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

heartiness in which there was a trace of good-natured condescension. The Socialist candidate shook him by the hand, and there was a fresh outburst of applause, as though this outward sign had struck some deep and generous note of unity and sympathy. Rama Pal waited patiently, almost indifferently, for silence. When it came he released his hand and passed it, apparently by chance, over the breast of his coat.

"What has been said is true," he began. "I have come over here to witness to that, and more. I bear upon me the marks of the tyranny under which my country groans. I speak as one who has suffered and who has seen suffering. I speak the truth. When but a child I was stolen from my people by the English missionaries. I escaped. They caught me. This man, this David Hurst, though but a boy, tracked me down and delivered me over to my enemies. From that hour I was their slave, their chattel. They sought to make me forget my people and the heritage of my birthright; they forced me to serve them in their schools, where others, as unhappy as I, were brought up in misery and shame. Famine came upon us. Thousands I saw who held out their hands for food for the food which then: toil, their land had brought forth, and were refused with contempt and insult. But they who ruled in the high places sat and drank. I saw them with my own eyes. I saw how the beggars, the starving women and children, lingered at the gates. I heard the strains of music and laughter and--"

There were loud cries of "Shame!" "Down with 'em all," and clenched fists were shaken in the direction of the schoolhouse. Rama Pal waited with the same unmoved patience. Only once had his voice changed its level note, and that once when he had spoken of his lost birthright. Then it had deepened and vibrated with a sincerity that was tragically convincing.

"What wonder, then, that the hearts of those who loved their country's honour burnt within them?" he went on. "The people rose. Those that had once ruled in the days of freedom took the lead. It was little we asked the rice that lay stored in the English quarters. But we were betrayed by that man who to-morrow, perhaps, you will send into your Parliament to rule you and us."

The crowd swayed as though an angry wave of passion had swept over it, and Rama Pal threw back his head with a movement of conscious, powerful, suppressed triumph.

"Think not that he betrayed us out of love of his people. That night, sheltered by the darkness and our defencelessness, he stole Sarasvati, the only daughter of an honourable Brahman, from her father. He held her prisoner, hid her from the broken-hearted searching of her people, and bore her in secret here to be a symbol of our shame and of the tyranny--"

"It's a lie!"

The clear voice sounded high above the Hindu's passionless tones and paralysed the restless, moving crowd to a startled attention. Rama Pal's lips compressed themselves into an iron line, but he remained otherwise unmoved, his black eyes fixed sightlessly ahead. The Socialist candidate had risen to his feet and extended a theatrically declaiming hand.

"Who dares say that it is a lie?" he shouted.

"I--Sarasvati of whom you speak," was the answer. She came out of the shadow, the crowd shrinking back from her on either side, and stood erect beneath the red glare of the lanterns. All trace of fear had gone out of her face. It was aflame with a joyous purpose, a proud strength, which gave her back her loveliness, and with it a compelling dignity.

Rama Pal saw her and started slightly. Then he bent down and struck her hand from the edge of the cart.

"Be silent!" he said in his own tongue. "Be silent!"

"I will not be silent, for you have lied," she answered fearlessly, in a sweet unfaltering English. "You and this man have lied against a nobility which is as far from you as is the sun from earth, and what I say is true. I was not stolen from my father, for I, the daughter of Brahma, know no father--"

There was a coarse burst of laughter, which silenced her for an instant, and the candidate Grey seized his opportunity. He thrust the Hindu on one side, and, advancing to the front of the cart, extended two protesting arms.

"Are you going to listen to an honourable, tried witness, or this woman?" he shouted above the tumult. "This man has come to you as a brother appealing to his brother, he brings you the truth, the story of trials, honourably borne. Will you believe him or an outcaste who has deserted her people and her country to follow her lover into a shameful exile--"

"Is it indeed shameful to be the wife of a white man?" she interrupted bravely. She had laid her hand once more on the shaft of the cart and her lifted face expressed a steadfast, unswerving purpose which contrasted pathetically with her fragile body and delicate, almost childlike features.

Grey pointed down at her. The whole ferocity of his thwarted will broke out in that single gesture.

"You wanton!" he said. "What right have you to call yourself by the name of 'wife'?"

"The right of any woman who has been wedded by a priest in the faith of God."

There was a sudden silence. Carried away by anger, the demagogue had used a word which even in that rough, excited crowd struck a jarring discord, and the answer had come back with a compelling simplicity and directness. The men in the foremost row glanced uneasily at each other. An untidy-looking woman with a shawl about her thin shoulders shook her fist into the candidate's face.

"There ain't no call to use dirty language to a lady, even if she ain't our colour," she said, and there was a low but decided murmur of approval.

Grey swung round to the Hindu at his side.

"Speak, can't you?" he exclaimed furiously. "Tell them the truth--"

The woman with the shawl snapped her fingers.

"We've 'eard that fine gentleman," she said. "We knows all 'e's got to say and a lot more, per'aps; and now we'd like to 'ear the other side of the story." She laid a dirty but kindly hand on Sarasvati's shoulder. "You go ahead, m'lady," she said. "I knows a wellplucked 'un when I sees one, and I'm for a fair fight anyhow. So you get along and say your say."

Rama Pal leant down again. His lips were so close to Sarasvati's face that his breath burned her.

"Have you forgotten who you are?" he whispered.

She shrank back from him. She felt dazed, and the sudden waiting silence frightened her more than the previous clamour had done. A numbing consciousness of her loneliness in the midst of this strange, half hostile crowd crept over her. She was one against hundreds. They enclosed her in a stifling ring, and their eyes seemed to brighten to countless points of light which glittered at her as they elbowed and tip- toed to get a better view of this slight, daring woman. For a moment she faltered losing grasp on the strange tongue which was her one means of communication with the eager, impatient mass about her.

Then she remembered that which had given her the courage to leave her hiding-place and brave the very horror from which she had fled. God that vague, indefinite power, which had become nameless to her had given her the opportunity for which she had prayed. She, David's wife, who had stood scorned and helpless on one side whilst indifferent strangers had done her work, had been given the chance to do more than all of them. To her it had been granted to guard his name from dishonour, to hold his spotless shield high above the jealous hands of his enemies. "You must go among them bravely," Diana Chichester had said, and she had obeyed. The woman, who had shrunk from life as from an incalculable evil, from mankind as from unreal yet dangerous shadows, faced this inflamed mob of men and women with that trembling yet unconquerable heroism which is love's attribute.

"My husband has done no wrong to me or to any man," she said clearly. "That which has been spoken is without truth, and he that has spoken has broken the law of gratitude. For his life is to him who saved it to my husband, who but a child brought him weak and fainting to his own home and tended him and saved him from the people who would have offered him as a bloody sacrifice. If he be not afraid let him show his right arm, where there is surely a scar to testify to my words."

Rama Pal folded his arms.

"The woman lies!" he said deliberately. "She says what she has been told to say. Let him who will believe her."

But the tide had turned against him. Out of her quaintly turned phrases, the crowd had instinctively felt a passionate sincerity, and touched, rough though they were, by her courage, her simple faith in their justice, they tossed the interruption impatiently aside.

"You go on!" encouraged the woman who had constituted herself spokesman. "You tell us about yourself. We'll believe you don't you be afraid. I knows a crooked and a straight thing when I sees it."

"My husband saved this man's life, and mine," Sarasvati answered proudly. "That alone is the truth."

"Well you tell us how it was go ahead don't you mind no one--"

Sarasvati looked about her. To her disturbed fancy the details of the strange scene had become suddenly indistinct, transformed. The red lights had changed to altar-fires; the questioning, waiting crowd to worshippers silently attendant on her divine will. The bitter, inhospitable cold had softened to a warmth laden with the intoxicating scent of flowers, and for one brief, splendid moment she regained herself, and with it her hold upon the gorgeous past. Yet, distraught as she was, love kept her to her present purpose and lent her a fearless, impassionate inspiration.

"I will tell you all that I know," she began with a quick-drawn breath. "I will tell you how a town filled with your countrymen awaited a treacherous attack from those who had suffered no more than was the fate of all. I tell you of a man who risked his life, alone and unaided, to bring help to innocent women and children women and children of your race! I tell you how he broke through the encircling enemy and twice returned bearing upon him many wounds, and feared not to risk his life again for a strange woman for a woman not of his kind. See I will show you a burning pyre a helpless woman thrust into the red flames to satisfy a maddened people I will show you a single man who faced them all and bore her in his arms through the darkness of the night and made her his wife before the day broke, so that no hand should point in scorn at her. I will show you a man who feared not the hatred of his people, but called her * wife ' before them all. I will show you the man to whom I owe all that I am I will cry upon you help me to protect him from the slander of evil, poisoned tongues--" She broke off. The pictures out of that dazzling, mysterious past faded into a mist which sank before her eyes and surrounded her in a great darkness. She groped blindly before her and her hand was taken and held in a warm, strong grasp. A voice came to her from afar off:

"It's the truth--you'd take your Bible oath on it?"

"Should I have loved him so?" she answered scarcely above a whisper.

The man standing on the cart stretched out an angry hand.

"You've heard her tale," he