The Heart of Denise, and Other Tales

"Thoba!" laughed Beeroo to himself as he pressed on. "Had the Bunjarees only known who I was, I had heard the whisper of their sticks through the air, and my back might have been sore; but the blessing of Mohonagh is upon me," he chuckled.

Beeroo rested that evening in a cave. He rose at midnight, however, and travelling without a check was by morning ascending the winding road that led to the shrine. He was not alone here, for there were a number of pilgrims toiling up the ascent, halting now and again to take breath, as they wearily climbed the narrow track set in between the red and brown rocks, and overhung by wild apricot and holm-oak. Among the pilgrims were those who, in expiation of their sins, wriggled up the height on their faces like snakes, others who laid themselves flat at every third step, others again who crawled up painfully on their blistered hands and knees; there were women going to thank the god for the blessing of children, bearded Dogras of the hills, ash-covered and ochre-robed mendicants, and a fat mahajun, or money-lender, who had won a lawsuit and ruined a village. All these were hurrying towards the shrine, and their hands were full.

Under the arch of the gateway stood Prem Sagar, the high priest of Mohonagh, and flung grain towards a countless number of pigeons that fluttered and cooed around him. "They are the eyes and ears of the temple," he said to himself as he gazed upon them; "they warn the shrine of danger, they bring the news of the world beyond the hills, they are surer than the telegraph of the Sahibs, for they tell no secrets. Perchance," and he looked down on the specks slowly nearing the gate, "amongst that crowd of fools is Beeroo the Sansi; if so the god will welcome him, and there will be another miracle. Purun Chand!" and he called out to a subordinate priest who approached him reverently, "Purun Chand, awaken the god."

Purun Chand placed a conch-horn to his lips, and blew a long deep-toned call. Its dismal notes were caught up in the hills and echoed from valley to valley, until they died away, moaning in the deeps of the forest. As the call rang out dolefully, the pilgrims ascending the road fell on their knees, and with one voice cast up a wailing cry, "Ai, ai, Mohonagh!" And Beeroo the Sansi, the man of no caste, whose very presence so near the temple was an abomination, shouted the loudest of all.

Half an hour later, Prem Sagar, the high priest, naked to the waist, with his brahminical cord hanging over his left shoulder and a red and white trident painted on his forehead, stood on the stone steps leading up to the shrine, and watched with keen eyes the pilgrims as they came within the temple walls. The devotees took no notice of him, except some of the women who prostrated themselves, while he bowed his head gravely in answer, but said nothing. His lips were muttering prayers in a sing-song tone, but his eyes were tirelessly watching the groups as they came up in files. At last Beeroo appeared, and on his coming to the steps, slightly dragging his left foot, a quick light shone in the high priest's eyes.

"Soh! It is the holy man!" his thoughts ran on. "Gobind Ram did well to warn me of his limp. There too are the five marks of the leopard's claws, running down the inside of the calf." As Beeroo approached the priest, he imitated the action of a woman before him, and prostrated himself. Prem Sagar pretended not to see him; but raised his voice to a loud chant, and repeated the mystic words Om, mane padme, om!2 There was a time when these words caused the heavens to thunder as at the sacred name of Jehovah; but now the limpid blue of the sky was undisturbed, as the priest called out to the jewel in the lotus, the symbol of the Universal God.

"Om, mane padme, om!" repeated Beeroo, and passed into the shrine. He found himself in a room about twenty feet square, the walls and floor blackened by age and by the smoke from the cressets which burned day and night in little niches in the walls. Overhead the vault of the dome was in inky darkness, and in front of him, three-headed and four-armed, painted a bright red, was the grinning idol of Mohonagh. At the feet of the god were the offerings of the pilgrims, and on each side of the idol stood an attendant priest holding a censer, which he swung to and fro, and the fumes from which, heavy with the odour of the wild jasmine and the champac, curled slowly up to the blackened dome. But it was not on the idol, nor on the priests, nor on the worshippers, that Beeroo's eyes were fixed. They were bent to the right of the idol, where the trunk of the Shagul Tree rose from the flooring of the temple like the body of a huge snake, and, escaping outside through a cutting in the wall, spread out into branches and leaves. In fact the temple was built around the tree, and even through the gloom, Beeroo could see that the part of the tree within the temple walls was covered with coins and gems. The coins, old and blackened with smoke, looked like scales on the snake-like trunk of the Shagul Tree: the gold and silver of the jewels were dimmed of their brightness; but through the murky scented atmosphere the Sansi saw the dusky burning red of the ruby, the green glow of the emerald, the orange flame within the opal, and the countless lights in the diamond; and all these came and went like stars twinkling through the veil of a dark night. The Sansi almost gasped, such riches as these were beyond his dreams; they truly meant lakhs of rupees. A single one of the gems would buy him a village and lands; if he could get the whole! His brain almost reeled at the thought, and it was with an effort that he steadied himself, and laying his offering at the feet of the god, backed slowly out of the temple.

Between the outer walls and the shrine was a space about a hundred feet square, shaded by a number of walnut trees. Hither the Sansi betook himself, and placing his earthen bowl on the ground, sat down behind it, staring stolidly before him as if trying to lose himself in that abstraction by which the devotee attains to nirvana. Some of the pilgrims piously dropped food into the vessel; but Beeroo took no heed of this, his eyes were fixed on vacancy, and his mind was revolving many things. So hour after hour passed, and Beeroo still sat motionless as a stone. Prem Sagar approached him once and spoke; but the holy man made no answer, judging it better to pretend to be under a vow of silence, than to betray anything by converse with the Brahmin. The high priest turned away smiling to himself. "Blue-throated Krishna," he murmured, "but the Sansi plays his part well! I had been deceived myself, had I not been warned by the-god," and he walked to the temple gates, and gazed down into the valley beneath him.

At last the strain of the position he had assumed began to tell upon Beeroo. Tough as he was, he had not had practice in those incredible feats of patient endurance to which the regular Bairajis, or holy men, have accustomed themselves. Beeroo would have followed the track of a wounded stag like a jackal for three days; he would lifted a cow at Jagadri at nightfall, and by morning been in the Mohun Pass; he would have danced his tame bear at Umritsur at noontide, and when the moon rose would have been resting at the Taksali Gate of Lahore; but to sit without motion for hour after hour, to sit until his limbs seemed paralyzed and his blood dead-this was unbearable. At all hazards this must be ended; and he suddenly rose, and began to move up and down, gesticulating wildly. The people who looked on thought he was mad, and therefore more holy than ever. They little knew of the method in the Sansi's madness, and that he was making the frozen blood circulate once again in his cramped limbs. When he had done this he came back, ate a little, and coiling himself up in the dust went to sleep, his sack under his head.

By sunset most of the pilgrims had departed from the shrine, leaving only those who, having far to go, determined to camp within the inclosure of the temple walls for the night. They had brought provisions with them, and soon fires were sputtering merrily, and little groups sat around them, enjoying themselves in the subdued fashion of Indians. The holy man was not forgotten; his vessel was soon full of smoking hot cakes of Indian corn, and one kinder than the others placed a brass lota of milk beside him. The holy one proved himself to be very willing to accept these gifts, and doubtless refreshed by his sleep, ate and drank with a very mundane appetite. While thus engaged, a little child came, and placing an offering of a string of flowers at his feet, shyly ran back to his parents. Prem Sagar saw this, and turning to the same priest who had aroused the idol in the morning, said: "Purun Chand, while standing at the temple gates this morning, mine eyes became dim, and there was a roaring in mine ears. Then I heard the voice of the idol of Mohonagh, and he said unto me: 'Five score years have passed to-day since the days of Sham Chand the king, since the days of the high priest Prem Chand, since I, Mohonagh, have spoken. Now to-night is the night of the new moon, and I, Mohonagh, will work a sign.' Then the darkness cleared away, and all was as before. Therefore I say to thee, Purun Chand, let not the idol be watched tonight: let the temple gates be kept open that Mohonagh may enter; and to-morrow at the dawning we shall behold his sign."

Purun Chand bowed his obedience to the high priest; and then the darkness came, and with it the stars, and the thin scimitar of the young moon set slantwise in the sky. Beeroo was in no hurry; he had plenty of time to think out his plan of action, and had resolved to make his attempt in the small hours of the morning, for choice, in that still time between night and day, when all would be asleep, when even if it became necessary to remove an obstacle from his path, on one would hear the stroke of the knife or the groan of the victim. A little after midnight, then, Beeroo arose to his feet, and looked cautiously about him. Everything was very still; the camp-fires burned low and there was no sound except the rustle of the leaves overhead. The tree beneath which he rested was very near to the temple gates, and it struck him that they were open. He crept softly towards them, and found it was as he thought. "The blessing of Mohonagh is on me," he laughed lowly to himself as he came back. He thrust his hand into his sack, and pulled out a light but strong claw-hammer, and a knife with a pointed blade keen as a razor. As he brought them forth they clicked against each other, and in the dead stillness the sharp, metallic sound seemed loud enough to be heard all over the inclosure. Something also disturbed the pigeons on the temple, and there was an uneasy fluttering of wings. The Sansi drew in his breath with a hissing sound. "This will cause a two hours' delay," he said to himself. "I will risk nothing if I can help it." Then he sat him down again and waited.

At last! He rose once more softly, and crept with long cat-like steps towards the entrance of the shrine. The cressets burning within cast a faint pennon of light out of the pointed archway of the entrance, and as they wavered in the night wind, this banner of fire shook and trembled with an uncertain motion. Beeroo halted in the shadow. He was about to step forward again when he was startled by a strange, shrill chuckling cry that made his very flesh creep. He looked around him in fear, and the elvish laugh came again from amidst the leaves of the walnut trees. The man heaved a sigh of relief; "Pah!" he exclaimed in disgust at himself, "it is but a screech-owl." He had to wait a little, however, to steady himself; and then he boldly pressed forward and through the door of the shrine. There was not a soul within. The glimmering lights cast uncertain shadows around them, and the three heads of the idol faced the Sansi in a stony silence. There was but one eye in the centre of each forehead; but all three of these eyes seemed to lighten, and the thick lips on the three faces to widen in a grin of mockery at the thief. Like all natives of India, Beeroo was superstitious, and a fear he could hardly control fell on him. What if, after all, the stories of the idol's power were true? Aladin had not lied about the Shagul Tree; why should he lie about the power of the idol? Still Mohonagh was not the god of the Sansis. He would invoke his own gods, deities of forest and flood, against this three-headed monster. Then the Shagul Tree was there. He could all but touch it; he caught the flash of the winking gems, and the instincts of the robber, fighting with his fears, brought back his courage.

"Aho, Mohonagh! Thy blessing is on me, the Sansi." He said this loudly in bravado, and was almost frightened again at the echoes of his own voice in the vault of the dome. He had spoken with the same feeling in his heart that makes a timid traveller whistle when passing a place he dreads. He had spoken to keep his heart up, and the very sound of his own voice terrified him. At last the echoes died away and there was silence in the shrine. Large beads of sweat stood on the man's forehead. Almost did he feel it in his heart to flee at once; but to leave that priceless treasure now! It could not be. In two strides he was beside the tree. A wrench of the claw-hammer and a jewelled bracelet was in his hand; another wrench and he had secured another blazing trophy.

"Beeroo!"

The man looked up in guilty amazement. To his horror he saw that the three heads of the idol, which were facing the door when he entered, had moved round, and were now facing him. The hammer fell from his hand with a crash, and he stood shivering, a grey figure with staring eyes and open gasping mouth.

"Ai, Mohonagh!" he said in a choking voice.

"The blessing of Mohonagh is on thee;" and something that seemed all on fire rose from behind the idol, and laid its hand on Beeroo's face. With a shriek of agony the Sansi rolled on the floor, and twisted and curled there like a snake with a broken back.

When, roused by his cries, the people and the priests awoke and hurried to the temple, they shrank back in terror; and none dared enter, not even the priests, for from the mouths of the idol three long tongues of flame played, paling the glow of the cressets and throwing its light on the blind and writhing wretch at its feet.

Suddenly a quiet voice spoke at the temple-door, and Prem Sagar the high-priest appeared. "O pilgrims," he said, "be not afraid! Mohonagh has but protected his treasure, and given us a sign. Said I not he would do this, Purun Chand? See," he added, as he stepped into the temple, and lifted up the gems from the floor, "this man would have robbed a god!" And the people, together with the priests, fell on their knees and touched the earth with their foreheads, crying "Ai, ai, Mohonagh!"

Prem Sagar pointed to Beeroo. "Bear him outside the temple-gates and leave him there," he said; "he is blind and cannot see."

Two or three men volunteered to do this, and they bore him out as Prem Sagar had ordered, and cast him on the roadside without the temple-gates; and he, to whom day and night were to be henceforth ever the same, lay there moaning in the dust.

Late that morning certain pilgrims returning to their houses found him there, and, being pitiful, offered to guide him back. It is said that the first question he asked was, "When will it be daylight?" And a Dogra of the hills answered bluntly, "Fool, thou art blind"; whereat the Sansi lapsed into a stony silence, and was led away like a child.

In the tribe of the Sansis, who wander from Tajawala to Jagadhri where the brass-workers are, and from Jagadhri to Karnal, is a blind madman who bears on his scarred face the impress of a hand. It is said that he can cure all diseases at will, for he is the only man living who has stood face to face with a god.

THE FOOT OF GAUTAMA

The Gregory Gasper, or, as the Lascars insisted on calling her, the Gir Giri Gaspa, bound from Calcutta to Rangoon and the Straits, had injured her machinery, and was now going, as it were, on one leg, and going very lamely, across the Bay of Bengal. We had got into a dead calm. The sea and the sky fused into each other in the horizon, and the water around us was as molten glass, parting sluggishly before the bows of the ship, instead of dancing back in a creamy foam.

"By Jove!" said Sladen, as he leaned over the side and watched the lazy brown swell lounge backward from our course, "this is a dirty bit of water: that wave should have had a white head to it. I believe we've got into a sea of flat beer."

"We've got to go to Rangoon for hospital, and this is the outwater of the Irawadi," said a passenger from his seat. "We can't be more than sixty miles from the coast, and an Irawadi flood shoots its slime out quite as far as that."

"I prefer to think it's flat ale. It's too hot to go into physical geography, Burgess"; and Sladen, flinging the half-burnt stump of his cheroot overboard, joined us who sat in torpid silence. The heat was intense. We had tried every known way to kill time, and failed.

The small excitement of the morning, caused by a shoal of turtles drifting by solemnly, had passed. They looked like so many inverted earthen pots in the water, and we had wasted about fifty of the ship's snider cartridges on them, until, finally, they floated out of range and sight, unhurt and safe. Then an Indian Marine vessel passed us in the offing, and there was a hot discussion between Sladen and myself whether it was the Warren Hastings or the Lord Clive. We appealed to the captain, who, being a member of the Royal Naval Reserve, looked with profound scorn on the Indian Marine. He scarcely deigned to glance at the ship as he grunted out:

"Oh, it's one of those damned cockroach navy boats: it's that old tub the Lord Clive," and he walked off to the bridge. Ten minutes afterwards we lost the grey sides of the old tub in the grey of the sea, and a dark line of smoke running from east to west was the only sign of the Lord Clive, as she steamed through the dead calm at fourteen knots an hour. Then we tried nap, we adventured at loo, and we bluffed at poker. There was no balm in them, and Sladen twice held a flush sequence of hearts. Therefore we sat moody and silent, some of us too sleepy even to smoke.

It was at this moment that the skipper rejoined us, and behind him came his stout Madrassee butler, with a tray full of long glasses, in which the ice chinked pleasantly.

"Drink, boys!" he said, settling himself in the special chair reserved for him. "It's the chief's watch, and I've brought you a particular brew, as you seem dull and lonesome, so to speak."

It was a particular brew, and we sucked at it lovingly through the long amber straws.

"Ha!" said the skipper, "I thought that would stiffen your backbones. Phew! it is hot!" and he mopped his face with a huge handkerchief.

Sladen burst out: "We've got absolutely on the hump. Somebody do something to kill time. Can't some of you fellows tell a story? Any lie will do! Come, Captain!"

"No, no!" said the skipper. "I'm the senior officer here, and speak last. Here's Mr. Burgess: he's been in all sorts of uncanny places, and should be able to tell us something. I put the call on him-so heave away."

Burgess, the man who had spoken about the outwater of the Irawadi, leaned back for a moment in his chair, with half-closed eyes. He was a short, squarely built man, very sunburnt, with mouth and chin hidden by the growth of a large moustache and beard. There was nothing particular in his appearance; yet in following his calling-that of an orchid-hunter-he had been to strange places and seen strange things. Sladen, who knew him well, hinted darkly that he had traversed unknown tracts of country, had hobnobbed with cannibals, and held his life in his hands for the past thirty years.

"You've hit on the very man, Captain," said Sladen. "Now, Burgess, tell us how you found the snake-orchid, and sold it to a duchess for a thousand pounds. You promised to tell me the story one day, you remember?"

"That's too long. I'll tell you a story, however"; and Burgess lifted up his drink, took a pull at it, and, picking up the straw that leaned back in a helpless manner against the edge of the glass, began twisting it round his fingers as he spoke.

"All this happened many years ago-"

"When flowers and birds could talk," interrupted the Boy; and Burgess, turning on him, said slowly: "Flowers and birds can talk now. When you are older you will understand."

The Boy looked down a little abashed, and Burgess continued: "I am afraid to say how many years ago I first went to Burma. I was as poor as a rat, and things had panned out badly for me. Rangoon then was not the Rangoon of to-day, and the old king Min-Doon Min, who succeeded to the throne after the war, was still almost all-powerful. He was not a bad fellow, and I once did a roaring trade with him at Mandalay: exchanged fifty packets of coloured candles for fifty pigeon's-blood rubies. They had a big illumination at the palace that night, and I only narrowly escaped being made a member of the cabinet. I, however, got the right of travelling through his majesty's dominions, wherever and whenever I pleased; but the chief queen made it a condition that I should supply no more coloured candles. She preferred the rubies; and I fancy old Min-Doon Min must have had a bad time of it, for the queen was as remarkable for her thrift as for her tongue. She was as close as that" – Burgess held up a square brown fist before us, and, as he did so, I noticed the white line of a scar running across it, below the knuckles, from thumb to little finger. He caught my eye resting on it, and laughingly said: "It's a seal of the kind friends I have in Kinnabalu. But to resume, as the story-books say. All this about Min-Doon is a 'divarsion,' and I'll go back to the point when I found myself first at Rangoon, with all my wardrobe on my back, and a two-dollar bill in my pocket. After drifting about for some time, I got employment in a rice-shipping firm, and set myself to work to learn the language. In about a year I could speak it well, and, having got promotion in the firm, felt myself on the high road to fortune. It was hard work: the boss knew the value of every penny he spent, and took every ounce he could out of his men."

"Bosses are cut out of the same pattern even now," murmured the Boy. "The breed don't seem to improve."

Burgess took no notice of the interruption, but went on: "I was finally placed in charge of some work at Syriam; and a little misfortune happened-my over-man died. It was rather a job to get another. Men were not easily picked up in those days. But at last I unearthed one, or rather he unearthed himself. He hailed from the States, and described himself as a Kentucky man-the real 'half-horse, half-alligator' breed. I asked no questions, but set him to work, and reported to the boss, who said 'All right.' The new man seemed to be a gem: he turned up regularly, stayed till all hours, and never spared himself. He was a great lanky fellow, with dark hair, and eyes so palely grey that they seemed almost white. They gave him an odd appearance; but, as good looks were not a qualification in our business, it did not matter much what he was like. He had been a miner, and had also been to sea, and knew how to obey an order at the double. One day he suddenly looked up from his table-we sat in the same room-and asked if I had heard of treasure ever being buried in or near old pagodas.

"'Every one hears such stories,' I answered; 'but why do you ask?'

"'Wal,' he went on, in his slow drawl, 'I've bin readin' ez haow a Portugee called Brito, or some sich name, did a little bit of piracy in these hyar parts, until his games were stopped by the local Jedge Lynch. They ran a stick through him, as the Burmese do now to a dried duck.'

"'What's that got to do with buried treasure?'

"'You air smart! This Brito, before his luck petered out, had a pow'ful soothin' time of it with the junks an' pagodas, and poongyies, as they call their clergy. Guess he didn't lay round hyar for nuthin', an' if all I've heard be true, vermilion isn't the name for the paint he put on the squint-eyes.

"'But-'

"He put up his hand. 'So long. I'm thinkin' that, ef I'd a smart pard-one who saveyed their lingo-we might strike a lead of luck.'