“LA-ILAHA-IL-LAL-LAHA”
Ten years glided away. Oman was more than forty, and Bhavani about
fifty-five. To the worker among men the time had seemed longer than
that spent on the Silver Peak. There he had, after a little, won
faith in himself. Here he came gradually to perceive that he was
accomplishing nothing of that which he had set out to do. Little by
little he was made to realize that those who are wholly of the world
can get no help out of the great, abstract truths: the high standard
of religion. This at last he perceived. But he would stoop to no creed
petty enough to catch the belief of his people. It was, indeed, only
what is discovered by all men who seek to bring high truths home to
narrow minds:—that the great, polluted religions have, by slow process
of retrograde development, been constituted by the masses for the
masses, who must thenceforth only be left alone to peck over and over
the heap of chaff from which the last kernels of truth have been long
since snatched away.
Fortunately, during this period of thankless labor, Oman had not lost
touch with a wider world. Bhavani and Zenaide, the man and the woman,
were still his refuge. To them he carried some of his weariness, and
from them got constant renewal and refreshment. Their lives had become
tranquil,—singularly so, indeed. Only Bhavani, as he grew older,
sometimes chafed at the thought that he alone, of all Manduvian rulers,
had been peaceful, had brought no glories of conquest and plunder home
to his people. He fretted lest Mandu’s prestige had been dimmed by his
policy; though he could not deny that he had trebled the strength of
his kingdom in wealth and in population.
“Ah,” he would sometimes say, “at my death the country will be fit for
Viradha’s rule. He will find her ready to give him soldiers and gold
for his wars. He will be what my father was. With all thy teachings,
Oman, thou hast never eradicated in him the warrior spirit.”
And Oman would shake his head, his eyes growing sad; for he was not a
lover of war.
This matter of the long-continued peace in Mandu was not wholly owing
to the policy of its present Rajah; for, during all the early part of
his reign, there had been quiet in the turbulent north. Now, however,
sinister rumors began to spread and grow. It was, indeed, a time of
universal disquiet; for this was the middle of the constructive period
of Indian history: the time of the fusion of two great races. Conquest
had begun two hundred years before, under the great lord of Ghazni.
The second conqueror, Mohammed Ghori, had been dead but forty years.
And, since then, the first line of slave kings, founded by Aybek, had
been broken by another slave:—Balban, the mighty minister of studious
Mahmoud. Under him began the first concerted campaigns into Gujerat and
Malwa, which were eventually to result in the conquest of everything
north of the Dekkhan. In Delhi, now the capital of Moslem India, there
dwelt more than one powerful general of the Prophet’s faith. Among
these, Osman-ibn-Omar, the Asra, had won high reputation for the
courage and daring that were, indeed, characteristic of his race. In
his youth he had known Lahore, even mountain-built Ghazni; and now,
his father long ago honorably dead in battle, the son, himself more
than sixty years old, dwelt in Delhi, yearning for new wars. And it
was eventually he, still bearing in mind an old, disastrous campaign
of Dhár in the Vindhyas, who now, in the year 1249, swore to his lord
a mighty oath that in him Malwa should find its conqueror. He would
go down to the south, and learn whether a cousin of his, whilom head
of the Asra race, were still, by any chance, alive and in captivity
among the unconquered natives. But of this matter the folk of Mandu,
peacefully engaged in the garnering of rice and millet, knew nothing,
and as little cared.
Oman, perhaps, had some premonition of what was about to come. At any
rate, during this winter, his spirit was restless. He had recourse to
many long-abandoned methods of tranquillizing himself. He felt that he
was becoming world-troubled. The still waters of his nature had been
disturbed and set into motion by a too intimate knowledge of various
matters. And all his efforts after calm brought him but temporary
relief.
Part of his trouble lay in the sad knowledge of Bhavani’s state. The
beloved of Mandu was afflicted with a mortal disease, slow in its
fatal progress, but so sure that no man knew of a single prayer, a
single sacrifice, that could prove efficacious. Zenaide and Oman, much
depending on each other, did not scruple to speak of the inevitable:
the shadow of death that hovered daily over them. Zenaide grew strong,
now. It was that strength of despair that upholds us at the last. Even
Oman, knowing, as he did, her inmost heart, marvelled sometimes at the
calm that possessed her. She was no longer young; but, unlike most of
her race and class, middle age had not made her ugly. She had lived
too well for that. Beauty of spirit, gathered during her years of
painful youth, the time of her sacrifice, brought its reward, clothing
her with a dignity and a serene beauty that mere happiness cannot
give. Bhavani’s wife was dead: had died as she had lived, among her
embroideries and her trivialities, regretting to the last the zenana
life in which she had been brought up. Bhavani, always reverent toward
her in life, felt no acute sorrow at her decease, and, after her
burial, returned to his usual way of life, affecting nothing. There
were still those in Mandu who wondered if he would not take to wife
the woman to whom he had been far more devoted than ever he was to the
daughter of Dhár. But Bhavani never entertained a thought of marrying
her who had been the greatest courtesan in Malwa. Nor did Zenaide
herself regard marriage as a possibility. Youth had passed both from
her and from him who, all unknown to her, had passionately loved her.
The fire of youth, quenched in its height, had found another life,
had been transmuted into a deep and holy affection that demanded no
closer bond than that of friendship. If the thought of marriage ever
came to the woman, it was only with the wish that, in the suffering he
endured almost constantly, she might comfort him as only women can.
But Bhavani preferred to die as he had lived: austerely and alone. If
he was aware how closely his people watched him, he gave no sign. Oman
sometimes wondered if the Rajah dreamed of the storm that his marriage
with Zenaide would have raised among the people. Only Oman, from his
constant intercourse with the lower classes, knew how blindly and
how bitterly the woman of the water-palace was still hated. But Oman
himself, had the two chosen to unite themselves, would have uttered not
one word of remonstrance:—would, indeed, have given his life in their
defence. So had time changed his earlier, rigid views.
It was in this year 1249 that Viradha-Pál, the young prince, began to
take his place in the government of Mandu as a person of importance.
Indeed it was time that he came into his own. Bhavani had kept him too
long in the background. Mandu was beginning to whisper that he should
have been at war for them these five years past: that it behoved a
Kshatriya to follow his profession. And Viradha, allowed liberty of
action, proved himself worthy of his people by quickly claiming his
own. Bhavani let him go; for he knew that the spirit of the old warrior
kings was upon the youth; and he knew also, still better, that the
time approached when a warrior would be sorely needed in Mandu. For
Bhavani, in his peacefulness, was by no means blind to the outlook of
India; and it was no surprise when Viradha came to him with tales of
Mohammedan invasions in the north, and demands of an army with which to
march against the alien race. Bhavani acceded to his demands, making,
however, one stipulation. Viradha must marry. _Then_ he might
leave his wife and go forth to battle. Such was the rule in the Orient.
Thus it came about, after all, that there were marriage feasts that
year in Mandu. A princess was brought from Mandaleshwar, on the north
bank of the Narmáda, far to the east. And there was a great Brahman
sacrifice, and the usual three days of ceremonial. The deserted
zenana was opened once more, and a new woman installed there in her
loneliness. One week her husband tarried by her side. Then he took his
man’s privilege, and left her alone in her state, while he marched away
at the head of his little army—fifteen hundred men—into the echoing
north. The benedictions and the adoration of all Mandu followed him.
Old Bhavani had been a good ruler, the kindest, the most just of
men. But, after all, men were made for war, and it was better that
the princes of men should be generals than judges. Alas for Mandu!
Rejoicing in its newly raised standards, shouting itself hoarse with
its own battle-cries, deaf to presentiment, to rumor, to the prophecies
of the gods, what wonder that it heard nothing of that faintly-echoing
cry that was ringing out over all the plains and heights of India? The
cry that had risen out of the black Kaaba of far Mecca, and now rolled,
in one continuous shout, from western Granada to Benares, the holy
city, transcending speech by its sharp fanaticism, finding by force a
home in every land: “_La-ilaha-il-lal-laha!_” This was the cry
that Viradha had gone forth to oppose. It was the same cry to which
Viradha’s grandfather had answered with his death.
The young prince went away in the middle of the Ashtaka month
(December). His going made no change in Mandu, save that it gave the
people an added interest outside their monotonous lives. The pleasant
winter passed slowly away. Bhavani had begun to depend much on his
appointed teacher of men; and Oman left his unheeded labors among the
lowly in order to watch over his dearly loved lord. Bhavani was sad;
missed his son; suffered keenly, but did not complain. Oman himself
never suspected how much that royal soul endured, silently. But, as the
days passed, he became more and more aware of a changing aspect in many
things. There was in him a sense of foreboding, a feeling of finality,
indefinable, omnipresent. Zenaide also felt it, and her melancholy
became unconquerable. She knew what the outer senses could not tell
her; and even Oman’s quietly proffered sympathy was repelled. Bhavani
doubtless guessed all that passed in their minds; but he could not take
their burden from them. He knew himself to be too near the end. He
could only spare them anxiety by the silent endurance of pain.
The end came sooner than even he, perhaps, had expected. It was in
February, about the middle of the month; and early thrills of spring
hung in the air. On the eighteenth day, at noon, Oman, who was in his
own room after a long morning in the school, was roused by Bhavani’s
favorite slave and conducted swiftly through the palace to Bhavani’s
bedroom. Bhavani was on his couch; and Oman, who had not seen him
since the previous evening, at once knew everything. The room was in
confusion. Evidently many people—doctors, priests, slaves—had been
there recently. Why they were now gone, Oman could not surmise. Bhavani
lay breathing in long, heavy gasps, with intervals of startling length.
His face wore the gray hue of death. His eyes were closed; but he felt
Oman’s entrance, for he put out his hand, and Oman took it and fell
upon his knees beside the bed.
“Let me summon help for thee,” he said, in a low, clear voice that
suggested nothing of what he felt.
“No,” gasped the dying one. Then, after an effort, he added: “I hear
Brahma’s voice. Shall I not—answer it?”
Oman could not speak. He buried his head near the face of his friend.
It seemed to him, at that moment, that Fate had found a cruelty too
great for passive endurance. For Oman loved this man as he had never
hoped to love in life. It was like tearing his heart in two to watch
that inevitable, resistless advance of death. Yet, with the heroism
that was in him, he accepted Bhavani’s own decree: feeling, indeed,
that there was no human help for his King.
Moments passed:—an hour:—and still Oman knelt by the bed. Suddenly it
seemed as if the Rajah’s breath was coming a little more easily, a
little less terribly. Quickly he lifted his head, and looked. There was
a change. Bhavani looked older, grayer, more shrunken. But his eyes
were half unclosed, and he seemed to be in less pain. While Oman gazed,
unable to speak, scarcely to think, a shadowy smile crossed the Rajah’s
lips, and he began to murmur a few unintelligible words. Oman bent to
catch them, and Bhavani’s eyes rested on his face.
“Fidá,” he whispered, low, but distinctly: “we played together—with
Ahalya—”
“Yes. Yes!” answered Oman, hoarsely.
“Brave things. Let us play again. I always Arjuna. Thou, O Fidá,
Yudishthir, the King.—Ahalya, the beautiful Draupadi. I have won her
from all the rest. But now—we are marching away—from Hastinapur. We
are seeking heaven. It is a long journey. We reach the sea. Dost thou
remember all the places, Fidá? Agni stops us awhile; and then—we come
into the plain that leads to Himavan. I have read it many times.
See,—they are gone, all of them! Nakula and Bhima and Draupadi are dead
in the desert. But I go on alone into the hills—and—yes, this time he
is there!—Sakra—O God!—I come!—Behold, I come!”
Smiling, gasping out these words of one of his childhood’s games, that
was, in fact, an epic of the pilgrimage of life, Bhavani, holy among
men, slipped away out of existence, perhaps ascending in Sakra’s own
chariot, that had so often awaited him in his young imagination.
Till long after he knew that Bhavani was gone from him, Oman knelt
there, by the bed, gazing blindly on the still, waxen face. Presently
he became aware that there were others in the room. Slaves crept in
and out, and brought doctors and officials, and those who were to
care for the high dead. Then, dazed and bowed down with his weight of
grief, Oman rose and passed out, through the palace, between little
knots of whispering men who made way for him and looked after him,
longing but not daring to question. He left the palace behind and went
on to the duty that was his. The heart in him bled. There were no
thoughts of help or of comfort in his brain; yet he knew that none but
him could tell the woman of their common woe. So he turned toward the
water-palace, where he was always admitted without delay.
Zenaide was in the wide, central court of her dwelling, lying on a pile
of cushions placed beside the marble pool. In her hand she held a piece
of millet cake, which she had been crumbling for the fishes in the
water. At Oman’s entrance, however, she rose, and went to him, hastily.
As she looked into his face, Oman, without speaking, watched her
expression change from gayety to wonder, and so to fear, till he knew
that there was not much to put into words. Now she reached out both her
hands, and Oman took them into his own.
“Tell me,” she said, faintly.
“Dost thou not know?” he asked, his voice seeming to him to come from
another world.
“Bhavani,—” she began; but her voice broke.
“There is no longer a Bhavani,” he answered, wondering at himself for
the speech.
She took it quietly, letting his hands drop from hers, and turning
away so that, for some seconds, he could not see her face. Then she
moved nearer him again, and said, in tones not natural, but still well
controlled: “Come, let us go into a smaller room.”
Oman assented in silence; and she led the way down a short passage to
that apartment in which they had held their first interview, many years
before. And there she caused him to sit down upon the broad divan,
while she took her place at his knee. Again, in their woe, their hands
met. And then Zenaide, bowing her head, let tears come. Oman could not
weep. His grief was deeper: far more terrible, indeed, than he had
believed it could be. His own great creed brought him no comfort.
* * * * *
Bhavani was entombed in the temple room of the palace, in the place
whence his father had been lately removed. The ceremonial of cremation
was magnificent; but there was one grave lack in it. No willing women
accompanied him into the flames. There were no blood relatives, no
children, to mourn at his bier. The spectators, who could remember his
father’s entombment, compared with this the wailing concourse which had
assembled about that funeral pyre, on which lay the body that had been
carried all the way back to Mandu from the disastrous plain of Dhár.
Here was no terrible grief of dying concubines and dust-covered widows:
no deep-throated sobbing of warrior sons. Two aliens, man and woman,
stood together, hand in hand, beside the frightened little bride of
Viradha; and these were all, beside the people, that mourned Bhavani’s
death. Truly, the royal line of Mandu was fading away! The long
ceremony brought to every heart a feeling of emptiness, of forlornity,
that was not easy to overcome. The people felt it, and even the
Brahmans; and there were those who covertly wondered if young Viradha,
returning home, would find his own awaiting him.
Fortunately for himself, Oman had no time, in the next few weeks,
to grieve. Not knowing just how it came about, he found himself in
the position of regent, all Mandu having voluntarily demanded their
government of him. There being no other hand ready for the helm, he
accepted the place, constituting himself keeper of Viradha’s state,
guardian of his honor, treasurer of his heritage: holding himself ready
at any moment to deliver all these into the hands of the young King. He
clung closely to Bhavani’s methods, finding himself little at a loss
to fill a place the duties of which, from constant observation, he had
learned so well.
Thus a month passed away. Oman, occupied almost day and night, saw
little of Zenaide, whose burden of grief was hers to bear alone. Oman,
even in his sadness, had found consolation in an unexpected effect of
his labor of the past ten years. He perceived that what he had hoped
for against hope was true: the people loved him. Through his years of
work among them they had treated him ill. They had been deaf to his
teachings; they had mocked at his laws; they had reviled him for heresy
to their faith. He had come to believe that he had brought good to not
one soul. And now, suddenly, upon the accession of a little pomp, they
went to him, sought his counsel, obeyed and loved him more than they
had ever obeyed and loved even Bhavani. Oman took their devotion for
the best that it brought; and rejoiced that his way was made easy for
him. Now he longed only for the return of Viradha, which could not be
much further delayed. He had gone away in December. It was now the end
of March. Surely the thought of his young wife must draw the warrior
homeward soon. Nay, Oman had a presentiment that the course of events
would force him back.
Oman was right. Viradha did return, shortly. It was the last week
in March, and the spring was in its loveliest, early beauty. Was it
right that this renewal of youth, these ever-recurrent love-yearnings
of nature, should be broken by the harsh voices of war, an autumnal
woe of blood and death? Yet this came: so swiftly, so overwhelmingly,
that there was no time for consideration or planning. Only action was
necessary; and only action was taken.
The first premonition of disaster came upon the afternoon of the second
day of April, when two or three wounded and exhausted fugitives reached
the haven of Mandu, bringing the startling news that Viradha and his
little army were close at hand, in full retreat before a victorious
Mohammedan horde, who had pursued them clear across the mountains. It
was a thunderbolt; for none had ever dreamed that the plateau, defended
by the whole wide range of the Vindhyas, could be in danger from the
conquerors of Delhi. But the word of the fugitives had to be accepted.
Their plight was unquestionable. Within twenty-four hours Viradha and
his men would be in Mandu, where something, no man said what, must
happen.
Through the night, every soul on the plateau labored as never before.
Even the children were pressed into service; and Brahman and Sudra
worked side by side, placing barriers along the causeway, which, when
the Manduvians had reached the plateau, could be thrown across the
narrow bridge, and the invaders shut away. It was the only plan of
defence that occurred to Oman as feasible; and none of those that sat
in council with him could find a better. All was uncertain. They could
only busy themselves as best they could;—and wait.
The waiting was not long. Through the whole of the morning of the
third, fugitive soldiers continued to pour in from the mountains,
bringing word of the valiant, the desperate bravery of Viradha in his
retreat, and of the overwhelming force of the invaders. Oman sat in the
great audience hall, questioning every soldier that came in, ordering,
thinking, planning, till, about one o’clock in the afternoon, there
came to his ears the sounds of a great, confused clamor:—the distant
battle-din that proclaimed the arrival of the Rajah and his army.
Then, had any one been there to watch, he might have thought that the
Saint of Mandu had gone suddenly mad. A spirit of fury had, indeed,
rushed upon Oman. He ran out of the palace into the courtyard, where,
by his command, a horse was waiting for him. He sprang upon it. All the
man, all the one-time Asra bravery of Fidá, was seething in his blood,
beating in his brain. From a staring slave-boy he seized a shield and
spear, but waited for no armor. Clad in his accustomed white garments,
a white turban on his head, and, for his one ornament, the great ruby
hung about his neck, he started away, at full gallop, down the road
toward the causeway. As he advanced, the sounds grew nearer: the noise
more hideous. And above it all, from time to time, like a sentence
of doom and death, came the strange accents of that strangest of all
battle-cries: “_La-ilaha-il-lal-laha!_” which, twisted, means:
“There is no God but God.”