The Daughter of Brahma, I. A. R. Wylie [carter reed txt] 📗

down and fitted it into her own particular train of thought, nodded delightedly.

"But it's so nice for you that you should have caught a glimpse of ' real India,' " she said in her bright way. "The natives are getting so horrid and civilised that I get quite bored with them. I love processions, don't you?"

The bishop smiled good-naturedly.

"I'm afraid I look at them too much from my point of view," he ventured.

"Do you? Oh, yes, I see, of course! But, you know, you could pick up a lot of hints from them. Now, Mr. Eliot, if you went round making a noise like that you'd get on much faster. What these people like is lots of hocus-pocus and all that sort of thing--"

"My dear little lady "Colonel Chichester broke in hurriedly.

"Don't interrupt, dear. I want the bishop to look at that dear Brahman priest going into the house opposite. Isn't he fine-looking? a regular old aristocrat. I love them all so mysterious, you know. And they look horribly wise, don't you think?"

The bishop fortunately did not fall into the error of supposing that Mrs. Chichester really cared what he thought. His smile was still indulgent, but his eyes had already caught sight of a fresh object of interest. The street was now very quiet. Such natives as had come out to witness the passing of the procession had crept back into the shade of their dirty dwellings, and the man who came slowly towards the mission house stood out like the central figure in some brilliant Oriental picture.

"A remarkable-looking person," the bishop murmured.

"A medieval saint," added Mrs. Chichester, with her quick enthusiasm. Mr. Eliot threw back his heavy shoulders.

"Father Romney of the Roman Mission," he explained, and his tone was ponderous with reproof.

But Mrs. Chichester appeared unscathed, and a curious, somewhat uncomfortable silence fell on the little group of watchers. The priest drew nearer. He carried himself with a simple dignity as though unconscious of hostility or suspicion, and the face which he lifted for a moment seemed to justify Mrs. Chichester 's impulsive criticism. It was the face of a dreamer and an idealist. Mrs. Chichester had seen it before, no doubt, in the reproductions of an old master where the Infant Christ receives the worship of the saints and had recognised, with her quick intuition, the qualities which linked the painter's ideal to this living man. He was very bronzed and very emaciated. The brown, clear skin seemed scarcely to cover the sharply cut features and the eyes, deep-set and penetrating, added to his appearance of extraordinary delicacy. But against this physical weakness there was the indomitable strength of mind written on the straight-cut mouth, the powerful jaw, the high intellectual forehead. It was clear that daily, hourly, body and soul fought for the predominance, and that the soul had never yielded nor lost, in the desperate struggle, her tenderness and humility. Father Romney was dressed in the plain white cassock of his order; a silver crucifix hung suspended from his girdle, and as he approached the little group by the mission house his lean brown fingers felt for it and held it in a nervous clasp.

"I beg your pardon for troubling you," he said quietly, with a courteous inclination of the head; "but I have a letter for Mr. Hurst which I should be glad to deliver. I understand that he is here?"

David advanced quickly. Everything in the atmosphere a subdued wordless antagonism had driven the blood into his sallow cheeks. He held out his hand, and it was taken and held in a moment's friendly pressure.

"I am glad I have found you," the priest added. "The Professor was anxious that you should get his message before nightfall. I fancy he has made one of his discoveries, and wishes to share it with you. Here is the letter."

Hurst took the neatly addressed envelope.

"Have you come all this way in this heat for me?" he asked regretfully.

"I did not notice that it was so hot," the priest answered, smiling, "and the way never seems tedious. Besides, I have other things to do, and must not linger. I hope to see you again," He bowed again, including the silent group in his salutation, and passed quietly on his way.

Only Colonel Chichester and his wife had responded. The bishop was ostentatiously engaged in the study of the architectural beauties of the mission house. Mr. Eliot, his face unusually heated, stared stonily across the street. It was evident that, of the two, the passing of the heathen procession had caused him the least discomfort.

"I think now, if your lordship is willing, we can proceed homewards," he said stiffly.

His lordship, awakened from his preoccupation, signified his assent, and the carriages were called up. Mr. Eliot took his place at the side of his spiritual superior.

"We have much to contend with," he said, sighing.

Meanwhile Hurst had helped Mrs. Chichester into her dog-cart. That lady had forgotten her boredom in the delighted consciousness that there had been trouble in the air, and her eyes twinkled mischievously.

"I didn't know you were so intimate with that dear Father," she said. "I suppose you are not 'going over, 5 are you, David? That's the right expression, I believe. Now I come to think of it, I haven't seen you in church once since you've been back. It looks suspicious, doesn't it?"

"I suppose so. But I'm afraid I shan't afford you any excitement by * going over.' I'm what is called an agnostic."

Mrs. Chichester put up her parasol.

"It sound like a nasty new-fashioned illness," she said cheerfully.

"Perhaps it is an incurable one." "Well, never mind so long as it only keeps you out of church I don't think it's unbearable. Get in, David. I'm going to drive you home."

"Thanks, but I have my own cart here, and I have to pick up my mother at the club."

"We shall see you to-night, then? Di is panting to meet her old playfellow. She says you neglected her disgracefully in England."

Hurst turned his face away from the scrutiny of the restless blue eyes.

"I was hard pressed with work," he explained lamely.

"Well, you must come and apologise, anyhow. Duncan, dear, please drive on. Good-bye, David, till this evening!"

Five minutes later the last carriage had passed out of the native quarter. The white figure of the priest had long since vanished into the afternoon haze, and a drowsy peace sank like a veil over the narrow street. Only Rama Pal remained. Throughout the proceedings he had kept his silent watch by the door of the mission house, his face inscrutable, his eyes passing from one figure to another with a passive disinterestedness. No one had noticed him. In the general leave-taking he had been ignored, and no change in his set features betrayed resentment or mortification. The infant converts had scrambled past him, grateful for release, and he had not seemed to see them. He stood there motionless, and apparently indifferent. Presently he lifted his head. The Brahman priest had come out from the house opposite and now slowly crossed the street, stopping midway as though an invisible barrier barred his passage. For a moment the two men considered each other in silence. The Brahman had thrown the end of his yellow mantle over his shoulder, and with folded arms stood and waited in an attitude of unassumed dignity. He was a tall man, well past the prime of life, peculiarly fair of skin, with handsome and haughty features, and eyes of that piercing grey which can be as Oriental as the darkest brown. The three vertical lines across the high and even noble forehead proclaimed the purity of his caste, and when he at last spoke it was with the arrogance of immeasurable superiority.

"Though thou art an outcast from amongst thy people, I would speak with thee," he said. "But keep thy place, for thy shadow defileth."

The convert bowed his head with a languid acquiescence.

"Speak!" he said.

"Thou hast forsaken the gods of thy fathers to follow this English Christ," the Brahman went on. "Tell me a little of thy new faith. I have heard that His disciples preach joy and universal love and brotherhood. Yet thine eyes are heavy as death, and thy friends left thee without farewell not as brothers leave their brother. And I have seen strange things Christian against Christian, though they call the same Lord master. What love and brotherhood is this?"

"A lie," came the swift answer.

The Brahman was silent for a moment, his finger placed musingly to his forehead.

"And for this lie thou forsakest thy race and folio west a two-faced God?" he asked.

"I have no God." The convert threw up his arms with a startling vehemence. "They took my gods from me they took me from my people. They gave me a faith which their lives belie, and a brotherhood of bitterest humiliation. They made me an outcast without people and without God." He pulled himself up with a convulsive effort. "What is that to thee?" he demanded sullenly. "Thou wearest the Triple Cord my shadow defiles thee."

The Brahman's face lit with a swift cunning.

"Once was thy shadow pure," he said. "Once was the mark of Vishnu on thy brows the privilege of the highest thine. All was stolen from thee, even as thou wert stolen by those whose crust thou eatest. Is the strong blood in thy veins stagnant, that no thought of revenge lights thy thoughts? Great wrong has been done thee only a Pariah bears in patience eternally."

"I am a Pariah," was the answer; " godless and hopeless."

The Brahman's eyes narrowed.

"The way back to Brahma is long and arduous," he said significantly, "but the way is there. Thou sayest thy old gods are dead. Nay, but there is but one God, the Almighty, all-pervading, all-containing One, thy God and mine is there " he stretched out his arm towards the horizon "and here." He laid his hand upon his own breast.

"Yet at morning and at evening thou bringest sweet offerings to thy wooden idols," Kama Pal returned sneeringly. "Is that too a lie?"

"A lie even as life itself is a lie a delusion, a vision. It is for the people who struggle on through countless generations towards the truth. They make themselves idols out of their desires, and until desire dies their idols must live and we must serve them. But the truth is ours." He drew himself up to his full height. "Not Vishnu nor Siva nor thy Christ is God, but God is all of them and us."

The convert smiled satirically, but the fire of some rising passion smouldered in his eyes.

"Thou art a priest of Vishnu, and speakest to a Pariah," he said in a low voice. "What am I to thee?"

The Brahman appeared not to hear him. His gaze was fixed straight ahead as though on some fearful vision.

"They shot our fathers from the cannon's mouth," he said under his breath. "They tore from us the power and the wealth that was ours by heritage and right of conquest. They forced upon us their faith that we might serve them, bound by their slave's code. They call us friends and brothers, and spit upon us. Their women shrink from us as from vermin." His eyes flashed back to the convert's livid face. "Whom dost thou hate?" he demanded fiercely.

"Those who have robbed me of my heritage India of her glory," came the suffocated answer.

"What is thy destiny?"

"I know not."

The priest stretched out his arm with prophetic vehemence.

"India has need of thee and of all such as thou art," he said. "Thou art her now-born son. Thou shalt go to England. Thou shalt suck this new wisdom from her as a bee drinks honey from the flower. Then return help our mother to throw off her dishonouring shackles."

"Alone?" Rama Pal interrupted bitterly.

"We who have led the people through ages untold shall stand between thy wisdom and unbelief and their ignorance and faith. For a little while longer we shall