Part 48 (1/2)

In the pause Chris clenched his hands; for he saw whither the wily lips were leading him, and in a flash realised his own impotence if this were true.

'It is a lie!' he muttered helplessly. 'I must--my mother must have known. And my father----' Then memory came to remind him that his father had been a champion of widow remarriage, and he broke off still more helplessly.

'Even so!' continued the Swami, not unkindly; 'thy father agreed with me (we of the temple have to keep touch with the world, Krishn). Yea!

he gave gold, since that is in thy thought! to hide the wrong. And if he were willing to give her to you, his only son, as wife, wherefore should I speak? No harm was done to others; no deception to ignorant honour. But it was different when he died and thy mother came to me, with heart split in twain between the dream and duty, to speak of another betrothal. So I said then--”Wait yet a while. The G.o.ds have mated these two. He may return.” That was better, was it not, Krishn, than--than _widowhood_ for the girl?'

He leant towards the young man as he spoke the words, his sombre eyes fixed on Chris Davenant's shrinking face. Though the latter had known what was coming, the certainty of it overwhelmed him. He sat staring breathlessly, with such absolute paralysis of nerve and muscle that a damp sweat showed on his forehead, as on the foreheads of those who are in the grip of death.

And widowhood was worse than death. It would be a living death to Naraini--Naraini with her little rose-coloured, rose-scented casket.

'Which is it to be, my pupil?' came the Swami's voice, swift and keen as a knife-thrust. 'Widowhood, or marriage?'

Chris buried his face in his hands with a groan; then he looked up suddenly. 'Why?' he began, and ended. Appeal he knew was useless; but he might at least know why this choice was forced on him, for choice it was. His had been in the eye of the law a mixed marriage--his right as Hindoo remained in India.

The Swami's lean brown hand was on his wrist again, but it was no longer impa.s.sive; it seemed to hold and claim him almost pa.s.sionately.

'Because we of the temple need such as thou art, my son, in these new days when the old faith is a.s.sailed--ay! even by such as Ram Nath, low-born, with his talk of ancient wisdom, his cult of Western ways hidden in the old teachings, his cult of the East blazoned in the outside husks of truth--the husks that we of the inner life set at their proper value! But thou art of us! Deny it not--the blood in thee thrills to thy finger-tips even as I speak. Thou art of us! and thy voice trembled in that dawn over the _gayatri_ thou hadst not said for years--nay, start not! we of the temple know all---as it trembled, Krishn, when thou didst first learn it here, as thou art to-day, at my feet.'

In the silence that followed, Chris Davenant, who had so often ridden in a Hammersmith 'bus, was conscious of but two things in the wide world. That thrill to his finger-tips, and the scarlet stain of a woman's petticoat pa.s.sing templewards beyond the arches; the only sc.r.a.p of colour in the strange shadowless light which comes to India before the sun has risen over the level horizon.

So, once more, the Swami's voice came, still dignified, but with a trace of cunning in it now, of argument. 'Thou canst not do it unaided, Krishn; but with us behind thee--giving more freedom, remember, that the herd knows or dreams--thou couldst have thy wish--thou couldst teach the people.'

True. Chris, listening, saw this, even as he saw that scarlet streak; but all the while he was thinking idly that if Naraini were doomed to widowhood, the bridal scarlet would never be hers.

And yet he forgot even this when the Swami struck another string deftly. 'Our best disciples leave us'--the rhythm grew fateful, mournful.--'The new wisdom takes them soul and body ere they have learned to unhusk the old, and find its heart. But thou hast found it.

Come back to us and teach us! For day by day the husk hides more. Even on the river, Krishn, where the old sanctuaries of the G.o.dhead in Man and Woman stand side by side, the younger priests quarrel over Her power and His. As if the Man and the Woman were not, together, the Eternal Mind and Body! And the quarrel grows keen, like many another in those days; keener than ever since the golden paper fell, prophesying blood upon Her Altar. Lies, Krishn, lies! we know them so; but we are driven to them to keep our hold upon the people. What other hold have we but ignorance, if young wisdom leaves us?'

Chris gave a sort of inarticulate cry, and his hands rose pa.s.sionately to his ears as if to shut out the words which were enlisting all things that were good in him on the side of something which he still condemned. But, as he stopped his ears despairingly, a sound came which no hand could quite shut out.

It was the clang of the temple bell, proclaiming that the Eucharist of Hindooism was ready for communicants; that the Water of Life which had touched the G.o.ds was waiting for those who thirsted for it.

m.u.f.fled, half heard, it seemed to vibrate afresh on every tense nerve of his mind and body. He stood up dazed, half hypnotised by it, by the figure--a dim shadow of a man that had risen also, smiling softly, among the dim arches.

'Come, my son,' it said, 'so far thou _art_ with us! Let the rest be for a while. But this, stripped of its husk, is thine.--Come!'

And as it pa.s.sed silently into the courtyard, Chris pa.s.sed too, lost in the familiar unfamiliarity of all things. Of the cl.u.s.tering spikes of the temples seen against the primrose sky; of the drifting hint of incense shut in by the arcades; of the bare empty silence broken only by that clanging bell. The scarlet streak was pa.s.sing outwards, already sanctified, approved. Others would come, but for the moment there was solitude; save for that half-dozen of indifferent disciples droning over their devotions, and the officiating priest, unseen within the temple.

Unseen, because it was the Swami himself who, returning from the darkness of the sanctuary--into which he had pa.s.sed swiftly, leaving Chris hesitating on the lowest step--stood on the upper one, the _Churrun-amrit_ in his hands, and bending low, said--

'Drink, Krishn Davenund! and live.'

The words came like a command, making the slender brown hands curve themselves into a cup.

How cool the holy water was on those hot palms! Dear G.o.d! How cool, how restful! The man's whole soul was in his lips as he stooped and drank thirstily.

A dream! a dream! but what a heavenly dream!

Chris stood there, in that shadowless light of dawn, unable even to realise what the dream was. And then, suddenly, a great desire to be alone, and yet to find companions.h.i.+p--a shrinking from the routine around him, and a longing to find shelter in the hidden heart of things--came to him as the wors.h.i.+ppers, answering the call of the bell, began to crowd about the temple. So--the Swami having kept his promise of asking no more of him for the time--he pa.s.sed out of the court into the bazaar beyond. But here the world was already chaffering over the needs of the body, and Chris, who was only conscious of his soul, stood bewildered in it, uncertain which way to go. Nothing seemed to claim him, not even his work; for it was Sunday morning.

And after that act of communion, the hope of companions.h.i.+p anywhere seemed, strangely enough, further from him than ever. So he stood idly watching the wors.h.i.+ppers pa.s.s in and out of the arched entry to the temple court, leaving the world and coming back to it with businesslike faces, until he saw Ram Nath approaching him, and the sight made him pull himself together swiftly.