Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

This was too much for the endurance of his enraged listener, who, leaping furiously upon Johar, clove his head with his heavy tulwar (sword). Johar staggered, blinded with blood, and defenceless, then, turning, ran for his life; but his infuriated enemy, flinging the shrieking girl to one side, swiftly pursued the wounded wretch to where he had sought refuge in a cowshed, dashed in the frail door, and there despatched him. Presently he returned, fierce-eyed, savage, blood-stained, to confront the horror-stricken and trembling Durali.

“Woman,” he cried hoarsely, “I have slain him--thine the sin. His death be on thy head!”

But she, with many tears and vows, vociferously protested her innocence, and in a surprisingly short time appeased Naim Sing’s wrath. Now that the rage of his jealousy and vengeance had been satisfied, he began to realize the result of his passion; he had slain a man--not the first who had met his death at his hands. He had once killed an antagonist in a wrestling-match--that was a misadventure; this was--well, the Sirkar would call it--murder.

The shades of evening had not yet fallen, and until then he dared not set about concealing the corpse. He found Durali a cunning adviser and an unscrupulous accomplice. Men die hard, especially wiry hill-men, and Johar had not passed away in silence; his expiring groans were heard by Bucko, the old woman, and Naim Sing was therefore compelled to admit her into the secret.

When the moon rose, the three conspirators bound up the body and carried it down to one of the fields, there they carefully uprooted each stalk, each distinct plant, growing over the surface of what was to form the future grave, which was next excavated, and Johar, the son of Turroo, was dropped into the hole, his whistle flung contemptuously after him, and both were presently covered up with earth--and wheat.

The burying-party returned to the hut, where Naim Sing inflicted a small wound on his leg with a cut of his tulwar, in order to support the statement he proposed making to the authorities, that Johar had attacked him with murderous intent, and, having failed in his effort, fled. Next morning Naim Sing called on the Tehel-seldhar and made his report, and the Tehel-seldhar despatched a tokdar (responsible official for a cluster of villages) to take steps for the capture of Johar, the son of Turroo. But Johar was not to be found, or even heard of, and his own family became seriously alarmed, and suspected foul play. If he had fled and departed on a long journey, wherefore had he left his boots, clothes, and money behind? The connections of Naim Sing were powerful, their pirohet, or family priest, his personal friend--rumour and suspicion were strangled--but there were grave whispers round the fires in the huts, all over the hills: what had befallen Johar, the son of Turroo?

However, a murder was a common event. Blood-feuds were acknowledged, and soon the circumstance was allowed to fade into oblivion by all but Rateeban, a lame man, Johar’s twin brother, who took a solemn oath at Gutkoo temple to avenge him. He suspected Durali; he watched her and her house by stealth. Why was one small corner of the wheat-field uncut? He made her overtures of friendship, he flattered, he fawned; by dint of judicious questions, and even more judicious information, Rateeban gained his end. Oh, false love! Oh, treachery! Oh, woman! it was the beautiful Durali who led Rateeban to his brother’s grave, who showed him the blood splashes on the cowshed walls, who told him the truth. Yes, jealousy is doubtless as cruel as the grave. Durali had capitulated and given her long-beleaguered heart wholly to Naim Sing--his eloquence, good looks, prowess,--ay, and presents,--had carried the citadel, and lo! the dead man’s words were verified. Naim Sing had already a wife at Huldwani, a bold dark woman of the plains, to whom he was secretly wed by strictest and securest ceremonial.

To the amazement and indignation of himself and his kinsmen, Naim Sing was arrested and carried to Almora jail, there to await his trial; his friends and connections (who were many and powerful) made a desperate attempt to secure his release; bribes, and even threats, were used; but what could avail against the evidence of the treacherous Durali?--and the evidence of the dead body? Yes, Naim Sing, the champion wrestler, the leading youth in his district, handsome, popular, rich, in the full zenith of his days and vigour, was bound to be despatched to the dark muggy shores of the Salween river, and end his existence ingloriously in Moulmein jail. Never again would he take part in a wrestling-match, or breast his native mountains and chase the ibex and makor; his beloved hills, and his ancestral home, would know him no more. Rateeban, Johar’s lame brother, would have preferred the blood of his enemy, but was fain to be contented with his sentence, “Transportation for life.” He exulted savagely in his revenge, and actually accompanied the gang of wretched prisoners the whole march of ninety miles to the railroad--on foot--in order that he might enjoy the ecstasy of gloating over his foe in chains! Each day at sundown, when the party halted, Rateeban came and stood opposite to Naim Sing, and, leaning on his stick, mocked him. It was rumoured that Rateeban was not the sole voluntary escort, but that a woman, veiled, and riding a stout grey pony, stealthily followed the party afar off! It was Durali, who, when it was too late, was distracted with penitence and anguish. Her remorse was eating away her very heart--but to what avail now?

Huldwani is a large, populous native town on the edge of the Terai, a few miles from the foot of the hills, and here a frantic creature awaited the prisoners, or rather the prisoner Naim Sing. She tore her hair, she beat her head upon the ground, and Naim Sing was not unmoved--no. Then she lifted up her hands and her voice, and cursed with hideous screaming curses “that woman who had wrought this great shame and wickedness--that other woman on the hills!” And the other woman, having heard with her ears and seen with her eyes, turned back and retraced those weary ninety miles, _now_ more in anger than in sorrow,--for such is human nature.

In less than twelve months, the news came to the hills that Naim Sing had died in Moulmein prison, the death certificate said of atrophia, but his father and brethren called it a broken heart. “He was ever too wild a bird for a cage,” proclaimed his kinsmen and friends; and within a short time he was as completely forgotten as Johar, whom he had slain, and Durali, whom he had deceived, and who had disappeared.

* * * * *

After a lapse of twenty years, two men belonging to the village where Rateeban lived, returned from a pilgrimage, and announced that at the great fair at Hardwar, on the Ganges, they had seen _Naim Sing_--who had saluted them as Brahmins. He had with him three horses, and a woman--his wife--and looked in good health, and prosperous. Rateeban, at first angrily incredulous, finally determined to investigate this matter in person, and once more travelled the wearisome ninety miles which lay between his home and the railway. Though every step was painful, he heeded it not, such is the power of hate! With inexhaustible patience, he followed clue after clue; he searched for nearly three months, and was at last rewarded by success. Back up to the hills, to a distant village in Gurwalh, among the spectators at a great wrestling-match, he tracked and found Naim Sing!--Naim Sing, surprisingly little changed. Where were the signs of convict labour, the marks of irons, and of that life that burns into a man’s soul? He looked somewhat older, his temples were bald, but his figure was as upright, his foot as firm, his eye as keen as ever. Rateeban swore to him, with fervour, as an escaped convict, and had him instantly arrested. There was no doubt of his identity; there was the self-inflicted scar on his leg, the bone in his arm which had been broken by wrestling. The criminal was brought back to Almora, in order to be arraigned for unlawful return from transportation, and tried under section 226 of the Indian Penal Code.

The tidings of the resurrection and return of Naim Sing was passed by word of mouth from village to village. His father and brethren, his friends and relations, and those of Johar and Rateeban, and, in short, everybody’s friends, flocked into Almora to attend the trial. The case was heard in the court-house, which stands within the old fort; and not only was the court itself crammed to suffocation, but the crowds overflowed the surrounding enclosure, even down the narrow stone steps, and away into the streets. Thousands and thousands were assembled, and as the days went on the interest quickened, and the case became a matter of furious contention between two factions--for and against: the party who declared the culprit was indeed the real, true, and only Naim Sing, and the party who swore that he was _not_. Fierce feuds were engendered, torrents of abuse and angry blows were exchanged,--blood was freely shed.

All Kumaon and Gurwalh had encompassed Almora like an invading army, and Kumaon, Gurwalh, and the respectable Goorka station itself, were in an uproar, and seething like a witches’ cauldron.

The prisoner stood up boldly, as befitted the namesake of the lion, and confronted his accusers with a haughty and impassive mien. But surely--surely those keen grey eyes were the eyes of Naim Sing!

“I am not the criminal,” he declared. “Who is this Naim Sing--this murderer? and what hath he to do with me? Behold I am Krookia, and my father is Rusool Sing, who lives in the village of Tolee; my star is Jeshta and Ras, and my horoscope is with Gunga Josh, if he be yet alive.”

Moreover, he brought witnesses, and the certificate of Naim Sing’s death in Moulmein jail.

“The people of the pergunnah, which you aver that you belong to, do not know you,” said the Crown prosecutor. “But Rateeban recognized you; how can you explain that?”

“There be two Rateebans,” was the glib answer, “and one is mine enemy.”

“Strange that Rateeban, the enemy of Naim Sing, is your enemy also.”

“I doubt not that the lame dog--may his race be exterminated!--hath many foes. I know him not. He hath been the means of sending one man to prison for life, and now, behold, he would despatch another. It is a vicious ambition. As for the people of my village, lo! many years ago, I found a treasure, and my neighbours quarrelled and beat and robbed me. They have no desire to recall their own black deeds, nor my face. I fled to the plains, where I have taken road contracts for the Sirkar, and prospered.”

“Naim Sing also found a treasure,” said the advocate. “Does the land in these hills yield so many of these crops?”

“By your honour’s favour, I cannot tell. I found one treasure, to my cost. Money is a man-slayer.”

Many witnesses recognized or repudiated the prisoner, and there was hard swearing on both sides.

At length a young Baboo from Allahabad was put forward--a keen, intelligent, brisk-looking youth, wearing a velvet cap and patent leather boots, embellished with mother-of-pearl buttons.

“Twenty years ago I dwelt in Bareilly,” he said. “There were four of us children, my mother, and my father, who was sick unto death. The jail daroga, who was his kinsman, came to him privily one night, and whispered long. I was awake, being an-hungered, and heard all that was said.

“‘Lo! Gunesheb, thou art my kinsman. Thou art poor and sick, thy days are numbered; wouldst thou die a rich man?’

“‘Would I die in Paradise?’ said my father.

“‘A gang of convicts pass here to-morrow, on their way to Calcutta and Moulmein beyond the sea. Wilt thou take the place of one of them? Thou art his size and height; thou hast not long to live, he has a strong young life; and in return for thy miserable body he will give four hundred rupees, ten pairs of pearls, one pair of gold bangles, and three ponies.’

“My father went forth that same hour with the jail daroga, and returned no more. Next day my mother wept sore; yea, even though she had gold bangles on her arms, very solid, and pearls and silver in a cloth; also there were three ponies, strong and fat, in our yard. Later, she took us to see when the convicts passed along the road, and we rode on the ponies beside them for two days. She told the warders she had a brother, falsely accused, who was in the gang. He wore a square cap pulled far over his eyes, and he coughed as he marched. As we left, he embraced me tenderly, by favour of the warders. I knew he was my father. Afterwards we went south, and returned to Bareilly no more.”

Thus Gunesheb had bartered away his few remaining months of life for the benefit of his family, and Naim Sing had spread a bold free wing, and enjoyed his liberty for twenty years! He had the ceaseless craving of a born hill-man to return to the mountains. The line of snows edging the burnt-up plains had drawn him like a magnet. Slowly but surely, becoming reckless with time and impunity, he had cast fear and caution to the winds, as once more the smell of the pine-needles and of the wood smoke crept into his blood!

As he sat in the dock, the prisoner deliberately scanned every face with an air of lofty indifference. He swore to the last that “he was Krookia, the son of Rusool Sing,” but no respectable land-owner identified him under that name. Moreover, the wife of Naim Sing had been recognized at her native place wearing her rings and bangles, sure and certain token that her husband was _alive_; and in the face of overwhelming evidence, the culprit was sentenced for the second time on the same spot to be transported beyond the seas for the term of his natural life.

Then Naim Sing arose, tall and erect, a dignified and impressive figure, carrying his two-score years with grace, and made a most powerful and thrilling appeal in his own defence--an appeal for an innocent man, who was about to be banished for ever from his home and country, because, forsooth, his features had the ill fortune to resemble those of a dead murderer!

During his speech, one could almost hear a leaf fall outside the court. The previous quiet had now changed to what resembled a hush of awe. The audience within and without--the windows and doors stood wide, and exhibited an immense sea of human heads--hung with avidity on each sonorous syllable. Not a gesture, not a glance was lost. So stirring and impassioned was his eloquence, that every heart was shaken, and many were moved to tears. But the condemned man pleaded his cause in vain; in fact, his silver tongue afforded but yet another proof of his identity. His fate was sealed. Fearing a public tumult, he was removed secretly ere dawn, marched down the mountain sides for the last time, despatched to the Andamans,--and there he died.

So ended a trial that lasted many days, that was more discussed and fought over than any law-suit of the period; a case which is fiercely argued and hotly debated even to the present hour; a cause which has divided scores of households and separated chief friends. For there are some who declare that the real Naim Sing expired in Moulmein jail khana nineteen years previously, and that the vengeance of Rateeban demanded two lives for one; also that the heavily bribed son of Gunesheb had borne black false witness, his father having died in his own house; and that, of a truth, an innocent man was condemned to transportation and death: but there be some who think otherwise.

AN OUTCAST OF THE PEOPLE.

“Pushed by a power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown,
We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips to a stone.”
Sir A. Lyall.

Jasoda was seventeen years of age, and fair as a sunrise on the snows. She dwelt in a district not far from the Goomptee river, among the wheat and poppy fields that are scattered over Rohilcund.

As a little girl, all had gone well with her; she was petted and caressed; she played daily in the sun with other village children, erecting palaces and temples with dust and blossoms; her hair was carefully plaited and plastered with cocoanut oil; she wore a big nose-ring, anklets, and bangles--not brass or pewter, but real silver ones, for she was married to the heir of a rich thakur, a delicate, puny boy of her own age. But one rains he died, and there was sore, sore lamentation. Had Jasoda realized what his death signified to her, she would have wailed ten times louder than any paid mourner; but ignorance was surely bliss, and she was not _very_ sorry, for Sapona had been greedy, fretful, and tyrannical. He had often struck her, pinched her, and pulled her long plaits, or run screaming with tales to his mother--a fat woman with a shrill tongue and a heavy arm--whom Jasoda feared.

But after Sapona had been carried away to the burning ghâut, all seemed changed; every one appeared to hate Jasoda, yea, even her own grandmother. Her ornaments were taken off, her head was shorn, her cloth, though white, was coarse and old; there were no more games under the tamarind trees, and no more sweets. Jasoda’s life was blighted in the bud, for, at the tender age of six, she was that miserable outcast, a Braminee widow. Poor pariah! she would stand aloof, with wide-open wistful eyes (ostentatiously shunned by the other children in the courtyard), and wonder what it all meant. She would piteously inquire of her grandmother, as the crone sat spinning cotton, “What she had done. Wherefore might she not eat with her, and why did Jooplee push her, and strike her, if she approached her? and wherefore did her mother-in-law, and other women, hold aside their clothes lest she should touch them as she passed?”

“The shadow of a widow is to be dreaded, and--it is the custom, it is our religion,” muttered the old woman, as if speaking to herself. No doubt the days of suttee were better; then the girl had one grand hour, applauded by the world; she was holy and sanctified, and hers was a glorious triumph as she walked in procession behind the tom-toms, whilst thousands looked on with awe, and the devout pressed forward to touch her garments. Was not a moment like that worth years of drudgery and misery, blows and scorn? True, at the end of the march, there was the funeral pyre under the peepul tree; but if there was oil among the faggots, and the wood was not too green, and the priests plied the suttee with sufficient bhang, it was nought! And her screams were always drowned in the shouting and the tom-toms. She herself had seen a suttee; yes, and the girl was forced into it. She had no spirit; she wept, and shrieked, and struggled,--so people had whispered,--but her relations drove her to the faggots, for the family of a suttee are held in much esteem! Truly it were better for Jasoda, this child with the beautiful face, to have died for the honour of her people than to live to be their scapegoat and their slave!

As years went on, and hot weather, monsoon, and cold season passed, and crops were sown and cut, and there were births and marriages and deaths, Jasoda grew up. She was now seventeen, and very fair to see. Her mother-in-law hated her, as did also her brother; and, more than all, her brother’s wife, and her sisters-in-law. In spite of their fine silk sarees and gold ornaments, they were but little stars, whilst this accursed girl was as the sun at noonday!

Jasoda was the drudge of the family,--a large clan, dwelling, as is customary, within the same enclosure. These courtyards, built irregularly, somewhat resemble a child’s house of cards; narrow footpaths between the mud walls compose the village streets. You may steer your way among these beaten tracks, and beneath these sun-baked entrenchments, and never see a single house; merely various postern doors which enclose a space, possibly containing ten hovels, and as many families. One of the largest courtyards in the village belonged to Padooram, the brother of Jasoda; he was the richest man in the whole pergunnah, owned land and cattle and plough bullocks, and had no bunnia’s claims to disquiet his sleep. His wife, a fat, pock-marked woman, boasted real gold bangles, and a jewelled nose-ring, and was the envy of her sex. There was Jasoda’s father and mother-in-law, and Monnee and Puthao, their married daughters; her younger brother; his wife and family; also her old grandmother; and Jasoda was the servant of them all. Truly they were hard masters and merciless mistresses. She, their slave, arose at dawn. She drew water till her arms ached. She ground meal, and cooked, and polished the brass cooking-vessels; she carried the clothes of these households to the ghât, and washed them; she minded the children, and milked the buffaloes, and herded the cattle. More than this, when one of the plough bullocks was sick, her brother placed the yoke on Jasoda’s shoulders, and drove her as companion to the spotted ox, up and down the long furrows, and in the sight of all people. To them it was as nought; no one cried shame, or pitied her--she was only a _widow_. In the harvest season there was much to do, from daylight till dusk, cutting cane and corn, and carrying and stacking, and working at the sugar-press. Sometimes, strong girl as she was, Jasoda wept from sheer weariness. Yet, for all this toil, she barely got enough to keep her from semi-starvation. She was flung the scraps that were left from meals, as well as the rags of the family. Nor did she ever receive one kind word or look, not even from her grandmother. However, she was amply compensated for this cruel indifference from another source. Many were the kind words and looks bestowed on her by the young men of the village; but Jasoda was proud. Jooplee, her sister-in-law, famed for the most evil mind and wicked tongue within many koss, even _she_ could find no cause of offence in her drudge, save that she was the fairest maiden in all the taluka, and this fault she punished with the zeal and vigour of an envious and ugly woman! Jasoda was desperately unhappy. What had she done to men or gods, to be treated thus cruelly? And there was nothing to look forward to, even in twenty years’ time. Her present lot would only be altered by death--and after death? There was no future existence for such as _she_. Many a time she crept away, and poured out all her wrongs to the squat stone idol daubed with red paint, whose temple was the shade of the peepul tree. She asked him, “Why women were ever born into the land?” and besought his help with tears and passionate pleadings. In vain she cried, “Ram, ram,” and took him offerings of flowers, and gashed her arm with a sickle, and shed her hot young blood before him. He maintained his habitual placid pose, his vacant stare, his graven grin, and gave no sign. No, at the end of six weary moons there was still no answer to her prayers. Heart-sick, Jasoda now went and gazed longingly at the river. She stole away to visit it whilst her relations took their midday rest in the cane-fields. Alas! it was very low, and fat muggers lay upon its grey mud banks, as lazy as so many logs of wood, though their evil little eyes were active enough--watching for floating corpses. No, no; a big rapid torrent in the rains, with a strong flood, fed by the far-away snows, rushing boldly onward, bearing great blocks of foam on its brown bosom,--into _that_ she could cast herself, but not into one of these slow, slimy channels, creeping past greasy banks, whereon ravenous alligators would battle for her body.

As time advanced, the tyranny of the family became more oppressive, and Jasoda threw patience to the winds--indeed, it had long been threadbare. To be sent five or six koss in the burning June sun, to gratify the momentary whim of Taramonnee, a child, or, rather, imp of five, was beyond endurance, and represented the proverbial “last straw.” The domestic martyr being hopeless and desperate, now turned on her tormentors, as a leopardess at bay. Why should she be as an ox, a beast of burthen, all her days? She gave shrill invective for invective, accepted curses and blows with sullen indifference, and refused to work beyond a certain portion. Yea, they might kill her, if they so willed; it would be all the better; and she oscillated between fits of hot passion and moods of cold obstinacy. Her aged grandmother could not imagine what had happened to the household slave. She was usually so long-suffering, so easily driven and abused. The hag and the other women put their heads together and took counsel, whilst the rebel sat aloof in a dark corner of her hut, like some wild animal in its den, her fixed dark eyes staring out on the glaring white courtyard with an expression of intense, hopeless despair. She hated every one. She felt that she could almost kill them. Truly she had been born in an evil hour and under an evil star, and she cursed both hour and planet. There were Junia and Talloo, girls who had played with her: each had a husband and babies and bangles; yea, and cows of their own. Why was she beaten and half starved, and treated like a stray pariah dog? She was handsomer than either. Isa, the son of Ganga, had told her that her eyes were stars, her teeth as seed pearls, and her lips like the bud of the pomegranate; yet these fat, ugly women slept at ease on their charpoys, whilst she toiled in the cold grey dawn or in the scorching noonday heat!

Above all creatures who breathed, she detested Jooplee, her sister-in-law, the mother of Taramonnee; and next to her, Taramonnee, a shrill-voiced, malignant imp, who pinched and bit her secretly, and who once--when she was tied up and beaten--danced before her, and made mouths at her and mocked her, clapping her hands with fiendish ecstasy.

For many months a great fire had been smouldering in Jasoda’s heart, and woe be to the hand that stirred it! Once more it was the cane-cutting season, and she was toiling hard all day, reaping and carrying and stacking. She was very very weary, and whilst the carts lumbered villagewards with the last load, she sat down under a peepul tree to rest. It was the soft hour of sunset, the cattle were going home, bats were flickering to and fro, the low evening smoke lay like a pale blue veil over the land: smoke from fires where many hungry people were baking the universal chupatti. Jasoda fell fast asleep, and dreamt. Her dreams were pleasant, for she dreamt that she was dead. Suddenly she was rudely awoke by an agonizing pain. No, it was not a snake-bite; it was a pinch from the sharp strong fingers of Jooplee’s daughter, who, gazing intently into her face, cried with malicious glee--

“Ah, lazy one, arise and work! I shall tell of thee, and to-night thou shalt be beaten. The neighbours refuse to believe that father beats thee, because thou dost not scream. Mother said so. But thou shalt scream to-night, so that thy cries can be heard as far as the bunnia’s shop. Get up, pig!” And she pushed her with her foot.

It needed but a touch like this to rouse the sleeping flame. Instantly Jasoda sprang erect, rage in her heart and murder in her eye. At least she would rid herself of this insect, and, snatching up a stone, she dashed it at the child with all the force of a muscular arm, and with the fury of years of repressed passion. The aim was true, and Taramonnee fell. For a second her limbs twitched convulsively, and then she lay still--oh, tragically still.

“Rise!” screamed Jasoda. “Rise! and may thine eyes be darkened, thou little devil!”

But there was no movement; Taramonnee was evidently stunned. Jasoda stooped and raised her, whilst a terrible fear crept over her. The child’s head fell back, her hand dropped. Was it possible? Could she be _dead_? Yes, she was dead, though she had not meant to kill her; and, since she could not bring her to life, what was she to do? She gazed with horror at this awful, motionless thing, whose life she herself had taken, oh, how easily! She could no longer endure those staring, glazing eyes, she must put them out of her sight. Raising the limp body with a supreme effort, she carried it in her arms to a dry well at some distance, and then averting her face, she threw it down. It struck against the sides, with a dull muffled sound, and fell to the bottom with a hideous crash that made her shudder. As Jasoda went slowly homewards, she was conscious that she was now the same as Moola, the son of Maldhu, who had cut his wife’s throat with a sickle; or the city girl, who drowned her baby in the tank in the Mango tope. She cooked the evening meal as usual, and heard Jooplee inquire for Taramonnee, and send to seek her at a neighbour’s; presently she became anxious, talked of snakes, hyenas, and devils, and even went herself to each postern door, and called, “Taramonnee, Taramonnee;” but she never once thought of inquiring about her from the sullen girl who was washing the cooking-pots. The old grandmother said soothingly, “Surely she hath gone with Almonee, who lives across the river.” But this did not satisfy her anxious parent, and the neighbourhood was summoned, and a great search made. It was full moon--a splendid harvest moon--and bright as day. All night long Jasoda lay awake, watching the moonbeams and listening to the melancholy howl of the jackals, and the heavy thud of the ripe banka fruit as it fell in the courtyard. Should she run away or stay? she asked herself. She debated the vital question long, and finally resolved that she would abide and await her fate! She was weary of life. Why prolong it? The river was low; best perish by the rope, and thus end all. At least she would have rest and peace, and perhaps a new and better life in another world.

At daybreak, the body of Taramonnee was brought in and laid before her mother, who tore her hair in a frenzy, and beat her head against the wall. The hakim was summoned, and solemnly declared that the child had not met her death by accident. No; behold, there was the blow on her temple; of a surety, she had been murdered,--and by whom? Jooplee read the answer in Jasoda’s eyes.

“Yes, I struck her,” admitted the girl boldly. “She came to me by the cane-field, and pinched me sorely when I was asleep. I am _glad_ she is dead.”

She repeated the same story to four police, who arrived at noon, and bound her arms, and led her away to jail. She suffered it to be believed that she had murdered the child in cold blood, and thrown her down the well. Jasoda’s case was unusually simple; there was but a brief trial. The culprit offered no defence, and had apparently no friends. It was known that she had always hated Taramonnee and her mother; she had found the former alone, had slain her,--and was glad. Her own mouth destroyed her. The village was in a ferment. The court was crowded; Jooplee and her people were ravening for revenge. As for Jasoda’s kindred, they knew she must be hanged--which thing was worse than suttee--disgrace instead of glory would cover them! When asked if she had aught to say, Jasoda stood up before the judge, a beautiful young creature, with the passionate dark eyes and the regular features of her race, and the form of a Grecian nymph, and answered distinctly--

“No, my lord sahib, I care not for my life; and, if it is the will of the sirkar, let them take it.” To herself she said, “Better this end than the other; the river is low.”

As Jasoda lay under sentence of death, her venerable grandmother bestirred herself to save her. She was a shrivelled, hideous old hag, with a ragged red chuddah over her head, and she sat at the gate of the judge’s compound daily, and cried for the space of two hours without ceasing.

“Do hai! Do hai! Do hai!” _i.e._ “Mercy! mercy! mercy!” She then adjourned to the cantonment magistrate’s abode, and shrieked the same prayer outside his gates; and finally to the civil surgeon’s, who was also the jail superintendent; and to him, for this reason, she devoted one hour extra, and her voice never once failed. Thus much for being the scold of the village! There was intense excitement in the neighbourhood as the day of execution drew nigh, and lo! one evening, when a great gallows was raised on the maidan, there were already collected thousands of people, precisely as if it were some holy spot, a scene of pilgrimage--all attracted by the same desire--to see a woman hanged!

It was indeed a grand tamasha. The crowds far surpassed in numbers those who assembled at the yearly feast. The local inhabitants noted with complacency the hundreds of total strangers who came for many miles on foot, on ponies, or in ekkas. Old Sona ceased now to scream and beat her breast. She felt like one of the actors in a tremendous tragedy, and was the object of a certain amount of curiosity and attention--a position that was entirely novel, and--alas! alas! that it must be chronicled--secretly enjoyed. The sun rose on the fatal day--the last sunrise Jasoda would ever see--the great prison gates opened, and a body of police marched slowly forth. Then came Jasoda, walking between two warders. There was a murmur among the throng. She was surprisingly fair to behold, and for once in her life she wore a dress like girls of her class. A wealthy and eccentric woman in the city had sent it to her. Yes, she was as fair as the newly risen dawn. She stood and steadily surveyed the immense expectant multitude. She recognized the eyes of many people from her own village fixed upon her with a mixture of interest and awe. She beheld her old grandmother, and her brother, and Moonee, and Pathoo, and Jai Singh, the son of Herk Singh, who had compared her to Parbutti herself and to the new moon. It seemed to her that to be the centre of interest to so vast a throng was almost as fine as a suttee! The last moment arrived, and the superintendent asked her if she had anything to say, any bequests to make.

“Bequests!” and she almost laughed. “Truly I have nothing in the world save a few rags. But thou mayest give my body to my grandmother; she seems sorry. I have nothing to say. The child hurt me, and I struck her. I meant not to kill her; nevertheless, she died; that is all. She is dead, and I shall soon be dead also.”

Jasoda’s fortitude did not fail her--no, not when her arms were pinioned, her petticoats tied about her feet, the cap drawn over her face. She never once quailed or trembled.

* * * * *

When the body had been cut down, and the crowd had dispersed, the superintendent sent for the old grandmother, who came, dry-eyed and fierce.

“It is somewhat against rules,” he said, “but I am going to grant you the girl’s only request: she said you were to have her body--take it away, and burn it!”

“I!” shrieked the harridan. “_I_ touch her after the dones (hangmen) have laid their hands on her! _I_, a high-caste Braminee! Do with the carrion as thou wilt!” and she spat on the ground and went her way. Thus, after death, neglect and scorn pursued poor hot-tempered Jasoda, even to the grave.

Nevertheless, had she but known it, her wrongs were most amply avenged. Who was there to do the work of the family--nay, of five families? She who had been their slave for years was sorely missed. The lazy, useless womenkind had now to cook and bake, draw water and feed cows, and grumbled loudly and quarrelled savagely among themselves--yea, even to blows--though the task of one was now portioned among so many. The patient, graceful figure, toiling to and from the well, or laden with wood or fodder, was no longer to be met, and was missed by more than her own household.

“She was the fairest girl in all the district,” said Gopal, the bunnia’s son. “There was no joy in her life, she seemed glad to die. Truly her execution was a grand tamasha, and brought many strangers from afar.”

This was her epitaph.

Jasoda’s name is still green in the memory of the villagers of Sharsheo; not that they acknowledge any special claim on her part to beauty, virtue, or martyrdom, but simply because it is not easy to forget that Jasoda, the daughter of Akin-alloo, and the widow of Sapona, was hanged.

AN APPEAL TO THE GODS.

“We be the gods of the East,
Older than all;
Masters of mourning and feast,
How shall we fall?”

Within forty miles of where the Himalayas rise from the plains, and the sunrise unveils the blushing snows--and precisely half a koss from the Kanāt river--lies the hamlet of Haru, surrounded by a tangle of castor-oil plants, mango trees, and tamarinds, and standing in the midst of a fertile tract of cane, corn, and poppy. The scarlet-and-white poppies, the stiff, green cane, the waving yellow wheat, also the village (which boasted nine hundred souls at the last census), were the joint property of two wealthy zemindars. The northern part of Haru--including the crops sown for the opium department--was the inheritance of Durga Pershad, a tall, dark, gaunt man, with an unpleasant and sinister expression. The wheat, cane, and southern end of the town belonged to Golab Rai Sing, who bore but a scant resemblance to his name--“the King of Roses;” he was, in fact, a stout, smiling, pock-marked person, with a glib tongue, and a close fist. These two zemindars hated one another as thoroughly as men in their position were not only bound, but born to do. They had not merely been bequeathed adjoining lands, and a whole village between them, but a venerable blood feud, which had been conscientiously handed down from generation to generation.

In good old days--days within living memory--there had been desperate outbreaks, dacoities, and murders, attended with the usual sequel: hanging or imprisonment beyond the seas. Now, in more civilized times (although the vital question of the well by the temple was yet in abeyance, passed on from collector to collector), the rival factions were content with pounding each other’s cattle, burning each other’s fodder, and blackening each other’s characters. Both had a large following of tenants, relations, parasites; and he who brought tidings that evil had befallen the enemy was a truly welcome guest! When the great men met, they simply scowled and passed on their way, and their women-folk laid every sin to the charge of their neighbours that it is possible for the depraved imagination of a practised native slanderer to conceive.

Golab Rai Sing was the richer of the two zemindars, though Durga Pershad owned a larger extent of ground; but it was whispered that he had lost much money in a law-suit, and that Muttra Dass (the soucar) held a mortgage on his best crops; nevertheless, he carried his head high, and his wife had real silver tyres to the wheels of her ekka!

It was the first moon in the new year, and the collector’s camp was pitched under the mango tope, between the village and the river; he had but recently returned from two years’ furlough, and from the whirl of politics and the turmoil of life at high pressure; also, he was new to the district.

As he stood meditating on the river bank at dawn, and saw the snows rise on the horizon with the sun, watched the strings of cattle soberly threading their way to pasture, heard the doves cooing in the woods, and the rippling of the river through the water plants, he said to himself, “Here at least is rest and peace.” Casting his eyes toward the red-roofed houses, half concealed among bananas and cachar trees,--with their exquisite purple flowers--

“I am not sure that these people have not six to four the best of it,” he remarked aloud (no one but his dog received this startling confidence), as he gazed enviously at a group of lean brown Brahmins who were dipping piously in the Kanāt, and pouring water from their brass lotahs; he thought of his own tailor’s and other bills, his wife’s insane extravagance, her flirtations, his hard work, his years of enforced exile.

“Yes,” he continued, “_we_ know nothing about it. We wear ourselves out running after phantoms. Here is contentment, assurance of future happiness, and present peace.”

But then, you see, he was a new man--a visionary--and was totally ignorant of the internal condition of this picturesque and primitive hamlet.

The same day, as in duty bound, the two zemindars, each mounted on a pony, and followed by a crowd of retainers, waited upon the collector sahib, apparently on the most amicable terms. Just once a year they were compelled to masquerade as friends, though when they had the collector’s ear in private audience, their mutual complaints were both numerous and bitter. They bore, as offerings, fruit and wreaths of evil-smelling marigolds (that noxious flower so amazingly dear to the native of India); also Golab Rai Sing carried with him one thing which his rival lacked, and that was his son and only child, Soonder--_i.e._ “the beautiful”--a lively boy of five years, who was gaily attired in a rose-coloured satin coat, and wore a purple velvet cap and gold bangles. He was a sharp and unquestionably spoiled urchin. He sat with his father and friends, or with his mother and her associates, and listening open-eared, like the proverbial little pitcher, heard many things that were not good for his morals--heard perpetual ridicule and abuse of the enemy of his house; therefore, when he encountered Durga Pershad in fields or byways, he made hideous grimaces at him, squinted significantly, and called him “dog,” “pig,” “robber”--behaviour that naturally endeared him to Pershad, who yearned with irrepressible craving to find him alone! Subsequently the heir of Golab Rai Sing would return to his fond parents, boast of his performance, and receive as reward and encouragement lumps of sticky cocoanut and deliciously long, wormy native sweets.

On the supreme occasion of the yearly reception, the child Soonder was as prettily behaved and hypocritical as his elders. The collector’s lady noticed him--and that publicly. She knew better than to say he was a handsome boy (for, if she had no fear of the evil eye, it was otherwise with her audience), but she gave him a picture paper, and a battledore and shuttlecock, and his father swelled, beamed, and literally shone with pride--for was not the presentation made in the face of childless Durga Pershad, and all the elders of the people? And greater glory was yet in store for this fortunate zemindar. The collector, having looked over various papers, and heard witnesses (many false), actually deigned to visit the well in person, and concluded what he considered a shamefully procrastinated case, and finally made over the Kooah well, and all its rights, to Golab Rai Sing and his heirs for ever!

That night Golab made a great feast to all his followers, and bitter were the thoughts of his defeated rival, as he lay sleepless on his string charpoy, listening to the devilish exultation implied by the ceaseless tom-toms.

As days went on, his thoughts became still more poignant; it seemed to him that his friends were showing defection. Golab Rai had fine crops, on which there was no lien; he had a son to light the torch of his funeral pyre; he had the well. Of a truth, he had _too_ much! And he, Pershad, had been flung in the dust, like a broken gurrah. Thus he reflected as he sat brooding on the river-bank at sundown. The cattle were strolling home through the marshes, the cranes were wheeling overhead, close by a fierce, lean, black pariah gnawed some mysterious and ghastly meal among the rushes, and on a sandbank lay three huge alligators--motionless as logs of wood--crafty as foxes, voracious as South Sea sharks. Durga Pershad glanced indifferently at the cattle, at the cranes, but as his eyes fell on the alligators they kindled, they blazed with a truly sinister flash--the alligators had offered him an idea!

* * * * *

It was the feast of lights or lanterns, the festival of Lucksmi, wife of Vishnu, and the goddess of festival. She, however, brought naught but sore misfortune to the house of Golab Rai, for since sundown the child was missing--was gone, without leaving a trace. Amongst the busy excitement of preparing the illuminations and decorations, he had vanished. His mother supposed he was with his father, and his father believed him to be with his mother. Every house, byre, and nook--yea, even the well, was searched in vain. Durga Pershad was humbly appealed to, as he sat on his chabootra stolidly smoking his huka.

“Why question me?” he replied. “How should I know aught of the brat? What child’s talk is this?”

A whole day--twenty-four long hours--elapsed, and suspicion pointed a steady finger at Durga Pershad. Of late it was noticed that he and the child had been friends--that he had given Soonder sweets--yea, and a toy. One man averred that he saw a pair resembling them going towards the river about sundown. The child was jumping for joy, and had a green air-balloon in his hand.

This, Durga Pershad swore, was a black lie; he had never left the village; his kinsman could speak.

“For how much?” scoffed the other side. “What fool will credit a man’s relations?”

Four days passed, and Golab Rai had aged by twenty years. His round, fat face was drawn and shrivelled; he was bent like an aged man, and tottered as he walked.

As for his wife, she had almost lost her senses, though both she and her husband clung wildly to hope, and he had lavished money unsparingly in rewards and horse-flesh. As a last resource, the miserable mother of Soonder came and cast her dishevelled person at the feet of Durga Pershad--Durga Pershad, whom all her life she had mocked, reviled, and figuratively spat upon.

“Take all I possess!” she cried--“my jewels, my eyes, my very life; but tell me what thou hast done with him? Doth he yet live? My life, all thou wilt, for his!”

As she spoke, a little cap was brought--a velvet cap, soaking with water. It had been found by a fisherman three miles down the river.

This was sufficient answer to the question, “Doth he yet live?” The child was no more, his cap bore witness; and Gindia, his mother, swooned as one that was dead.

Yes, Soonder had been thrown to the alligators, without doubt; cast into their jaws, like a kid or a dog. In their mind’s eye, the villagers beheld the hideous scene, they heard the shriek, saw the splash, and the ensuing scuffle. What death should Durga Pershad die?

The whole place was in an uproar; excitement was at fever heat. The police were sent for to Hassanpore, the nearest large station, and the suspected zemindar was marched away, and lodged in the Jail Khana; even his own people were dumb.

Durga Pershad stoutly avowed his innocence by every oath under a Hindoo heaven. He engaged, at enormous expense, an English pleader from Lucknow. He paid much money elsewhere. There was no case. If one man swore he met him with the child at sundown on the feast of lights, there were five unshaken witnesses who had seen him at the same hour in the village.

Therefore Durga Pershad was acquitted; and, moreover, in the words of the Sudder judge, “without a stain on his character!”

Nevertheless, matters were not made equally agreeable for him at home. His own partisans--save his tenants--held aloof with expressive significance, and those who were wont to assemble on his chabootra of an evening to smoke, argue, and bukh, were reduced by more than half.

But he held his head as high as ever, whilst that of his enemy lay low, even to the dust. Of what avail now to Golab Rai were his crops, his rents, his great jars of “ghoor” (coarse sugar), even his well, when he had no longer a child--a son and heir?

The immediate effects of the tragedy gradually faded away; it had ceased to be the sole daily topic, and it was again winter-time. One chill, starlight evening, as Durga Pershad was riding home alone among the cane-fields, he was suddenly set upon by a number of men, who had lain in ambush in the crops. A cloth was thrown over his head, he was dragged off his pony, and hustled into a doolie, which set off immediately, and at great speed. There were many riding and running beside it--the terrified prisoner heard the sound of steps and hoofs and muttered voices. It seemed to him that he travelled for days; but, in truth, he had only journeyed twenty hours, when he was suddenly set down, the sliding door was pushed back, and he was hauled forth. He found himself standing in a temple (an unknown temple), and by the light of blazing torches he recognized at least one hundred familiar faces, including those of Golab Rai and the priest of the village of Haru. He was so cramped and dazed that at first he could only stagger and blink; but as his hands were untied, he found his voice.

“What foul deed is this?” he demanded hoarsely. “Where am I?”

“Thou art within the most holy temple of Gola-Gokeranath,” answered the priest, impressively. “We have appealed to man for justice--and in vain. Therefore, we now approach the gods! Is it not so, my brothers?”

The reply was a prolonged murmur of hoarse assent from the quiet, fierce-eyed crowd.

“Behold the image of Mahadeo, the destroyer!” continued the priest, pointing to a conical stone in the middle of the temple, on which the holy Ganges water dripped without ceasing. “Here is the mark of Hanuman’s thumb, where he rested on his way to Ceylon to war against the great giant Ravan.”

A venerable Mahant, or high-priest of the Gosains, now advanced, and said, in a voice tremulous with age--

“Lay thy hand upon this spot, O Durga Pershad, and swear as I shall speak.”

Durga Pershad held back instinctively, but the pressure of fifty arms constrained him, and he yielded.

“If I have had part or lot in the death of Soonder, the son of Golab Rai Sing----”

There was an expressive pause for a full moment, and no sound was audible save the slow, monotonous dripping of the sacred stream.

Durga Pershad shuddered, but repeated the sentence somewhat unsteadily.

“--I call upon Mahadeo, the most holy, the destroyer, to smite me with the black leprosy in the sight of all men, and that within three moons. May I die in torture, and by piecemeal. May I be abhorrent alike to men and gods, and after death, may I hang by my feet for one thousand years above a fire of chaff.”

Durga Pershad echoed this hideous sentence with recovered composure. Truly, it was a vast relief to find that his end was not yet--his life in no present danger.

Here was a weird and ghostly scene! The dark, damp temple, at dead of night, the crowd of stern, accusing countenances, lit up by flashes of torchlight, the austere high-priest in his robe of office, and the haggard culprit, the central figure, glaring defiance, with his uplifted hand upon the cold wet stone! There seemed to the wretched accused some accursed power in this holy image; the stone clung tenaciously to his trembling flesh, and he was sensible of an awful, death-like chill that penetrated to the very marrow of his bones.

* * * * *