Ramanund's scream caught in the big bell which hung above him, and the
last thing he heard, as he fell forward on that crimson floor, was its
faint booming echo of his own cry.
* * * * *
When he came to himself again, six weeks had passed by. The heat was
over, the cholera had gone, and he lay in one of the new wards of a
new hospital whither his anxious friends had had him conveyed when
they found how ill he was. The very strangeness of his environment
held him silent for the first few moments of consciousness; then with
a rush it all came back upon him and, weak as he was, he sat up in bed
wildly.
"Anunda! Anunda! My God! the shrine!--the blood!"
"It is a bad sign," remarked the doctor to one of his friends
significantly when they had persuaded him to lie down again quietly,
more from inability to sit up, than from obedience. "It is a bad sign
when the delusions remain after the fever has left the brain. However,
it is early days yet, and we must hope for the best."
"You should rid your mind of such things," said the pleader a week or
two afterwards when, despite Ramanund's growing strength of body, he
still reverted again and again to that terrible dark night of Kali,
imploring them to search out the criminals and have them brought to
justice. "There is, pardon me, not a tittle of evidence for truth of
your story; but circumstantial proof to contrary as I will state
categorically. _First_, known dislike to and hatred for Kali and such
like, leading to language in my hearing calculated to break the peace.
_Second_, known excitement consequent perhaps on general sickness,
stress of examinations before holiday times, and such like, leading to
general look of fatigue and absent-mindedness noticeable to friends as
myself. _Third_, known physical horror of blood leading to much
recrimination of sacrifices, and such like; even to extent of shutting
yourself up all day, as per mother's evidence, from fear of
disagreeables. _Finally_, profound feverish sleep watched by same
mother with dubiosity several times, ending in sleep-walk to the
reeking shrine where you are found by Brahmins after dawn unconscious.
What can be closer chain of convincing proof?"
"We have made every inquiry," said his other friends soothingly,
"short of informing the police; and we can find no trace of what you
assert. Human sacrifices in times of great sickness may sometimes,
doubtless, be on the _tapis_, but this one we believe is but figment
of a still clouded brain. You must have patience. All will come clear
in time."
And when he asked for his new friend, the friend in whom he had partly
confided his love story, they shook their heads sadly. "He was almost
last victim to cholera," they said, "the cause has lost a shining
light. All the more need, Ramanund, why thou shouldst shake off these
idle fancies, and be our leader to perfect freedom of thought and
action."
Perfect freedom of thought and action! Ramanund as he lay slowly
recovering of his brain fever wondered if he would ever have the heart
to believe in such a thing again. Wondered if he would ever again dare
to call himself a representative of India--that India which had killed
Anunda. For that the horrible sight he had seen on the slab of stone
beneath Kali's clutching arms was no dream or delusion, but a reality,
he never for an instant doubted. Why they had done her to death, was
the only uncertainty which tortured him as he lay hopelessly silent;
silent because there was no use in words when none believed them. Had
it been simply a religious sacrifice to stay the plague--a sacrifice
known to thousands who would guard the secret as a divine obligation?
The choice falling, naturally enough, on one who was a stranger, and
utterly helpless in the hands of her priestly relations? Or was it
merely the _jogi's_ revenge for his challenge. Or was it jealousy. Had
they discovered the intrigue, and was the man who had drawn the
trident of Siva on his forehead also the man of whom poor little
Anunda had spoken with such terror? Yet what did it matter, since she
was dead? What did anything matter beside the memory of that piteous
whisper, "Oh Ramu! it would be better--so----"
Ah! why had he tried to interfere with the old ways?--why had he
sought for more--why had he not let her be happy while she could, in
her own way?
When he left the hospital he found his mother installed in a new
lodging. It would not be good for him, his friends had said, to return
to the old environment while his mind was still clouded by delusions,
so she had performed the utmost act of self-denial of which an Hindu
woman is capable, and removed herself and her belongings from the
house where she had lived her life. But she would have done anything
for Ramanund at any time; how much more so now, when the Goddess had
shown that She still held him as her faithful servant by signs and
wonders. Had She not drawn him in his sleep to Her very feet, on Her
dark night?--he who would never cross Her threshold! And had he not
been found there prostrate amid the blood of sacrifices, with one of
Her garlands round his neck?--he who would never wear a flower!
"A garland," faltered Ramanund when she told him this exultantly. Ay!
a garland which she would cherish as her dearest possession since the
Goddess Herself must have thrown it around him--a garland which she
should show him--if--if he ever again talked foolishness as he had
talked that day when he had frightened her so, not knowing that he was
already in a fever.
"Show it me now, mother," he said quietly.
So she showed it to him. The _chumpak_ blossoms were but yellow shreds
upon a string, scentless, unrecognisable; here and there clogged black
with the blood of sacrifice which had stained them as he fell.
"Take it away!" he cried fiercely, thrusting it from him. "Take it
away! Oh! curses on the cruelty--curses on the----"
"_Jai Kali ma!_" interrupted his mother as she laid the relic back in
the little casket whence she had taken it. "_Jai Kali ma!_ for She
stayed the sickness."
Ramanund looked at her in dull dazed wonder. But it was true what she
said. The cholera had slackened from that very time when he had been
found lying at the Goddess' feet.