Chapter XVIII: Sunset

When Oman opened his eyes again, red dawn was just breaking upon a silent world. Kneeling at the pool, he performed his ablutions, and then walked to the open door. How fragrant the morning was! The air was rich with the perfume of flowers. Even in the early freshness there was a promise of heat; and drowsy bird twitterings complained of it. But Oman, standing quiet in the door of the water-palace, thought not of nature. He was looking out across still Mandu, the conquered land; and the heart in him bled and ached. Yesterday he had fought for his people, his country, his lord. To-day there remained only the bitterness of irretrievable defeat. And Oman’s one thought now was for the people:—the men and women of the fields, who were left to bend beneath the conqueror’s yoke. These lowly ones, for whom he had labored so long, he could help no more. If he went among them to-day, and listened to their plaints, he should have no comfort for them, could counsel nothing but that which it were best for them to learn for themselves:—submission.

Oman, faint from long fasting, leaned his head against the door, and looked out across the quiet fields. His thoughts were turned to strange things. He remembered that it was the fourth day of April:—the day when Mandu was accustomed to worship at the distant tombs of Rai-Khizar-Pál, the Woman, and the Slave. There would be no prayers offered there to-day. What matter? What mattered anything? To the strange one, leaning upon the dawn, came a great peace. Perhaps he slept. Certainly he dreamed; for there passed before him, in the faint light, a pageant of those whom he had known. And they called to him, softly, and welcomed him with greetings. First of all, from out of the long ago, came Kota, his mother, who looked on him with tender eyes, as one who had worshipped her first-born; and, with gentle motions, she beckoned to him. Next was Hushka, the Bhikkhu, clad in worn, yellow robes, with a pale nimbus round his head. There was peace in his shining eyes, and Oman knew that he no longer dreaded the weary eight months’ pilgrimage. He had won his eternal Arahatship. Then followed Churi, madness no longer written in his haggard face. He smiled upon Oman, and called a greeting, in friendly voice. After him came Bhavani, looking as in life, an expression of high dignity mingling with the infinite affection in his face. Behind, moved young Viradha, with many wounds; and Zenaide, newly dead, with lilies in her hands. Slowly, slowly they passed from sight: phantasms, perhaps, of Oman’s brain. He thought them gone, when, out of the gray mist, came two more, hand in hand, spirits interlocked, faint, shadowy, as if they did not live even in their ghostly land: a man and a woman. Seeing them, Oman shuddered violently, and shut his eyes. When he looked again upon the world, there was nothing there. He felt only a great warmth in his heart, a burning eagerness to answer the calling of his dead. Thus he straightened up, and started forth, looking neither to the right nor left, in the direction of the great palace.

His way was lonely. He met no one till he had passed round the building where the Asra chieftain lay asleep. Behind the palace sat a little group of slaves, eating a meal of millet cakes and milk, which they timidly offered to share with Oman. Oman sat with them, and broke their bread, and drank of their simple beverage; then, rising, he offered them a ring which he wore in memory of Bhavani:—a circlet of plain gold; all that he had upon him of any value. Wondering, the simple creatures accepted it, not in payment for what he had eaten, but because high lords walk always abroad with gifts for the poor. And, proffering thanks to Oman and to Vishnu indiscriminately, they watched the hermit begin his descent of the plateau.

It was nearly noon when he stood at last upon the plain. He had been a long time coming down; for he had been often obliged to pause and rest. He began to realize that he was shattered by the struggle of yesterday. Body and nerves played him false, and the result of his many years of austere living suddenly threw itself against him and broke his force. Nevertheless, he proceeded, walking feebly across the plain toward the river bank, wondering a little how, when he had reached the river, he was going to finish his journey. None seeing him would have believed that he could walk five miles more. Yet that was what he had set out to do. He wished to go to the river temple, to pray for the three that were buried there.

His passage across the plain was strangely solitary. The rich fields, in which stood crops already a foot high, the young spears calling for water, were deserted. Here also was the trace of the invader. All the people of the lowland, quickly getting news of Mandu’s disaster, had driven together their herds of cattle and buffalo and retreated with them into the jungle:—a heedless, sheeplike retreat, that lost them their half-year’s crops, but could not make encounter with the soldiers of the Prophet less inevitable.

An hour after noon, weary and faint, tottering, indeed, as he moved, Oman reached the bank of the bright-flowing Narmáda. Here he found that his providence had not deserted him. On the shore, close at hand, drawn a little up from the swift water, lay one of the broad, flat-bottomed boats used occasionally by peasants for ferrying the stream. The guiding-poles lay in it—a fact that told much. Those that had used the boat would not use it again, else they had taken the poles with them. Oman stared at it for a few moments, uncertainly. Then he waded into the water, and dragged it, with great effort, after him. When it was afloat, he threw himself upon it, took one of the poles, pointed his barge down-stream, and then, as the current took it with a rush, lay down supine, folded his arms across his breast, and shut his eyes.

The afternoon of the first day of Mohammedan Mandu was growing late. Yellow shadows lengthened across the fields. To the south, the flat, alluvial plain stretched away, dotted now and then with a mud town, or fringed with the jungle into which, in the India of that day, all civilization sooner or later resolved itself. In the north, not very far distant, rose the great rock of Mandu, crowned with her circle of stone palaces; and back of that, a silent, threatening horde, stood the dark Vindhyas, barriers of the Dekkhan.

Of these things Oman saw none. He knew that they were there, but his eyes were at rest, and the troubles of life and of conquest had left his heart. He was floating swiftly into the sunset. His boat, guided as if by magic, swept on, down the rushing current, till the tiny, dark blot of the temple-tomb grew, and took shape, and drew near upon the right bank. After a time Oman stood up to watch, waiting for a moment when he could beach the boat beside the building. But help was not demanded of his hands. As they neared the destination, the river curved; and suddenly, driven by some counter-current, the boat whirled off and ran aground, exactly in front of the tomb. It was, perhaps, the selfsame twist that had, more than forty years before, thrown the bodies of the man and woman up out of their grim refuge. To him that was waiting to enter the temple, it was a miracle. He felt that he had chosen a true way; that his act in leaving Mandu had been approved by a higher mind than his.

Now, in the golden afternoon, he stood alone before the tomb. A vast stillness encompassed him as he moved forward and unlocked the heavy doors. There, in the dim mustiness of the long-closed place, stood the two sarcophagi; and, as always, when he came alone hither, he had a feeling of intimacy with the dead. But this sense had never been so strong as now. He knelt beside the ashes of Ahalya and Fidá, and prayed to the great Brahm; and, as he prayed, there arose in his breast an overmastering desire:—the desire to lay himself down in the shadows of the little place and sleep. After a time he passed over to the resting-place of the old Rajah, and dumbly craved his forgiveness for the wrong done him by his wife and his slave. Then, finally, he went outside again, and stood upon the bank of the stream.

Sunset had come. The Narmáda rushed by: a tempestuous flood of crimson and gold. The world was alight with fiery glory. It was the sign of the conqueror in the land. Only the being who stood alone in his surrounding solitude, the long years of his expiation and atonement behind him now, could turn his face fearlessly, without dread, toward that coppery sky. As he gazed into it, the gray and violet shadows came stealing out over the splendor. The day was dying. It was again the prophecy of the India that should, in time, conquer its conquerors.

With a palpitating heart, Oman gazed about him, overcome by the strangest emotion. It was as if his souls were straining at their fetters. Yet still there was a sense of desolation, a lack of something that was to come. Darkness was around him. Then suddenly, out of the west, from the now hidden fires there, it appeared:—the slender, gray-winged bird, the mysterious complement of his souls. As of old, straight to his breast it flew, trembling and warm. Clasping it close, Oman lifted his head and murmured softly:

“Lord, it is finished. Let me now go.”

Then he turned, and slowly, very slowly, walked into the temple. One outside, looking in through the shadows, might have perceived that he laid himself down upon the tomb of the two that had sinned of old; and that the bird upon his breast was still. A little later, moved, perhaps, by the evening wind, the doors swung gently to upon the body that had now delivered up its long-imprisoned souls.

* * * * *

What befell on High I do not know. But the hermit of the Silver Peak, the Saint of Mandu, was gone. Nor was he seen upon earth again.

THE END

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