Caste

It drove the laugh from Barlow"s lips.

"Why has the Afghan Musselman become a Hindu?" Bootea asked.

"I have no wish to anger these people who are on a holy pilgrimage by going into their temples as a Moslem."

"You are going to the shrine of Omkar?" the Gulab asked aghast.

"Are you--again?" Barlow parried.

"Yes, Sahib, soon."

"I am going with you," Barlow declared.

Bootea expostulated with almost fierce eagerness; with a fervour that increased the uneasiness in Barlow"s mind. He had a premonition of evil; dread hung on his soul--perhaps born of the dream of a tiger devouring the girl.

"The Sahib still has the Akbar Lamp--the ruby?" the girl queried, presently.

"I have it safe," he answered, tapping his breast.

"If the Sahib is not going to the shrine Bootea would desire that we could go out beyond the village to a _mango tope_ where there are none to observe, for she would like to make the final salaams in his arms--then nothing would matter."

"Perhaps we had better go anyway," Barlow said eagerly--"though I am going over to the shrine with you; for now, being a Hindu, I can pa.s.s as your brother--and there there would not be opportunity."

The girl turned this over in her mind, then said: "No, we will not go to the grove, for Bootea can say farewell to the Sahib in the cloister where Swami Sarasvati has a cell for vigils."

Then asking Barlow to wait she went into the house and soon returned clothed in spotless white muslin. He noticed that she had taken off all her ornaments, her jewellery. The bangle of gold that was a twisting snake with a ruby head, she pressed upon Barlow, saying: "When the Sahib is married to the Englay will he give her this from me as a safeguard against evil; and that it may cause her to worship the Sahib as a G.o.d, even as Bootea does."

The simplicity, the genuine n.o.bleness of this tribute of renunciation, hazed Barlow"s eyes with a mist--almost tears; she was a strange combine of dramatic power and gentle sweetness.

"Now, come, Sahib," she said, "if you insist. It will not bring misery to Bootea but to you."

Barlow strode along beside the girl steeped in ominous misgivings.

Perhaps his presence at the temple would avert whatever it was, that, like evil genii seemed to poison the air.

There was a moving throng of pilgrims that poured along in a joyous turbulent stream toward the bridge. No shadow of the dread G.o.d, Omkar, gloomed their spirits; they chatted and laughed. Of those who would make devotions the men were stripped to the waist, their limbs draped in spotless white. And the women, on their way to have their sins forgiven, were taking final license--the _purdah_ of the veil was almost forgotten, for this was permitted in the presence of the G.o.d.

Even their beautifully formed bodies and limbs, the skin fresh anointed, gleaming like copper in the sunlight, showed entrancingly, voluptuously, with a new-born liberty.

Once, half way of the bridge, a man"s voice rang out commandingly, calling backward, admonishing some one to hurry, crying, "It is the _kurban_!"

Barlow started; the _kurban_ meant a human sacrifice. He looked at Bootea--he could have sworn her head had drooped, and that she shivered. The girl must have sensed his thoughts, for she turned her eyes up to his, but they held nothing of fear.

Beyond the bridge they pa.s.sed across a lower level, jungle clad with delicate bamboos and dhak, and sweet-scented shrubs, and cl.u.s.ters of gorgeous oleanders. The way was thronged with white-clothed figures that seemed like wraiths, ghosts drifting back to the cavern of the Destroyer.

Then they commenced the ascent following the bed of a stream that had cut a chasm through black trap-rock, leaving jagged cliffs. And the persistent jungle, ever encroaching on s.p.a.ce, had out-posts of champac and wild mango, their giant roots, like the arms of an octopus, holding anchorage in clefts of the rock. And from the limbs above floated down the scolding voices of _lungoor_, the black-faced grey-whiskered monkeys, who rebuked the intrusion of the earth-dwellers below. Where the path lay over rocks it was worn smooth and slippery by naked feet, the feet of pilgrims for a thousand years. On the right the mouth of a deep cave had been walled up by masonry. Within, so the legend ran, the High Priest of Mandhatta, centuries before, had imprisoned the G.o.ddess Kali to stop a pestilence, making vow to offer to Bhairava, her son, a yearly human sacrifice. Higher up, approaching the plateau where were the ruins of a thousand gorgeous shrines, both sides of the pathway were lined by mendicants who sat cross-legged, in front of them a little mat for the receipt of alms--cowries, pice, silver; the mendicants muttering incessantly "_Jae, Jae, Omkar_!" (Victory to Omkar).

In front of the temple within which sat the G.o.d, was a conical black stone daubed with red, the Linga, the generative function of Siva, and before it, the symbol of reproduction, women made offering of cocoanuts, and sweets, and garlands of flowers,--generally marigolds,--and prayed for the bestowal of a son; even their postures, carried away as they were by desire, showing a complete abandon to the s.e.x idea. A Brahmin priest sat cross-legged upon a stone platform repeating in a sing-song cadence prayers, and from somewhere beyond a deep-toned bell boomed out an admonishing call.

Holy water from the sacred Narbudda was poured into the two jugs each pilgrim carried and sealed by the Brahmins, who received, without thanks, stoically, as a matter of right, a tribute of silver.

Towering eighty feet above the temple spire was a cliff, and from a ledge near its top a white flag fluttered idly in the lazy wind. It was the death-leap, the ledge from which the one of the human sacrifice to Omkar leapt, to crash in death beside the Linga.

Almost without words Barlow and the girl had toiled up the ascent, scarcely noticed of the throng; and now Bootea said: "Sahib, remain here, I go to speak to the High Priest."

Barlow saw her speak into the open portal of one of the cloister chambers that surrounded the temple, then disappear within. After a time she came forth, and approaching him said, "The Priest would speak with thee, Sahib; for because of many things I have told him who thou art, though mentioning not the nature of the mission, for that is not permitted."

Barlow"s foreboding of evil was now a certainty as he strode forward.

The priest rose at the Captain"s entrance. He was a fine specimen of the true Brahmin, the intellectual cult, that through successive generations of mental sway and homage from the millions of untutored ones had become conscious of its power. Tall, spare of form, with wide high forehead and full expressive eyes, almost olive skin, Barlow felt that the Swami was quite unlike the begging yogis and mendicants; a man who was by the close alliance of his intellect to the essence of created things a Sannyasi. Larger in his conceptions than the yogis who misconstrued the Vedas and the Law of Manu as imposing an a.s.sociation of filth--smeared ashes, and uncombed, uncleansed hair--as a symbol of piety and abnegation of spirit, a visible a.s.sertion that the body had pa.s.sed from regard--that it, with its sensualities and unG.o.dly cravings, had become subservient to the spirit, the soul.

Swami Sarasvati was austere; Barlow felt that he dwelt on a plane where the trivialities of life were but pestilential insects, to be endured stoically in a physical way, with the mind freed from their irritation grasping grander things; life was a wheel that revolved with the certainty of celestial bodies.

It was so curious, and yet so unfailing, that Bootea, with her hyper-intuition should have found, selected this spiritual tutor from the horde of gurus, byragies, and yogis that were connecting links between the tremendous pantheon of grotesque G.o.ds and the common people. Here she had come to an intellectual, though no doubt an ascetic; one possessed of fierce fervour in his ministry. There would be no swaying of that will force developed to the keen flexible unflawed temper of a Damascus blade.

Now the priest was saying in the _asl_ (pure) Hindustani of the high-bred Brahmin: "The Sahib confers honour upon Sri Swami Sarasvati by this visit, for the woman has related that he is of high caste amongst the Englay and has been trusted by the Raj with a mission.

That he comes in the garb of my people is consideration for it avoids outrage to their feelings. I am glad to know that the Englay are so considerate."

"I came, Swami, because of regard for Bootea for she is like a princess."

The priest shot a quick, searching look into the eyes of the speaker, then he asked, "And what service would the Sahib ask?"

The question caught Captain Barlow unaware; he had not formulated anything--it had all been nebulous, this dread. He hesitated, fearing to voice that which perhaps did not exist in the minds of either the priest or Bootea.

The girl perceived the hesitancy and spoke rapidly in a low voice to the priest.

"Captain Sahib," the Swami began, "I see that thy heart is inclined to the woman, and it is to be admired, for she is, as thou thinkest, like a flower of the forest. But also, Captain Sahib, thy heart is the heart of a soldier, of a brave man, the light of valour is in thine eyes, in thy face, and I would ask thee to be brave, and instead of being cast in sorrow because of what I am going to tell thee, thou must realise that it is for the good of the woman whose face is in thy heart. To-day she insures to her soul a place in kattas, the heaven of Siva, the abiding place of Brahm, the Creator of all that is."

Barlow felt himself reel at this sudden confirmation of his fears--the blow. The cry "_Kurban_" that he had heard on the bridge was a reality--a human sacrifice.

"G.o.d!" he cried in a voice of anguish, "it can"t be. Young and beautiful and good, to die--it"s wrong. I forbid such a cruel, wanton sacrifice of a sweet life."

The Swami, taking a step toward the door, swept his long thin arm with a gesture that embraced the thousands beyond.

"Captain Sahib," he said solemnly, "if thou wert to raise thy voice in anger against this holy, soul-redeeming observance thou wouldst be torn to pieces; not even I could stop them if insult were offered to Omkar.

And, besides, the Englay Raj would call thee accursed for breeding hate in the hearts of the Hindus through the sacrilege of an insult to the High Priest of the Temple of Omkar. This is the territory of the Mahrattas, and the English have no authority here."

Barlow knew that he was helpless. Even if there were jurisdiction of the British, one against thousands of religious fanatics would avail nothing.

The priest saw the torture in the man"s face, and continued: "The woman has told me much. Her heart is so with thee that it is already dead.

Thou canst not take her to thy people, for the living h.e.l.l is even worse than the h.e.l.l beyond. If thou lovest the woman glory in her release from pain of spirit, from the degradation of being outcast--that she judges wisely, and there is not upon her soul the sin of taking her own life, for if she went with thee, proud and high-born as she is, it would come to that, Sahib--thou knowest it. There are things that cannot be said by me concerning the woman; vows having been taken in the sanct.i.ty of a temple."

A figment of the rumour Barlow had heard that Bootea was Princess k.u.mari floated through his mind, but that did not matter; Bootea as Bootea was the sweetest woman he had ever known. It must be that she had filled his heart with love.

Again Bootea spoke in a low voice to the priest, and he said: "Sahib, I go forth for a little, for there are matters to arrange. I see yonder the sixteen Brahmins who, according to our rites, a.s.semble when one is to pa.s.s at the Shrine of Omkar to _kailas_."

His large luminous eyes rested with tolerant placidity upon the face of this man whom he must consider, according to his tenets, as a creature antagonistic to the true G.o.ds, and said, in his soft, modulated voice: "Thou art young, Sahib, and full of the life force which is essential to the things of the earth--thou art like the blossom of the _mhowa_ tree that comes forth upon bare limbs before the maturity of its foliage, it is then, as thou art, joyous in the freshness of awaking life. But life means eternity, the huge cycle that has been since Indra"s birth. Life here is but a step, a transition from condition to condition, and the woman, by one act of sacrifice, attains to the blissful peace that many livings of reincarnated body would not achieve. It is written in the law of Brahm that if one sacrifices his life, this phase of it, to Omkar, who is Siva, even though he had slain a Brahmin he shall be forgiven, and sit in heaven with the _Gandharvas_ (angels). But it is also written that whosoever turns back in terror, each step that he takes shall be equivalent to the guilt of killing a Brahmin."

The priest"s voice had risen in sonorous cadence until it was compelling.

Bootea trembled like a wind-wavered leaf.