Chapter XVIII

Far retired in the woody recesses to the south of Jummoo, thither come by a winding labyrinth of ways were the fugitives. Bertram, languid and pale, lay on a couch of moss and leaves built by his friend. His gaze rested on Atmâ with compassion, for he knew that his wound was of the spirit, and he feared that without a balm the sore must be mortal. The soul dies sometimes before we say of the man "he is dead," and at that strange death we shudder lest it should know no awakening.

Atmâ sat near by, dumb and unheeding. His fingers toyed idly with a Pearl, on which he gazed as if seeing other forms than those about him. For many hours he was silent, rising at times to proffer food and water to the wounded man, but oblivious of his own needs, and only half-conscious that he was not alone. Daylight faded and stars came out before he spoke, addressing none and looking away into silence:--

"O swift-winged Time,
Bearing to what unknown estate,
What silent clime,
The burden of our hopes and fears,
The story of our smiles and tears,
And hapless fate?

Those vanished days,
Their golden light can none restore;
Those sovereign rays
That set o'er western seas to-night,
This tranquil moon that shines so bright,
Have paled before
Returning in their time, but, oh!
The golden light of long ago
Returns no more.

This little Pearl,
Of water born, shall year by year
Imprison in its tiny sphere
Those fleeting tints whose mystic strife
And shadowy whirl
Of colour seem a form of life;
Nor ever shall their sea-born home
Dissolve in foam;
But this frail build of love and trust
Will sink to dust."

The magnitude of his calamity had dulled the sharpness of each stroke, and thus it was not of loss of love, faith and fortune that he spoke, but of the frailty of life. This is our habit. A ship too richly freighted goes down, and straightway the owner laments, not his own deprivation, but that "all flesh is grass." "Vanity of vanities," he cries, "all is vanity," and we but guess at his hurt. A mysterious consciousness is wiser than his reason, and connects the broken current of his life with a mighty movement which he knows afar, but cannot tell whether it be of Time or Eternity. He who designed all, "did not He make one?"

Our days are empty, how should they be otherwise in a world whose very vanity is infinite?

"Imperial Sorrow loves her sway, or I had sooner broken your vigil, my brother," said Bertram. "I perceive that the falsity of life appals your spirit. It is true that the faint lustre of that tiny orb will long survive these poor frames of ours; it is a fitting emblem of the deathless tenant within."

But to Atmâ it was the symbol of a lost love. He looked on it listlessly. It seemed a long while since Moti died, for in his heart joy, and hope, and youth had died since. The immortal destiny of man, a belief dear to the Sikh, seemed a thing indifferent. Death might not be final, but it was yesterday he mourned, and of it he said: "it is past."

He knew of the soul's Immortality, but of the Continuity of Life he had not heard,

* * * * *

Dear Life, cling close, true friend, thro' well or ill,
Mine aye, we cannot part our company.
Though breathing cease and busy heart be still,
Together will we wake eternally.

Strange Life, in whose immeasurable clasp,
The past, the present and the vast to be
Mingle,--O Time, the world is for thy grasp,
I and my life for immortality.

Those bygone hours that were too bright to stay,
And vanished from my sight like morning mist,
Will dawn again, and, ne'er to fade away,
The fleeting moments endlessly exist.

The present lives, the past and future twine;
My life, my days forevermore endure.
My life--it comes I know not whence, but mine
For aye 'twill be, indissolubly sure.

* * * * *

When the night drew on, Atmâ went away. In thought Bertram followed him, full of sad solicitude.

He strode along the heights. The cooling air and the sense of isolation were grateful to his worn spirit. He wandered far until he found himself in a rocky fortress, vast, black and terrible. The lowering peaks above inclined their giant heads to one another in awful conclave, and the ghastly moonbeams pierced to the gloom below, where they enwrapped the lonely form of Atmâ in a phosphorescent glare. The winds broke among the cliffs, and with shrieks and fearful laughter proclaimed the dark councils of the peaks, and in the din were heard mutterings and imprecations. A transport seized the soul of Atmâ. The horrible glee of the night awoke wrath, and he hurled defiance to the mocking winds.

"What! are th' infernal powers moved for me,
That all the hosts of hell me welcome give,
And claim me comrade in their revelry?
Abhorrent things, I am not yours, I live,
I know I live because I think on death!
I live, dead things, to revel among tombs,
A ghoul, henceforth I feast on buried joys,
My soul the burial-place, where lie, beneath
A fearful night of cries and hellish spumes,
My lovely youth with jovial convoys,
Hopes, happy-eyed, and linked solaces,
And in the lapse of hateful years they will--
My guileless joys, my rose-hued memories--
Corrupt and rot and turn to venomed ill.

O cherished dreams of Truth! O sacred bond
Unlovely grown! O faith so mutable!
Shades of my fathers, not august but fond!
How hollow were the darlings of my dream!
But she, O Lotus-flower, my promised bride,
Star of my youth, my pure unspotted dove!
Again I see her in her gentle pride,
Her starry eyes meet mine with melting beam;
Unsightly grief approach not near my Love,
Flee from her presence, O thou gaunt Despair,
Good Time, embalm her daintily and fair,
Link her sweet fame with hymns and fragrancy.
And happy stars, and blissful utterance,
And with all transports that immortal be.
Fold her, good Time, from my remembrance,
O, this is bitterest mortality,
That living heart of love should be the urn
Where lie the ashes of our joys that turn
To bitterness, and all our lives o'erflow
Till dearest love be grown a hateful woe;
My sun of youth has set, methinks it should
Have set with such a splendour as had all
My sober days with mellow light imbued;
O bitter sun of youth whose knavish pledge
Of high-born hope and holy privilege
But led me undefended to my fall,
O lamentable day when I was born!
What shapes are those that mock me with their scorn?
What trumpet-call is this within my breast?
I am grown wise, my senses are increased,
It is the breath of fiends that drowns my speech,
The bellowing of devils as they feast.
I am the taunt of devils, and they preach
Of death, of cursing, and of endless woe;
The lightnings of this devil-tempest show
Horrors not dreamed of

* * * * *

O thou Vengeful Power,
I am forspent, if merit there can be
In self accusing, in this darkest hour
O hear me, and I pray thee pity me,
For I have sinned, O fool, unwise and blind!
And I am Atmâ; whom thou hadst designed
For life of sanctity and holy quest.
Lord, I am Atmâ, and I have transgressed;
I sought the Present whom we may not seek,
The Future whom I slighted went before
And waited arméd and my goods did take.
This is my sin that sent on high behest
I slept; Lord, as one waited at thy golden door
A hundred years, and snatched a little rest,
And waked to see the closing gateway drawn
And lived thereafter only in the dawn
Of that brief moment's light, so also I
Must dream of wasted radiance till I die."