Vikram and the Vampire Part 10

Jayashri immediately conceived a strong dislike for her husband, and simultaneously a fierce affection for a reprobate who before had been indifferent to her. The more lovingly Shridat behaved to her, the more vexed end annoyed she was. When her friends talked to her, she turned up her nose, raising her eyebrows (in token of displeasure), and remained silent. When her husband spoke words of affection to her, she found them disagreeable, and turning away her face, reclined on the bed. Then he brought dresses and ornaments of various kinds and presented them to her, saying, "Wear these." Whereupon she would become more angry, knit her brows, turn her face away, and in an audible whisper call him "fool." All day she stayed out of the house, saying to her companions, "Sisters, my youth is pa.s.sing away, and I have not, up to the present time, tasted any of this world's pleasures." Then she would ascend to the balcony, peep through the lattice, and seeing the reprobate going along, she would cry to her friend, "Bring that person to me." All night she tossed and turned from side to side, reflecting in her heart, "I am puzzled in my mind what I shall say, and whither I shall go. I have forgotten sleep, hunger, and thirst; neither heat nor cold is refreshing to me."

At last, unable any longer to support the separation from her reprobate paramour, whom she adored, she resolved to fly with him. On one occasion, when she thought that her husband was fast asleep, she rose up quietly, and leaving him, made her way fearlessly in the dark night to her lover's abode. A footpad, who saw her on the way, thought to himself, "Where can this woman, clothed in jewels, be going alone at midnight?" And thus he followed her unseen, and watched her.

When Jayashri reached the intended place, she went into the house, and found her lover lying at the door. He was dead, having been stabbed by the footpad; but she, thinking that he had, according to custom, drunk intoxicating hemp, sat upon the floor, and raising his head, placed it tenderly in her lap. Then, burning with the fire of separation from him, she began to kiss his cheeks, and to fondle and caress him with the utmost freedom and affection.

By chance a Pisach (evil spirit) was seated in a large fig-tree[82]

opposite the house, and it occurred to him, when beholding this scene, that he might amuse himself in a characteristic way. He therefore hopped down from his branch, vivified the body, and began to return the woman's caresses. But as Jayashri bent down to kiss his lips, he caught the end of her nose in his teeth, and bit it clean off. He then issued from the corpse, and returned to the branch where he had been sitting.

Jayashri was in despair. She did not, however, lose her presence of mind, but sat down and proceeded to take thought; and when she had matured her plan she arose, dripping with blood, and walked straight home to her husband's house. On entering his room she clapped her hand to her nose, and began to gnash her teeth, and to shriek so violently, that all the members of the family were alarmed. The neighbours also collected in numbers at the door, and, as it was bolted inside, they broke it open and rushed in, carrying lights. There they saw the wife sitting upon the ground with her face mutilated, and the husband standing over her, apparently trying to appease her.

"O ignorant, criminal, shameless, pitiless wretch!" cried the people, especially the women; "why hast thou cut off her nose, she not having offended in any way?"

Poor Shridat, seeing at once the trick which had been played upon him, thought to himself: "One should put no confidence in a changeful mind, a black serpent, or an armed enemy, and one should dread a woman's doings.

What cannot a poet describe? What is there that a saint (jogi) does not know? What nonsense will not a drunken man talk? What limit is there to a woman's guile? True it is that the G.o.ds know nothing of the defects of a horse, of the thundering of clouds, of a woman's deeds, or of a man's future fortunes. How then can we know?" He could do nothing but weep, and swear by the herb basil, by his cattle, by his grain, by a piece of gold, and by all that is holy, that he had not committed the crime.

In the meanwhile, the old merchant, Jayashri's father, ran off, and laid a complaint before the kotwal, and the footmen of the police magistrate were immediately sent to apprehend the husband, and to carry him bound before the judge. The latter, after due examination, laid the affair before the king. An example happening to be necessary at the time, the king resolved to punish the offence with severity, and he summoned the husband and wife to the court.

When the merchant's daughter was asked to give an account of what had happened, she pointed out the state of her nose, and said, "Maharaj! why inquire of me concerning what is so manifest?" The king then turned to the husband, and bade him state his defence. He said, "I know nothing of it," and in the face of the strongest evidence he persisted in denying his guilt.

Thereupon the king, who had vainly threatened to cut off Shridat's right hand, infuriated by his refusing to confess and to beg for mercy, exclaimed, "How must I punish such a wretch as thou art?" The unfortunate man answered, "Whatever your majesty may consider just, that be pleased to do." Thereupon the king cried, "Away with him, and impale him"; and the people, hearing the command, prepared to obey it.

Before Shridat had left the court, the footpad, who had been looking on, and who saw that an innocent man was about to be unjustly punished, raised a cry for justice and, pushing through the crowd, resolved to make himself heard. He thus addressed the throne: "Great king, the cherishing of the good, and the punishment of the bad, is the invariable duty of kings." The ruler having caused him to approach, asked him who he was, and he replied boldly, "Maharaj! I am a thief, and this man is innocent and his blood is about to be shed unjustly. Your majesty has not done what is right in this affair." Thereupon the king charged him to tell the truth according to his religion; and the thief related explicitly the whole circ.u.mstances, omitting of course, the murder.

"Go ye," said the king to his messengers, "and look in the mouth of the woman's lover who has fallen dead. If the nose be there found, then has this thief-witness told the truth, and the husband is a guiltless man."

The nose was presently produced in court, and Shridat escaped the stake.

The king caused the wicked Jayashri's face to be smeared with oily soot, and her head and eyebrows to be shaved; thus blackened and disfigured, she was mounted upon a little ragged-limbed a.s.s and was led around the market and the streets, after which she was banished for ever from the city. The husband and the thief were then dismissed with betel and other gifts, together with much sage advice which neither of them wanted.

"My king," resumed the misogyne parrot, "of such excellencies as these are women composed. It is said that 'wet cloth will extinguish fire and bad food will destroy strength; a degenerate son ruins a family, and when a friend is in wrath he takes away life. But a woman is an inflicter of grief in love and in hate, whatever she does turns out to be for our ill. Truly the Deity has created woman a strange being in this world.' And again, 'The beauty of the nightingale is its song, science is the beauty of an ugly man, forgiveness is the beauty of a devotee, and the beauty of a woman is virtue-but where shall we find it?' And again, 'Among the sages, Narudu; among the beasts, the jackal; among the birds, the crow; among men, the barber; and in this world woman-is the most crafty.'

"What I have told thee, my king, I have seen with mine own eyes, and I have heard with mine own ears. At the time I was young, but the event so affected me that I have ever since held female kind to be a walking pest, a two-legged plague, whose mission on earth, like flies and other vermin, is only to prevent our being too happy. O, why do not children and young parrots sprout in crops from the ground-from budding trees or vinestocks?"

"I was thinking, sire," said the young Dharma Dhwaj to the warrior king his father, "what women would say of us if they could compose Sanskrit verses!"

"Then keep your thoughts to yourself," replied the Raja, nettled at his son daring to say a word in favour of the s.e.x. "You always take the part of wickedness and depravity---"

"Permit me, your majesty," interrupted the Baital, "to conclude my tale."

When Madan-manjari, the jay, and Churaman, the parrot, had given these ill.u.s.trations of their belief, they began to wrangle, and words ran high. The former insisted that females are the salt of the earth, speaking, I presume, figuratively. The latter went so far as to a.s.sert that the opposite s.e.x have no souls, and that their brains are in a rudimental and inchoate state of development. Thereupon he was tartly taken to task by his master's bride, the beautiful Chandravati, who told him that those only have a bad opinion of women who have a.s.sociated with none but the vicious and the low, and that he should be ashamed to abuse feminine parrots, because his mother had been one.

This was truly logical.

On the other hand, the jay was sternly reproved for her mutinous and treasonable a.s.sertions by the husband of her mistress, Raja Ram, who, although still a bridegroom, had not forgotten the gallant rule of his syntax--

The masculine is more worthy than the feminine;

till Madan-manjari burst into tears and declared that her life was not worth having. And Raja Ram looked at her as if he could have wrung her neck.

In short, Raja Vikram, all the four lost their tempers, and with them what little wits they had. Two of them were but birds, and the others seem not to have been much better, being young, ignorant, inexperienced, and lately married. How then could they decide so difficult a question as that of the relative wickedness and villany of men and women? Had your majesty been there, the knot of uncertainty would soon have been undone by the trenchant edge of your wit and wisdom, your knowledge and experience. You have, of course, long since made up your mind upon the subject?

Dharma Dhwaj would have prevented his father's reply. But the youth had been twice reprehended in the course of this tale, and he thought it wisest to let things take their own way.

"Women," quoth the Raja, oracularly, "are worse than we are; a man, however depraved he may be, ever retains some notion of right and wrong, but a woman does not. She has no such regard whatever."

"The beautiful Bangalah Rani for instance?" said the Baital, with a demonaic sneer.

At the mention of a word, the uttering of which was punishable by extirpation of the tongue, Raja Vikram's brain whirled with rage. He staggered in the violence of his pa.s.sion, and putting forth both hands to break his fall, he dropped the bundle from his back. Then the Baital, disentangling himself and laughing l.u.s.tily, ran off towards the tree as fast as his thin brown legs would carry him. But his activity availed him little.

The king, puffing with fury, followed him at the top of his speed, and caught him by his tail before he reached the siras-tree, hurled him backwards with force, put foot upon his chest, and after shaking out the cloth, rolled him up in it with extreme violence, b.u.mped his back half a dozen times against the stony ground, and finally, with a jerk, threw him on his shoulder, as he had done before.

The young prince, afraid to accompany his father whilst he was pursuing the fiend, followed slowly in the rear, and did not join him for some minutes.

But when matters were in their normal state, the Vampire, who had endured with exemplary patience the penalty of his impudence, began in honeyed accents,

"Listen, O warrior king, whilst thy servant recounts unto thee another true tale."

THE VAMPIRE'S THIRD STORY -- Of a High-minded Family.

In the venerable city of Bardwan, O warrior king! (quoth the Vampire) during the reign of the mighty Rupsen, flourished one Rajeshwar, a Rajput warrior of distinguished fame. By his valour and conduct he had risen from the lowest ranks of the army to command it as its captain.

And arrived at that dignity, he did not put a stop to all improvements, like other chiefs, who rejoice to rest and return thanks. On the contrary, he became such a reformer that, to some extent, he remodelled the art of war.

Instead of attending to rules and regulations, drawn up in their studies by pandits and Brahmans, he consulted chiefly his own experience and judgment. He threw aside the systematic plans of campaigns laid down in the Shastras or books of the ancients, and he acted upon the spur of the moment. He displayed a skill in the choice of ground, in the use of light troops, and in securing his own supplies whilst he cut off those of the enemy, which Kartikaya himself, G.o.d of War, might have envied.

Finding that the bows of his troops were clumsy and slow to use, he had them all changed before compelled so to do by defeat; he also gave his attention to the sword handles, which cramped the men's grasp but which having been used for eighteen hundred years were considered perfect weapons. And having organized a special corps of warriors using fire arrows, he soon brought it to such perfection that, by using it against the elephants of his enemies, he gained many a campaign.

One instance of his superior judgment I am about to quote to thee, O Vikram, after which I return to my tale; for thou art truly a warrior king, very likely to imitate the innovations of the great general Rajeshwar.

(A grunt from the monarch was the result of the Vampire's sneer.)

He found his master's armies recruited from Northern Hindustan, and officered by Kshatriya warriors, who grew great only because they grew old and--fat. Thus the energy and talent of the younger men were wasted in troubles and disorders; whilst the seniors were often so ancient that they could not mount their chargers unaided, nor, when they were mounted, could they see anything a dozen yards before them. But they had served in a certain obsolete campaign, and until Rajeshwar gave them pensions and dismissals, they claimed a right to take first part in all campaigns present and future. The commander-in-chief refused to use any captain who could not stand steady on his legs, or endure the sun for a whole day. When a soldier distinguished himself in action, he raised him to the powers and privileges of the warrior caste. And whereas it had been the habit to lavish circles and bars of silver and other metals upon all those who had joined in the war, whether they had sat behind a heap of sand or had been foremost to attack the foe, he broke through the pernicious custom, and he rendered the honour valuable by conferring it only upon the deserving. I need hardly say that, in an inordinately short s.p.a.ce of time, his army beat every king and general that opposed it.

One day the great commander-in-chief was seated in a certain room near the threshold of his gate, when the voices of a number of people outside were heard. Rajeshwar asked, "Who is at the door, and what is the meaning of the noise I hear?" The porter replied, "It is a fine thing your honour has asked. Many persons come sitting at the door of the rich for the purpose of obtaining a livelihood and wealth. When they meet together they talk of various things: it is these very people who are now making this noise."

Rajeshwar, on hearing this, remained silent.

In the meantime a traveller, a Rajput, Birbal by name, hoping to obtain employment, came from the southern quarter to the palace of the chief.

The porter having listened to his story, made the circ.u.mstance known to his master, saying, "O chief! an armed man has arrived here, hoping to obtain employment, and is standing at the door. If I receive a command he shall be brought into your honour's presence."

"Bring him in," cried the commander-in-chief.

The porter brought him in, and Rajeshwar inquired, "O Rajput, who and what art thou?"

Birbal submitted that he was a person of distinguished fame for the use of weapons, and that his name for fidelity and valour had gone forth to the utmost ends of Bharat-Kandha.[83]

The chief was well accustomed to this style of self introduction, and its only effect upon his mind was a wish to shame the man by showing him that he had not the least knowledge of weapons. He therefore bade him bare his blade and perform some feat.

Birbal at once drew his good sword. Guessing the thoughts which were hovering about the chief's mind, he put forth his left hand, extending the forefinger upwards, waved his blade like the arm of a demon round his head, and, with a dexterous stroke, so shaved off a bit of nail that it fell to the ground, and not a drop of blood appeared upon the finger-tip.