The Hosts of the Lord Part 44

So, to the sinner's outraged experience of life and love came the saint with his, and with the face and sword of St. Michael and All Angels.

"Tell me the truth," he said sternly; "and tell it quickly, for there is no time to lose."

In truth there was not much to tell. It was all so simple, viewed as a whole; so complex in detail. And, as he listened, the anger left Pidar Narayan's face wistful, wondering. More so than ever at the last mumbling excuse.

"It all comes, _Ge-reeb-pun-waz_, from the Almighty having made the Missy-_baba_ so like her sainted ancestress--Anari Begum--on whom be peace."

Anari Begum! On whom be peace! Her sainted ancestress, on whom be peace!

He stood for an instant looking towards the Altar, towards the dead girl; then he echoed under his breath, "On whom be peace!"

That was the end.

Peace on those women who had loved and died; and on the men who had loved them--lived for them--perhaps died for them.

But for the rest who lived and loved still? A quick life seemed to come back to him at the thought of these, a desire to save them from death.

"Follow me," he said briefly to the old retainer; "it must be close on dawn--I must see what I can do."

So, still in his robes, with the blubbering old pantaloon--apostle of another cult--at his heels, he pa.s.sed down the arched pa.s.sage to the door at its end which opened on to the courtyard between the palace and the Fort. And as he went, his brain, confused as to the past, clear as to the present, was busy making plans for peace. So far as helping those at the gaol went, he knew himself to be powerless. Physically, a couple of old men--mere shadows of men--could give no help, and he could not hope for influence there, among the Hosts of the Devil. But here in the city, among those Hosts of the Lord--the pilgrims for whom he had always had a secret sympathy, who knew him, at least, by reputation--with whom, at least, he stood on common ground--he might have some. He could but try; try to persuade some, at least, of the great ma.s.s of seekers after the "Cradle of the G.o.ds" to go on their way in peace when the dawn came; try to save some of them from following a wrong road.

The door was slightly ajar; he widened the c.h.i.n.k and looked out with a sinking heart over the courtyard with its raised union-jack of paths.

Much larger than the yard about the Pool of Immortality, it was crammed from end to end now with a crowd, the first look at which told him that his chance of a hearing was small indeed, for the dawn was closer than he had thought for amid the shadows of the chapel, and the grey glimmer of coming light showed him once more a sea of upturned eager faces. But the patience of the previous dawn was gone. They were restless now, restless with the vague, uncertain restlessness which is so dangerous in a crowd, which tells that the fuel for the flame is only awaiting a match, any match, to fire it. And there were many only waiting to be struck. The next instant might bring one. Father Ninian felt this instinctively, felt that here in this courtyard lay the mine which the returning troopers, the desperadoes from the gaol, were to fire first.

All Eshwara might rise afterwards, but the great danger lay here, must be grappled with here. But how?

Not by words. The ear of a crowd is always difficult to gain, unless the eye is taken first, and a man had both already. For aloft, on the barrel of the big old gun which centred the square, _jogi_ Gorakh-nath was expounding their wrongs to the pilgrims, their inevitable d.a.m.nation if the wrath of the G.o.ds was not instantly appeased. His wild, weird figure, in all its nakedness, its austerity, could be seen above the little circle of lamps which his immediate supporters held upwards at arm's-length. And above his head, like a canopy, drifted the wisps of tired earth-atoms which were being driven sideways by the breeze of dawn as they fell in their search for rest. For the storm was over, their brief ambition for something beyond mere earth was past. Wisps, which, as they swept over the circling lights, took a lurid glow, then faded into the dim shadows again.

And something else caught the light redly. The chaplet of human skulls, the dread Mother's necklace, which the _jogi_ swung from one hand to the other as he called for blood--for blood to appease Her--the Mother of all--the Eternal Womanhood!

Since without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.

The tenet of all religions echoed into the ear of the crowd, the strange demoniacal figure, in its lurid setting, held its eye. What chance was there for a single voice? None.

Yet something must be done. For the dawn was nigh. Every instant the light grew. Any moment might bring that inrush of evil from the gaol which would breed violence among these still peaceful folk; the ignorant, helpless folk who were being held captive by words against the coming of that inrush.

Suddenly, for a second, the attention of the crowd wavered. A tall man in the white dress of a Europeanized native had been hoisted to the shoulders of some others, not far from the _jogi_, and so, from this coign of vantage, prepared to harangue the people.

"'Tis Ramanund," said someone close to where Father Ninian stood in the shadow of the door. "He is Brahmin, and a scholar above scholars.

Mayhap he will tell us what to do these times, when all seems wrong.

There is no harm in listening."

Nor good either. For the first words of that appeal of culture to ignorance were drowned in a fiendish laugh, a frenzied rattling of the dread chaplet, a loud defiance.

"Hold thy peace, _Baboo-jee!_ What is blood to thee, who hath no G.o.d to whom thou canst give it? But we have, brethren. These be Her drinking-cups, the skulls of men like ourselves. Let us give Her pleasure, brothers, and have blessing from Her hands; not cursing, as thou hast had, Ramanund, whose head should still be shaven, whose touch unclean from the loss of a woman."

The allusion to the death of Ramanund's wife roused an instant murmur of a.s.sent from those who were of the city, and they pa.s.sing the tale on to others, the murmur swelled to a roar which effectively drowned the rest of Ramanund's advice.

But Father Ninian, still at the door, still uncertain, could hear a man who had been buckling on his pilgrim's sandals as if for a start, say, as he stood up and thrust them back to his waistcloth:--

"Well! I, for one, go no further without remission, or the blood which brings it. As _jogi-jee_ saith, no man should risk the woman's cursing.

No man can hold his own against that."

"He hath a young wife in his house, see you, and all know what that means," sn.i.g.g.e.red a neighbour.

But a third voice broke in gravely, "Young or old, what matter? Women sit ever on the knees of the G.o.ds, as we men have sat on theirs, seeing they are the mothers of us all. So, mother or wife, we cannot escape them."

"_Baba-jee_ speaks truth," a.s.sented another bystander, "and _jogi-jee_ also. If She needs blood, She must have it, seeing She is Woman. As for _him?_ Let him be silent. He hath no G.o.d. No blood sacrifice, no remission of sins. Let _him_ speak who hath them."

There was a faint sound as of the closing of a door, and beyond it, in the darkness of the arched pa.s.sage, an old voice said, with a curious note of gladness in it, "Follow me, quick, Akbar; there is not a moment to be lost. The dawn has come!"

It seemed to have come to Pidar Narayan's face as he knelt hurriedly once more beside the body of the dead girl, to fold her dead hands decently as if in prayer, to cover the dead feet with the crimson draperies, the dead face with the flimsy, glittering veil--the veil which hid nothing of its beauty--which struck the keynote of the whole.

"On whom be peace!" he whispered as he rose, stretching out his thin old hand in benediction; and as he said the words, the vision came to him of a whole world which had loved, and sinned, and gone on its mysterious quest for something beyond love. A world to which he had said farewell with a kiss.

He pa.s.sed on to the Altar, and with swift, steady hands opened the sanctuary, and took out the treasure it contained; a star-shaped, star-rayed pyx, set with jewels, relic of the days when singing-birds that sang of themselves, and such like things, with many another, had come to Eshwara from Italy.

"Take the candles from the altar, Akbar," he said, "and walk in front--just in front, you know--as you used to walk."

The old courtier mumbled "_Ge-reeb-pun-waz_," with a caper of alacrity.

In his confusion, his resentful remorse, it was a relief to return to pomp--to servility.

So, with that Bodily Presence which, till then, had always brought the thought of the lost paradise of a woman's love with it, in his hands, Father Ninian and his strange acolyte, priest of another cult, pa.s.sed swiftly out of the chapel, leaving the Altar dark, bereft of its treasure; leaving the dead woman, bereft of her treasure also, lying in a glitter of gold and crimson on the Altar steps. Pa.s.sed on a mission of peace to the living; on the chance of gaining the ear, the eye, of that waiting crowd outside in the courtyard.

As he went rapidly, yet with the faltering step every now and again of one wearied by long journeying, down the arched pa.s.sage, Ninian Bruce scarcely thought of success or failure. There was a wistful triumph in his face--he looked as a slave might look who dies in making himself free. He did not think even of the strangeness of the little procession. The night had been so full of strange things; but the dawn had come, and he had a message to give those waiting souls outside--the souls who were being kept back from the "Cradle of the G.o.ds" by that fear of the Eternal Womanhood.

"Set the door wide, Akbar," he said, and then his voice merged into the "_Salutaris_."

So, as the crowd turned at the sound of the opening door, the sound of the chanting voice, it saw, raised above it, dim against an arched shadow, seen by the grey light of daybreak and the flicker of two tall tapers, a strange star-rayed cup s.h.i.+ning in the clasped hands of a man.

An old man in a strange dress, chanting a strange song. And the sight, by its very strangeness, its claim to something beyond familiarity, was not strange to that restless crowd, waiting for a sign, waiting for something not in themselves.

"What is it? What means it?"

The whisper came like the soft hush of a wave; and above it the chant rose clearly.

"'Tis Pidar Narayan and his G.o.d!" said those of the city who knew, as they fell back instinctively from the raised path. And those who did not know followed suit in awed bewilderment, till the way was clear, and the little procession pa.s.sed on slowly above the jammed ma.s.s of humanity, above the sea of upturned expectant faces.

"'Tis Pidar Narayan, who went with my father," said one here and there.

"Mayhap he goes now--let us see."

"Yea! let us see!" answered others.

That slantwise limb of the union-jack of raised paths which crossed from one corner to the other of the courtyard--from the door in the palace to the wide archway through which the pilgrims always pa.s.sed on their way to the "Cradle of the G.o.ds"--cleared itself by common consent, edged itself with a thicker throng of curious faces. Only in the middle it was barred by the big old gun, by the "_Teacher of Religion_" as its legend boasted, and by the man who claimed to be its mouthpiece.

For _jogi_ Gorakh-nath, recognizing his adversary, recognizing the danger of his influence, had slipped from his post above, and now stood before the gun, full in the path, defending it with frenzied wavings of his chaplet of skulls.

"Listen not, brothers!" he yelled. "_Jai Kali Ma!_ Blood! Blood!

Without blood is no remission of sins."

And now a new curiosity, a new interest, came to that crowd of mere men. What would happen? What would these two, mere men like themselves, do? Which was backed by divine authority? That both claimed that authority was clear. It held its breath, partly from the desire for a sign from G.o.d, partly because of the desire which humanity always has for a sign of the best man. Let the two try which was the better.