A thick heavy rain was falling, which had lasted nearly all day without
intermission, and the afternoon was now advanced. The sky was one
uniform tint of dark grey, in which, near the horizon, some yellowish,
lurid colour occasionally appeared. Dark masses of cloud came up slowly
from the south-west at times, causing a deeper gloom as they passed
overhead, accompanied by bursts of rain, which sometimes fell in
sheets, deluging the ground, and dashing up muddy spray from the soft
earth. The air was stifling; and there was a strong sulphurous smell
with the rain, which increased the disagreeable effect of the close,
hot atmosphere. Sometimes a gentle breeze, hardly sufficient to give
the rain a slanting direction, arose, and felt refreshing; but as the
heavy clouds passed, it died away, and the rain fell perpendicularly
again, with a constant monotonous plash, which, coming from a wide
plain, sounded like a dull roar.
Little could be seen of the plain itself; for not only was the rain too
thick to allow of any distance to appear definitely, but there was a
steamy mist rising from the previously heated earth, which increased
the already existing dimness and gloom. Sometimes a few trees in the
vicinity, which appeared tall and ghostly in the grey light and thick
air, stood out more in detail as the rain slackened for a while, and
seemed to give promise of breaking; and on these occasions two villages
became dimly visible; one of them nearly a mile distant, the other
perhaps half a mile farther, situated to the right and left of what,
in dry weather, was a well-beaten road-track, but which could only now
be known as such, by being bare of grass, and by the slightly raised
banks, covered here and there by low bushes, which bounded it.
The place we are about to describe occupied the summit of a small
eminence, below which, in a valley watered by a rivulet, was a
village surrounded by tall crops of grain, now coming into ear,
mingled with fields of cotton, as yet very low, and pulse, and other
cereals, generally about waist-high. This difference in the height
of the crops left the valley comparatively open; and the road-track
could be followed by the eye, whenever the mist and rain cleared a
little--through the fields to the gate of the first village, before
which there was an open piece of ground, past a small Hindu temple
surrounded with trees, and up a slight ascent beyond, to a plain, along
which it continued, till it disappeared among the tall jowaree fields
and other cultivation of the next village. These two villages were
called the greater and less Kinny.
The valley, or hollow, was little more than a descent in the undulation
of the country; but, when the rain fell heavily at the nearer village,
so as almost to conceal it, the effect from the eminence we describe
was, as though it were actually deep and broad; and then also the
farther village, with its trees, appeared distant, and sometimes was
not visible at all. Thus alternating, as sometimes plainly in view, and
at others not to be seen, these villages appeared to be objects of deep
interest to three men, who occupied the spot we have just mentioned.
Occasionally, and as the rain cleared a little, one or other of them
would proceed to the top of a heap of stones near at hand, and look
anxiously along the line of road, past the fields and the open space
before the gate of the first Kinny, up the ascent beyond, and over the
plain to the second; and there were moments when a man on horseback
might easily have been descried even at the further village, certainly
at the second, or between them, had such a person been upon the road;
but no one appeared.
The spot was remarkable as the highest point for a long distance either
way upon the road-track; and indeed, had the day been clear, a large
extent of country could have been seen from it in all directions. Now,
however, the view was very limited; and on the opposite sides from
the two villages nothing could be seen but a plain, thinly covered
with grass and bushes, and strewn thickly with black stones, which,
uncultivated as it was for miles, looked doubly desolate through the
misty air, being partially covered with pools of water of a yellowish
brown colour, the result of the present rain. Over this plain, three
roads or paths diverged from the place the men occupied. The main
track, which had the appearance of being somewhat beaten, was broader
than the others, and led westward to the town of Allund, about six
miles distant,--the others to villages from two to four miles to the
south and west.
The plain was, as we have said, very stony, and at the place we allude
to, the heap of stones had been formed gradually by travellers who,
coming from all sides, took up one from the path, and threw it, with
a prayer to the local divinity, upon the pile. This had been done, no
doubt, for centuries; still the stones upon the path appeared as thick
as ever, and sorely impeded and harassed all travellers, whether on
foot or horseback.
Over this heap of stones grew a large banian, and close to it several
scraggy neem trees; a peepul, too, had once existed, but was dead. Part
of the trunk and one large branch remained standing, white and dry, and
a portion of another lay on the ground, from which chips of firewood
had been cut from time to time. It looked as if it had been struck with
lightning, which, indeed, was not improbable, as several branches of
the banian were scathed and riven, probably from the same cause. Of
all these trees, however, the banian or "burr," as it is called in the
language of the country, was most remarkable.
Not possessed of the luxuriant foliage common to this tree in other
places, probably because the soil was too poor and rocky, its huge
gnarled boughs were bare of small branches and leaves; some were naked
and actually withered, others apparently so, and all stretched their
white gaunt arms into the sky, with a wild and ghastly effect against
the leaden grey of the clouds. In process of the centuries of its
existence, several boughs had become detached from the parent trunk,
and were upheld by stems which had once been pendant roots, and had
struck into the ground. These portions, if anything more bare, and more
gnarled and twisted than the parent tree, rose loftily into the air,
and with the same effect we have already noticed.
The larger boughs and stems were full of holes, which sheltered a
numerous colony of small grey tree owls, whose bright yellow eyes
stared from behind large boughs, and out of crevices in the trunks, or
from among the ornaments of the roof of the temple below; while they
kept up a perpetual twittering, as if they conversed together, which
indeed perhaps they did. On hot bright days lizards, large and small,
crept out of crevices and basked in the sun; and among them a family
of huge black ones, with bright eyes and scarlet throats, which they
inflated as they appeared to swell with importance. Shepherd boys
believed these to be evil spirits, and if they were brave, pelted them
with stones, or if otherwise ran off, as one of them issued forth and
looked about curiously.
Some large holes, too, near the top of the tree, contained great horned
owls, which, if attracted by any noise, sat, with stupidly-grave aspect
and wide saucer-eyes, looking down upon the road--the tufts of feathers
over their ears alternately erected and depressed--till they flew out
with a loud hoot to look for some more undisturbed retreat. These owls,
great and small, with the lizards, had the tree, for the most part, to
themselves. Probably there was not enough foliage to tempt other birds
to rest there; for except an occasional wandering flock of chattering
parroquets, mynas, or green pigeons, none frequented it by day. By
night, however, it was otherwise: for it was then the roosting-place
of the vultures, eagles, and other carrion birds of the district, with
whom the owls did not apparently interfere.
At the back, partly behind the parent tree and the heap of stones,
was a small and evidently ancient Hindu temple, consisting of one
chamber and a porch. The chamber was not much larger than sufficed to
contain the image, and allow a priest to officiate before it in case
of necessity, and was too low to admit of a man's standing upright.
The porch, which was supported in front by two roughly-hewn stone
pillars, was somewhat larger; and the three men we have mentioned,
were enabled to sit in it comfortably, protected from the rain. The
doorway was narrow and low, and the inside of the chamber was dark; but
a small Phallic emblem could be seen within set upon a low altar, and
a rudely-sculptured stone bull, in a sitting posture, had originally
been placed before the porch facing the image. The temple, image, and
bull showed that the grove had been originally dedicated to Siva, or
Mahadeo, in the form of that ancient "pillar and calf" worship so fatal
to the Israelites of old, and which for them possessed so strange a
fascination.
The temple was deserted, and, except on the annual festival of the god,
when some priest from a neighbouring village swept out the chamber,
brought a light to burn before the image, poured the usual libations,
and hung a few garlands of jessamine and marigold flowers over it,
no one ever came with intent to worship, and the place was utterly
neglected. Last year's garlands were now but dry brown leaves hanging
to a cotton thread; the chamber was dirty, and strewn with dead leaves;
the stone bull in front was overthrown, and lying on its side, and
even in bright sunshine the place presented a melancholy, deserted
appearance. Sometimes, in the heat of the day, village lads, in charge
of goats and cattle, would meet there, but only in lack of other
shelter from the sun; for indeed the spot had an evil reputation, and
not without reason.
It is not surprising that it was believed to be the resort of
malignant spirits which love to dwell in such places, and of tricksy
and mischievous sprites which inhabited the large holes in the old
trunks, sharing them with the owls and lizards that lived there: vexed
travellers' horses, causing them to cast shoes in the stones, or led
wayfarers astray, especially at night, among the many paths over the
stony plain--or bewitched cows and buffaloes, and dried up their milk.
So, ofttimes, shepherds came with flowers, and poured libations of milk
and curds, after a rude fashion, over a few large stones which lay
among the gnarled roots of the great tree, and had been placed there as
devoted to the local divinities--Fauns and Dryads--and therefore held
in rude reverence; and these, on such occasions, were smeared with red
or black powder in a kind of deprecatory worship.
It was not for these reasons alone that the place was dreaded; it
had, from other causes, even a worse reputation. It was notorious as
the place of meeting for most of the gang robberies in the country;
for assemblies of parties of highway robbers, and the distribution of
stolen property. Watchmen on village towers at night, sometimes saw
fires twinkling about the temple, and well knew the cause of them;
and shepherd boys next day found rude clay crucibles and extinguished
charcoal fires in one place where the trunk was hollow at the root of
the tree, and thus knew that gold and silver had been melted there at
night.
Murder, too, had been done there. On one occasion, not very long ago,
several fresh corpses had been found in the old well barely concealed
by leaves and bushes; and, more recently, a body found lying on
the road had been dragged from the line of one village boundary to
another--for several boundaries of village lands diverged from that
spot--to escape the king's fine, till it was eaten by vultures and
hyenas, and the bones lay and bleached under the great tree for many
a day, to the terror of all wayfarers. In short, the place was thus
esteemed evil for many reasons; and whether villagers or travellers
came past it by any of the roads over the plain, or from the two
Kinnys, alone or in company, they hurried past the temple, breathing a
spell or prayer against the ghosts and spirits which dwelt in it, and
heartily wishing themselves safe beyond its precincts.