On the second day of their wandering, the deep shade of the forest
scenery, in which they had hitherto been involved, softened into a less
impervious gloom, the heights of the black rock of Bembhar rose on their
view, and the lovely and enchanting glen which reposes at its northern
base, and which is called the Valley of Floating Islands, burst upon
their glance. These phenomena, which appear on the bosom of the Behat,
are formed by the masses of rock, by the trees and shrubs which the
whirlwind tears from the summits of the surrounding mountains, and which
are thus borne away by the fury of the torrents, and plunged into the
tranquil waters beneath; these rude fragments, collected by time and
chance, cemented by the river Slime, and intermixed by creeping plants,
and parasite grasses, become small but lovely islets, covered with
flowers, sowed by the vagrant winds, and skirted by the leaves and
blossoms of the crimson lotos, the water-loving flower of Indian groves.
This scene, so luxuriant and yet so animating, where all was light, and
harmony, and odour, gave a new sensation to the nerves, and a new tone
to the feelings of the wanderers, and their spirits were fed with
balmier airs, and their eyes greeted with lovelier objects, than hope or
fancy had ever imaged to their minds.--Sometimes they stood together on
the edge of the silvery flood, watching the motion of the arbours which
floated on its bosom, or pursuing the twinings of the harmless green
serpent, which, shining amidst masses of kindred hues, raised gracefully
his brilliant crest above the edges of the river bank. Sometimes from
beneath the shade of umbrageous trees, they beheld the sacred animal of
India breaking the stubborn flood with his broad white breast, and
gaining the fragrant islet, where he reposed his heated limbs; his mild
countenance shaded by his crooked horns, crowned by the foliage in which
he had entangled them; thus reposing in tranquil majesty, he looked
like some river-deity of antient fable.
Flights of many-coloured perroquets, of lorys, and of peacocks,
reflected on the bosom of the river the bright and various tints of
their splendid plumage; while the cozel, the nightingale of Hindoo
bards, poured its song of love from the summit of the loftiest
_mergosa_, the eastern lilac. It was here they found the _Jama_, or rose
apple-tree, bearing ambrosial fruit--it was here that the sweet sumbal,
the spikenard of the antients, spread its tresses of dusky gold over the
clumps of granite, which sparkled like coloured gems amidst the saphire
of the mossy soil--it was here that, at the decline of a lovely day, the
wanderers reached the shade of a natural arbour, formed by the union of
a tamarind-tree with the branches of a _covidara_, whose purple and
rose-coloured blossoms mingled with the golden fruit which, to the
Indian palate, affords so delicious a refreshment.
It was Luxima who discovered this retreat so luxurious, and yet so
simple. The purity of the atmosphere, the brilliancy of the scene, had
given to her spirits a higher tone than usually distinguished their
languid character. Looking pure and light as the air she breathed, she
had bounded on before her companion, who, buried in profound reverie,
seemed at once more thoughtful and more tender than he had yet appeared
in look or manner. When he reached the arbour, he found Luxima seated
beneath its shade--her brow crowned with Indian feathers, and her
delicate fingers engaged in forming a wreath of odoriferous berries;
looking like the emblem of that lovely region, whose mild and delicious
climate had contributed to form the beauty of her person, the softness
of her character, and the ardour of her imagination. No thought of
future care contracted her brow, and the smile of peace and innocence
sat on her lips. Not so the Missionary: the morbid habit of watching his
own sensations had produced in him an hypochondriasm of conscience,
which embittered the most blameless moments of his life; his diseased
mind discovered a lurking crime in the most innocent enjoyments; and the
fear of offending Heaven, fastened his attention to objects which were
only dangerous, by not being immediately dismissed from his thoughts.
The moral economy of his nature suffered from the very means he took to
preserve it; and his danger arose less from his temptation, than from
the sensibility with which he watched its progress, and the efforts he
made to combat and to resist its influence. He now beheld Luxima more
lovely than he had ever seen her; she was gracefully occupied, and there
was something picturesque, something almost _fantastic_, in her
appearance, which gave the poignant charm of novelty to her air and
person. She was murmuring an Indian song, as he approached her. The
Missionary stood gazing on her for some moments in silence, then
suddenly averting his eyes, and seating himself near her, he said--“And
to what purpose, my dearest daughter, dost thou so industriously weave
those fragrant wreaths?”
“To hang upon the bower of thy repose,” she replied, “as a spell against
evil;--for dost thou not, on every side, perceive the _bacula_ plant, so
injurious to the nerves, and whose baneful influence the odour of these
berries can alone dispel?”[1]
“Alas!” he exclaimed, “in scenes so lovely and remote as those in which
we now wander, who could suspect that latent evil lurked? But the evil
which always exists, and that against which it is most difficult to
guard, exists within ourselves, Luxima.”
“Thou sayest it,” returned Luxima, “and therefore must it be true; and
yet, methinks, in us at least no evil can exist--look around thee,
Father; behold those hills which encompass us on every side, and which,
seeming to shut out the universe, exclude all the evil passions by which
it is agitated and disordered; and since absent from all human
intercourse, our feelings relate only to each other, surely in us at
least no evil _can_ exist.”
“Let us hope, let us trust there does not, Luxima,” said the Missionary,
in strong emotion; “and oh! my daughter, let us watch and pray that
there _may not_.”
“And here,” said Luxima with simplicity, and suspending her work, “where
all breathes of peace and innocence, against what are we to pray?”
“Even against _those thoughts_ which involuntarily start into the mind,
and which, though confined, and perhaps referring exclusively to each
other, may yet become fatal and seductive, may yet plunge us into error
beyond the mercy of Heaven to forgive!”
“But if one _sole_ thought occupies the existence!” said Luxima,
tenderly and with energy, “and if it is sanctified by the perfection of
its object!”
“But to what earthly object does perfection belong, Luxima?”
“To thee;” replied the Neophyte, blushing.
“It is the ardour of thy gratitude only,” said the Missionary with
vehemence, “which bestows on me, an epithet belonging alone to Heaven.
And lovely as is this purest of human sentiments, yet, _being human_, it
is liable to corruption, and may be carried to an excess fatal to us
both; for, oh! Luxima, were I to avail myself of this excess of
gratitude, this pure but unguarded tenderness, and in wilds solitary
and luxuriant as these, where happiness and security might mingle,
where, forgetting the world, and its opinions, abandoning alike _heaven_
and its _cause_!”--he paused abruptly--he trembled, and a deep groan
burst from a heart, agitated by all the conflicting emotions of a
sensitive conscience, and an imperious passion.
Luxima, moved by his agitation--tender, timid, yet always happy and
tranquilly blessed in the presence of him, the idol of her secret
thoughts, and fearing only those incidents which might impede the
innocent felicity of being near him--endeavoured to soothe his
perturbation, and, taking his hand in hers, and bending her head towards
him, she looked on his eyes with innocent fondness, and her sighs,
sweet as the incense of the evening, breathed on his burning cheek!
Then the sacred fillet of religion fell from his eyes; he threw
himself at her feet, and pressing her hands to his heart, he said
passionately--“Luxima, tell me, dost thou not belong exclusively to
Heaven? Recall to my wandering mind that sacred vow, by which I solemnly
devoted thee to its service, at the baptismal font! Oh! my daughter,
thou wouldst not destroy me? thou wouldst not arm Heaven against me,
Luxima?”
“I!” returned Luxima tenderly, “I destroy thee, who art dear to me as
heaven itself!”
“Oh! Luxima,” he exclaimed in emotion, “look not thus on me! tell me
not that I am dear to thee, or....” At that moment his rosary fell to
the earth, and lay at the feet of the Indian.
An incident so natural and so simple struck on the conscience of the
Missionary, as though the Minister of Divine wrath had blasted his gaze
with his accusing presence;--he grew pale and shuddered, his arms fell
back upon his breast;--overpowered by shame, and by self-abhorrence,
rushing from the bower, he plunged into the thickest shade of the grove;
there he threw himself on the earth; and that mind, once so high and
lofty in its own conscious triumph, was now again sunk and agonized by
the conviction of its own debasement. From this state of unsupportable
humiliation, he was awakened by the sound of horses’ feet; he raised his
eyes, and beheld approaching an Indian, who led a small Arabian horse,
laden with empty panniers: the Missionary hastily arose--and the
stranger, moved by the dignity of his form, and the disorder of his pale
and haggard countenance, gave him the _Salaam_; and invited him, with
the hospitable courtesy of his country, to repair to his cottage, which
lay at a little distance,--“Or perhaps,” he said, “you wish to overtake
the caravan, and--”
“To _overtake_ it!” interrupted the Missionary; “has it then long
passed?”
“It halts now,” returned the peasant; “on the other side of _Bembhar_,
I have been disposing of some _touz_[2] to a merchant of Tatta; if you
have no other mode of proceeding, you will scarcely overtake it on
foot.”
A new cause of suffering now occupied his mind.--Luxima, hitherto
cheered and supported by the lovely and enlivening scenes through which
she passed, by the smoothness of her path and the temperature of her
native climes, was yet wearied and exhausted by a journey performed in
a manner to which the delicacy of her frame was little adequate--but it
was now impossible she could proceed as she had hitherto done; in a few
hours the Eden which had cheated fatigue of its influence, would
disappear from their eyes; and, should the caravan have proceeded much
in advance, it was impossible that the delicate Indian could encounter
the horrors of the desart which lay on the southern side of Bembhar.
It was then that, believing Providence had sent the Indian in his path,
a new hope revived in his heart, a new resource was opened in his
mind:--he offered a part of what remained of the purse of rupees he had
brought with him from Lahore, for the Arabian horse. It was more than
its value, and the Indian gladly accepted his proposal, and, pointing
out to him the shortest way to _Bembhar_, and offering his good wishes
for the safety of his journey, he pursued his way to his cottage. As
soon as he had disappeared, Hilarion led the animal to the bower, where
Luxima still remained, involved in reveries so soft, and yet so
profound, that she observed not the approach of him who was their sole
and exclusive object.
“Luxima!” he said in a low and tremulous voice--Luxima started, and,
covered with blushes, she raised her languid eyes to his, and faintly
answered--“_Father!_”
“My daughter,” he said, “that Heaven, of whose favour I at least am so
unworthy, has mercifully extended its providential care to us. A
stranger, whom I met in the forest, has informed me, that the caravan
has passed the rock of Bembhar; but I have purchased from him this
animal, by which thou wilt be able to proceed!”
Luxima arose, and, drawing her veil over a face in which the lovely
confusion of a sensitive modesty and ardent tenderness still lingered,
she suffered the Missionary to place her on the gentle Arabian--and he
moving with long and rapid steps by her side, they again renewed their
pilgrimage.
Already the bloom and verdure of Cashmire appeared fading into the
approaching heights of the sterile Bembhar, and the travellers, silent
and thoughtful, ascended those acclivities, which seemed but to reflect
the smiling lustre of the scenes they left; no sound, even of nature,
disturbed the profound silence of scenes--so still and solemn, that they
resembled the primæval world, ere human existence had given animation to
its pathless wilds, or human passions had disturbed the calm of its mild
tranquillity! No sound was heard, save the jackall’s dismal yell, which
so often disturbs the impressive and serene beauty of Indian scenery.
But this death-like calm failed to communicate a correspondent influence
to the bosom of the solitary wanderers:--again together, in a boundless
solitude, they were yet silent, as though they feared a human accent
would destroy the impassioned mystery which existed between them; while
religion and penitence, and delicacy and self-distrust, enforced the
necessity of a reserve, to which both alike submitted with difficulty
but with fortitude. Solitude, with the object of a suppressed
tenderness, is always too dangerous! and that great passion which seeks
a desart, finds the proper region of its own empire. Thus, those
helpless and tender friends, in whom love and grace struggled with equal
sway, now eagerly looked forward to their restoration to society, which
would afford them that protection against themselves, which nature, in
her loveliest regions, had hitherto seemed to refuse them.
The travellers at last reached the summit of the _rock of Bembhar_; and,
ere they descended the wild and burning plains of Upper Lahore, the
Indian turned round to take a last view of her native Eden. The sun was
setting in all his majesty of light upon the valley; and villages, and
pagodas, and groves, and rivers, were brilliantly tinted with his
crimson rays. Luxima cast one look in that direction where lay the
district of Sirinaur--another towards Heaven--and then fixed her tearful
eyes on the Missionary, with an expression so eloquent and so ardent,
that they seemed to say, “Heaven and earth have I resigned for
thee!”--The Missionary met and returned her look, but dared not trust
his lips to speak; and, in the sympathy and intelligence of that silent
glance, the Indian found country, kindred, friends; or ceased for a
moment to remember she had lost them all.
Sad, silent, and gloomy, resembling the first pair, when they had
reached the boundary of their native paradise, they now descended the
southern declivities of Bembhar: the dews of Cashmire no longer embalmed
the evening air, and the heated vapours which arose from the plains
below, rendered the atmosphere insupportably intense.
As they reached the plains of Upper Lahore, a few dark shrubs and
blasted trees alone presented themselves in the hot and sandy soil; and
when a stalk of rosemary and lavender, or the scarlet tulip of the
desert, tempted the hand of the Missionary, for her to whom flowers were
always precious, they mouldered into dust at his touch!
Luxima endeavoured to stifle a sigh, as she beheld nature in this her
most awful and destructive aspect--and the Missionary, with a sad smile,
sought to cheer her drooping spirit, by pointing out to her the track of
the caravan, or the snowy summit of _Mount Alideck_, which arose like a
land-mark before them. Having paused for a short time, while the
Missionary ascended a rock, to perceive if the caravan was in
view--which if it had been, the light of a brilliant moon would have
discovered,--they proceeded during the night, in sadness and in gloom,
while the intense thirst produced by the ardour of the air had already
exhausted the juicy fruits with which the Missionary had supplied
himself for Luxima’s refreshment; at last the faint glimmering of the
stars was lost in the brighter lustre of the morning-planet; the
resplendent herald of day, riding in serene lustre through the heavens,
ushered in the vigorous sun, whose potent rays rapidly pervaded the
whole horizon.--The fugitives found themselves near a large and solitary
edifice; it was a _Choultry_, built for the shelter of travellers, and,
as an inscription indicated, “built by _Luxima_, the _Prophetess and
Bramachira of Cashmire_!”--At the sight of this object, the Indian
turned pale--all the glory and happiness of her past life rushed on the
recollection of the excommunicated Chancalas; and her guide, feeling in
all their force the sacrifices which she had made for him, silently and
tenderly chased away her tears, with her veil. As it was impossible to
proceed during the meridional ardours of the day, the wearied and
exhausted Indian sought shelter and repose beneath that roof which her
own charity had raised; and a cocoa-tree, planted on the edge of a tank
which she had excavated, afforded to her that refreshment, which she had
benevolently provided for others. Here, it was evident, the caravan had
lately halted; for the remains of some provisions, usually left by
Indian travellers for those who may succeed them, were visible, and the
track of wheels, of horses, and of camels’ feet, was every where
apparent. Revived and invigorated by an hour’s undisturbed repose, they
again re-commenced their route; still pursuing the track of the caravan,
while, in forms rendered indistinct by distance, they still fancied they
beheld the object of their pursuit. Scenes more varied than those
through which they had already journeyed, now presented themselves to
their view. Sometimes they passed through a ruined village, which the
flame of war had desolated; sometimes beneath the remains of a Mogul
fortress, whose mouldering arches presented the most picturesque
specimens of eastern military architecture; while from the marshy fosse,
which surrounded the majestic ruins, arose a bright blue flame, and
moving with velocity amidst its mouldering bastions, floating like
waves, or falling like sparks of fire, became suddenly extinct--Luxima
gazed upon this spectacle with fear and amazement, and, governed by the
superstition of her early education, saw, in a natural phenomenon, the
effects of a supernatural agency; trembling, she clung to her pastor and
her guide, and said, “It is the spirit of one who fell in the battle, or
who died in the defence of these ruins, and who, for some crime
unredeemed, is thus destined to wander till the time of expiation is
accomplished, and he return into some form on earth.”
The Missionary sought to release her mind from the bondage of imaginary
terrors, and at once to amuse her fancy, to enlighten her ideas, and to
elevate her soul; he explained to her, with ingenious simplicity, the
various and wonderful modes by which the Divine Spirit disposes of the
different powers of nature, still teaching her to feel “God in all, and
all in God.”
Luxima gazed on him with wonder while he spoke, and hung in silent
admiration on words she deemed inspired; yet when, as it sometimes
occurred, she beheld the rude altars raised, even in the most
unfrequented places to _Boom-Daivee_, the goddess of the earth[3]; or to
the Daivadergoel, the tutelar guardians of wilds and forests, her senses
acknowledged these images of her antient superstition, in spite of her
reason, and she involuntarily bowed before the objects of her habitual
devotion. Then the Missionary reproved her severely for the perpetual
vacillation of her undecided faith; but, disarming his severity by looks
and words of tenderness, she would fondly reply--“Oh! my Father! it is
not all devotion which bows my head and bends my knee before these well
remembered shrines of my antient faith! Alas! it is not all a pious
impulse, but a natural sympathy: for the genii to whom these altars are
raised, were once, as I was, happy and glorified; but they incurred the
wrath of _Shiven_,[4] by abandoning his laws; and, banished from their
native heaven, were doomed to wander in solitary wastes to expiate their
error:--but here, that sympathy ceases; for they found not, like me, a
compensation for the paradise they forfeited; _they_ found not on earth,
something which partook of heaven, and they knew not that perfect
communion, which images to the soul, in its transient probation through
time, the bliss which awaits it in eternity.”
It was by words like these, timidly and tenderly pronounced, that the
feelings of the spiritual guide were put to the most severe test; it was
words like these, which chilled his which increased the hidden
sentiment, manner, while they warmed his heart; and restrained the
external emotion, and which cherished and fed his passion, while they
awakened his self-distrust: but Luxima, at once his peril and his
salvation, counteracted by her innocence the effects of her tenderness,
and alternately awakened, excited or subdued, by that feminine display
of feeling and sentiment, which blended purity with ardour, and
elevation of soul with tenderness of heart. More sensitive than
reflecting, she was guided rather by an instinctive delicacy, than a
prudent reserve; in _her_, sentiment supplied the place of reason, and
she was the most virtuous, because she was the most affectionate of
women.
The evening again arose upon their wanderings, and they paused ere they
proceeded to encounter the pathless way through the gloom of night; they
paused near the edge of a spring, which afforded a delicious
refreshment; and, under the shadow of a lofty tamarind-tree, which,
blooming in solitary beauty, supplied at once both fruit and shade, and
seemed dropt in the midst of a lonesome waste, as a beacon to hope, as
an assurance of the providential care of _him_, who reared its head in
the desert for the relief of his creatures. Here the Missionary left
Luxima to take repose; and, having fastened the _Arabian_ to a
neighbouring rock, embossed with patches of vegetation, he proceeded
across some stoney acclivities which were covered by the caprice of
nature with massy clumps of the _bamboo tree_. When he had reached the
opposite side, he looked back to catch, as he was wont, a glimpse of
Luxima; but, for the first time since the commencement of their
pilgrimage, she was hidden from his view by the intervening foliage of
the plantation, trembling at the fancied dangers which might assail her
in his absence: he proceeded with a rapid step towards an eminence, in
the hope of ascertaining, from its summit, the path of the caravan, or
of discovering some human habitation, though but the hut of a _pariah_,
whose owner might guide their now uncertain steps. Turning his eyes
towards the still glowing West, he perceived a forest whose immense
trees marked their waving outline on saffron clouds, which hung
radiantly upon their gloom, tinging their dark branches with the yellow
lustre of declining light; he perceived also, that this awful and
magnificent forest was skirted by an illimitable jungle, through whose
long-entangled grass a broad path-way seemed to have been recently
formed, and, vision growing strong by exercise, the first confusion of
objects which had distracted his gaze, gradually subsiding into distinct
images, he perceived the blue smoke curling from a distant hut, which he
knew, from its desolate situation, to be the miserable residence of some
_Indian outcast_; he soon more distinctly observed some great body in
motion: at first it appeared compact and massive; by degrees broken and
irregular; and at last the form and usual pace of a troop of camels
were obvious to his far-stretched sight, by a deep red light which
suddenly illumined the whole firmament, and, throwing its extended beams
into the distant fore-ground, fell, with bright tints, upon every
object, and confirmed the Missionary in hopes, he almost trembled to
encourage, that the caravan at that moment moved before his eyes! But
the joy was yet imperfect; unshared by _her_, who was now identified
with all his hopes and all his fears; and descending the hill with the
rapidity of lightning, he suddenly perceived his steps impeded by a
phenomenon which at first seemed some sudden vision of the fancy, to
which the senses unresistingly submitted; for a brilliant circle of fire
gradually extending, forbid his advance, and had illuminated, by its
kindling light, the surrounding atmosphere! Recovering from the first
emotion of horror and consternation, his knowledge of the natural
history of the country soon informed him of the cause of the apparent
miracle[5], without reconciling him to its effects; he perceived that
the _bamboos_, violently agitated by a strong and sultry wind, which
suddenly arose from the South, and crept among their branches, had
produced a violent friction in their dry stalks, which emitted sparks of
fire, and which, when communicated to their leaves, produced on their
summits one extended blaze, which was now gradually descending to their
trunks. Though this extraordinary spectacle fulfilled, rather than
violated, a law of nature, the Missionary’s heart, struck by the
obstacle it opposed to his wishes and his views, and the terrors it held
out to his imagination, felt as if, by some interposition of Divine
wrath, he had been separated, for ever, from her who had thus armed
Heaven against him. Given up to a distraction which knew no bounds from
reason or religion, he accused the Eternal Judge, who, in making the
object of his error the cause of his retribution, had not proportioned
his punishment to his crime, and who had implicated in the vengeance
which bowed _him_ to the earth, a creature free and innocent of
voluntary error.--Yet, considering less his own sufferings, than the
probable and impending destruction of Luxima, thus exposed, alone, in
solitary deserts, to want! to the inclemency of treacherous elements! to
the fury of savage beasts! perhaps to men, scarce less savage! who might
refuse her that protection, their very presence rendered necessary--his
mind and feelings were roused, even to frenzy, by the frightful images
conjured up by a heart distracted for the safety of its sole object; and
the instinct of self-preservation, that strong and almost indestructible
instinct, submitted to the paramount influence of a _sentiment_; but
that sentiment before which nature stood checked, blended the united
passions of _love_ and _pity_, the best and dearest which fill the human
breast--and, resolved to risk his life for the salvation of hers,
dearer to him still than life,--he threw around him a rapid glance, in
the faint hope of discerning some object which might assist him in the
perilous enterprise he meditated, and enable him to encounter the rage
of those flames which opposed his return to the goal of his solicitude
and anxiety. It was then he perceived that the surrounding rocks were
covered with the entangled web of the _mountain flax_, the inconsumable
_amianthus_ of India.[6]
At this sight, the providential care of the Divinity, who every where
presents an _antidote_ to that evil which may eventually become the
bane of human preservation, smote his heart--and, raising his soul and
eyes in thankfulness to Heaven, he wrapped round his uncovered head, the
fibres of this singular and indestructible fossile, and, folding his
robe closely round his body, he plunged daringly forward, throwing aside
the branches of the burning trees, which flamed above his head, with the
iron point of his crosier, as he flew over the arid path, and looking as
he moved like the mighty _spirit_ of that _element_ to which the popular
superstition of the region he inhabited would have offered its
homage.[7] The fire had nearly exhausted itself in the direction in
which he moved, and soon left nothing but its smoking embers to impede
his course. Scorched, spent, and almost deprived of respiration, he
reached the opposite side of the plantation, and, with the recovery of
breath and strength, he flew towards the spot where he had left his
charge, whom every new peril, by adding anxiety to love, bound more
closely to his heart. He found her wrapt in profound slumber; the
moon-light, checquered by the branches of the tree through which it
fell, played on her face and bosom; but her figure was in deep shade,
from its position; and a disciple of her own faith would have worshipped
her, had he passed, and said, “’Tis the messenger of Heaven,[8] who
bears to earth the mandate of _Vishnoo_;” for it is thus the Indian
_Iris_ is sometimes mystically represented--nothing visible of its
beauty, but the countenance of a youthful seraph. Close to the brow of
the innocent slumberer lay, in many a mazy fold, a serpent of immense
size: his head, crested and high, rose erect; his scales of verdant gold
glittered to the moon-light, and his eyes bright and fierce were fixed
on the victim, whose first motion might prove the signal of her death.
These two objects, so singular in their association, were alone
conspicuous in the scene, which was elsewhere hid in the massive shadows
of the projecting branches. At the sight of this image, so beautiful
and so terrific, so awfully fine, so grandly dreadful, where loveliness
and death, and peace and destruction, were so closely blended, the
distracted and solitary spectator stood aghast!--A chill of horror
running through his veins, his joints relaxed; his limbs, transfixed and
faint, cold and powerless, fearing lest his very respiration might
accelerate the dreadful fate which thus hung over the sole object and
tie of his existence,--breathless, motionless,--he wore the perfect
semblance of that horrible suspense, which fills the awful interval
between impending death, and lingering life! Twice he raised his crosier
to hurl it at the serpent’s head; and twice his arm fell nerveless back,
while his shuddering heart doubted the certain aim of his trembling
hand,--and whether, in attempting to strike at the vigilant reptile, he
might not reach the bosom of his destined victim, and urge him to her
immediate destruction!--But, feelings so acute were not long to be
endured: cold drops fell from his brow, his inflamed eye had gazed
itself into dimness, increasing agony became madness,--and, unable to
resist the frenzy of his thronging emotions, he raised the pastoral
spear, and had nearly hurled it at the destroyer, when his arm was
checked by a sound which seemed to come from Heaven, breathing hope and
life upon his soul; for it operated with an immediate and magic
influence on the organs of the reptile, who suddenly drooped his crested
head, and, extending wide his circling folds, wound his mazy course, in
many an indented wave, towards that point, where some seeming impulse
of the “vocal aid” lured his nature from its prey.
Luxima slowly awakening from her sweet repose, to sounds too well
remembered, for it was the vesper hymn of the Indian huntsmen, raised
her head upon her arm, and threw wildly round her the look of one wrapt
in visionary trance--now resting her eye upon the Missionary, who stood
before her motionless, suspended between joy and horror, between fear
and transport--now upon the flaming circles which hung upon the burning
_bamboos_--and now on the receding serpent, whose tortuous train,
veering as he moved, still glistened brightly on the earth, till slowly
following the fainting sounds, his voluble and lengthening folds were
lost in the deep shade of a sombre thicket;--then the Indian raised her
hands and eyes to heaven in thankfulness to that Power who had
mercifully saved her from a dreadful death. The music ceased; nature had
reached the crisis of emotion in the breast of the Missionary: without
power to articulate or to move, he bent one knee to the earth; he raised
his folded hands to Heaven; but his eyes were turned on the object of
its protection: he sighed out her name, and Luxima was in a moment at
his side.