"Because good and evil come alike from Benares," he answered
exultantly. "Mayhap you have been there, Anunda, and seen the evil,
the superstition. But it is in Benares also that the true faith lives
still. My friend has written to his friends there, and they will
receive us with open arms; virtuous women will shelter you till the
marriage arrangements are complete."
She shook her head faintly. "We cannot be married--I am a widow," she
repeated obstinately; "but I will go with you all the same." Then
seeing a certain reproach in his face she frowned. "Dost think I am
wicked, my lord? I am not wicked at all; but _Mai Kali_ gave me a
lover, not a husband." Here the frown relaxed into a brilliant smile.
"My husband is dead, and I do not care for dead men. I care for you,
my lord, my god."
Ramanund's brain whirled again, but he clung to the first part of her
speech as a safeguard.
"You are foolish to say we cannot be married. If you read the
newspapers you would see that widows--child-widows such as you are,
heart's-delight--are married, regularly married by priests of our
religion. Those old days of persecution are over, Anunda. The law has
legalised such unions, and no one dare say a word."
A comical look came to her brilliant little face. "And my lord's
mother--will she say nothing?"
The question pierced even Ramanund's coat of culture. He fully
intended telling his revered parent of his approaching marriage, and
the thought of doing so, even in the general way which he proposed to
himself, was fraught with sheer terror. What then would it be when he
had to present her with this daughter-in-law in the concrete? He took
refuge from realities by giving a lecture on the individual rights of
man, while Anunda played like a child with the _chumpak_ garland with
which she had adorned him.
And so with a grey glimmer the rapid dawn began to dispute possession
of those dim arches with the smoky flare of the lamps, making those
two rise reluctantly and steal with echoing footsteps past the
malignant half-seen figure behind the closed fretwork doors. The
blood-red glint of those outstretched arms with their suggestion of
clasping and closing on all within their reach, must have roused a
reminiscence of that past defiance in the young schoolmaster's brain;
for he paused before the shrine, his arms still round Anunda, to say
triumphantly:
"Good-bye, _Kali mai!_ Good-bye for ever."
The girl, clinging to him fearfully, looked round into the shadows on
either side. "Hush, my lord, who knows whether She really sleeps; and
She is in dangerous mood. _They_ say so." Her light foot marked her
meaning by a tap on the echomy floor.
"What, reckless one!" said her lover in fond jest. "Hast grown so full
of courage that thou wouldst signal them to come? Art not afraid what
they might do?"
The panic on her face startled him. "Ramu," she whispered, "for my
sake say it once--'_Jai Kali ma!_' Say it; it will not hurt."
"Nothing will hurt, Anunda," he answered sharply. "Nothing _can_
hurt."
"Can it not? Sometimes I have fancied, downstairs, that they suspect,
Ramu!--if----"
"If they do, what then? To-morrow will see us far away. I tell you the
times are changed. Why there is a police station within hail almost.
Nay, sweetheart! I will not say it. Come, the dawn breaks."
"For my sake, Ramu, for my sake," she pleaded, even as he drew her
with him, reluctant yet willing.
And now on the landing where the brick and the stone met, he paused
again, his pulses throbbing with passion, to think that this was their
last parting.
"Take heart, beloved," he whispered. "Sure I am Ram and thou art
Anunda. Who can hinder God's happiness when He gives it?"[20]
---------------------
[Footnote 20: Ram anund. _Ram_, God; _anund_, happiness.]
---------------------
The conceit upon the meaning of their names brought a faint smile to
her face, and yet once more she whispered doubtfully: "But this is
happiness. Ah, Ramu! it would be better--so----"
"It will be better," he corrected. "It is quite easy, heart's beloved.
A hired carriage and two railway tickets, that is all! As for _Mai
Kali_--I defy her!"
Suddenly through the darkness, which seemed to hold them closer to
each other, came a sound making them start asunder. It was the clang
of the bell which hung before the shrine.
"_Kali ma! Kali ma!_" Anunda's pitiful little sobbing cry blent with
the clang as she fled downstairs, and the mingled sound sent a strange
thrill of fear to Ramanund's heart. Kali herself could not have heard;
but if there had been others beside themselves amid the shadows?
He climbed to his lodging on the roof full of vague anxiety and honest
relief that the strain and the stress and the passion of the last
fortnight was so nearly at an end. It was lucky, he told himself, that
it had happened during holiday time, or the exact sciences must have
suffered--for of course the idea of Anunda's yielding to _them_ was
preposterous; Anunda who had made him forget everything save that he
was her lover. He fell asleep thinking of her, and slept even through
the wailing which arose ere long in the next lodging. The wailing of a
household over an only son reft from it by Kali _ma_.
"The wrath of the gods is on the house," said Ramanund's widowed
mother when he came down late next morning. "And I wonder not when
children disobey their parents. But I will hear thy excuses no longer,
Ramo. God knows but my slackness hitherto hath been the cause of that
poor boy's death. The holy man downstairs holds that She is angry for
our want of faith, and many folks believe him, and vow some sacrifice
of purification. So shall I, Ramanund. This very day I will speak to
my cousin Gungo of her daughter."
"Thou wilt do nothing of the kind, mother," replied Ramanund quietly.
"I have made my own arrangements. I am going to marry a widow, a young
and virtuous widow."
He felt dimly surprised at his own courage, perhaps a little elated,
seeing how severe the qualms of anticipation had been; so he looked
his mother in the face fairly as, startled out of all senses save
sight, she stared at him as if he had been a ghost. Then suddenly she
threw her arms above her head and beat her palms together fiercely.
"_Mai Kali! Mai Kali!_ justly art Thou incensed. Ai! Kirpo! Ai!
Bishun! listen, hear. This is the cause. My son, the light of mine
eyes, the son of my prayers, has done this thing. He is the cursed
one! He would bring a widow to a Brahmin hearth. _Jai Kali ma! Jai
Kali ma!_"
"Mother! mother! for God's sake," pleaded Ramanund, aghast at the
prospect of having the secret of his heart made bazaar property.
"Think; give me time."
"Time!" she echoed wildly. "What time is there when folks die every
minute for thy sin? Oh, Raino, son of my prayer, repent--do atonement.
Lo! come with me even now and humble thyself before Her feet. I will
ask no more but that to-day--no more." She thrust her hands feverishly
into his as if to drag him to the shrine. "For my sake, Ramo, for the
sake of many a poor mother, remember whose son thou art, and forsake
not thy fathers utterly."
"Mother!" he faltered; "mother!" And then silence fell between them.
For what words could bridge the gulf which the rapid flood of another
nation's learning had torn between these two? A gulf not worn away by
generations of culture, but reft recklessly through solid earth.
Simply there was nothing he felt to be said, as with a heart aching at
the utter impossibility of their ever understanding each other, he did
his best to sooth her superstitious fears.
But here he was met by a conviction, an obstinacy which surprised him;
for he had been too much occupied during the last fortnight to observe
the signs of the times around him, and knew nothing of the religious
terror which, carefully fomented by the priests as a means of
extortion, had seized upon the neighbourhood. When, however, it did
dawn upon him that the general consensus of opinion lay towards a
signal expression of the Goddess' anger, which needed signal
propitiation by more numerous sacrifices, his indignation knew no
bounds, and carried him beyond the personal question into general
condemnation, so that, ere many minutes were over, she was attempting
to sooth him in her turn. That God was above all was, however, their
one bond of unity; in that they both agreed. The truth would be made
manifest by the sickness being stayed or increased by the sacrifices.
Meanwhile the very thought of these latter, while it roused his anger,
horrified his refinement into a certain silence, and kept him prisoner
to the roof all day for fear of meeting some struggling victim on its
way upstairs to the second story. This did not matter so much,
however, since all his arrangements were made, and he had even taken
the precaution to secure his railway tickets through a branch of
Cook's agency which had been lately opened in the city. He took them
out of his pocket sometimes and looked at them, feeling a vague
comfort in their smug, civilised appearance. Fate must needs be
commonplace and secure, surely, with such vouchers for safe conduct as
these!
So the long hot day dragged its slow length along. Every now and again
the death-wail, near or distant, would rise in even, discordant rhythm
on the hot air; and as the sun set it began, loudly imperative, under
his very roof. The only son was being carried out to the burning
_ghat_, and the cries and sobs utterly overwhelmed the shouts and
shufflings of feet, the moans and murmur of voices, which all day long
had come from the second story. It was a relief that it should be so;
that the ear might no longer be all unwillingly on the strain to catch
some sound that would tell of a death-struggle in the slaughter-house
downstairs. And yet the scene being enacted, perchance, on that
three-cornered landing which, for once, visualised itself to
Ramanund's clear brain, was not one in which to find much consolation.
The crowds of mourners edging the bier down the narrow stairs, the
crowd of worshippers dragging the victims up. He wondered which
stood aside to give place to the other--the Living or the Dead? The
flower-decked corpse or the flower-decked victim? Flowers and blood!
Blood and flowers for a Demon of Death who was satisfied with neither!
Ramanund, excited, overstrained, wearied by many a sleepless night of
happiness, covered his face with his hands to shut out the sight even
of the book which he tried to read.
So, as the sun sunk red in the western haze leaving the roof cooler,
he fell asleep and slept soundly.
When he woke it was dark, and yet, as he stood up stretching himself,
a faint paling of the horizon warned him that there was light beneath
it--light that was coming to the world. The moon? Confused as he was
by sleep, the thought came to him, only to be set aside by memory.
There was no moon; for this was the dark night of Kali.
The dark night! Then that must be the dawn when he had promised to
meet Anunda on the threshold! Was it possible that he had slept so
long? Yet not too long, since the dawn had not yet come, and he was
ready. Hurriedly feeling for the safety of those precious tickets, and
taking up a Gladstone bag which he had already packed, he stole down
from the roof cautiously; and from thence to the landing. There was a
new odour now blending with the perfumes of the flowers, and the
incense, and the women: an odour which sickened him as he stood
waiting and watching in the now deserted threshold. It was the odour
of the shambles; an odour which seemed also to lie heavy on the breath
and shorten it.
So by quick strides the grey glimmer through the stone lattice grew
and grew to whiteness. Yet no one came, and there was no light step on
the staircase below to tell of a late-comer.
"Anunda! Anunda!" he whispered more than once, even his low tones
seeming to stir the heavy atmosphere into waves of sweet sickening
perfume. Was it possible that she was waiting for him within--in the
old place?
That must be it, surely, or else something had happened. What?
With a beating heart he moved on into the ante-shrine picking his
steps in an almost morbid terror of what he might be treading upon.
"Anunda! Anunda!"
There was no answer save, heavier than before, that sort of scented,
wave coming back from his own words.
She was not there, and something must have happened.... Not there!
Impossible, with those tickets in his pocket, that hired carriage
waiting at the end of the alley, that police station round the
corner!...
He strode forward with renewed courage, heedless of the damp
clamminess at his feet; strode recklessly right into the yellow
flare of the lamps. Save for that ghastly crimson upon the floor, the
walls, the canopy, the place lay unchanged, and quiet as the grave.
No! there was a change; the iron doors were open, and there, upon the
low stone-slab before those clutching arms, lay something....
God in Heaven! what was it?