Voices in the Night Part 19

But poor Chris, far off as he was, had grasped the truth and turned hot and cold, long before Jan-Ali-shan said in an awed whisper--

'Wherever in the nation _did_ 'ole 'Oneyman raise them dress bags?' He turned to the bystanders appealingly as he spoke, but their faces, as they gathered round in a circle, echoed his own surprise.

'Well, I am dashed!' he said softly; 'this beats c.o.c.kfightin'.'

It did, for Sri Hunuman having by this time grasped the fact that dignity was incompatible with dinner, had thrown the former aside, and having rolled the trousers hastily into a ball, had sat down on it, as on a cushion, while he reached round for sugar drops with both paws.

Whereupon the original thief, thinking he saw an opportunity, made a s.n.a.t.c.h at the braces, which still streamed over the steps. To no purpose, however, since 'Oneyman only clapped both paws behind, and, the cushion still _in situ_, hopped to another place.

A roar of amus.e.m.e.nt echoed out over the steps, and half-a-dozen youngsters, fired with ambition, tried the same game; also without success. Sri Honeyman eluded every clutch, even the despairing one which Chris, m.u.f.fled to the eyes in his ascetic's shawl, laid on those streaming braces. They came off in his hands to the crowd's huge delight.

"_Ari_, brother, thou hast the tail anyhow!" said some in congratulation, but poor Chris cursed inwardly. What were braces without the trousers to wear with them?

John Ellison, meanwhile, half choked with laughter, and drunk with mirth, was rolling about, kicking legs and arms, and shouting, "Go it, 'Oneyman! Go it, sonny!" until from some of the disappointed came the murmur that Jan-Ali-shan had better try and get the trousers himself, though all Mai Kali's priests with sticks and staves had not been equal to making the old monkey give up the sugar! On this he rose breathlessly and looked round.

"You bet," he said, "it's Rule Britannier, that's w'ot it is."

Whereupon he took another paper bag of sugar drops from his pocket and walked up to the culprit.

"_Shab-bash!_ 'Oneyman," he said, with his usual affability, "you done that uncommon well. If ever you're in want of the shiny, they'd give you a fiver for that interlood at a music 'all. But time's up, sonny.

Your turn's over. So just you change bags like a good boy or "--The rest of the sentence was a melodious whistling of

"Britons never, never will be slaves,"

a dexterous emptying of the bribe, and an equally dexterous clutch at the trousers, accompanied by a forcible kick behind. The three combined were instantly successful, and there was Jan-Ali-shan carefully dusting his new possession. Then he held them up, and said suavely--

"Fair exchange ain't no robbery; but if any gent owns these pants, let 'im utter"--which remark he translated in hideous Hindustani into "_Koi admi upna breeches hai, bolo!_"

For one short second Chris felt inclined to brave the situation. Then, as usual, he hesitated; so the moment of salvation pa.s.sed. John Ellison rolled up his prize, put them under his arm, and with a general "_Ram-ram_" to the bystanders, and an affectionate wave of the hand to old 'Oneyman, walked off cheerily whistling,

"This is no my plaid, my plaid, my plaid."

Chris looked after him helplessly, then went back to his tree hopelessly. He could not return home, by broad daylight, in any possible permutation or combination of a swallow-tailed coat and a devotee's _dhoti_. The only thing to be done was to wait for kindly concealing night.

Being Sunday, he would not be missed till noon, for his wife was a late riser. Even then she would not be alarmed; indeed, he had often stayed out all day without her taking the trouble to ask where he had been.

That thought decided him to stay where and as he was. Besides, despite the shameful absurdity of the cause, the result was in a way, pleasant.

It was something to be _sent_ back without responsibility to the old life even for a few hours, and a spirit of adventure woke in him as he remembered the things possible to one of his caste. Any one, for instance, would feed a Brahmin; and so, after secreting the remainder of his clothes beyond the reach of monkeys under a heap of the ruined wall, until he found an opportunity of removing them altogether, he set off boldly to beg breakfast in the city. The sun, now high in the heavens, smote on his bare limbs--so long unaccustomed to the warm stimulating caress--with all the intoxication of a new physical pleasure. But there was another touch, still more stimulating, which came to him first in a narrow side street close to the city gate; a street all sun and shade in bars, with women's chatter, women's laughter echoing from within the courtyard doors. Doors all closed save this, the first, which had opened at his cry for alms, to let a woman's hand slip through. That reverent touch on his palm, so soft, so kind; that glimpse of a full petticoat, a jewel-covered throat, made his brain reel with recollection, his heart leap with the possibilities it suggested. How many years was it since he had seen a Brahmin woman worshipping her husband? That had been his mother, and he might have had such a wife as she had been to his father, if he had chosen; almost, if he chose.

The suggestion repelled yet attracted him, and, after a time, half in curiosity, half in affection, he turned his steps to the well-remembered alley where his mother still lived. He had been to see her, of course, when he first returned to India, but inevitably as an alien; and after his refusal to do penance, he had not gone at all. She had, in fact, refused to receive him. So his heart beat as he stood m.u.f.fled in his devotee's drapery before the door, through which he had so often pa.s.sed to worship clinging to her skirts, and gave his beggar's cry--

'_Alakh!_ for Shiv's sake.'

There was no need to repeat it; for this was a pious house. The low door opened wide, and a young girl held out an alms with the mechanical precision of practice.

'For Shiv's sake,' she echoed monotonously, 'and for the sake of a son who has wandered from the true fold.'

Her voice held no trace of feeling, but Chris fell back with a stifled cry. For he knew what the words meant; knew that he was the wanderer.

So, for a second, the girl stood surprised, hesitating. She was extraordinarily beautiful. A slender slip of a girl about fourteen, with a long round throat poising the delicate oval of her face, and black lashes sweeping to meet the bar of her brows above her soft velvety eyes. There was a likeness still to the little orphan cousin who had come to make one more mouth to feed in the patriarchal household when he was a big boy just keen for college: the girl-child over whom his mother had smiled mysteriously, and talked of the years to come when the head of the house would have had his fill of education for his boy, and permit marriage. Yes, this was she, his cousin, little Naraini.

'There is naught amiss, my lord,' she said suddenly, drawing back in her turn with an offended air. 'I too am Brahmin, my hand is pure.'

So, indignantly, she dropped her alms of parched wheat into the gutter, and slammed the door.

Chris, down on his knees, his blood on fire, picked every grain up, and then, his head in a greater whirl than ever, made his way back to the river steps, to his hidden clothes, to the last hold he had on Western life and thought.

The steps were almost deserted in the noontide; therefore, wearied out with his vigil of the night and the excitement of the day, he lay down deliberately to sleep, feeling even this--this possibility of going to bed without one--to be a relief after all the paraphernalia of pillows, mattresses, blankets, and sheets.

When he woke, the sun had begun to sink, and the stream of worship was setting templewards again. But the crowd was a different one; more temporal, less spiritual. More eager for gossip, less concerned with salvation; and Chris, who had gained confidence in his disguise by this time, left the shadow of the trees in order to listen to the talk. Even to such as he, it was an opportunity of gauging the mind of the mult.i.tude, which did not often present itself; and, being refreshed by his long sleep, he saw clearly that he, personally, might find this a useful experience.

The wildness of the rumours current, however, the absurdity of the beliefs he heard put forward, were beyond his patience, and more than once he drew down an unwelcome interest in himself by his flat denials.

His disguise, however--if it could be called a disguise seeing that he was, indeed, what he professed to be--held out, and so, by degrees, he grew bolder; telling himself that the day would not be lost if he could begin to practise what he had preached in Shark Lane, and raise his voice for the truth's sake.

It was not, however, till the first twinkling lights of the evening service showed in the temples, and the red and green signals on the railway bridge answered the challenge, that he found himself in the position he had advocated; that is one in opposition to many.

He did not shrink from the situation when it came; he had too much grit for that.

"It is a lie," he rea.s.serted, and turning to the larger crowd beyond the listening few, raised his voice.

"Listen, friends, and I will tell you why it is not true that this golden paper fell from Heaven into Kali's temple. Why, her priests lie when they say it did. Listen, for I am Brahmin. I know the G.o.ds and their ways, and I know the _Huzoors_ and their ways also."

"Who is the lad? he speaks well," pa.s.sed in murmurs among the crowd which closed in to see and hear better. Chris pulled himself together as he stood, his figure showing clear against the light that lingered on the river.

"Who am I?" he echoed. "Listen, and I will tell you; I am twice born, regenerate--a Brahmin of the Brahmins."

There was sudden stir in the crowd, a murmur, 'Let her pa.s.s--she knows.' And then in that clear s.p.a.ce where he stood, a woman stood also; a Hindoo widow, with bare arm uplifted from her white shroud.

'Lie not, Krishn Davenund!' she said. 'Thou art outcast, accursed! I, thy mother, say it.' The face, clear cut, pale with continued fasting, showed no pain, no regret, only stern reproof. 'Thou art not twice-born now. Oh! son of my desolation,' she went on, her voice shrilling as she spoke, 'thou art twice-dead. Go back to thy new ways, to thy new wife!'

A sudden stretch of her hand towards the scarlet-clad young girl, shrinking by her side, told its tale of something more bitter than bigotry; of a mother's jealousy.

Chris, who had fallen back from that unexpected betrayal, gave a hasty glance round, and what he saw in the faces of the crowd made him realise his position.

'Hush, mother!' he began; but it was too late.

Her story was well known among the priests. They were in arms at once, and, ere a minute pa.s.sed, Chris found himself at bay, ankle deep in the water into which he had been driven, his back against the sacred temple of Viseshwar: so adding to his crime by its defilement.

'Listen!' he called.

But the crowd were already past that, and the cries 'He is a spy!' 'He hath defiled us!' 'Whom hath he not touched?' 'He hath been here all day!' 'He is sent to make us Christians!' rose on all sides.

Chris, his back to the temple, set his teeth. Beyond the crowd, that was kept at a yard's distance yet by something in his face, he could see two women, scarlet and white robed, sobbing in each other's arms, and the sight made him savage for their pain.

'How can I defile you?' he cried; 'I am Brahmin. Yonder is my mother.

My father all know. Who dares to take my birthright from me?'