Part 12 (1/2)

We had hardly the time to spring to our feet and shrink back when she appeared on the top of the Sivatherium's head, standing there amongst the horns.

Narayan alone did not stir, and fearlessly looked straight in the eyes of the frightful sorceress.

But what was this? Who spoke in those deep manly tones? Her lips were moving, from her breast were issuing those quick, abrupt phrases, but the voice sounded hollow as if coming from beneath the ground.

”Hush, hus.h.!.+” whispered Sham Rao, his whole body trembling. ”She is going to prophesy!.... ” ”She?” incredulously inquired Mr. Y----. ”This a woman's voice? I don't believe it for a moment. Someone's uncle must be stowed away somewhere about the place. Not the fabulous uncle she inherited from, but a real live one!...”

Sham Rao winced under the irony of this supposition, and cast an imploring look at the speaker.

”Woe to you! woe to you!” echoed the voice. ”Woe to you, children of the impure Jaya and Vijaya! of the mocking, unbelieving lingerers round great s.h.i.+va's door! Ye, who are cursed by eighty thousand sages! Woe to you who believe not in the G.o.ddess Kali, and you who deny us, her Seven divine Sisters! Flesh-eating, yellow-legged vultures! friends of the oppressors of our land! dogs who are not ashamed to eat from the same trough with the Bellati!” (foreigners).

”It seems to me that your prophetess only foretells the past,” said Mr.

Y----, philosophically putting his hands in his pockets. ”I should say that she is hinting at you, my dear Sham Rao.”

”Yes! and at us also,” murmured the colonel, who was evidently beginning to feel uneasy.

As to the unlucky Sham Rao, he broke out in a cold sweat, and tried to a.s.sure us that we were mistaken, that we did not fully understand her language.

”It is not about you, it is not about you! It is of me she speaks, because I am in Government service. Oh, she is inexorable!”

”Rakshasas! Asuras!” thundered the voice. ”How dare you appear before us? how dare you to stand on this holy ground in boots made of a cow's sacred skin? Be cursed for etern----”

But her curse was not destined to be finished. In an instant the Hercules-like Narayan had fallen on the Sivatherium, and upset the whole pile, the skull, the horns and the demoniac Pythia included. A second more, and we thought we saw the witch flying in the air towards the portico. A confused vision of a stout, shaven Brahman, suddenly emerging from under the Sivatherium and instantly disappearing in the hollow beneath it, flashed before my dilated eyes.

But, alas! after the third second had pa.s.sed, we all came to the embarra.s.sing conclusion that, judging from the loud clang of the door of the cave, the representative of the Seven Sisters had ignominiously fled. The moment she had disappeared from our inquisitive eyes to her subterranean domain, we all realized that the unearthly hollow voice we had heard had nothing supernatural about it and belonged to the Brahman hidden under the Sivatherium--to someone's live uncle, as Mr. Y---- had rightly supposed.

Oh, Narayan! how carelessly.... how disorderly the worlds rotate around us.... I begin to seriously doubt their reality. From this moment I shall earnestly believe that all things in the universe are nothing but illusion, a mere Maya. I am becoming a Vedantin.... I doubt that in the whole universe there may be found anything more objective than a Hindu witch flying up the spout.----

Miss X---- woke up, and asked what was the meaning of all this noise. The noise of many voices and the sounds of the many retreating footsteps, the general rush of the crowd, had frightened her. She listened to us with a condescending smile, and a few yawns, and went to sleep again.

Next morning, at daybreak, we very reluctantly, it must be owned, bade good-bye to the kind-hearted, good-natured Sham Rao. The confoundingly easy victory of Narayan hung heavily on his mind. His faith in the holy hermitess and the seven G.o.ddesses was a good deal shaken by the shameful capitulation of the Sisters, who had surrendered at the first blow from a mere mortal. But during the dark hours of the night he had had time to think it over, and to shake off the uneasy feeling of having unwillingly misled and disappointed his European friends.

Sham Rao still looked confused when he shook hands with us at parting, and expressed to us the best wishes of his family and himself.

As to the heroes of this truthful narrative, they mounted their elephants once more, and directed their heavy steps towards the high road and Jubbulpore.

G.o.d's Warrior

The direction of our pilgrimage of self-improvement lay towards the north-west, as was previously decided. We were very impatient to see these status in statu of Anglo-India, but.... Do what you may, there always will be a but.

We left the Jubbulpore line several miles from Na.s.sik; and, to return to it, we had to go back to Akbarpur, then travel by doubtful Local-Board roads to the station Vanevad and take the train of Holkar's line, which joins the Great Indian Peninsular Railway.

Meanwhile, the Bagh caves were quite close to us, not more than fifty miles off, to the east from Mandu. We were undecided whether to leave them alone or go back to the Nerbudda. In the country situated on the other side of Kandesh, our Babu had some ”chums,” as everywhere else in India; the omnipresent Bengali Babus, who are always glad to be of some service to you, are scattered all over Hindostan, like the Jews in Russia. Besides, our party was joined by a new member.

The day before we had received a letter from Swami Dayanand, carried to us by a traveling Sannyasi. Dayanand informed us that the cholera was increasing every day in Hardwar, and that we must postpone making his acquaintance personally till the end of May, either in Dehra-Dun, at the foot of Himalaya, or in Saharanpur, which attracts every tourist by its charming situation.

The Sannyasi brought us also a nosegay from the Swami, a nosegay of the most extraordinary flowers, which are totally unknown in Europe. They grow only in certain Himalayan valleys; they possess the wonderful capacity of changing their color after midday, and do not look dead even when faded. The Latin name of this charming plant is Hibiscus mutabilis.

At night they are nothing but a large knot of pressed green leaves, but from dawn till ten o'clock the flowers open and look like large snow-white roses; then, towards twelve o'clock, they begin to redden, and later in the afternoon they look as crimson as a peony. These flowers are sacred to the Asuras, a kind of fallen angels in Hindu mythology, and to the sun-G.o.d Surya. The latter deity fell in love with an Asuri at the beginning of creation, and since then is constantly caught whispering words of fiery love to the flower that shelters her.

But the Asura is a virgin; she gives herself entirely to the service of the G.o.ddess Chast.i.ty, who is the patroness of all the ascetic brotherhoods. The love of Surya is vain, Asura will not listen to him.

But under the flaming arrows of the enamoured G.o.d she blushes and in appearance loses her purity. The natives call this plant lajjalu, the modest one.

We were spending the night by a brook, under a shadowy fig-tree. The Sannyasi, who had made a wide circuit to fulfil Dayanand's request, made friends with us; and we sat up late in the night, listening whilst he talked about his travels, the wonders of his native country, once so great, and about the heroic deeds of old Runjit-Sing, the Lion of the Punjab.