Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad with Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected Volume III Part 4

Dust of the earth, toys, empty breath! For what is the word of the Great King pledged to me? Has he not sworn to refuse me nothing? All that is most precious between earth and heaven, from the mountain to the sea, lies at my choice! One word, and she is mine! and I hesitate? Fool! she _shall_ be mine!"

He looked up towards heaven, and marked the places of the stars. "It is the appointed hour," he muttered, and cautiously his eye glanced around, and he listened; but all was solitary and silent. He then stole along the path, which led through a thick grove of Cadam trees, intermingled with the tall points of the Cusa gra.s.s, that s.h.i.+elded him from all observation. He came at last to a little promontory, where the river we have mentioned threw itself into the Ganges. He had not been there above a minute, when a low whistle, like the note of the Chacora, was heard.

A small boat rowed to the sh.o.r.e, and Sahib stood before him. Quick of eye and apprehension, the mute perceived instantly that something unusual had occurred. He pointed to the skiff; but Govinda shook his head, and made signs for a light and the writing implements. They were quickly brought; and while Sahib held the lamp, so that its light was invisible to the opposite sh.o.r.e, Govinda wrote, in the peculiar cipher they had framed for that purpose, a few words to his brother, sufficiently intelligible in their import, though dictated by the impa.s.sioned and tumultuous feelings of the moment. When he had finished, he gave the letter to Sahib, who concealed it carefully in the folds of his turban, and then, holding up the fingers of both hands thrice over, to intimate, that in thirty days he would bring the answer, he sprung into the boat, and was soon lost under the mighty shadow of the trees, which stretched their huge boughs over the stream.

Govinda slowly returned; but he saw Amra no more that night. They met the next day, and the next; but Amra was no longer the same: she was silent, pensive; and when pressed or rebuked, she became tearful and even sullen. She was always seen with her faithful Gautami, upon whose arm she leaned droopingly, and hung her head like her own neglected flowers. Govinda was almost distracted: in vain he watched for a moment to speak to Amra alone; the vigilant Gautami seemed resolved, that they should never meet out of her sight. Sometimes he would raise his eyes to her as she pa.s.sed, with such a look of tender and sorrowful reproach, that Amra would turn away her face and weep: but still she spoke not: and never returned his respectful salutation farther than by inclining her head.

The old Brahman perceived this change in his beloved daughter; but not for some time: and it is probable, that, being absorbed in his spiritual office and sublime speculations, he would have had neither leisure nor penetration to discover the cause, if the suspicions of the careful Gautami had not awakened his attention. She ventured to suggest the propriety of hastening the return of his daughter's betrothed husband; and the Brahman, having taken her advice in this particular, rested satisfied; persuading himself, that the arrival of Adhar would be a certain and all-sufficient remedy for the dreaded evil, which in his simplicity he had never contemplated, and could scarcely be made to comprehend.

A month had thus pa.s.sed away, and again that appointed day came round, on which Govinda was wont to meet his brother's emissary: even on ordinary occasions he could never antic.i.p.ate it without a thrill of anxiety,--now every feeling was wrought up to agony; yet it was necessary to control the slightest sign of impatience, and wear the same external guise of calm, subdued self-possession, though every vein was burning with the fever of suspense.

It was the hour when Sarma, having risen from his mid-day sleep, was accustomed to listen to Govinda while he read some appointed text.

Accordingly Govinda opened his book, and standing before his preceptor in an att.i.tude of profound humility, he read thus:

"Garuna asked of the Crow Bushanda, 'What is the most excellent of natural forms? the highest good? the chief pain? the dearest pleasure?

the greatest wickedness? the severest punishment?

"And the Crow Bushanda answered him: 'In the three worlds, empyreal, terrestrial, and infernal, no form excels the human form.

"'Supreme felicity, on earth, is found in the conversation of a virtuous friend.

"'The keenest pain is inflicted by extreme poverty.

"'The worst of sins is uncharitableness; and to the uncharitable is awarded the severest punishment: for while the despisers of their spiritual guides shall live for a thousand centuries as frogs, and those who contemn the Brahmans as ravens, and those who scorn other men as blinking bats, the uncharitable alone shall be condemned to the profoundest h.e.l.l, and their punishment shall last for ever.'"[24]

Govinda closed his book; and the old Brahman was proceeding to make an elaborate comment on this venerable text, when, looking up in the face of his pupil, he perceived that he was pale, abstracted, and apparently unconscious that he was speaking. He stopped: he was about to rebuke him, but he restrained himself; and after reflecting for a few moments, he commanded the youth to prepare for the evening sacrifice: but first he desired him to summon Amra to her father's presence.

At this unusual command Govinda almost started. He deposited the sacred leaves in his bosom, and, with a beating heart and trembling steps, prepared to obey. When he reached the door of the zenana, he gently lifted the silken curtain which divided the apartments, and stood for a few moments contemplating, with silent and sad delight, the group that met his view.

Amra was reclining upon cus.h.i.+ons, and looking wan as a star that fades away before the dawn. Her head drooped upon her bosom, her hair hung neglected upon her shoulders: yet was she lovely still; and Govinda, while he gazed, remembered the words of the poet Calidas: "The water-lily, though dark moss may settle on its head, is nevertheless beautiful; and the moon, with dewy beams, is rendered yet brighter by its dark spots."

She was clasping round her delicate wrist a bracelet of gems; and when she observed, that ever as she placed it on her attenuated arm it fell again upon her hand, she shook her head and smiled mournfully. Two of her maids sat at her feet, occupied in their embroidery; and old Gautami, at her side, was relating, in a slow, monotonous recitative, one of her thousand tales of wonder, to divert the melancholy of her young mistress. She told how the demi-G.o.d Rama was forced to flee from the demons who had usurped his throne, and how his beautiful and faithful Seita wandered over the whole earth in search of her consort; and, being at length overcome with grief and fatigue, she sat down in the pathless wilderness and wept; and how there arose from the spot, where her tears sank warm into the earth, a fountain of boiling water of exquisite clearness and wondrous virtues; and how maidens, who make a pilgrimage to this sacred well and dip their veils into its wave with pure devotion, ensure themselves the utmost felicity in marriage: thus the story ran. Amra, who appeared at first abstracted and inattentive, began to be affected by the misfortunes and the love of the beautiful Seita; and at the mention of the fountain and its virtues, she lifted her eyes with an expression of eager interest, and met those of Govinda fixed upon her. She uttered a faint cry, and threw herself into the arms of Gautami. He hastened to deliver the commands of his preceptor, and then Amra, recovering her self-possession, threw her veil round her, arose, and followed him to her father's presence.

As they drew near together, the old man looked from one to the other.

Perhaps his heart, though dead to all human pa.s.sions, felt at that moment a touch of pity for the youthful, lovely, and loving pair who stood before him; but his look was calm, cold, and serene, as usual.

"Draw near, my son," he said; "and thou, my beloved daughter, approach, and listen to the will of your father. The time is come, when we must make ready all things for the arrival of the wise and honoured Adhar.

My daughter, let those pious ceremonies, with which virtuous women prepare themselves ere they enter the dwelling of their husband, be duly performed: and do thou, Govinda, son of my choice, set my household in order, that all may be in readiness to receive with honour the bridegroom, who comes to claim his betrothed. To-morrow we will sacrifice to Ganesa, who is the guardian of travellers: this night

must be given to penance and holy meditation. Amra, retire: and thou, Govinda, take up that f.a.got of Tulsi-wood, with the rice and the flowers for the evening oblation, and follow me to the temple." So saying, the old man turned away hastily; and without looking back, pursued his path through the sacred grove.

Alas for those he had left behind! Govinda remained silent and motionless. Amra would have obeyed her father, but her limbs refused their office. She trembled--she was sinking: she timidly looked up to Govinda as if for support; his arms were extended to receive her: she fell upon his neck, and wept unrestrained tears. He held her to his bosom as though he would have folded her into his inmost heart, and hidden her there for ever. He murmured pa.s.sionate words of transport and fondness in her ear. He drew aside her veil from her pale brow, and ventured to print a kiss upon her closed eyelids. "To-night," he whispered, "in the grove of mangoes by the river's bank!" She answered only by a mute caress; and then supporting her steps to her own apartments, he resigned her to the arms of her attendants, and hastened after his preceptor. He forgot, however, the materials for the evening sacrifice, and in consequence not only had to suffer a severe rebuke from the old priest, but the infliction of a penance extraordinary, which detained him in the presence of his preceptor till the night was far advanced. At length, however, Sarma retired to holy meditation and mental abstraction, and Govinda was dismissed.

He had hitherto maintained, with habitual and determined self-command, that calm, subdued exterior, which becomes a pupil in the presence of his religious teacher; but no sooner had he crossed the threshold, and found himself alone breathing the free night-air of heaven, than the smothered pa.s.sions burst forth. He paused for one instant, to anathematise in his soul the Sastras and their contents, the G.o.ds and their temples, the priests and the sacrifices; the futile ceremonies and profitless suffering to which his life was abandoned, and the cruel policy to which he had been made an unwilling victim. Then he thought of Amra, and all things connected with her changed their aspect.

In another moment he was beneath the shadow of the mangoes on the river's brink. He looked round, Amra was not there: he listened, there was no sound. The gra.s.s bore marks of having been recently pressed, and still its perfume floated on the air. A few flowers were scattered round, fresh gathered, and glittering with dew. Govinda wrung his hands in despair, and flung himself upon the bank, where a month before they had sat together. On the very spot where Amra had reclined, he perceived a lotos-leaf and a palasa flower laid together. Upon the lotos-leaf he could perceive written, with a thorn or some sharp point, the word AMRa; and the crimson palasa-buds were sacred to the dead. It was sufficient: he thrust the leaf and the flowers into his bosom; and, "swift as the sparkle of a glancing star," he flew along the path which led to the garden sepulchre.

The mother of Amra had died in giving birth to her only child. She was young, beautiful, and virtuous; and had lived happily with her husband notwithstanding the disparity of age. The pride and stoicism of his caste would not allow him to betray any violence of grief, or show his affection for the dead, otherwise than by raising to her memory a beautiful tomb. It consisted of four light pillars, richly and grotesquely carved, supporting a pointed cupola, beneath which was an altar for oblations: the whole was overlaid with brilliant white stucco, and glittered through the gloom. A flight of steps led up to this edifice: upon the highest step, and at the foot of the altar, Amra was seated alone and weeping.

Love--O love! what have I to do with thee? How sinks the heart, how trembles the hand as it approaches the forbidden theme! Of all the gifts the G.o.ds have sent upon the earth thou most precious--yet ever most fatal! As serpents dwell among the odorous boughs of the sandal-tree, and alligators in the thrice sacred waters of the Ganges, so all that is sweetest, holiest, dearest upon earth, is mixed up with sin, and pain, and misery, and evil! Thus hath it been ordained from the beginning; and the love that hath never mourned, is not love.

How sweet, yet how terrible, were the moments that succeeded! While Govinda, with fervid eloquence, poured out his whole soul at her feet, Amra alternately melted with tenderness, or shrunk with sensitive alarm.

When he darkly intimated the irresistible power he possessed to overcome all obstacles to their union--when he spoke with certainty of the time when she should be his, spite of the world and men--when he described the glorious height to which his love would elevate her--the delights and the treasures he would lavish around her, she, indeed, understood not his words; yet, with all a woman's trusting faith in him she loves, she hung upon his accents--listened and believed. The high and pa.s.sionate energy, with which his spirit, so long pent up and crushed within him, now revealed itself; the consciousness of his own power, the knowledge that he was beloved, lent such a new and strange expression to his whole aspect, and touched his fine form and features with such a proud and sparkling beauty, that Amra looked up at him with a mixture of astonishment, admiration, and deep love, not wholly unmingled with fear; almost believing, that she gazed upon some more than mortal lover, upon one of those bright genii, who inhabit the lower heaven, and have been known in the old time to leave their celestial haunts for love of the earth-born daughters of beauty.

Amra did not speak, but Govinda felt his power. He saw his advantage, and, with the instinctive subtlety of his s.e.x, he pursued it. He sighed, he wept, he implored, he upbraided. Amra, overpowered by his emotion and her own, had turned away her head, and embraced one of the pillars of her mother's tomb, as if for protection. In accents of the most plaintive tenderness she entreated him to leave her--to spare her--and even while she spoke her arm relaxed its hold, and she was yielding to the gentle force with which he endeavoured to draw her away; when at this moment, so dangerous to both, a startling sound was heard--a rustling among the bushes, and then a soft, low whistle. Govinda started up at that well-known signal, and saw the head of the mute appearing just above the altar. His turban being green, was undistinguishable against the leafy back-ground; and his small black eyes glanced and glittered like those of a snake. Govinda would willingly have annihilated him at that moment. He made a gesture of angry impatience, and motioned him to retire; but Sahib stood still, shook his hand with a threatening expression, and made signs, that he must instantly follow him.

Amra, meantime, who had neither seen nor heard any thing, began to suspect, that Govinda was communing with some invisible spirit; she clung to him in terror, and endeavoured to recall his attention to herself by the most tender and soothing words and caresses. After some time he succeeded in calming her fears; and with a thousand promises of quick return, he at length tore himself away, and followed through the thicket the form of Sahib, who glided like a shadow before him.

When they reached the accustomed spot, the mute leapt into the canoe, which he had made fast to the root of a mango-tree, and motioning Govinda to follow him, he pushed from the sh.o.r.e, and rowed rapidly till they reached a tall, bare rock near the centre of the stream, beneath the dark shadow of which Sahib moored his little boat, out of the possible reach of human eye or ear.

All had pa.s.sed so quickly, that Govinda felt like one in a dream; but now, awakening to a sense of his situation, he held out his hand for the expected letter from his brother, trembling to learn its import, upon which he felt that more than his life depended. Sahib, meanwhile, did not appear in haste to obey. At length, after a pause of breathless suspense, Govinda heard a low and well-remembered voice repeat an almost-forgotten name: "Faizi!" it said.

"O Prophet of G.o.d! my brother!" and he was clasped in the arms of Abul Fazil.

After the first transports of recognition had subsided, Faizi (it is time to use his real name) sank from his brother's arms to his feet: he clasped his knees. "My brother!" he exclaimed, "what is now to be my fate? You have not lightly a.s.sumed this disguise, and braved the danger of discovery! You know all, and have come to save me--to bless me? Is it not so?"

Abul Fazil could not see his brother's uplifted countenance, flushed with the hectic of feverish impatience, or his imploring eyes, that floated in tears; but his tones were sufficiently expressive.

"Poor boy!" he said, compa.s.sionately, "I should have foreseen this. But calm these transports, my brother! nothing is denied to the sultan's power, and nothing will he deny thee."

"He knows all, then?"

"All--and by his command am I come. I had feared, that my brother had sold his vowed obedience for the smile of a dark-eyed girl--what shall I say?--I feared for his safety!"

"O my brother! there is no cause!"

"I know it--enough!--I have seen and heard!"

Faizi covered his face with his hands.

"If the sultan----"

"Have no doubts," said Abul Fazil: "nothing is denied to the sultan's power, nothing will be denied to thee."

"And the Brahman Adhar?"

"It has been looked to--he will not trouble thee."

"_Dead?_ O merciful Allah! crime upon crime!"

"His life is cared for," said Abul Fazil, calmly: "ask no more."

"It is sufficient. O my brother! O Amra!"--

"She is thine!--Now hear the will of Akbar." Faizi bowed his head with submission. "Speak!" he said; "the slave of Akbar listens."

"In three months from this time," continued Abul Fazil, "and on this appointed night, it will be dark, and the paG.o.das deserted. Then, and not till then, will Sahib be found at the accustomed spot. He will bring in the skiff a dress, which is the sultan's gift, and will be a sufficient disguise. On the left bank of the stream there shall be stationed an ample guard, with a close litter and a swift Arabian. Thou shalt mount the one, and in the other shall be placed this fair girl.

Then fly: having first flung her veil upon the river to beguile pursuit; the rest I leave to thine own quick wit. But let all be done with secrecy and subtlety; for the sultan, though he can refuse thee nothing, would not willingly commit an open wrong against a people he has lately conciliated; and the violation of a Brahminee woman were enough to raise a province."

"It shall not need," exclaimed the youth, clasping his hands: "she loves me! She shall live for me--only for me--while others weep her dead!"