Vikram and the Vampire Part 14

thou a Rajput and running away from combat?" Randhir hearing this halted, and the two, confronting each other, bared their blades and began to do battle with prodigious fury.

The king was cunning of fence, and so was the thief. They opened the duel, as skilful swordsmen should, by bending almost double, skipping in a circle, each keeping his eye well fixed upon the other, with frowning brows and contemptuous lips; at the same time executing divers gambados and measured leaps, springing forward like frogs and backward like monkeys, and beating time with their sabres upon their shields, which rattled like drums.

Then Randhir suddenly facing his antagonist, cut at his legs with a loud cry, but the thief sprang in the air, and the blade whistled harmlessly under him. Next moment the robber chief's sword, thrice whirled round his head, descended like lightning in a slanting direction towards the king's left shoulder: the latter, however, received it upon his target and escaped all hurt, though he staggered with the violence of the blow.

And thus they continued attacking each other, parrying and replying, till their breath failed them and their hands and wrists were numbed and cramped with fatigue. They were so well matched in courage, strength, and address, that neither obtained the least advantage, till the robber's right foot catching a stone slid from under him, and thus he fell to the ground at the mercy of his enemy. The thieves fled, and the Raja, himself on his prize, tied his hands behind him, and brought him back to the city at the point of his good sword.

The next morning Randhir visited his prisoner, whom he caused to be bathed, and washed, and covered with fine clothes. He then had him mounted on a camel and sent him on a circuit of the city, accompanied by a crier proclaiming aloud: "Who hears! who hears! who hears! the king commands! This is the thief who has robbed and plundered the city of Chandrodaya. Let all men therefore a.s.semble themselves together this evening in the open s.p.a.ce outside the gate leading towards the sea. And let them behold the penalty of evil deeds, and learn to be wise."

Randhir had condemned the thief to be crucified,[109] nailed and tied with his hands and feet stretched out at full length, in an erect posture until death; everything he wished to eat was ordered to him in order to prolong life and misery. And when death should draw near, melted gold was to be poured down his throat till it should burst from his neck and other parts of his body.

In the evening the thief was led out for execution, and by chance the procession pa.s.sed close to the house of a wealthy landowner. He had a favourite daughter named Shobhani, who was in the flower of her youth and very lovely; every day she improved, and every moment added to her grace and beauty. The girl had been carefully kept out of sight of mankind, never being allowed outside the high walls of the garden, because her nurse, a wise woman much trusted in the neighbourhood, had at the hour of death given a solemn warning to her parents. The prediction was that the maiden should be the admiration of the city, and should die a Sati-widow[110] before becoming a wife. From that hour Shobhani was kept as a pearl in its casket by her father, who had vowed never to survive her, and had even fixed upon the place and style of his suicide.

But the shaft of Fate[111] strikes down the vulture sailing above the clouds, and follows the worm into the bowels of the earth, and pierces the fish at the bottom of the ocean--how then can mortal man expect to escape it? As the robber chief, mounted upon the camel, was pa.s.sing to the cross under the old householder's windows, a fire breaking out in the women's apartments, drove the inmates into the rooms looking upon the street.

The hum of many voices arose from the solid pavement of heads: "This is the thief who has been robbing the whole city; let him tremble now, for Randhir will surely crucify him!"

In beauty and bravery of bearing, as in strength and courage, no man in Chandrodaya surpa.s.sed the robber, who, being magnificently dressed, looked, despite his disgraceful cavalcade, like the son of a king. He sat with an unmoved countenance, hardly hearing in his pride the scoffs of the mob; calm and steady when the whole city was frenzied with anxiety because of him. But as he heard the word "tremble" his lips quivered, his eyes flashed fire, and deep lines gathered between his eyebrows.

Shobhani started with a scream from the cas.e.m.e.nt behind which she had hid herself, gazing with an intense womanly curiosity into the thoroughfare. The robber's face was upon a level with, and not half a dozen feet from, her pale cheeks. She marked his handsome features, and his look of wrath made her quiver as if it had been a flash of lightning. Then she broke away from the fascination of his youth and beauty, and ran breathless to her father, saying:

"Go this moment and get that thief released!"

The old housekeeper replied: "That thief has been pilfering and plundering the whole city, and by his means the king's archers were defeated; why, then, at my request, should our most gracious Raja Randhir release him?"

Shobhani, almost beside herself, exclaimed: "If by giving up your whole property, you can induce the Raja to release him, then instantly so do; if he does not come to me, I must give up my life!"

The maiden then covered her head with her veil, and sat down in the deepest despair, whilst her father, hearing her words, burst into a cry of grief, and hastened to present himself before the Raja. He cried out:

"O great king, be pleased to receive four lakhs of rupees, and to release this thief."

But the king replied: "He has been robbing the whole city, and by reason of him my guards have been destroyed. I cannot by any means release him."

Then the old householder finding, as he had expected the Raja inexorable, and not to be moved, either by tears or bribes, or by the cruel fate of the girl, returned home with fire in his heart, and addressed her:

"Daughter, I have said and done all that is possible but it avails me nought with the king. Now, then, we die."

In the mean time, the guards having led the thief all round the city, took him outside the gates, and made him stand near the cross. Then the messengers of death arrived from the palace, and the executioners began to nail his limbs. He bore the agony with the fort.i.tude of the brave; but when he heard what had been done by the old householder's daughter, he raised his voice and wept bitterly, as though his heart had been bursting, and almost with the same breath he laughed heartily as at a feast. All were startled by his merriment; coming as it did at a time when the iron was piercing his flesh, no man could see any reason for it.

When he died, Shobhani, who was married to him in the spirit, recited to herself these sayings:

"There are thirty-five millions of hairs on the human body. The woman who ascends the pile with her husband will remain so many years in heaven. As the snake-catcher draws the serpent from his hole, so she, rescuing her husband from h.e.l.l, rejoices with him; aye, though he may have sunk to a region of torment, be restrained in dreadful bonds, have reached the place of anguish, be exhausted of strength, and afflicted and tortured for his crimes. No other effectual duty is known for virtuous women at any time after the death of their lords, except casting themselves into the same fire. As long as a woman in her successive transmigrations, shall decline burning herself, like a faithful wife, in the same fire with her deceased lord, so long shall she not be exempted from springing again to life in the body of some female animal."

Therefore the beautiful Shobhani, virgin and wife, resolved to burn herself, and to make the next life of the thief certain. She showed her courage by thrusting her finger into a torch flame till it became a cinder, and she solemnly bathed in the nearest stream.

A hole was dug in the ground, and upon a bed of green tree-trunks were heaped hemp, pitch, f.a.ggots, and clarified b.u.t.ter, to form the funeral pyre. The dead body, anointed, bathed, and dressed in new clothes, was then laid upon the heap, which was some two feet high. Shobhani prayed that as long as fourteen Indras reign, or as many years as there are hairs in her head, she might abide in heaven with her husband, and be waited upon by the heavenly dancers. She then presented her ornaments and little gifts of corn to her friends, tied some cotton round both wrists, put two new combs in her hair, painted her forehead, and tied up in the end of her body-cloth clean parched rice[112] and cowrie-sh.e.l.ls.

These she gave to the bystanders, as she walked seven times round the funeral pyre, upon which lay the body. She then ascended the heap of wood, sat down upon it, and taking the thief's head in her lap, without cords or levers or upper layer or f.a.ggots, she ordered the pile to be lighted. The crowd standing around set fire to it in several places, drummed their drums, blew their conchs, and raised a loud cry of "Hari bol! Hari bol! [113]" Straw was thrown on, and pitch and clarified b.u.t.ter were freely poured out. But Shobhani's was a Sahamaran, a blessed easy death: no part of her body was seen to move after the pyre was lighted--in fact, she seemed to die before the flame touched her.

By the blessing of his daughter's decease, the old householder beheaded himself.[114] He caused an instrument to be made in the shape of a half-moon with an edge like a razor, and fitting the back of his neck.

At both ends of it, as at the beam of a balance, chains were fastened.

He sat down with eyes closed; he was rubbed with the purifying clay of the holy river, Vaiturani[115]; and he repeated the proper incantations.

Then placing his feet upon the extremities of the chains, he suddenly jerked up his neck, and his severed head rolled from his body upon the ground. What a happy death was this!

The Baital was silent, as if meditating on the fortunate transmigration which the old householder had thus secured.

"But what could the thief have been laughing at, sire?" asked the young prince Dharma Dhwaj of his father.

"At the prodigious folly of the girl, my son," replied the warrior king, thoughtlessly.

"I am indebted once more to your majesty," burst out the Baital, "for releasing me from this unpleasant position, but the Raja's penetration is again at fault. Not to leave your royal son and heir labouring under a false impression, before going I will explain why the brave thief burst into tears, and why he laughed at such a moment."

He wept when he reflected that he could not requite her kindness in being willing to give up everything she had in the world to save his life; and this thought deeply grieved him.

Then it struck him as being pa.s.sing strange that she had begun to love him when the last sand of his life was well nigh run out; that wondrous are the ways of the revolving heavens which bestow wealth upon the n.i.g.g.ard that cannot use it, wisdom upon the bad man who will misuse it, a beautiful wife upon the fool who cannot protect her, and fertilizing showers upon the stony hills. And thinking over these things, the gallant and beautiful thief laughed aloud.

"Before returning to my sires-tree," continued the Vampire, "as I am about to do in virtue of your majesty's unintelligent reply, I may remark that men may laugh and cry, or may cry and laugh, about everything in this world, from their neighbours' deaths, which, as a general rule, in no wise concern them, to their own latter ends, which do concern them exceedingly. For my part, I am in the habit of laughing at everything, because it animates the brain, stimulates the lungs, beautifies the countenance, and--for the moment, good-bye, Raja Vikram!"

The warrior king, being forewarned this time, shifted the bundle containing the Baital from his back to under his arm, where he pressed it with all his might.

This proceeding, however, did not prevent the Vampire from slipping back to his tree, and leaving an empty cloth with the Raja.

Presently the demon was trussed up as usual; a voice sounded behind Vikram, and the loquacious thing again began to talk.

THE VAMPIRE'S SIXTH STORY -- In Which Three Men Dispute about a Woman.

On the lovely banks of Jumna's stream there was a city known as Dharmasthal--the Place of Duty; and therein dwelt a certain Brahman called Keshav. He was a very pious man, in the constant habit of performing penance and worship upon the river Sidi. He modelled his own clay images instead of buying them from others; he painted holy stones red at the top, and made to them offerings of flowers, fruit, water, sweetmeats, and fried peas. He had become a learned man somewhat late in life, having, until twenty years old, neglected his reading, and addicted himself to worshipping the beautiful youth Kama-Deva[116] and Rati his wife, accompanied by the cuckoo, the humming-bee, and sweet breezes.

One day his parents having rebuked him sharply for his ungovernable conduct, Keshav wandered to a neighbouring hamlet, and hid himself in the tall fig-tree which shadowed a celebrated image of Panchanan.[117]

Presently an evil thought arose in his head: he defiled the G.o.d, and threw him into the nearest tank.

The next morning, when the person arrived whose livelihood depended on the image, he discovered that his G.o.d was gone. He returned into the village distracted, and all was soon in an uproar about the lost deity.

In the midst of this confusion the parents of Keshav arrived, seeking for their son; and a man in the crowd declared that he had seen a young man sitting in Panchanan's tree, but what had become of the G.o.d he knew not.

The runaway at length appeared, and the suspicions of the villagers fell upon him as the stealer of Panchanan. He confessed the fact, pointed out the place where he had thrown the stone, and added that he had polluted the G.o.d. All hands and eyes were raised in amazement at this atrocious crime, and every one present declared that Panchanan would certainly punish the daring insult by immediate death. Keshav was dreadfully frightened; he began to obey his parents from that very hour, and applied to his studies so sedulously that he soon became the most learned man of his country.

Now Keshav the Brahman had a daughter whose name was the Madhumalati or Sweet Jasmine. She was very beautiful. Whence did the G.o.ds procure the materials to form so exquisite a face? They took a portion of the most excellent part of the moon to form that beautiful face? Does any one seek a proof of this? Let him look at the empty places left in the moon.

Her eyes resembled the full-blown blue nymphaea; her arms the charming stalk of the lotus; her flowing tresses the thick darkness of night.

When this lovely person arrived at a marriageable age, her mother, father, and brother, all three became very anxious about her. For the wise have said, "A daughter nubile but without a husband is ever a calamity hanging over a house." And, "Kings, women, and climbing plants love those who are near them." Also, "Who is there that has not suffered from the s.e.x? for a woman cannot be kept in due subjection, either by gifts or kindness, or correct conduct, or the greatest services, or the laws of morality, or by the terror of punishment, for she cannot discriminate between good and evil."

It so happened that one day Keshav the Brahman went to the marriage of a certain customer of his,[118] and his son repaired to the house of a spiritual preceptor in order to read. During their absence, a young man came to the house, when the Sweet Jasmine's mother, inferring his good qualities from his good looks, said to him, "I will give to thee my daughter in marriage." The father also had promised his daughter to a Brahman youth whom he had met at the house of his employer; and the brother likewise had betrothed his sister to a fellow student at the place where he had gone to read.

After some days father and son came home, accompanied by these two suitors, and in the house a third was already seated. The name of the first was Tribikram, of the second Baman, and of the third Madhusadan.

The three were equal in mind and body, in knowledge, and in age.