The Heart of Denise and Other Tales Part 15

Beeroo made no answer, and the group shortly afterwards broke up. But Gobind Ram, the ca.n.a.l-accountant, who knew the story of the s.h.a.gul Tree, went straight to his quarters. Here he wrote a brief note on a piece of soft yellow paper, and sealed it carefully. Then he drew forth a pigeon from a cage in a corner of the room, and fastening the letter to the bird, freed the pigeon with a toss into the air. The carrier circled slowly thrice above the _neem_ trees, and then spreading its strong slate-coloured wings, flew swiftly towards the hills. Gobind Ram watched the speck in the sky until it vanished from sight, then he went in, muttering to himself, "The high priest will know in an hour that Beeroo the Sansi has heard of the s.h.a.gul Tree--Ho, Aladin, thou hast too long a beard and too long a tongue,"

and the subtle Brahmin squatted himself down to smoke.

An hour afterwards, as Aladin was taking the she-elephant to water, he saw a figure going at a long slouching trot along the yellow sandbanks of the Some, making directly towards the north. The old man shaded his eyes with his hands and looked keenly at it; but his sight was not what it was, and he turned to Mahb.o.o.b, the elephant-cooly, who would step into his shoes some day, when he died, and asked: "See'st thou that figure on the sandbank there, Mahb.o.o.b?"

"It is the Sansi," answered Mahb.o.o.b. "Behold! He limps on the left foot, where the leopard clawed him at Kara Ho. Perchance the Sahib will not hear of the tiger to-day."

"If ever, Mahb.o.o.b," answered the Mahout; "would that mine eyes were young again. _Hai!_" and he tapped Moula Piari's bald head with his driving-hook, for her long trunk was reaching out to grasp a bundle of green gra.s.s from the head of a gra.s.s-cutter, who was bearing in fodder for the Sahib's pony.

Mahb.o.o.b was not mistaken; it was Beeroo. When the party broke up, he alone remained apparently absorbed in thought. After a time he took some tobacco from an embroidered pouch hanging at his waist, crushed it in the palm of his hand, and rolled a cone-shaped cigarette with the aid of a leaf, fastening the folds of the leaf together with a small dry stick which he stuck through the cigarette like a hair-pin.

At this he sucked, his forehead contracted into a frown, and his bead-like eyes fixed steadily before him. Finally he rose quickly, as one who has made a sudden resolve.

"The tiger can wait for the Sahib," he said to himself; "but _lakhs_ of rupees--they wait also--for me. I will go and worship at Mohonagh.

The idol will surely make the convert a gift."

Laughing softly to himself, he stole off with long cat-like steps in the direction of the river. He forded the Some where it was crossed by the telegraph-line, and the water was but breast-deep. Once on the opposite bank, he shook himself like a dog, and breaking into a trot, headed straight for the hills. His way led up a narrow and steep track, hedged in with thorns over which the purple convolvulus twined in a confused network. On either hand were spa.r.s.e fields of gram and corn, which ran in lozenge shapes up the low hillsides, ending in a tangle of underwood, beyond which rose the solid outlines of the forest. As the sun was setting he came to a long narrow ravine, over which the road crossed. Here he stopped, and instead of keeping to the road, turned abruptly to the right and trotted on. In the darkening woods above him he heard the cry of a panther, and the alarmed jabbering of the monkeys in the trees above their most dreaded enemy.

Beeroo marked the spot with a glance as he went on: "I will buy a gun when I come back from Mohonagh," he muttered to himself, "a two-barrelled gun of English make. The Thanadar at Thakot has one for sale, a _birich-lodas_;[1] and then I will shoot that panther."

_Hough_! _Hough!_ The cry of the animal rang through the forest again, as if in a.s.sent to his thoughts, and Beeroo continued his way. Just as the sun sank and darkness was setting in, he saw the wavering glimmer of a circle of camp-fires and the outlines of figures moving against the light. The flare of the burning wood discovered also a few low tents, shaped like casks cut in half lengthwise, and lit up with red the grey fur of a number of donkeys that were tethered within the radius of the fires. In a little time he heard the barking of dogs, and five minutes later was with the tents of his tribe.

Footnote 1: Breechloader.

One or two men exchanged brief greetings with him, and answering them, he stepped up to the centre fire, where a tall good-looking woman addressed him. "Aho, Beeroo, is it you? Is the hunt to be to-morrow?"

"The Sahib was asleep," answered Beeroo; "give me to eat."

The woman brought him food. It was a stew made of the flesh of a porcupine that had been kept warm in an earthenware dish, and Beeroo ate heartily of this, quenching his thirst with a draught of the fiery spirit made from the blossoms of the _mhowra_, after which he began to smoke once more, using a small clay pipe called a _chillum_. His wife, for so the woman was, made no attempt to converse with him, but left him to the company of his tobacco and his thoughts. Beeroo sat moodily puffing blue curls of smoke from his pipe, and with a black blanket drawn over his shoulders, stared steadily into the fire. So he sat for hours, no one disturbing him, sat until the camp had gone to rest, and the wind alone was awake and sighing through the forest. Sagoo, his big white hound, came close to him, and lay by his side, as if to hint that it was time to sleep. Beeroo stroked the lean, muscular flank of the dog, and looked around him. "In a little time," he said to himself, "I will be Beeroo Naik, with a village of my own and wide lands. Beeroo Naik," he repeated softly to himself, with a lingering pride on the t.i.tle implied in the last word. Then he rolled himself up in his blanket; Sagoo snuggled beside him, and they slept.

Beeroo awoke long before sunrise. He drank some milk, stole into his tent, and crept out again with a stout canvas haversack in his hands.

Into this sack, which contained other things besides, he stuffed some broken meat and bread made of Indian corn, and slung is over his shoulders. Then grasping his staff, he gave a last look around him, and plunged into the jungle. Sagoo would have followed, but Beeroo ordered him back, and the hound with drooping tail and wistful eyes watched the figure of his master until it was lost in the gloom of the trees. Beeroo walked on tirelessly, and by midday was far in the hills. He could go from sunrise to sunset at that long trotting pace of his, rest a little, eat a little, and then keep on till the sun rose again. He was now high up in the hills. The _sal_ trees had given place to the screw-pine, silk-cotton and mango were replaced by holm-oak and walnut. In the tangle of the low bushes the dog-rose and wild jasmine bloomed, and the short green of the gra.s.s was spangled with the wood violet, the amaranth, and the pimpernel. Far below the Jumna hummed down to the plains in a white lashing flood, and the voice of the distant river reached him, soft and dreamy, through the murmur of the pines. As he glanced into the deep of the valleys, a blue pheasant rose with its whistling call, and with widespread wings sailed slowly down into the mist below. The sunlight caught the splendour of his plumage, and he dropped like a jewel into the pearl grey of the vapour that clung to the mountain-side. Beeroo looked at the bird for a moment, and then lifting his gaze, fixed it on a white spot on the summit of the forest-covered hill to his left. He made out a cone-like dome, surmounting a square building, built like an eagle's nest at the edge of the precipice which fell sheer for a thousand feet to the silver ribbon of the river. It was the _mandar_, or temple of Mohonagh, and so clear was the air, that it seemed as if Beeroo had only to stretch out his staff to touch the white spot before him. He knew better than that, however, and knew too that the sun must rise again before he could rest himself beneath the walls of the temple, and look on the treasure of the s.h.a.gul.

"_Ram_, _ram_, Mohonagh!" he cried, saluting the far-off shrine in mockery, and then continued his way. When he had gone thus for another hour or so, he came upon the traces of a recent encampment. There was a heap of stale fodder, one or two earthenware pots were lying about, and the remains of a fire still smouldered under the lee of a walnut tree. Hard by, on the opposite side of the track, a huge rock rose abruptly, and from its scarred side a bubbling spring plashed musically into a natural basin, and, overflowing this, ran across the path in a small stream, past the tree and over the precipice, where it lost itself in a spray in which a quivering rainbow hung. Here Beeroo halted, and having broken his fast and slaked his thirst, proceeded to totally alter his personal appearance. This he did by the simple process of removing his turban of Turkey red and his warm vest, the only covering he had for the upper portion of his body. After this he let down his long straight hair, which he wore coiled in a knot, to fall freely over his shoulders. Then he smeared himself all over, head and all, with ashes from the fire; and when this was done he stood up a grisly phantom in which no one would have recognised the Sansi tracker. He hid his sandals and the wearing apparel he had removed in a secure place in a cleft in the rocks, and marking the spot carefully, went on--no longer Beeroo the Sansi, a man of no caste, but a holy mendicant. In his left hand he held one of the earthen vessels he had found under the walnut, in his right, his bamboo staff, and the knapsack hung over his shoulders. When he had gone thus for about a mile he heard the melancholy "_Aosh_! _Aosh!_" of cattle-drivers in the hills and the tinkling of bells. Turning a bluff he came face to face with a small caravan of bullocks, returning from the interior, laden with walnuts, dried apricots, and wool. Each bullock had a bundle of merchandise slung on either side, and the frontlet of the leading animal was adorned with strings of blue beads and sh.e.l.ls. The caravan-drivers walked, and as they urged their beasts along, repeated at intervals their call, which to European ears would sound more like a sigh of despair than a cry of encouragement. Beeroo stood by the side of the road, and, stretching out his ash-covered hands, held out the vessel for alms. Each man as he pa.s.sed dropped a little into it for luck, one a brown copper, another some dried fruit, a third a handful of parched grain, and Beeroo received these offerings in a grave silence as became his holy calling. He stayed thus until the caravan was out of sight; then he collected the few coins and tossed the rest of the contents of the vessel on to the roadside. He was satisfied that his disguise was complete, and that he could face the priests of the temple at Mohonagh without fear of discovery, for the carriers were Bunjarees, members of a tribe allied to his own, whose lynx-eyes would have discovered a Sansi in a moment unless his disguise was perfect.

"_Thoba!_" laughed Beeroo to himself as he pressed on. "Had the Bunjarees only known who I was, I had heard the whisper of their sticks through the air, and my back might have been sore; but the blessing of Mohonagh is upon me," he chuckled.

Beeroo rested that evening in a cave. He rose at midnight, however, and travelling without a check was by morning ascending the winding road that led to the shrine. He was not alone here, for there were a number of pilgrims toiling up the ascent, halting now and again to take breath, as they wearily climbed the narrow track set in between the red and brown rocks, and overhung by wild apricot and holm-oak.

Among the pilgrims were those who, in expiation of their sins, wriggled up the height on their faces like snakes, others who laid themselves flat at every third step, others again who crawled up painfully on their blistered hands and knees; there were women going to thank the G.o.d for the blessing of children, bearded Dogras of the hills, ash-covered and ochre-robed mendicants, and a fat _mahajun_, or money-lender, who had won a lawsuit and ruined a village. All these were hurrying towards the shrine, and their hands were full.

Under the arch of the gateway stood Prem Sagar, the high priest of Mohonagh, and flung grain towards a countless number of pigeons that fluttered and cooed around him. "They are the eyes and ears of the temple," he said to himself as he gazed upon them; "they warn the shrine of danger, they bring the news of the world beyond the hills, they are surer than the telegraph of the Sahibs, for they tell no secrets. Perchance," and he looked down on the specks slowly nearing the gate, "amongst that crowd of fools is Beeroo the Sansi; if so the G.o.d will welcome him, and there will be another miracle. Purun Chand!"

and he called out to a subordinate priest who approached him reverently, "Purun Chand, awaken the G.o.d."

Purun Chand placed a conch-horn to his lips, and blew a long deep-toned call. Its dismal notes were caught up in the hills and echoed from valley to valley, until they died away, moaning in the deeps of the forest. As the call rang out dolefully, the pilgrims ascending the road fell on their knees, and with one voice cast up a wailing cry, "Ai, ai, Mohonagh!" And Beeroo the Sansi, the man of no caste, whose very presence so near the temple was an abomination, shouted the loudest of all.

Half an hour later, Prem Sagar, the high priest, naked to the waist, with his brahminical cord hanging over his left shoulder and a red and white trident painted on his forehead, stood on the stone steps leading up to the shrine, and watched with keen eyes the pilgrims as they came within the temple walls. The devotees took no notice of him, except some of the women who prostrated themselves, while he bowed his head gravely in answer, but said nothing. His lips were muttering prayers in a sing-song tone, but his eyes were tirelessly watching the groups as they came up in files. At last Beeroo appeared, and on his coming to the steps, slightly dragging his left foot, a quick light shone in the high priest's eyes.

"Soh! It is the holy man!" his thoughts ran on. "Gobind Ram did well to warn me of his limp. There too are the five marks of the leopard's claws, running down the inside of the calf." As Beeroo approached the priest, he imitated the action of a woman before him, and prostrated himself. Prem Sagar pretended not to see him; but raised his voice to a loud chant, and repeated the mystic words _Om, mane padme, om!_[2]

There was a time when these words caused the heavens to thunder as at the sacred name of Jehovah; but now the limpid blue of the sky was undisturbed, as the priest called out to the jewel in the lotus, the symbol of the Universal G.o.d.

Footnote 2: "_Om_, the jewel in the lotus, _om!_" The _padma_, or lotus, is the flower from which Brahma sprang.

"_Om, mane padme, om!_" repeated Beeroo, and pa.s.sed into the shrine.

He found himself in a room about twenty feet square, the walls and floor blackened by age and by the smoke from the cressets which burned day and night in little niches in the walls. Overhead the vault of the dome was in inky darkness, and in front of him, three-headed and four-armed, painted a bright red, was the grinning idol of Mohonagh.

At the feet of the G.o.d were the offerings of the pilgrims, and on each side of the idol stood an attendant priest holding a censer, which he swung to and fro, and the fumes from which, heavy with the odour of the wild jasmine and the champac, curled slowly up to the blackened dome. But it was not on the idol, nor on the priests, nor on the worshippers, that Beeroo's eyes were fixed. They were bent to the right of the idol, where the trunk of the s.h.a.gul Tree rose from the flooring of the temple like the body of a huge snake, and, escaping outside through a cutting in the wall, spread out into branches and leaves. In fact the temple was built around the tree, and even through the gloom, Beeroo could see that the part of the tree within the temple walls was covered with coins and gems. The coins, old and blackened with smoke, looked like scales on the snake-like trunk of the s.h.a.gul Tree: the gold and silver of the jewels were dimmed of their brightness; but through the murky scented atmosphere the Sansi saw the dusky burning red of the ruby, the green glow of the emerald, the orange flame within the opal, and the countless lights in the diamond; and all these came and went like stars twinkling through the veil of a dark night. The Sansi almost gasped, such riches as these were beyond his dreams; they truly meant _lakhs_ of rupees. A single one of the gems would buy him a village and lands; if he could get the whole! His brain almost reeled at the thought, and it was with an effort that he steadied himself, and laying his offering at the feet of the G.o.d, backed slowly out of the temple.

Between the outer walls and the shrine was a s.p.a.ce about a hundred feet square, shaded by a number of walnut trees. Hither the Sansi betook himself, and placing his earthen bowl on the ground, sat down behind it, staring stolidly before him as if trying to lose himself in that abstraction by which the devotee attains to nirvana. Some of the pilgrims piously dropped food into the vessel; but Beeroo took no heed of this, his eyes were fixed on vacancy, and his mind was revolving many things. So hour after hour pa.s.sed, and Beeroo still sat motionless as a stone. Prem Sagar approached him once and spoke; but the holy man made no answer, judging it better to pretend to be under a vow of silence, than to betray anything by converse with the Brahmin. The high priest turned away smiling to himself.

"Blue-throated Krishna," he murmured, "but the Sansi plays his part well! I had been deceived myself, had I not been warned by the--G.o.d,"

and he walked to the temple gates, and gazed down into the valley beneath him.

At last the strain of the position he had a.s.sumed began to tell upon Beeroo. Tough as he was, he had not had practice in those incredible feats of patient endurance to which the regular _Bairajis_, or holy men, have accustomed themselves. Beeroo would have followed the track of a wounded stag like a jackal for three days; he would lifted a cow at Jagadri at nightfall, and by morning been in the Mohun Pa.s.s; he would have danced his tame bear at Umritsur at noontide, and when the moon rose would have been resting at the Taksali Gate of Lah.o.r.e; but to sit without motion for hour after hour, to sit until his limbs seemed paralyzed and his blood dead--this was unbearable. At all hazards this must be ended; and he suddenly rose, and began to move up and down, gesticulating wildly. The people who looked on thought he was mad, and therefore more holy than ever. They little knew of the method in the Sansi's madness, and that he was making the frozen blood circulate once again in his cramped limbs. When he had done this he came back, ate a little, and coiling himself up in the dust went to sleep, his sack under his head.

By sunset most of the pilgrims had departed from the shrine, leaving only those who, having far to go, determined to camp within the inclosure of the temple walls for the night. They had brought provisions with them, and soon fires were sputtering merrily, and little groups sat around them, enjoying themselves in the subdued fashion of Indians. The holy man was not forgotten; his vessel was soon full of smoking hot cakes of Indian corn, and one kinder than the others placed a bra.s.s _lota_ of milk beside him. The holy one proved himself to be very willing to accept these gifts, and doubtless refreshed by his sleep, ate and drank with a very mundane appet.i.te.

While thus engaged, a little child came, and placing an offering of a string of flowers at his feet, shyly ran back to his parents. Prem Sagar saw this, and turning to the same priest who had aroused the idol in the morning, said: "Purun Chand, while standing at the temple gates this morning, mine eyes became dim, and there was a roaring in mine ears. Then I heard the voice of the idol of Mohonagh, and he said unto me: 'Five score years have pa.s.sed to-day since the days of Sham Chand the king, since the days of the high priest Prem Chand, since I, Mohonagh, have spoken. Now to-night is the night of the new moon, and I, Mohonagh, will work a sign.' Then the darkness cleared away, and all was as before. Therefore I say to thee, Purun Chand, let not the idol be watched tonight: let the temple gates be kept open that Mohonagh may enter; and to-morrow at the dawning we shall behold his sign."

Purun Chand bowed his obedience to the high priest; and then the darkness came, and with it the stars, and the thin scimitar of the young moon set slantwise in the sky. Beeroo was in no hurry; he had plenty of time to think out his plan of action, and had resolved to make his attempt in the small hours of the morning, for choice, in that still time between night and day, when all would be asleep, when even if it became necessary to remove an obstacle from his path, on one would hear the stroke of the knife or the groan of the victim. A little after midnight, then, Beeroo arose to his feet, and looked cautiously about him. Everything was very still; the camp-fires burned low and there was no sound except the rustle of the leaves overhead.

The tree beneath which he rested was very near to the temple gates, and it struck him that they were open. He crept softly towards them, and found it was as he thought. "The blessing of Mohonagh is on me,"

he laughed lowly to himself as he came back. He thrust his hand into his sack, and pulled out a light but strong claw-hammer, and a knife with a pointed blade keen as a razor. As he brought them forth they clicked against each other, and in the dead stillness the sharp, metallic sound seemed loud enough to be heard all over the inclosure.

Something also disturbed the pigeons on the temple, and there was an uneasy fluttering of wings. The Sansi drew in his breath with a hissing sound. "This will cause a two hours' delay," he said to himself. "I will risk nothing if I can help it." Then he sat him down again and waited.

At last! He rose once more softly, and crept with long cat-like steps towards the entrance of the shrine. The cressets burning within cast a faint pennon of light out of the pointed archway of the entrance, and as they wavered in the night wind, this banner of fire shook and trembled with an uncertain motion. Beeroo halted in the shadow. He was about to step forward again when he was startled by a strange, shrill chuckling cry that made his very flesh creep. He looked around him in fear, and the elvish laugh came again from amidst the leaves of the walnut trees. The man heaved a sigh of relief; "Pah!" he exclaimed in disgust at himself, "it is but a screech-owl." He had to wait a little, however, to steady himself; and then he boldly pressed forward and through the door of the shrine. There was not a soul within. The glimmering lights cast uncertain shadows around them, and the three heads of the idol faced the Sansi in a stony silence. There was but one eye in the centre of each forehead; but all three of these eyes seemed to lighten, and the thick lips on the three faces to widen in a grin of mockery at the thief. Like all natives of India, Beeroo was superst.i.tious, and a fear he could hardly control fell on him. What if, after all, the stories of the idol's power were true? Aladin had not lied about the s.h.a.gul Tree; why should he lie about the power of the idol? Still Mohonagh was not the G.o.d of the Sansis. He would invoke his own G.o.ds, deities of forest and flood, against this three-headed monster. Then the s.h.a.gul Tree was there. He could all but touch it; he caught the flash of the winking gems, and the instincts of the robber, fighting with his fears, brought back his courage.

"Aho, Mohonagh! Thy blessing is on me, the Sansi." He said this loudly in bravado, and was almost frightened again at the echoes of his own voice in the vault of the dome. He had spoken with the same feeling in his heart that makes a timid traveller whistle when pa.s.sing a place he dreads. He had spoken to keep his heart up, and the very sound of his own voice terrified him. At last the echoes died away and there was silence in the shrine. Large beads of sweat stood on the man's forehead. Almost did he feel it in his heart to flee at once; but to leave that priceless treasure now! It could not be. In two strides he was beside the tree. A wrench of the claw-hammer and a jewelled bracelet was in his hand; another wrench and he had secured another blazing trophy.

"Beeroo!"

The man looked up in guilty amazement. To his horror he saw that the three heads of the idol, which were facing the door when he entered, had moved round, and were now facing him. The hammer fell from his hand with a crash, and he stood shivering, a grey figure with staring eyes and open gasping mouth.

"_Ai_, Mohonagh!" he said in a choking voice.

"The blessing of Mohonagh is on thee;" and something that seemed all on fire rose from behind the idol, and laid its hand on Beeroo's face.

With a shriek of agony the Sansi rolled on the floor, and twisted and curled there like a snake with a broken back.

When, roused by his cries, the people and the priests awoke and hurried to the temple, they shrank back in terror; and none dared enter, not even the priests, for from the mouths of the idol three long tongues of flame played, paling the glow of the cressets and throwing its light on the blind and writhing wretch at its feet.

Suddenly a quiet voice spoke at the temple-door, and Prem Sagar the high-priest appeared. "O pilgrims," he said, "be not afraid! Mohonagh has but protected his treasure, and given us a sign. Said I not he would do this, Purun Chand? See," he added, as he stepped into the temple, and lifted up the gems from the floor, "this man would have robbed a G.o.d!" And the people, together with the priests, fell on their knees and touched the earth with their foreheads, crying "_Ai_, _ai_, Mohonagh!"

Prem Sagar pointed to Beeroo. "Bear him outside the temple-gates and leave him there," he said; "he is blind and cannot see."