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

Yet, even as the first words fell from his lips, some one touched him on his arm and he turned and found a servant, wearing the Hurst livery, beside him.

"If you please, Sir David," the man began breathlessly, "will you come at once? Miss Chichester sent me after you an hour ago, but the crowd delayed me. Her Ladyship has been taken ill quite suddenly just after you left--"

"A speech--a speech!" sounded loud and imperative from the street.

"Speak to 'em, Sir David!" the little agent demanded almost angrily. "Now is the time to prove what you're made of!"

Hurst passed his hand over his forehead. The momentary exultation was gone, leaving him terribly calm, terribly clear of perception. The woman to whom he, at least in part, owed this burning hour of success had been forgotten. He had not once thought of her. He had thought of Diana Chichester, of his mother, but the frail, pathetic figure of his wife had faded wholly from his horizon. She had fought for him, and in his heart of hearts he had reviled her; by her simple pleading she had won his battle and what had he to give her but this one fact that he had not thought of her? Remorse, too, was silent. Something more terrible than his own guilt confronted him. Fate, that predestinating force which is no other than a man's own character, had once more revealed herself with all her sense of tragic irony, inevitable, cruelly consequent.

"Hurst--Hurst--a speech!"

He recovered himself without an apparent effort.

"See that the carriage is brought round to the side door," he said quietly. "Mr. Smith will you address the people for me? Lady Hurst has been taken seriously ill."

He pushed aside the detaining, remonstrating hands. It was as though a shadow of the past had overtaken him in the full-blooded reality of the present. It stood between him and his world, a pale yet insurmountable barrier, and he knew that, of all his dreams, this dream of ultimate success had been the most chimerical.

An hour later he knelt beside the great fourpost bedstead with his face buried in his hands. Sarasvati was lying almost as he had left her, very quiet now, very pale, with a line of physical suffering drawn about the compressed mouth. Something dark lay protected in the curve of her arm, and now and again a faint, whimpering sound broke the tense, oppressive silence. Presently Diana Chichester, who stood, white and exhausted, by the window, saw the heavy, lightless eye open and rest for an instant on her own face and then pass on to the kneeling figure at the bedside. For a long minute there was no movement. Then Sarasvati laid her hand on her husband's head and over the wan features there spread a light of ineffable pity.

BETWEEN Hampstead and Maida Vale there is a pleasantly situated street flanked on either side by neat villas, dear to the English heart by reason of their tenacious adherence to uniformity, and stamped by the carefully trimmed box-hedges which marked the boundary of the minute lawns as eminently respectable. Stock-brokers, business gentlemen whose names, ending euphonically in " heim " and " stein," suggested consanguinity, widowed ladies of youthful appearance keenly interested in church-work, and inexhaustible on the subject of "my late dear husband," an occasional star in the theatrical world, half tolerated, half lionised by the rest such were the types that domiciled in the red-brick walls and lived elsewhere. The villas had numbers, but these were rarely referred to, and for the most part irate cabmen were instructed to discover "Forest Lodge," "Malplaquet House," or "The Pines," as the case might be, by the light of "new art " lamps whose radiance was more artistic than effectual.

At the corner one house had had the temerity to differentiate from its companions. Doubtless it had been built before the golden age of toy turrets, weathercocks, latticed windows and gables, for it was uncompromisingly simple in structure and disgraced the rest of the "Park " by its indifference to the prettinesses of lace curtains and symmetrical flowerbeds. Like the rest, however, it rejoiced in a name, and "Indra House " was written in stiff black letters on the gate-posts. Nobody knew very much about the inhabitants. It was vaguely understood that a few select Hindu gentlemen belonging to the legal profession had united to form a suitable home for students of their own nationality, and colour was lent to this supposition by the regular appearance, towards dusk, of respectably dressed individuals undeniably Oriental in feature and complexion, who passed noiselessly into the gloomy and unexplored precincts.

At first the tenants of "Malplaquet House," "Forest Lodge," and "The Pines " protested against what they called the "ruining of a select neighbourhood," but little by little the obvious inoffensiveness of the new neighbours silenced the most sensitive, and Indra House was allowed to sink into mysterious oblivion.

On a certain evening, about three weeks after the opening of Parliament, a young Hindu entered the uncared-for garden, and, after having glanced sharply round him, rang the bell which was marked by the harmless injunction "Tradesmen only." There was no immediate response, and he waited patiently, his eyes travelling meanwhile in keen search down the pathway, dimly lighted by the street-lamp. There was no one to be seen, however. The characterless drizzle which polished the neat paving-stones to silvery reflectors of the gas-jets kept even the servant-girls within doors, and, satisfied that he was alone, the visitor repeated his summons, this time ringing three times and allowing a brief but apparently calculated interval between each peal. Then the door opened, and he stepped into the bare, poorly lighted hall.

"Swaraj!" he said to the dark-skinned servant, and, receiving the low answer "Kali!" he nodded and passed on.

The room which he now entered faced the doorway, and, by a curious construction, ended the passage, leaving only a small space for the narrow, winding staircase. It was a very ordinary apartment, plainly furnished and suggesting the reading-room of a thirdclass club. A few papers lay scattered on the table The Times, The Daily News, an illustrated Monthly, a law journal a miscellaneous but inoffensive collection. A Hindu youth stood by the fireside. He was of the type more commonly seen in the low resorts of the East End a miserable figure, destined from birth to go under in the struggle. His clothes were threadbare, and confirmed the silent testimony of the hollow cheeks and wild, sunken eyes. An object for pity or of fear. As the door opened his hand had slipped to an electric-bell on the mantel-shelf, then, perceiving who the newcomer was, his arm dropped limply to his side.

"Swaraj!" the elder man said quietly.

"Kali! "The youth by the fireside glanced towards the second door. "They are all there," he added. "They await you."

"Do you keep guard?"

"Until I am needed."

There was an underlying significance in the answer, of which the new arrival seemed fully aware. He glanced keenly at the emaciated yet still agile figure, and at the eyes, with their smouldering blaze of fanaticism.

"You are indeed among the chosen ones, brother," he said, and crossed the room.

The second door opened stiffly, and revealed yet a third, which was apparently locked from the inside. A twice-repeated tap, however, caused the key to be turned. He passed into the adjoining room, pausing a moment on the threshold with a graceful gesture of salutation. A party of twenty-five men seated at the long table returned his greeting, and he took the vacant place near the centre. His companions were all of his race, though not all of the same branch of that race. Both in the cut of their features and in their general appearance they were divided into two distinct groups, of which the Hindu seated at the head of the table represented the more important. He was unusually fair-skinned, and that peculiarity, together with the cold grey eyes and regular, handsome features, stamped him unmistakably as a Chitpaven Brahman. He was carefully, even elegantly dressed, and his haughty bearing contrasted with that of his vis-d-vis, a small, delicate-looking man whose restless movements and swift-changing expression associated him with the youth in the adjoining room. At the one end calculating cunning at the other, intelligence, weakness, and incalculable fanaticism. As the new-comer took the seat the Brahman turned to him with a slight inclination of the head.

"We have waited for you, Rama Pal," he said. "The general arrangements have been made, but I understand that you also have your suggestion, and in that case preferred to wait before despatching the final orders."

Rama Pal glanced sharply down the length of the table. Of all the men present he was unquestionably the youngest, and a dull glow of triumph burnt up in his hollow cheeks.

"I am proud of your confidence," he said in his low musical voice, "but it would be better that I should first know what has happened. My proposition concerns only the signal."

"Our news is of the best." The Brahman drew a sheet of paper towards him and referred to it with a stately satisfaction. "Our agents have arrived without mishap, and the weapons are safely concealed both in the Temple of Kali in Calcutta and in the vaults of Kolruna. The Press has been urged to adopt a more conciliatory tone in order that suspicions may be lulled; but the various associations, schools, and gymnasiums are in full possession of the facts and are hard at work. On the second of March the following manifesto will be issued in every State of India."

He took up a harmless-looking English novel lying on the table, and, opening it somewhere about the middle, read out aloud in his own tongue :

"Brothers, children of one Holy Mother, the hour has at last struck when the yoke of slavery shall be cast off and the oppressor driven from your gates. Arise, and in the name of Durga use your weapons until no single demon defiles our holy soil! In freedom alone is our salvation. Behold, the gods who witness our weakness and cowardice turn from us, but to every man who dips his hand in the blood of a white goat it shall be counted more than all the virtues. Arise! The power which holds you subject is but a myth an evil dream which beclouds your vision. Truth, religion, greatness were yours before your tyrants had won the wisdom of children. Reconquer what is lost. Unite, and, with the help of our gods, the Holy Mother shall be for ever cleansed from shame. Act as one man, and the power of her enemies shall be for ever broken." He stopped, and there was a low murmur of applause. The Brahman glanced about him. He had spoken in a voice which rang metallic, like the clash of steel; but there was a faint cynicism about the finely cut, cruel mouth which harmonised better with his now complete change of tone.

"On the second of March the signal will be given from the Temple in Calcutta, and as soon as the city is in our hands the call to action shall be transmitted to every State