Edmund Mitchell

“ Meditatively for a moment the man of medicine stroked the broad white beard that descended almost to his girdle, and then began:
"Familiar to us all is the thought that death is but a birth into another state of existence, whether that state be the eternal paradise which is the final goal of every man's hopes, or merely another stage thitherward. Death is a birth, the truth of which will more forcibly appeal to our minds when we reflect also that birth is a death."
"How can that be, except for the still-born?" queried the astrologer.
The hakeem raised a hand deprecating the interruption. ”

“ The merchant paid no heed to the interruption. He went on:
"Each of us is an inscrutable mystery to the other. Each soul is veiled to every other soul, and is naked to itself alone."
"O prince of philosophers in pedlar's disguise!" murmured the hakeem.
"If our souls sat naked for the common gaze," commented the Rajput, "if we could all read each other's hearts, then indeed would life be an abomination—an utter misery, with the twin devils of shame and disgust seated at our elbows all the time." ”

“ When Mirza Shah returned from his victorious charge, it was to find his sultana dead on the roof of the women's quarters. She had seen her son—yes, her son, her own flesh and blood, although not her husband's—pounded to death under the elephants' feet. So the unhappy mother had pierced her breast with a dagger, and, by her side, similarly self-slain, lay the serving woman who had miscounselled her to wrongdoing, yet, as I could quite well comprehend, from motives of sincere affection, to safeguard for her her husband's love and to give her the joy of motherhood for which she craved. ”

“ VI. THE TIGER OF THE PATHANS TOLD BY THE AFGHAN GENERAL
"In my case the philosophy of life is of the simplest," remarked the Afghan general. "I neither crave the wealth of the prince, nor do I inflict upon myself the mortifications of the ascetic. For the one rich robes and the sceptre, for the other a loin cloth and a begging-bowl; but for me the good sword that commands respect from my enemies, confidence from my friends, and my due share of the good things of existence. In this frame of mind I find the full measure of joy in each day that passes." ”

“ O kadi—a pilgrim on my way to the sacred shrine of Juggernaut, as I profess myself to all who make inquiry and to whom an answer is due. But I am not what I appear to be. In reality you behold in me—a thug.'
"The man lowered his voice mysteriously when he pronounced the last word, bending forward so that I might hear it.
"'And what may be a thug?' I asked, for the name to me was quite a new one.
"'Listen,' he said eagerly, and still in a low whisper. 'The thugs are worshippers of Bowani.'
"'There are countless thousands who worship Kali, the dread goddess,' I replied. ”

“ As Akbar, the Most High, himself has said, all religions are good; each man has the god or gods of his fathers; let there be no obstacle placed against worshipping the divine power in any manner that seemeth fit. That is both wisdom and justice. That is why I, a Hindu, a Rajput, one of the twice born, can serve my lord, the Moslem Emperor Akbar, with loyalty of heart and of sword that no man may question. ”

“ The future is unseen, but is none the less determined by our deeds, words, and thoughts of the passing moment, each one of which, be it remembered, whether deed or rash word, or unspoken thought, has consequences that are eternal."
"So for the man whose mind is thus attuned," again interposed the magistrate, "the present becomes all supreme, shaped by the past, shaping the future."
"Which means that destiny never degenerates into mere blind and helpless fatalism," responded the Afghan. "To do the right now suffices to give absolute trust in God for the hereafter. ”

“ For me to snatch this casket from its hiding-place was the work of an instant. Straightway I removed the golden lid, and there, in the smooth, transparent nest of crystal, lay a little heap of gems that flashed and gleamed like living fire.
"Recovering from my first emotions of astonishment and delight, I poured forth the treasure into the hollow of my hand, and found it to be a necklace of diamonds, as I could tell from the dazzling sparkle of the stones despite their uncommon colour, which was blue, like the vault of the sky or the eyes of the fair-skinned women of Circassia. ”

“ Vishnu the Preserver saved the life of the little maid of Jhalnagor so that her father's life might later on be saved. But none can read the future, so that we are all blindly doing the things of to-day without knowing their real bearing on the things of a far-away to-morrow. And one man can make or mar the happiness of another man, even though their lives be separated by hundreds of leagues in space or hundreds of years in time."
"In your mind doubtless is some tale to illustrate the truth of what you teach," remarked the astrologer, with a shrewd uplifting of his eyebrows. ”

“ When the shadows of night fell, the temple made a bonfire that illuminated the scenes of pillage going on all around. The big idols of loathly aspect had been thrown down, broken to pieces, and despoiled of their jewels and the heavy plates of gold that encumbered them. Our soldiers had swarmed out of the building, past a tank to the houses of some priests beyond. Not one single custodian of the temple survived, and I stood alone in the outer courtyard, watching in idle fashion the tongues of flame licking the beams and rafters and paint-bedaubed walls of the wrecked edifice. ”

“ During that hour of watching my soul had been gravely perturbed, not because of the dying debauchee, but in dread of sinister happenings in the royal zenana when the news of the maharajah's demise should come to be announced. But how was I to give warning without betraying to certain death the youth and his mother who had sought sanctuary in my defenceless home? For there, at the door of the sick room, stood the captain of the king's bodyguard, Todar Rao, the very man who, I knew, held his corrupt soldiery in leash for any villainy. ”

“ As the story of Sheikh Ahmed and his jewelled harp well shows, deeds may be done openly by the hand, but the motives for their doing lie secretly in the heart. And the heart is the innermost temple where none but the high priest, the individual soul, holds communion with his God, the supreme Deity of the universe."
"So that a man's life is an unsolvable riddle to all but himself," concurred the hakeem. ”

“ And with the dawn came the swarm of Mustafa Khan's clansmen, running eagerly toward the opened gateway of the fort, with their fellow conspirators shouting and shooting and waving their swords in pretended pursuit. But just within the entrance were ranged a dozen guns and arquebuses on swivels, loaded to their muzzles with slugs of iron. And almost at the same moment as the rain of death mowed down the onrushing horde, a great explosion shook the earth outside, and the fragments of a hundred bodies blown from the sabat by our countermine filled the air. ”

“ However, know this, my friends, that in my zenana at Jhalnagor there are little girls—three, and more will be welcome should the divine Krishna send them. Three little daughters have I, all born of my wife Lakmibai, the jewel of Jhalnagor. With sons also am I blessed—two brave little boys, of whom I may well be proud. But I love them not more than my daughters, nor would I change any one daughter for a son. ”

“ Yea, I would pat the fat little fellow on the head, and, when the humour seized me, would show him my hoard of gold mohurs, even jingle before him a bag of silver rupees, or ask his opinion on the colour and quality of some gem, speaking words of foolishness the while, like a child playing with a toy. And when I lay back on my cushions, sometimes I fancied that the little jewelled eyes in the elephant head of bronze twinkled at me in merry and friendly understanding. ”

“ I go about, now a Moslem fakir with the right of entry to the mosques where I may worship the only true God and Mohammed his prophet, now disguised as a Hindu yogi, crying 'Ram, Ram,' so that I may gain access to the temples of the idolators, there to find the Ganapati with the jewelled eyes, and by that token discover the man for whom I am ever seeking. Every year I revisit Ferishtapur, whence the idol was originally taken by my hand from the wrecked temple, but thither neither the priest nor the Ganapati has ever returned. ”

“ Mirza Shah was absent from his home—gone on a full week's journey, engaged in the settling of some dispute on the confines of his territory. To me there came one afternoon the sultana, attended by one of her women—the most trusted one, I knew, for both were from the same country, near to Amritsar, where the famous rugs are woven. So much I had learned, and this further I also knew, that by birth the sultana was a Hindu, although on being wed to her lord as a little girl, she had of course embraced the true faith of Islam, in so far as it matters for a woman to have any religion at all. ”

“ And the hour of its birth is truly the hour of its death, for in pain and travail it is plucked from its warm and comfortable surroundings, and with the shock of physical change and unseeing dread it cries aloud in sharp anguish. Thus precisely do we ourselves die when we pass from this world to another existence, physically and mentally resenting the harsh change, terrified because of our very ignorance of what is really happening. ”

“ Behold in me a man who possesses nothing in this world excepting a begging-bowl and a loin cloth. Yet was I at one time the owner of lands and of cattle, of a home bountifully stored for comfort and for sustenance, of wives who wore rich jewels, necklets of pearls, armlets of gold, and bangles of silver, with maid-servants to minister to their needs and children to play around them. ”

“ Had the quarrel in the camp of our adversaries been nothing but a cunning pretence, the fight among the tribesmen before the dawn a mere sham, even the gathering in of the supposed dead and wounded an artful deception for our eyes, all contrived so that this devil of devils, Mustafa Khan, should gain access to the citadel with skilled [Pg 143] sappers and mining munitions? And was the youth who had played the part of a goatherd really a son of the man, or a serpent-tongued liar, a chosen master of craft whose seeming guilelessness had helped to delude us? ”

“ To have killed one of her own sex! For a thug there is no crime in all the world to equal this one. Too late I realized what I had done. But in my first impulse of fear I resolved to keep the dread secret to myself. With my own hands I rifled the body, and laid the spoil of gold and other valuables on the cotton cloth outspread in the moonlight for the reception of such gifts to the goddess. I removed the outer garments, robes of cost, silken, and heavily wrought with gold. ”

“ For too much knowledge of another's inmost thoughts brings only disillusionment and regret, as my tale will show. The story takes us among humble people, but human nature is the same everywhere—the same in the hut of the rayat as in the palace of the rajah. ”

“ It is sufficient to say that Gunesh Tanti and all his band perished to a man—some slain by the swords of my horsemen charging down the pass, some crushed by the falling rocks, some of the last survivors, who flung themselves desperately against our living barrier, dying on our handpikes or being trampled under foot by the elephants. Not one of more than five score men lived to carry back the tale of death to the robber haunts whence they had come. ”

“ Just without one of the massive bastioned gates of the city of Fathpur-Sikri there stood in the year 1580 a caravanserai that afforded accommodation for man and beast. Here would alight travellers drawn by the calls of homage, by business, or by curiosity to the famous Town of Victory, built, as the inscription over the gateway told, by "His Majesty, King of Kings, Heaven of the Court, Shadow of God, Jalal-ad-din Mohammed Akbar Padishah." ”

“ We spared her, Rakaya and I; we bribed Runjit, who is now dead, and to whom you gave the terrible orders, and Rakaya smuggled the babe safe away to the cottage of the woodcutters. Since then I have managed to see her sometimes by stealth, and have loved her; but I have never dared to clothe her in any but humble garments—no silks, no bangles, no jewels of any kind—lest suspicion should be aroused.'
"'Oh, great master, forgive your humble slave,' moaned the old crone, Rakaya, grovelling in a corner of the room. ”

“ So with all of us; we imagine we are marching bravely to accomplish some preconceived plan, when all the time we are merely [Pg 102] groping with blinded eyes along the path of destiny, avoiding the mud holes, it may be, but failing to see the tiger, crouched for his spring, a few paces further along."
"Shabash!" cried the fakir, in a shrill tone of approval that drew all eyes to the lean and naked and ash-besprinkled figure seated at the foot of the veranda steps. "Shabash! shabash!" he cried, again and yet again.
"And your story?" asked the Rajput, with a nod of inquiry and encouragement. ”

“ In the great courtyard of the palace all the people were assembled, nobles and officers of state, soldiers and traders, rich and poor, among the latter the halt, the blind and the maimed, the deformed and the leprous, in pitiful evidence as fitting objects for a share of the pro [Pg 165] mised bounty. On a raised dais, seated upon a throne covered with cloth of gold, and sheltered by a canopy and awnings of crimson brocade, sat the reigning maharajah, a puny and sickly-looking stripling. ”