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

"Why?" she asked.

"It makes it worse to think that you are unhappy."

She smiled at him, though the deadly pain half blinded her.

"I am not unhappy. I never meant to marry, because I did not believe I should ever meet a man worthy of me, and now I never shall marry, because, having met him, I can't have him. But I'm glad I've met you, and glad I love you, David. It lifts me a little above myself, you know."

"Will you write once when you get to Kolruna?"

"No, dear, better not. But remember we shall be working together all the same we shall be keeping our compact--"

"to make her happy?"

"Yes and our success shall be the sign that we are forgiven the justification of our love."

"Yes, I understand."

"Good-bye, David."

"No don't shake hands it's such an empty form and it would hurt--"

Without a backward glance she left him. He waited until the clang of the outer door told him that she was gone, then he stumbled back to his place by the table, and lay there motionless, with his face buried in his arms.

IT was very quiet in the great room. The figure kneeling by the cradle might have been a statue, so rigidly did it retain its bowed attitude, and the baby on the white-laced pillow had not moved since it had cried out an hour before. Now it lay very still its eyes half opened, its tiny dark hands tight clenched, as though in pain. But after that one faint cry it had made no sound. The French clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half-hour, and presently the hour. The yellow gloom of the fog deepened to an early twilight, and the lights from the street began to throw their dim reflections on the painted ceiling.

And still Sarasvati did not move. The noise of the passing traffic sounded afar off, so absolute and deathlike was the silence which enclosed her. Presently a loose board cracked as though beneath a quick, stealthy tread, and there was a rustle of curtains pushed softly aside. She lifted her head and listened. For the moment there was no further movement. She took the two powerless hands and chafed them between her own mechanically, with a kind of unreasoning persistency that was more tragic than the wildest lament. Then, overtaken by exhaustion, her hands dropped limply on the quilt and she lay still with her forehead resting against the bar of the cradle.

"Sarasvati!"

The whisper was so low that it seemed to lose itself almost before it reached her. She started slightly, but did not turn.

"David!" she answered tonelessly. "David--"

The door clicked to. The footsteps drew nearer. She could not hear them, but to her they were unmistakable. They seemed to beat upon her brain like a vibration from some old memory. She had heard them before, when they passed through her dreams, as mysterious and noiseless; she had heard them long ago, in half forgotten ages; they were inexplicably part of herself and her life. Then suddenly, with a smothered scream, she sprang to her feet and faced about.

"Who are you how have you come here?" she whispered.

In the drear half-light she saw at first only that the man who stood within a few feet of her was not her husband. Without answering he came closer to her, so that his dark set face almost touched her own.

"Hast thou forgotten thine own tongue?" he said softly in Hindustani. "Hast thou so utterly forgotten thine own people that only the dogs' language comes to thy lips?"

"How hast thou come here?" she repeated in stony terror.

He laughed almost inaudibly.

"There are always ways and means for those who will. For jingling gold the strongest doors will open, the most faithful servants become traitors. But enough of that. My time is short, and I have much to say to thee."

"I will not listen. I am afraid thou art my husband's enemy and mine."

She struggled to pass him, but swiftly and silently he caught her and forced her back, one hand pressed tightly upon her mouth.

"Sarasvati!" he whispered, "thou wouldst do well to listen to me. I have not risked so much not to dare more. What I have to say to you concerns life and death perhaps the world's history. And I have a right to speak, for there is a bond between us which no hand can sever. Wilt thou listen?"

For a minute they stared into each other's faces . Her wild, starting eyes hung on his with the helpless terror of an animal caught in the toils. Then she made a feeble movement, and he released her, so that she stumbled back, gasping, against the cradle.

"Thou hast asked me who I am," he began in the same low, incisive accents. "My name, as it was given me by my English missionaries, is Rama Pal, and by birth I am a Brahman. My father, Nana Balagi, is a priest of Vishnu. Two children were born to him of one wife one was stolen, so it is said, by the English missionaries, in reality by the lowest Sudras. Afterwards he fell into English hands, and from that hour he was more lost to his own people than if death had taken him. The other child was a girl. They called her the daughter of Brahma." He bent a little forward, studying every line of her drawn face with a keenness that was half -cruel, half -pity ing.

"Much has changed, oh my sister, since we wandered together beneath the temple pillars," he went on. "The priest's son, with the mark of Vishnu on his brows, became a beggar and an outcaste. His faith and his heritage were stolen from him, suffering and poverty haunt him all that remains is the hope that one day he may plunge his hands deep in the blood of those who have wronged him and his brethren. And thou, Sarasvati, my sister, thou too hast changed. Have I not seen thee kneeling amidst the lotus-flowers, thyself more lovely than their tenderest blossoms? Have I not seen thee held high above the heads of an adoring multitude, bedecked hi all the gems of India, thyself more precious, more desired than the purest emerald? Have I not seen the eyes of millions turned to thee for the signal which would set them free? But thou, too, wast granted dishonourable life, and the curse of them that forsake their faith and kind is on thee. For what hast thou become?"

He caught her roughly by the wrist and dragged her to the looking-glass, where the reflections of their faces stared back at them in grey ghostliness.

"Look at those cheeks, once round and smooth as a peach in its first ripeness; look at those eyes, that were once brighter than the stars; look at the hair, once dark and lustrous as the night-sky, more luxuriant than the foliage of the jungle. Where is now thy beauty, oh my sister? Thou hast become old and withered, thy loveliness has passed like the loveliness of a flower that has been plucked and flung into the dust by the wayside. Thy heart is broken, Sarasvati, my sister. No wonder that the love for which thou gavest all has grown cold and passes on to other and fresher--"

"It is a lie!" she broke in wildly. She tried to free herself. The horrid, distorted reflection of her own face mocked her helpless efforts.

"A lie? Art thou, then, blind to what others see hourly? Art thou deceived by a friendship which is no more than a mantle for a disloyal love? Thy very servants pity thee. But what is that against the greater wrong? Thou art doubly betrayed, Sarasvati, my sister. The ring upon thy finger is a lie, the ceremony which bound thee to thy betrayer was an empty form. Thy marriage was unlawful thou art an outcaste in the country of thy birth and in the country of thy adoption thy son is born in dishonour--"

"Be silent! "She wrenched herself free and sprang like a tigress to the cradle, where she turned and faced him in royal fury. "My son has passed beyond dishonour," she said. "My son is dying."

He stared at her, and then, in the heavy silence, he crept across the room and peered down at the grey suffering face upon the tiny pillow.

"Dying!" he repeated. "It is well. He is spared much."

"Rama Pal--my brother--if brother thou art-- it is not true, it is not true."

She held out her hands in piteous supplication, and he caught them and drew her to him. Fiercely pitying, he half carried, half supported her to the fireside.

"It is true. I swear it." He knelt down and thrust his clenched fist full into the flames. "By water and by fire I swear that thou hast been doubly betrayed," he cried loudly. "If I have lied may the fire testify against me." He withdrew his hand and showed it her. It was uninjured. His face blazed with a fanatical triumph, which hid from him as well as from her the success of a common Hindu juggler's trick.

"It is the truth, my sister. What I know I know from those who would not lie and who know the law--"

She interrupted him. For a space she had found firm ground in the midst of the shifting sands; in this final disaster which shook the foundations of her world one thing remained steadfast.

"Shall I not know light from darkness, gold from base metal?" she said clearly. "I will not believe that my husband has betrayed me no, not till his own lips have answered thy accusation."

Rama Pal considered for a moment in keen, watchful silence.

"It is possible probable that he whom thou callest husband is also ignorant of what I have told thee," he said at last. "What difference does that make? He loves thee no more. Thy little hour in his life is over. His own blood, his own race, call him. Wilt thou plead with him to reknit the bonds which have grown odious to him? Wilt thou chain him, unwilling, at thy side and watch how a white man's passion crumbles to hatred and contempt? Or wilt thou see him seize the offered outlet to escape to leave thee scorned and mocked, at the mercy of his world? Sarasvati"

He sprang up and held her as she reeled against him. Her head dropped powerlessly against his shoulder, and he bent his lips to her ear, speaking with a swift change of tone.

"All is not lost, Sarasvati; not despair but hope do I bring thee. Thy part in this cold, unlovely land is played. Those to whom thou hast turned in trust have shrunk from thee, have heaped contempt upon dishonour to-morrow, perhaps, will spurn thee from their doors. But thy land, thy people, call thee, Sarasvati. Millions who in secret and silence have armed for the great day of deliverance do but wait for the