The Daughter of Brahma by I. A. R. Wylie (to read list txt) 📕

"In whom?" The Brahman hesitated. Then the old cunning replaced the moment's blaze of enthusiasm.

"A new and living goddess has arisen," he said. "Sarasvati daughter of Brahma. To-night thou shalt see her in the Temple to the Unknown."

"And worship?"

"With the countless thousands throughout India who shall answer one day to her call."

The two men looked each other full in the eyes.

"And that call will come?"

"When India's sons are ready."

"And shall I worship a lie?"

"No lie, but a symbol. Let her be to you as the mother thou art destined to rescue." He pointed to the horizon. "Across the sea, whither thou goest, thou wilt find others such as thou. Steadily, silently they work beneath the surface, fearing neither death nor sacrifice. In them shalt thou find thy true brotherhood. With them thou shalt regain thy birthright."

Rama Pal took an involuntary step forward.

"Who art thou?" he demanded. "Who am I?"

The Brahman held up a warning hand.

"Approach me not, for still is thy shadow unclean. One day thou shalt know my name and thine, and why I have called upon thee. Until then, work and nourish the hatred in thy heart! The great hour is not far off."

He turned to go. A dirty-looking yogi, seated in the full blaze of the sun, held out a greedy hand; but the priest passed on his way, majestically indifferent.

Rama Pal had drawn back into the shade of the mission house, and a complete hush fell upon the native village. And presently, apparently wearied of his unprofitable penance, the yogi rose and limped away towards Kolruna.

DAVID HURST sat at his writing-table and turned over the heap of manuscript before him. Now and again he made some slight correction in the carefully ruled margin, but it was a mechanical work, and his eyes were more often raised to the figure seated in the chair beneath the lamp. The soft turning of the leaves covered over his inattention, and Mrs. Hurst went on reading, apparently unconscious that she was being watched. She read intently, with the absorption of a mind capable of absolute concentration, and the ponderous-looking book on her knee contrasted curiously with the exquisite delicacy of her dress, and with the white jewelled hands which held the yellow vellum covers apart. Presently, having reached the end of a chapter, she closed the book and sat with her head thrown back against her chair, her eyes lifted thoughtfully to the light. It was as though her beauty defied the closest scrutiny, and, indeed, the years had brought no change to her. There were no lines about the straight-cut mouth nor across the serene forehead. There was no trace of weariness in the proud carriage of her shoulders, and, above all, no softening.

"Are you not coming to-night, David?" she asked suddenly, but without moving. "Diana will be disappointed, and Mrs. Chichester made sure of you."

His eyes sank to the closely written pages. "I don't think I should be of much good, mother," he answered. "I should only be in the way." He gave a little awkward laugh. "You know, I can't dance any more than Milton's prehistoric elephant, and nature did not intend me to ornament even a wall."

"I know you do not care for that sort of entertainment," she returned courteously. "I suppose you will spend your evening with the Professor?"

' Yes unless I can be of any use elsewhere. Might I fetch you?"

There was a faint, timid eagerness in his tone. She shook her head.

"No, thank you. It's not necessary. The judge has promised to look after me right to the bitter end." She was silent a moment, playing with an emerald ring upon her finger. "Do you like your work?" she asked with the same polite interest.

"Yes; Professor Heilig is an unusually clever man and, even if he wasn't, it would be enough for me to know that I am being of some assistance. It's a new sensation." He bent over the manuscript, and there was another silence, broken at last by the rattle of carriage- wheels over the loose gravel.

Mrs. Hurst rose to her feet.

"That's the judge at last," she said, drawing on the rich purple mantle which had been hung in readiness. "Good night, David. Don't let the Professor get you mixed up in any of his dangerous experiments. And don't wait up for me. I shall be late."

She came across the room as though to pass out of the open window, and then hesitated at his side. "Poor David!" she said, half to herself.

He looked up; the nearness of her presence seemed to stupefy him, the softer intonation in her voice to shatter something of his self-restraint. With a movement that was as sudden as it was violent he caught the hand resting upon the table and kissed it repeatedly, almost savagely.

"David!"

The hand was withdrawn so sharply that his mouth struck against the corner of the table. Her exclamation brought him to himself. He sank back in his chair, blood on his lips, his face whiter than hers, his eyes sombre with an expiring passion.

"Mother?" he said under his breath.

She recovered herself instantly. The expression of irritation and disgust faded, though something in her bearing betrayed the vibrations of the storm.

"I am sorry, David," she said, "very sorry. You took me by surprise. I hope I did not hurt you?"

He felt that she was apologising more to herself than to him. He buried his face in his shaking hands.

"Don't! It was my fault. I forgot. You looked very beautiful I lost control of myself. Beautiful things overwhelm me sometimes, somehow I suppose because I am such a confounded ugly brute myself. Don't mind it and forget it."

She did not answer. He heard the soft rustle of her dress as she drew away from him and passed out of the window. He got up and crept cautiously after her, hiding in the shadow of the curtains. He saw the yellow lights of the judge's carriage, the white-clad syce at the horse's head; he saw his mother with her back towards him and he saw the judge's face, flooded with the light from the window. He heard the halfsmothered exclamation and understood it.

"I believe you're trying to cut out all the unhappy debutantes," the judge said gaily. "How do you think I'm to find all my protegees partners, with the subalterns swarming round you like so many moths?"

"Is that a compliment?" she retorted. "If it is, it's the first one you have ever paid me."

"You ought to be thankful. Let me help you in. Isn't David coming?"

"No."

"Poor chap, it would do him good. Are you comfortable?"

"Very."

"That's all right. Josephus, give the savage brute her head, will you?"

The "savage brute" from her gait, a direct descendant of the long-deceased Sarah Jane broke into a weary trot, and a minute later the lights of the buggy passed through the compound gates and disappeared. Hurst limped back to the table. He tried to resume his work, but his head ached and a selfloathing that was physical in its intensity lamed his faculties. It was not enough that nature had stamped him "outcast" he had added to his own disgrace. He had thrust himself upon a being who he knew despised him, he had flung aside dignity and selfrepression the poor garments with which he had sought to cover his infirmities and had revealed himself as a cringing, whining beggar, importunate and shameless. And he had gained nothing save a sense of nausea, of utter humiliation.

He got up again and flung his manuscript carelessly into the drawer. It was of no use to fight against his unrest, and in an hour the Professor awaited him. "If you would see your boyhood's dream again, I will show you her before daybreak," he had written. Hurst smiled at the recollection of the curt promise. It is as easy to recall the dead as to recall a dream of an ideal, he thought. Nevertheless, he took his helmet from the table and went out into the compound and down the avenue to the road.

Professor Heilig's bungalow lay on the other side of Kolruna, at a good half-hour's walk, and Hurst set off as briskly as his dragging, uneven gait allowed. The darkness, the complete silence, the rapid movement through the soft air calmed him. Shame and bitterness, though they still gnawed at his heart's roots, lost something of their violence. Nature slept in mysterious quiet about him. He had divorced her from his life, had stifled the sound of her voice in his desperate, futile struggle for the world's approbation, but in this hour of humiliation she strove to reclaim him. He lifted his face to the brilliant sky, where already the new moon rose in the stately splendour of rebirth, and forgot for an instant his bitterness in the contemplation of the eternity which encompassed him. It was only for an instant, then a wailing cry recalled him to earth and to himself. Involuntarily he stopped and looked about him. A shadow rose up from the ditch at the side of the road and came crawling through the moonlight stretching out thin arms of supplication. He tried to pass, but claw-like hands gripped his knees; a face of torture lifted itself to his.

"Have mercy, Sahib, have mercy, and I will pray to God that, ere dawn break, He shall give thee thy heart's desire!"

Hurst dropped a coin into the extended palm.

"My heart's desire?" he echoed ironically. "Who is thy God that He should read my heart?"

"Is not the desire of man for ever the same?" came the quick answer. "Fame and the love of woman?"

Hurst freed himself from the detaining hands and passed on, his lips compressed, his face crimson with a sudden rush of blood. He cursed himself savagely and bitterly, but he knew that something in him had answered the yogi's sententious wisdom. "Fame and the love of woman! "Unattainable desires scarcely recognised, hideously ludicrous in the light of his utter failure! And yet superstition, sudden-born, ran riot in his veins.

He reached the outskirts of Kolruna and limped through the deserted streets. Their emptiness left no impression on his mind. But presently he heard the sound of music, and stopped short, caught in the web of awakened longing. He stood at the gates of the Chichesters' bungalow, and the music which had reached his ear was English music, sensuous and melodious. It came to him in broken waves, lending a vague enchantment to the scene before him, to the silence and darkness which lay behind. Lights glittered between the stems of the tall palm-trees. He could see the shadows of moving figures, and once he heard the sound of laughter. He passed through the open gates. He had ceased to reason with himself. Life, warm and pulsating, called to him and he answered, forgetful of everything but his own youth, his own powers of living.

But unbridgeable gulfs separate life from life, and, as he reached the steps of the low verandah, he remembered them, and hid himself in the shadows. The curtains across the wide windows had been drawn aside,