not loose his hands, which
remained just as they were, locked like an iron ring around the throat
to which they clung, as if his will still animated them, even after he
was dead.
So it came about, just as he predicted; and those two very bitter
enemies went together, and as it were, hand-in-hand, into the other
world. And Chamu, with his master Atirupa, went into other bodies. But
the soul of Babhru entered, for his crime, into that body of a camel
lying yonder, which perished, as I told thee to begin with, in the
desert long ago.
* * * * *
And then, the Moony-crested stopped. And after a while, the Daughter of
the Snow said softly: Alas! for these unhappy mortal women, who suffer
at the hands of evil-minded lovers, such intolerable wrong, and woe. And
yet, as I think, poor Babhru deserved rather to be forgiven altogether,
or even to be actually rewarded, rather than punished by the body of a
camel, for treating those two ill-doers even better than they merited,
for such outrageous crime.
Then said Maheshwara, looking at her with affection: O Daughter of the
Snow, thou resemblest every other woman, judging by thy own pity and
compassion, and the emotion aroused in thy soul by the particular
misfortune of a solitary case, not taking into any consideration the
constitution of the world. And this is a merit and a beauty in thee, and
yet it is altogether wrong. For Babhru suffered as a consequence of acts
committed in a former birth, the circumstances of which thou dost not
know. And moreover, even so, he was culpable and presumptuous, in taking
on himself a vengeance to which even Aranyání did not urge him, not
knowing that punishment far more terrible than his was waiting for those
criminals, without his interference. And he should have left Aranyání's
vindication to the deity, who knew what was necessary far better than
himself, and had his eye upon it all. For there is no retribution so
just, or so sure, or so adequate, or awful, as that which evil-doers lay
upon themselves, in the form of their own ill-deeds, which dog them like
a shadow clinging to their heels, from body to body, through birth after
birth, till the very last atom of guilt has passed through the furnace
of expiation, and the very last item of their debt to everlasting Yama
has been weighed in his scales, and struck from the account, and utterly
redeemed.
* * * * *
And then, that Lord of the Moony Tire took his darling in his arms, and
set her on his lap: and they rose up and floated away together like a
cloud to their home on the snowy peak. But the bones of that camel
remained alone, lying still in the sand, till the moon got up and gazed
at them with wonder, looking down from the sky, as if mistaking them for
a reflection of himself, looking back at him with white and silent
laughter from the blackness of the earth, and saying as it were: By the
help of thy beams, I am whiter than thyself. And the night-wind rushed
over them, scattering over them oblivion, in the form of a cloud of its
plaything, the ocean of the sand, and danced round and fled away with a
wail into the desert, with a music that resembled the moan of the world
for the victims of the waste.
_Printed by_
MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED
_Edinburgh_
The Stories of F. W. Bain
The history of these fascinating little books, which, to a few readers,
have always meant so much, and which are every day becoming better
known, is not the least curious in modern literature. On the appearance
of "A Digit of the Moon" in 1899, the author's mystifying attributions
to a Sanscrit original, and the skill with which he kept up the illusion
of translation, completely took in even the best scholars, and this work
was added to the Oriental Department of the British Museum Library.
Later, however, the discovery was made that Mr. Bain, working with a
mind saturated in Hindoo Mysticism and lore and Sanscrit poetry, was
wholly its author, and it is now catalogued in the ordinary way.
To describe the charm and appeal of the stories themselves would be a
hard task. They are almost indescribable. There is nothing in English
literature at once so tender, so passionate, so melancholy, and so wise.
The fatalism of the East, and the wistful dubiety of the West, meet in
these beautiful allegories of life, which it is possible to compare only
with themselves.
Methuen & Co. Ltd., London
The Stories of F. W. Bain
Fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d. net each
Bubbles of the Foam
The Ashes of a God
A Digit of the Moon
The Descent of the Sun
An Incarnation of the Snow
A Mine of Faults
Fcap. 8vo, 2s. 6d. net each
A Heifer of the Dawn
In the Great God's Hair
A Draught of the Blue
An Essence of the Dusk
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