Day by day, as strength returned to Tara, remembrance returned also.
It might have been with abhorrence of her present position--with dread
of her broken vows--with terror of the Mother's vengeance, and with
a sense of her own pollution as an escaped Sutee--which would have
utterly overwhelmed her with remorse, and forbidden recovery at all;
and in such a case, death would have been welcome. We will not say
that there was no revulsion of feeling: it would have been unnatural
in one with so fine an intellect as Tara possessed, had there been
no struggle. Perhaps the new life to which she awakened, after the
illness she had undergone, had blunted the perceptions of the old;
perhaps, as Zyna and Lurlee told her, that it was her destiny, which
she could not resist; and that, if she were to have died, as her creed
had determined, could Fazil have prevented it?--would she have been
delivered at all? Had she not already undergone the pains of death in
preparation for it, and been delivered from them?
Then Lurlee again brought forth her books, and went over all her old
calculations, and there were the priest's also with them, all tending
to the same point. If her faith had been shaken for a time, in the
fact that Afzool Khan had died, when the planets showed that he should
be victorious, might there not have been some mistake? Here at least
there was none; none in the restoration of her child, as she called
Tara, from death to life--none in her having been rescued from the evil
idolaters and Kafirs, to be newly born into the true faith, acceptable
to Alla and the Prophet. All this was very plain and incontrovertible.
Could Tara deny it? It was not clear that she even attempted to do so:
and ever nigh her, were anxious pleaders against any justification
of the rites of her own faith, from the most horrible consummation
of which, she could not possibly have escaped. "Even your father and
mother could not have saved you had they desired it," argued Zyna,
"from dying in the fire before them: they would have seen you burned,
and shouted 'Jey Kalee!' with the rest, to drown the scream of your
dying agony; but they would not have relented." No; Tara's heart told
her they would not have relented, and she must have perished, but for
Fazil.
And when he pleaded?--It was long before he attempted it; but it was
at last irrepressible. More than his sister and Lurlee, he knew what
struggle would ensue in Tara's heart if she were called upon too
suddenly to renounce her own faith; for he had lived, young as he
still was, more in the world. On this point, he had as yet forborne
to address her at all. But such love as his for the deserted girl,
must be spoken by himself. Lurlee and Zyna had told him all they had
said, and it seemed strange to both that he was silent; but he had
judged rightly. What the girl could bear from them, could not have been
endured from him till her bodily strength assisted her mind to bear it,
and he waited his opportunity.
It was the first time she had ever mentioned her own affairs; almost
the only time she had spoken freely at all. She had reverted to the
past, to the day of the attack on Tooljapoor, and to Fazil's recovery
of her mother's ornaments; for the Brahmun women had bathed her
that day, and she had performed some simple ceremonies of her faith
for purification after her illness, and charitable gifts had been
distributed by Fazil and Lurlee on her behalf. So she had suffered Zyna
to twist a garland of flowers into her hair as she used to do in camp,
and to put on her some of the old ornaments which, while she was yet
decked for the Sutee, had been brought away with her: and when Fazil,
who had been absent all day in the camp, returned before sunset for the
evening prayer, he found her talking earnestly with his sister.
Still pale, but only showing the traces of illness in the purity of
her colour, Tara had perhaps never looked more lovely than in the
resumption of some of her former richness and elegance of costume; and
as Fazil entered the court, for the moment unobserved by her and Zyna,
who were seated together, he stopped involuntarily to regard her.
Tara would have fled when they saw him, but Zyna would not have it so.
"Look," she said, "brother, is she not like herself once more? See how
I have decked her for her sacrifice of thanks to-day! Surely all that
is past is as a dream, and Tara is again what she was the evening she
was taken away from us. Is she not, brother? She is not changed?"
"Yes," he said, "changed, I think, in spirit in her new life, as we had
hoped--that is all! Tara, sit down: we will all remain together, and
you must hear me now, with Zyna as witness.
"There is nothing new to say," he continued, after a pause--"nothing.
It is only the old tale, once told before, when you believed it: and it
is not changed, only confirmed. Ah! we have both been tried since; and
if out of that trial you have come, like me, strengthened, then there
is no doubt. Tara! in the deadly struggle by that hideous pile, with
the crash of music, and frantic screams of the people in your ears,
even then your heart bore witness to me that I was true. Am I false
now?"
"O no, no, no!" cried the girl, throwing herself uncontrollably at
his feet, after her old Hindu fashion. "Not false, not false! You are
my lord and my saviour, and I worship you! I will be your slave, your
servant, for my life, and Zyna knows it; but consider----"
"Not thus, beloved," he said, gravely but kindly stooping and raising
her up, "will I hear that, but so, face to face. There is no shame in
it now--none; for it is our destiny, Tara: let it be as honoured as,
methinks, it is loved. Sit there and listen." And Zyna put her arm
round her, and they sat down together side by side.
"I have to say hard words, perhaps, Tara," he continued, "but you must
hear them. In saving you from death by fire, I have brought you into a
living death from your own faith; for you are an outcast now, as you
know--you cannot return to it. You could not be received as a Brahmun,
nor would any other caste assist you. Shaven, denied shelter, and even
water, by the very mother who bore you--if she live--you must herd with
the vilest, and enter that condition of abject dishonour and profligacy
which Moro Trimmul intended for you, and from which God--your God as
well as mine, Tara--has now delivered you. There is nothing else for
you that I can see but death, and that is now gone from you, and will
not return. Could you escape this, Tara? Is this a life for you?"
He saw the girl shudder violently, and bury her burning face in Zyna's
bosom; while Zyna, drawing her to herself more closely, said gently,
"Listen, listen; is he speaking the truth? You do not answer, O
beloved!"
Tara could not reply, but she clung to Zyna the more closely.
"Or instead," continued Fazil, "there is, what was said once before,
in presence of my honoured father--peace be with him!--which I now
repeat, and Alla and the Prophet, who sent me to you, and you to me,
are witness of its truth,--that all of honour, all of wealth, all of
love and respect that I possess, I will share with you as my wife, till
I die. You are not of us, nor of our creed: no matter, we can admit you
honourably to both. It is no disgrace to quit the blood-stained belief
of Hinduism to join the glorious ranks of the true believers; but a
blessed gain, for which, out of all these trials, Alla hath preordained
you. Enough, O Tara: before Him, your God and mine, and before Zyna,
answer to me truly and freely, once and for ever. He is witness that
there is no constraint upon you."
Could she resist that earnest manly pleading--she, already won long
ago? she who, in all her trial, had carried about in her heart that
image of glory and beauty, which she could only compare with the heroes
and demigods of her own sacred poems--her highest standard,--and who,
in putting it away, had done so, only to die in that horrible, calm
despair, which preceded voluntary immolation? It was impossible!
As she sat there, and as he ceased speaking, there rushed through her
mind a sudden flood of old memories which, had the love she bore for
him been weak, or less deeply rooted than it was, had swept it away
as the torrent sweeps dry straws from its bed, and they are seen no
more. Father, mother, Radha, the old pleasant memories of Tooljapoor,
and the old people; a happy childhood, a joyous budding into womanhood
without care. Next, her service to the goddess, and all that had come
of it--terror, desperation, and living death. She could not serve her
now, even did she desire it; and she could not see the image as before,
nor the weird ruby eyes which used to follow her, and seemed to glint
into her very heart. She remembered the fierce Brahmun, her foe--the
glittering fly which she had seen in her little garden--and trembling,
clung more closely to the breast on which she was lying; and, last of
all, the hideous pile of black logs, the crash of gongs and drums,
the shouts of the people, the fluttering pennons, the torches blazing
around her to light her to death, and the agony of two women as they
beheld it all, and of an aged man who had come to her and caused her
once more to fear----
It takes long to write this; but all, ay more, rushed through the
girl's heart as a strong flood in a moment, tossing and whirling
fiercely: yet it shook nothing there. How true was it that, in that
long unconsciousness and delirium, the old life had passed away, and
the new one came with other obligations to be fulfilled. She was
weeping passionately while Fazil was speaking, but when the rush of
thought came, it was with awe, which repressed other emotion, and was
succeeded by calm, inexpressibly sweet and assuring. Yes, love for him
had resisted the fury of passion in its last attempt, and she could not
control it now. Zyna felt her arms withdrawn from about her, and Tara,
covering her burning face, on which the tears were glistening, with
her garment, bent down before him, not in prostration, as before, but
kneeling and bowing her head reverently, as she joined her hands in an
attitude of supplication.
"Do with me as thou wilt, my lord," she said gently; "my life is thine,
and I am thine henceforth till I die. I am helpless now--do not forsake
me; and God and Zyna are witness that I pledge my troth to thee, freely
and humbly. I have no fear--none! it is past now!"
"Shabash! Shabash! Tara," cried Zyna exultingly, clapping her hands;
"now thou art ours indeed. See, mother," she continued, turning round
and looking up, as Lurlee entered, "he asked her, and she has agreed;
and you are witness of it as well as I."
"I am witness," said the lady; "I have heard all, and I am content.
Alla and the Prophet have answered my prayers. Ah! I shall have a
precious child to give to thee, Fazil, ere long."
"Put her hands into mine, mother," he replied. "It will feel real, that
she is to belong to me hereafter: it will be an earnest of the end."
"It is not one of the orthodox customs, Fazil," said the lady, gravely
and hesitatingly: "and I never saw it done at any betrothment;
nevertheless, wait an instant--I will return directly."
She did so, while they sat as before, bearing a silver salver--on which
there were some pieces of sugar-candy, and seated herself by them.
"Thou art still a Brahmun," she said to Tara, "but thou wilt take
one of these from thy mother? There," she continued, as she put a
piece into each of their mouths, repeating the blessing, "Bismilla!
It is done; ye cannot go back. There should be rejoicing, and music,
and feasting; but,--Bismilla! it is done, and ye cannot retract. O
children! O children!" she cried, bursting into a flood of tears, "I am
a widow, and have suffered sore bereavement; but ye are the light of my
eyes and the only joy of my heart now! Here are her hands, Fazil," and
she took up Tara's, and put them into his--"thine, boy, till the end!"
Fazil stooped his head, and put his forehead upon them; they were
not withdrawn, and he fancied that the slender fingers closed on his
confidently;--was it fancy?
"They should know of it, if they live," said Tara hesitatingly, and
with a gasp in her throat; "methinks they do live, mother, and that I
saw them--there--at Wye--my father and mother; but it is all confused
now, and it may have been a dream during my illness."
"O no!" cried the lady, "let them not come between us now, if they
live; but they are not alive, Tara."
"Perhaps not," she said, with a sigh; "nevertheless, if my lord would
send some one and ask. They would be found in Vishnu Pundit's house at
Wye; and if they are dead----"
"Surely," said Fazil, interrupting her, "I will send Lukshmun even now.
If they are there, they should come on at once; there is no fear. Could
you not send a letter, or a token, Tara?"
"I will write," she replied; "and here is a ring of my mother's that
she loved dearly; it would have been burned with me! Let them take it;
and if my lord would write, too, to say--to say--I am alive, it would
be enough."
"It shall be done at once," he said, rising; "O mother, surely thy
science told thee this would be a happy day!"
"See!" exclaimed the lady triumphantly, taking her tablets from her
bodice, "you mock the planets sometimes, son, but see; while you were
speaking I looked. Is not this Wednesday? and, see, here is Venus
ruling the hour as you sat and plighted your faith! O children, this
cannot be wrong, for the sun is just setting, and the work is finished."
As she spoke, the last gleam of its rays, as it sank in a glory of gold
and crimson, flashed into the apartment, lighting up the girls' radiant
faces, and sparkling upon their rich dresses and golden ornaments.
"Beautiful as thou art, Tara," continued Lurlee, "thou wilt be lovelier
still when we deck thee as his bride; and so may the blessing of thy
new mother rest upon thee, and the evil I take from thee now,"--and she
passed her hands over the girl from head to foot,--"depart to thine
enemies!"
"Ameen! Ameen!" cried Zyna, as Tara, falling upon her neck, again wept
silently those tears of joy which she had with difficulty repressed.