succeeded hour, as the sun moved steadily on to his home behind the
western hill. And all the while, the old merchant remained motionless
in his place, stiller even than the sleeping King, for he never even
breathed. So they watched and waited on, till for very weakness their
souls were almost parting from their bodies, and slumber began to steal
over their eyes. And day began to turn to twilight, and the darkness
began as it were to gather and creep out of the corners of the room, in
which was heard no sound, save the deep breathing of the sleeping King.
And suddenly, like a flash of lightning, there rang through that silent
room a cry, that pierced those weary watchers' ears like the point of a
molten spear; for it resembled the cry of a woman, forced by the agony
of abject fear into the very mouth of death. And as they bounded to
their feet, and looked towards the King, there burst from his heart
another cry, and yet another. And they saw his body, like a worm,
writhing and quivering as it lay; and all at once he leaped from the
couch and stood erect, and staggered across the floor.
And he stood there, swaying like a reed, and gazing straight before
him, seeing nothing, with open eyes, that were dazed with the depth of
their own despair. And every limb of his body shook, and drops of
sweat stood on his brow, and his breath came hard and fast and hoarse,
from a chest that heaved and trembled like the bosom of a frightened
girl. So he stood, while they all watched him, silent and aghast, and
listening as it were to the beating of their own hearts.
So as they watched him, holding their breath, he began to wail like a
child. And he wept aloud, with great sobs, that shook him from head to
foot, till the tears rose and stood in the eyes of all that saw him, as
if drawn from their sources by the sight of his own, which fell on the
ground like rain. And all at once, he stopped short. And he looked
up, and stared before him, with weeping and imploring eyes, that hunted
as it were among them for something they could not find.
And as they watched him silently, spellbound by those troubled eyes,
they saw their expression alter, and over them pass a dreadful change,
till like a fire they shone with scorn and hatred and disdain. And he
stepped forward, and spat at them all as they stood before him,
stretching out both his arms. And as he did so, his gaze was as it
were caught by the glitter of the glancing gems that hung upon his
wrists. And he looked at them for a moment, and suddenly he took those
jewels and tore them from his hands and arms, and from his neck and
breast. And he broke them all to pieces, snapping asunder cords and
chains, and tossed all over the palace hall pearls and rubies and all
the rest, till they rattled on the floor like hail. And when he had no
more jewels to tear, he fell upon his clothes; and he stripped them off
him with giant strength, and rent them into bits and shreds, till he
stood before them breathing hard, dripping with sweat, and bleeding, as
naked as he was born.
And as his eyes ran over them all as they shrank before him, they fell
suddenly upon the old merchant, who sat still in the self-same place,
never having stirred. So when the King saw him, suddenly he began to
laugh, with laughter that was divided from sobbing by only a single
hair. And he exclaimed: Ha! old vendor, art thou there, waiting for
thy price? For now my dream is over, and it only remains to pay. Take
for thy dream, my whole kingdom, and all that it contains. And even
so, thou art unpaid: for such a dream could not be ransomed, even by
the three great worlds.
And then, with anguish in his eyes, he threw his arms to heaven. And
he uttered a long low cry, like the howl of a dog whose lord is dead,
and turned, and ran out of the hall.
And they stood, like pictures on a wall, while the sound of his
disappearing steps died away upon their ears. And then in an instant,
the hall was filled with tumult. But the King's physician rushed
forward. And he exclaimed: The King's frenzy has come again, and much
I fear, that it will never again depart. But as for this old merchant,
who has given the King a deadly drug, let him not escape. Seize him,
and let him answer for the madness of the King.
Then the guards surrounded that old merchant, but he never moved or
stirred. And suddenly, seized with anger, the captain of the guards
stooped down, and seized him by the beard, to drag him roughly to his
feet. And lo! that old man's head came off his neck, and hung by the
beard in his hand. And they looked, and saw, that the body was hollow,
and empty, and without a soul, like the trunk of a withered tree.
Then they gazed at one another, with open mouths, and eyes that were
dull with fear. And after a while, the chaplain spoke. And he said
slowly: Surely this was an old Rákshasa, playing with the King's life.
Or who knows? For it may be, the Deity took this form, to punish the
King, by means of a dream, for the sins of a former birth.
[Illustration: Frontispiece]
An
Essence of the Dusk
[Illustration: Hindu script]
Translated from the Original Manuscript
[Illustration: Hindu script]
_Love turns venom, now I see,
Flouted Beauties vipers be_
COPYRIGHT, 1906
BY
F. W. BAIN
Dedicated
to the
Other Sex
Preface
More generally known, perhaps, than any other Hindoo legend, is the
story of the demon, RÁHU, who brings about ECLIPSES, by devouring the
Sun and Moon. For when the gods had upchurned the nectar, the
delectable Butter of the Brine, Ráhu's mouth watered at the very sight
of it: and "in the guise of a god" he mingled unperceived among them,
to partake. But the Sun and Moon, the watchful Eyes of Night and Day,
detected him, and told Wishnu, who cast at him his discus, and cut his
body from his head: but not until the nectar was on the way down his
throat. Hence, though the body died, the head became immortal: and
ever since, a thing unique, "no body and all head," a byword among
philosophers, he takes revenge on Sun and Moon, the great Taletellers,
by "gripping" them in his horrid jaws, and holding on, till he is
tired, or can be persuaded to let go. Hence, in some parts of India,
the doleful shout of the country people at eclipses: _Chor do! chor
do!_[1] and hence, also, the primary and surface meaning of our title:
_A Digit of the Moon in the Demon's grip_: in plain English, an eclipse
of the moon. And yet, legend though it be, there is something in the
old mythological way of putting the case, which describes the situation
in eclipses far better than our arid scientific prose. I shall not
easily forget, how, as we slid like ghosts at midnight, through the
middle of the desert, along the Suez Canal,[2] I watched the ghastly
pallor of the wan unhappy moon, as the horrible shadow crept slowly
over her face, stealing away her beauty, and turning the lone and level
sands that stretched away below to a weird and ashy blue, as though
covering the earth with a sepulchral sympathetic pall. For we caught
the "griesly terror," Ráhu, at his horrid work, towards the end of May,
four years ago.
But our title has yet another meaning underneath the first, for _Ahi_,
the name employed for Ráhu (like all other figures in Indian mythology,
he is known by many names), also means a _snake_. _Beauty persecuted
by a snake_ is the subject of the story. That story will presently
explain itself: but the relation between _Ráhu_, or eclipses, and a
snake is so curiously illustrated by a little insignificant occurrence
that happened to myself, that the reader will doubtless forgive me for
making him acquainted with it.
Being at Delhi, not many years ago, I seized the opportunity to visit
the Kutub Minár. There was famine in the land. At every station I had
passed upon the way were piled the hides of bullocks, and from the
train you might see their skeletons lying, each one bleaching where it
died for want of fodder, scattered here and there on the brown and
burning earth; for even every river bed was waterless, and not a single
blade of green could you descry, for many hundred miles. And hence it
came about, that as I gazed upon the two emaciated hacks that were to
pull me from the station, a dozen miles out, and as many more back, I
could bring myself to sit behind them only by the thought that thereby
I should save them from a load far greater than my own, that would have
been their fate on my refusal. Therefore we started, and did
ultimately arrive, in the very blaze of noon.
The Kutub Minár is a needle of red stone, that rises from a plain as
flat as paper to a height of two hundred and fifty feet; and you might
compare it, as you catch, approaching, glimpses of it at a distance, to
a colossal chimney, a Pharos, or an Efreet of the Jinn. The last would
be the best. For nothing on the surface of the earth can parallel the
scene of desolation which unrolls itself below, if you climb its 380
steps and look out from the dizzy verge: a thing that will test both
the muscle of your knees and the steadiness of your nerves. Round you
is empty space: look down, the pillar bends and totters, and you seem
to rock in air; you shudder, you are falling: and away, away below, far
as the eye can carry, you see the dusty plain, studded with a thousand
tombs and relics of forgotten kings. There is the grim old fortress of
the Toghlaks: there is the singular observatory of the rájá astronomer,
Jaya Singh: and there the tomb, Humaioon's tomb, before which Hodson,
Hodson the brave, Hodson the slandered, Hodson the unforgotten, sat,
for two long hours, still, as if man and horse were carved in stone,
with the hostile crowd that loathed and feared him tossing and seething
and surging round him, waiting for the last Mogul to come out and be
led away. The air is thick, and sparkles with blinding dust and glare,
and the wind whistles in your ears. Over the bones of dynasties, the
hot wind wails and sobs and moans. Aye! if a man seeks for melancholy,
I will tell him where to find it--at the top of the old Kutub Minár.
And then, that happened which I had foreseen. We had not gone a mile
upon our homeward way, when one of the horses fell. Therefore,
disregarding the asseverations of my rascally Jehu that the remaining
animal was fully equal to the task alone, I descended, and proceeded on
foot. But a ten-mile walk on the Delhi plain in the hottest part of
the day is not a thing to be recommended. After plodding on for about
two hours, I was, like Langland, "wery forwandred," and went me to
rest, not alas! by a burnside, but in the shadow of one of the
innumerable little tombs that stand along the dusty road. There I lay
down and fell asleep.
Nothing induces slumber like exertion under an Indian sun. When I
awoke, that sun was setting. A little way before me, the yellow walls
of Delhi were bathed in a ruddy glow; the minarets of the Great Mosque
stood out sharp against the clear unspotted amber sky. And as I
watched them, I suddenly became aware that I was myself observed with
interest by a dusky individual, who was squatted just in front of me,
and who rose, salaaming, when he saw that I was awake. It appeared
that I had, so to say, fallen into a "nest of vipers "; that I had
unwittingly invaded the premises of a snake dealer, who, no doubt for
solid reasons, had made my friendly tomb the temporary repository of
his stock-in-trade.
The Indian snake charmer, _gáruda, hawadiga_,[3] or whatever else they
call him, is as a rule but a poor impostor. He goes about with one
fangless cobra, one rock snake, and one miserable mongoose, strangling
at the end of a string. My dweller in tombs was richer than all his
tribe in his snakes, and in his eyes. I have never seen anybody else
with real cat's eyes: eyes with exactly that greenish yellow luminous
glare which you see when you look at a cat in the dark. They gleamed
and rolled in the evening sun, over a row of shining teeth, as their
owner squatted down before me, liberating one after another from little
bags and baskets an amazing multitude of snakes, which he fetched in
batches from the interior of the tomb, till the very ground seemed
alive with them.[4] Some of them he handled only with the greatest
respect, and by means of an iron prong. Outside the Zoo (where they
lose in effect) I never saw so many together before: and it is only
when you see a number of these reptiles together that you realise what
a strange uncanny being, after all, is a snake: and as you watch him,
lying, as it were, in wait, beautiful exceedingly, but with a beauty
that inspires you with a shudder, his eyes full of cruelty and original
sin, and his tongue of calumny and malice, you begin to understand his
influence in all religions. I was wholly absorbed in their snaky
evolutions, and buried in mythological reminiscences, when my _gáruda_
roused me suddenly, by saying: _Huzoor_, look!
He leaned over, and administered with his bare hand a vicious dig to a
magnificent hamadryad that lay coiled upon itself in its open basket.
The creature instantly sat up, with a surge of splendid passion,
hissing, bowing, and expanding angrily its great tawny hood. The
_gáruda_ put his _púngí_ to his lips, and blew for a while upon it a
low and wheezy drone,--the invariable prelude to a little _jadoo_, or
black art,--which the beautiful animal appeared to appreciate: and
then, pointing with the end of his pipe to the "spectacles" on its
hood, he said, with that silky, insinuating smile which is
characteristic of the scamp: _Huzoor, dekko, namas karta[5]_:--
Nágki phani, chánd ka dúkh
Uski badi, áp ka súkh.[6]
I did not understand his lunar allusion, but, judging that his rhyming
gibberish, like that of the rascally priests in Apuleius, was a
carefully prepared oracle of general application, kept in stock for the
cozening of such prey as myself, I repeated to him my favourite Hindu
proverb,[7] and gave him in exchange for his benevolent cheque on the
future, a more commonplace article of present value, which led to our
parting on the most amicable terms. But I did him injustice, perhaps.
Long afterwards, having occasion to consult an astronomical chart, with
reference to this very story, all at once I started, and in an instant,
the golden evening, the walls of Delhi, and my friend of the many
snakes and sinister eyes, suddenly rose up again into my mind. For
there, staring at me out of the chart, was the mark on the cobra's
head. It is the sign still used in modern astronomy for "the head and
tail of the dragon," the nodes indicating the point of occultation, the
symbol of eclipse.
What then induced or inspired the _gáruda_ to connect me with the moon?
Was it really black art, divination, or was it only a coincidence?
Reason recommends the latter alternative: and yet, the contrary
persuasion is not without its charm. Who knows? It may be that the
soul grows to its atmosphere as well as the body, and living in a land
where dreams are realities, and all things are credible, and history is
only a fairy tale--the land of the moon and the lotus and the snake,
old gods and old ruins, former births, second sight, and idealism--it
falls back, unconsciously mesmerised, under the spell of forgotten
creeds.
POONA, April, 1906.
[1] _Let go! Let go!_
[2] Though nothing can be less romantic than a canal, gliding through
that of Suez is a strange experience at night. Your great ship seems
to move, swift and noiseless, through the very sand: and if only you
could get there without knowing where you were, you would think that
you were dreaming.
[3] _Háwa_, in Canarese, is the name of Ráhu.
[4] I did not count them, but there were several dozen, nearly all
different. I have reason to believe that this man must have been one
of the disciples of a former very celebrated snake charmer, who was
known all over India.
[5] _See, he makes obeisance_.
[6] Which we may roughly render: _Hood of snake brings joy and rue,
this to moon and that to you_. In all Oriental saws jingle counts for
much.
[7] "_Tutsi, in this world hobnob with everybody: for you never know in
what guise the deity may present himself._" In the original it is a
rhyming stanza.
Contents
I. A Haunted Beauty
II. A Total Eclipse
III. A Fatal Kiss
A Haunted Beauty
A Haunted Beauty
_May that triumphant Lord protect us, who as he stands in mysterious
meditation, bathed in twilight, motionless, and ashy pale,[1] with the
crystal moon in his yellow hair, appears to the host of worshippers on
his left, a woman, and to those on his right, a man._
I
There lived of old, on the edge of the desert, a rájá of the race of
the sun. And like that sun reflected at midday in the glassy depths of
the Mánasa lake, he had an image of himself in the form of a son,[2]
who exactly resembled him in every particular, except age. And he gave
him the name of Aja, for he said: He is not another, but my very self
that has conquered death, and passed without birth straight over into
another body. Moreover, he will resemble his ancestor, and the god
after whom I have called him Aja.[3] So as this son grew up, his
father's delight in him grew greater also. For he was tall as a
_shála_ tree, and very strong, and yet like another God of Love: for
his face was more beautiful than the face of any woman, with large eyes
like lapis-lazuli, and lips like laughter incarnate: so that his
father, as often as he looked at him, said to himself: Surely the
Creator has made a mistake, and mixed up his male and female
ingredients, and made him half and half. For if only he had had a twin
sister, it would have been difficult to tell with certainty which was
which.
And then, when Aja was eighteen, his father died. And immediately, his
relations conspired against him, led by his maternal uncle. And they
laid a plot, and seized him at night, and bound him when he was asleep:
for they dared not attack him when he was awake, for fear of his
courage and his prodigious strength. And they deliberated over him, as
he lay bound, what they should do with him: and some of them were for
putting him to death, then and there. But the prime minister, who was
in the plot, persuaded them to let him live, saying to himself: In this
way I shall make for myself a loophole of escape, in case he should
ever regain his throne.
Then in the early morning, his uncle and his other relations took him
away, and laid him bound on a swift camel. And mounting others, they
hurried him away into the desert, going at full speed for hours, till
they reached its very heart. And there they set him down. And they
placed beside him a little water in a small skin, and a little bag of
corn. And his uncle said: Now, O nephew, we will leave thee, alone
with thy shadow and thy life in the sand. And if thou canst save
thyself by going away to the western quarter, lo! it is open before
thee. But beware of attempting to return home, towards the rising sun.
For I will set guards to watch thy coming, and I will not spare thee a
second time.
And then, he set his left arm free, and laid beside him a little knife.
And they mounted their camels, and taking his, they flew away from him
over the sand, like the shadow of a cloud driven by the western wind.
So when they were gone, Aja took the knife, and cut his bonds. And he
stood up, and watched them going, till they became specks on the edge
of the desert and vanished out of his sight.
[1] Being actually smeared with ashes. The god is of course Shiwa, and
the allusion is to his _Ardhandri_, or half male, half female form.
[2] This punning assonance is precisely in the vein of the original.
II
Then he looked round to the eight quarters of the world, and he looked
up into the sky. And he said to himself: There is my ancestor, alone
above, and I am alone, below. And he put his two hands to his breast,
and flung them out into the air. And he exclaimed: _Bho!_ ye guardians
of the world,[1] ye are my witnesses. Thus do I fling away the past,
and now the whole wide world is mine, and ye are my protectors. And I
have escaped death by a miracle, and the craft of that old villain of a
prime minister, whom I will one day punish as he deserves. And now it
is as though I knew, for the very first time in all my life, what it
was to be alive. Ha! I live and breathe, and there before me is food
and water. And now we will see which is the stronger: Death in the
form of this lonely desert, or the life that laughs at his menace as it
dances in my veins. And little I care for the loss of my kingdom, now
that my father is dead and gone. I throw it away like a blade of
grass, and so far from lamenting, I feel rather as if I had been born
again. Ha! it is good to be alive, even in this waste of sand. And he
shouted aloud, and called out to the sun above him: Come, old
Grandfather, thou and I will travel together across the sand. And yet,
no. Thou art too rapid and too fierce to be a safe companion, even for
one of thine own race. So thou shalt go before me, as is due to thee,
and I will follow after.
And then, he lay down on the sand, covering his head with his upper
garment, and slept and waited all day long, till the sun was going
down. And then he rose, and ate and drank a very little, and taking
with him his skin and corn, he walked on after the sun, which sank to
his rest in the western mountain. But Aja followed him all night long,
with the moon for his only companion. And as he went, he saw the bones
of men and camels, lying along the sand, and grinning at him as it were
with white and silent laughter, as though to say: Anticipate thy fate:
for but a little further on, and thou shalt be what we are now. But he
went on with nimble feet, like one that hurries through the den of a
sleeping hungry lion, till the sun rose at last behind him. And then
again he lay down, and rested all day long, and started again at night.
And so he proceeded for many days till all his water and corn were
gone. And as he threw away the skin, he set his teeth, and said: No
matter. I will reach the end of this hideous sand, which, like the
dress of Draupadi,[2] seems to roll itself out as I go across it,
though I should have to go walking on long after I am dead.
And night after night he went on, growing every night a little weaker.
And then at last there came a night when as he toiled along with heavy
steps that flagged as it were with loaded feet, faint with hunger and
burning thirst, he said to himself: I am nearly spent, and now the end
is coming near, either of the sand, or of me. And then the sun rose
behind him, and he looked up, and lo! it was reflected from the wall of
a city before him, which resembled another sun of hope rising in the
west to cheer him. And he rubbed his eyes, and looked again, saying to
himself: Is it a delusion of the desert, to mock me as I perish, or is
it really a true city? And he said again: Ha! it is a real city. And
his ebbing strength came back to him with a flood of joy. And he
stopped, and took up a little sand, and turned, and threw it back,
exclaiming: Out upon thee, abode of death![3] Now, then, I have beaten
thee, and thy victim will after all escape. And he hurried on towards
the city, half afraid to take his eyes away from it for a single
instant, lest it should disappear.