Chapter XII

There was fear of Evil Influence, pestilence and death in the country, and as the time of new moon drew near, propitiatory sacrifices were prepared. A number of the courtiers of Golab Singh declared their intention of visiting sacred places and offering gifts. Many who abjured these rites went also as to a festival. On such an errand many supposed Lal Singh to be gone, although his prolonged absence led to unspoken surmisings among those who looked on him as the emissary of a political party, but at the close of a fierce contest men are chary of speech, and none spoke his suspicions. At all events he had disappeared the day after the events of our last chapter.

Atmâ resolved to take this opportunity of attempting to communicate with the Maharanee, and intimated his purpose of resorting to the Well designated by Nama. It was of course on the southern border of Kashmir, and entailed a long pilgrimage. Bertram, tired of splendour, would accompany him. Together they set out on horseback, followed by attendants who bore gifts for the Shrine. They rode forward, leaving their retinue, and conversed as was their wont.

Atmâ fain would know why his friend so devoutly went on pilgrimage.

"I suppose," said Bertram laughing, "that the Nawab would tell you, though the ass goes to Mecca he becomes not a pilgrim thereby. But Atmâ Singh, if I mistake not, your own creed does not recognize the rites we are to witness; I ask, then, in my turn, why, since our mission is meaningless, does your choice of a destination lead us to the most distant of the sacred places?"

"I do not say that the Shrine is without sanctity to me," replied Atmâ evasively, "and the place is one of great attractiveness, while the journey thither, though longer, is more agreeable than other routes. But your jesting challenge reminds me of what once befel the holy Nanuk, the founder of the Sikh religion. He slept in the heat of the day on a grassy bank with his feet turned westward. A Mohammedan priest finding him, struck him and demanded how he dared direct his feet towards the sacred city of Mecca. 'How dare you, infidel dog, to turn your feet towards God?' he demanded. The wise one responded:

'Though past the highest heaven of heavens I rise,
Though cowering in the deep I hide mine eyes,
I roam but through the Mosque his hands have wrought,
Show me, O Moulvie, where thy God is not!'"

"Your wise man spoke a great truth," said Bertram. "The earth is a Temple, it was designed for a House of Prayer, and in it God has placed not a sect nor a nation, but all mankind. Many a Holy of Holies has man raised within this temple, and vainly have the builders sought by every device of loveliness, sensuous or shadowy, to achieve for their inventions the Beauty of Holiness. Your Nanuk was divinely taught, for leaving alike the Material and the Ideal, he grasped the True."

Now they paused where sat a mendicant who besought charity. Atmâ bestowed a gift, saying,

"Our great teacher said:

'The beggar's face a mirror is, in it
We best learn how our zeal in heaven appears.
Pause then and look--nor pious alms omit,
Lest on its brightness fall an angel's tears.'"

Then Bertram, pleased with this, asked more regarding the founder of the Sikh faith, and Atmâ related what things the teacher had accounted holy. "This," he said, "did he instruct:

'The hearts that justice and soft pity shrine
Are the true Mecca, loved of the Divine.

Who doth in good deeds duteous hours engage,
Performs for God an holy pilgrimage.

Who to his own hurt speaks the truth, he tells
The Mystic Speech that pious rite excels.

Rude orisons of alien He will bless
If they are offered but in faithfulness.'"

"It is good," said Bertram, "modes of worship are many, faiths are nearly as various as the temperaments of mankind, but virtue is one. No universal intuition prompts to a form of ritual as acceptable to God, but the moral sense of all the race points unswervingly to the pole-star of the soul--Truth, another name for Purity.

"Many," he continued, "have been the self-ordained guides of the human conscience, blind leaders of the blind, would-be saviours of the world! Why should a mazed wandering soul be so eager to summon followers, so ready to point the way? What strange prompting of love or daring is here? It surely is not from desire of applause that men seek the leadership on the road to heaven, for what man so decried in the history of the world as he who arrogates to himself the place and name of Priest? And yet priest and poet are akin. The man who seeks the place of mediator and interpreter betwixt his fellows and the Unknowable must needs be an idealist, and if he deal with illusion who so unfortunate as he?"

They halted that night where two streams met. Bathed in moonlight it was a scene of great beauty and repose, a confluence of the beatitudes of earth and air. Peace filled their souls so that they perceived the unexpressive adoration of the river, and the trees, and the solemn moonlight. It was such an hour as makes poets of men, and Atmâ raised his head and spoke:

"At tranquil eve is proper time for prayer,
When winds are fair,
And gracious shadows 'mong the myrtles move.
The list'ning eve it was ordained for prayer.

By the soft murmur of thy cooing dove
Teach me to love;
Grant that thy starry front fill my death's night
With joyful light;
And hushed as on this bank the violet's close
Be my repose.

Abide Love, Happiness, and Peace till shining morn
From the same birth that gave the past be borne."

Bertram:

"Fair are these hillside haunts at even calm,
And sweet the fragrance of each flowery spray.
Dew of the Spirit, fall in heavenly balm
Upon my slumbers; bounteous Lord, I pray,
Like one who sang thy praise in other way,
Bless Thou the wicked, for the Good, I know,
Are blessed already, blessed they come and go."