DAWN

Had an hour passed, or twain? Ninian Bruce could not tell. It seemed to him that he had been kneeling for a lifetime, there on the altar steps beside the dying girl, with the glittering red-and-gold drapery trailing to the white marble, and opening to a white breast stained red,--a brighter red!

A long lifetime; long as his own; that long life in which he had seen, had felt, so much.

For as he waited for her inevitable death, his mind had followed that long life of his own, year after year, day after day, hour after hour. And everywhere it had seen a woman's eyes, a woman's soul, looking back from a soul, from eyes, that should have been a man's.

Yes! the keynote of that long life had been the love of a woman. Passionate love, absorbing mind as well as body, claiming its reward in kind; as such love always does.

In kind!

There lay the whole difference between anathema and beata. They were both karma, or desire!

One of the girl's white feet slid with a silvery jingle of its anklet to the next step, and, as he replaced it to a more comfortable position, a chill struck to his heart as he remembered what such chiming had meant in the past history of the world. The measure which that provoked was--anathema. That--disguised, palliated, refined in a thousand ways--was one kind.

And the other?

The memory of his own past surged to his brain as he bent over the girl's whitening face and scanned it narrowly. How like the face was to that other one, now that coming death had sharpened the full, youthful curves. He had noticed the likeness often--it had been clear when Laila had worn the old Italian--Beatrice's--dress. But not so clear, not half so clear, as when in this--this almost shameless one--she had said--"I only want--him."

It might have been Margherita speaking,--Margherita, who had wanted a man's soul.

And she had had one.

That was the other kind. But both were desire; the desire which drove humanity from Paradise, and keeps it vainly seeking for one still.

Saturated as he was with the mysticism of the East and West, these thoughts came to him, dreamily, making him feel curiously aloof from himself. The pity of it filled him, and brought a pity for the dying girl also; the girl who had failed to find a paradise in this world, and was seeking a new road to it; seeking it alone. The only thing she craved in all God's earth to make that paradise--gone! Priest as he was, the humanity in him rose in passionate hope that she should not wake to the consciousness of this. What good would it do? Let her enter the shadows in peace.

But as he wished the wish, her head, which had been resting on his arm, turned to the touch of it, and her smooth cheek nestled closer to what it found.

"Kiss me, Vincent," she said, and her voice came back full, rich, round, to make the claim. "Kiss me before you go, dear!"

The old man gave a slight shiver, and was silent.

"Vincent!" came the voice again; "you are there, aren't you? You wouldn't leave me--now--surely?"

There was another silent pause, and then, silent still, Father Ninian stooped, and the old lips and the young ones met in a lover's kiss. And as they met, he knew that in that kiss lay the great renunciation of his life; that henceforward there would be no woman waiting in Paradise for him; that the spiritual presence had gone from his life like the bodily presence. That Margherita was Juliet, and Juliet, Margherita!

"That's nice," murmured Laila, softly; "that's nice."

Her head settled to his arm again, and the silence went on. On and on, till he stooped lower to listen for an unheard breath; then lower still to shift that head from his arm to the ground. For the need of a human touch, a human sympathy, had gone forever.

He made the sign of the cross over the dead body, rose to his feet unsteadily, and looked about him, dazed, uncertain. In truth, he felt all his years for the first time; felt that his last hold on life had somehow gone from him in that kiss; that something more than one woman lay dead before him.

Then the sight of Akbar KhÂn, still rocking himself backwards and forwards, a perfect pendulum of protesting innocence and helpless remorse, roused the old priest to the present. He took up the rapier he had laid aside in crossing the chapel, and passed over to where the old eunuch was bemoaning the high-handedness of fate. It was a tyranny, indeed! Who could have foreseen such an ending to a very ordinary intrigue? Who could even have dreamt of it? Had not men and women loved and met, thus, since the beginning of time?

So, to the sinner's outraged experience of life and love came the saint with his, and with the face and sword of St. Michael and All Angels.

"Tell me the truth," he said sternly; "and tell it quickly, for there is no time to lose."

In truth there was not much to tell. It was all so simple, viewed as a whole; so complex in detail. And, as he listened, the anger left Pidar NarÂyan's face wistful, wondering. More so than ever at the last mumbling excuse.

"It all comes, Ge-reeb-pun-wÂz, from the Almighty having made the Missy-baba so like her sainted ancestress--AnÂri Begum--on whom be peace."

AnÂri Begum! On whom be peace! Her sainted ancestress, on whom be peace!

He stood for an instant looking towards the Altar, towards the dead girl; then he echoed under his breath, "On whom be peace!"

That was the end.

Peace on those women who had loved and died; and on the men who had loved them--lived for them--perhaps died for them.

But for the rest who lived and loved still? A quick life seemed to come back to him at the thought of these, a desire to save them from death.

"Follow me," he said briefly to the old retainer; "it must be close on dawn--I must see what I can do."

So, still in his robes, with the blubbering old pantaloon--apostle of another cult--at his heels, he passed down the arched passage to the door at its end which opened on to the courtyard between the palace and the Fort. And as he went, his brain, confused as to the past, clear as to the present, was busy making plans for peace. So far as helping those at the gaol went, he knew himself to be powerless. Physically, a couple of old men--mere shadows of men--could give no help, and he could not hope for influence there, among the Hosts of the Devil. But here in the city, among those Hosts of the Lord--the pilgrims for whom he had always had a secret sympathy, who knew him, at least, by reputation--with whom, at least, he stood on common ground--he might have some. He could but try; try to persuade some, at least, of the great mass of seekers after the "Cradle of the Gods" to go on their way in peace when the dawn came; try to save some of them from following a wrong road.

The door was slightly ajar; he widened the chink and looked out with a sinking heart over the courtyard with its raised union-jack of paths. Much larger than the yard about the Pool of Immortality, it was crammed from end to end now with a crowd, the first look at which told him that his chance of a hearing was small indeed, for the dawn was closer than he had thought for amid the shadows of the chapel, and the grey glimmer of coming light showed him once more a sea of upturned eager faces. But the patience of the previous dawn was gone. They were restless now, restless with the vague, uncertain restlessness which is so dangerous in a crowd, which tells that the fuel for the flame is only awaiting a match, any match, to fire it. And there were many only waiting to be struck. The next instant might bring one. Father Ninian felt this instinctively, felt that here in this courtyard lay the mine which the returning troopers, the desperadoes from the gaol, were to fire first. All Eshwara might rise afterwards, but the great danger lay here, must be grappled with here. But how?

Not by words. The ear of a crowd is always difficult to gain, unless the eye is taken first, and a man had both already. For aloft, on the barrel of the big old gun which centred the square, jogi Gorakh-nÂth was expounding their wrongs to the pilgrims, their inevitable damnation if the wrath of the Gods was not instantly appeased. His wild, weird figure, in all its nakedness, its austerity, could be seen above the little circle of lamps which his immediate supporters held upwards at arm's-length. And above his head, like a canopy, drifted the wisps of tired earth-atoms which were being driven sideways by the breeze of dawn as they fell in their search for rest. For the storm was over, their brief ambition for something beyond mere earth was past. Wisps, which, as they swept over the circling lights, took a lurid glow, then faded into the dim shadows again.

And something else caught the light redly. The chaplet of human skulls, the dread Mother's necklace, which the jogi swung from one hand to the other as he called for blood--for blood to appease Her--the Mother of all--the Eternal Womanhood!

Since without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.

The tenet of all religions echoed into the ear of the crowd, the strange demoniacal figure, in its lurid setting, held its eye. What chance was there for a single voice? None.

Yet something must be done. For the dawn was nigh. Every instant the light grew. Any moment might bring that inrush of evil from the gaol which would breed violence among these still peaceful folk; the ignorant, helpless folk who were being held captive by words against the coming of that inrush.

Suddenly, for a second, the attention of the crowd wavered. A tall man in the white dress of a Europeanized native had been hoisted to the shoulders of some others, not far from the jogi, and so, from this coign of vantage, prepared to harangue the people.

"'Tis Ramanund," said someone close to where Father Ninian stood in the shadow of the door. "He is Brahmin, and a scholar above scholars. Mayhap he will tell us what to do these times, when all seems wrong. There is no harm in listening."

Nor good either. For the first words of that appeal of culture to ignorance were drowned in a fiendish laugh, a frenzied rattling of the dread chaplet, a loud defiance.

"Hold thy peace, Baboo-jee! What is blood to thee, who hath no God to whom thou canst give it? But we have, brethren. These be Her drinking-cups, the skulls of men like ourselves. Let us give Her pleasure, brothers, and have blessing from Her hands; not cursing, as thou hast had, Ramanund, whose head should still be shaven, whose touch unclean from the loss of a woman."

The allusion to the death of Ramanund's wife roused an instant murmur of assent from those who were of the city, and they passing the tale on to others, the murmur swelled to a roar which effectively drowned the rest of Ramanund's advice.

But Father Ninian, still at the door, still uncertain, could hear a man who had been buckling on his pilgrim's sandals as if for a start, say, as he stood up and thrust them back to his waistcloth:--

"Well! I, for one, go no further without remission, or the blood which brings it. As jogi-jee saith, no man should risk the woman's cursing. No man can hold his own against that."

"He hath a young wife in his house, see you, and all know what that means," sniggered a neighbour.

But a third voice broke in gravely, "Young or old, what matter? Women sit ever on the knees of the Gods, as we men have sat on theirs, seeing they are the mothers of us all. So, mother or wife, we cannot escape them."

"Baba-jee speaks truth," assented another bystander, "and jogi-jee also. If She needs blood, She must have it, seeing She is Woman. As for him? Let him be silent. He hath no God. No blood sacrifice, no remission of sins. Let him speak who hath them."

There was a faint sound as of the closing of a door, and beyond it, in the darkness of the arched passage, an old voice said, with a curious note of gladness in it, "Follow me, quick, Akbar; there is not a moment to be lost. The dawn has come!"

It seemed to have come to Pidar NarÂyan's face as he knelt hurriedly once more beside the body of the dead girl, to fold her dead hands decently as if in prayer, to cover the dead feet with the crimson draperies, the dead face with the flimsy, glittering veil--the veil which hid nothing of its beauty--which struck the keynote of the whole.

"On whom be peace!" he whispered as he rose, stretching out his thin old hand in benediction; and as he said the words, the vision came to him of a whole world which had loved, and sinned, and gone on its mysterious quest for something beyond love. A world to which he had said farewell with a kiss.

He passed on to the Altar, and with swift, steady hands opened the sanctuary, and took out the treasure it contained; a star-shaped, star-rayed pyx, set with jewels, relic of the days when singing-birds that sang of themselves, and such like things, with many another, had come to Eshwara from Italy.

"Take the candles from the altar, Akbar," he said, "and walk in front--just in front, you know--as you used to walk."

The old courtier mumbled "Ge-reeb-pun-wÂz," with a caper of alacrity. In his confusion, his resentful remorse, it was a relief to return to pomp--to servility.

So, with that Bodily Presence which, till then, had always brought the thought of the lost paradise of a woman's love with it, in his hands, Father Ninian and his strange acolyte, priest of another cult, passed swiftly out of the chapel, leaving the Altar dark, bereft of its treasure; leaving the dead woman, bereft of her treasure also, lying in a glitter of gold and crimson on the Altar steps. Passed on a mission of peace to the living; on the chance of gaining the ear, the eye, of that waiting crowd outside in the courtyard.

As he went rapidly, yet with the faltering step every now and again of one wearied by long journeying, down the arched passage, Ninian Bruce scarcely thought of success or failure. There was a wistful triumph in his face--he looked as a slave might look who dies in making himself free. He did not think even of the strangeness of the little procession. The night had been so full of strange things; but the dawn had come, and he had a message to give those waiting souls outside--the souls who were being kept back from the "Cradle of the Gods" by that fear of the Eternal Womanhood.

"Set the door wide, Akbar," he said, and then his voice merged into the "Salutaris."

So, as the crowd turned at the sound of the opening door, the sound of the chanting voice, it saw, raised above it, dim against an arched shadow, seen by the grey light of daybreak and the flicker of two tall tapers, a strange star-rayed cup shining in the clasped hands of a man. An old man in a strange dress, chanting a strange song. And the sight, by its very strangeness, its claim to something beyond familiarity, was not strange to that restless crowd, waiting for a sign, waiting for something not in themselves.

"What is it? What means it?"

The whisper came like the soft hush of a wave; and above it the chant rose clearly.

"'Tis Pidar NarÂyan and his God!" said those of the city who knew, as they fell back instinctively from the raised path. And those who did not know followed suit in awed bewilderment, till the way was clear, and the little procession passed on slowly above the jammed mass of humanity, above the sea of upturned expectant faces.

"'Tis Pidar NarÂyan, who went with my father," said one here and there. "Mayhap he goes now--let us see."

"Yea! let us see!" answered others.

That slantwise limb of the union-jack of raised paths which crossed from one corner to the other of the courtyard--from the door in the palace to the wide archway through which the pilgrims always passed on their way to the "Cradle of the Gods"--cleared itself by common consent, edged itself with a thicker throng of curious faces. Only in the middle it was barred by the big old gun, by the "Teacher of Religion" as its legend boasted, and by the man who claimed to be its mouthpiece.

For jogi Gorakh-nÂth, recognizing his adversary, recognizing the danger of his influence, had slipped from his post above, and now stood before the gun, full in the path, defending it with frenzied wavings of his chaplet of skulls.

"Listen not, brothers!" he yelled. "Jai Kali Ma! Blood! Blood! Without blood is no remission of sins."

And now a new curiosity, a new interest, came to that crowd of mere men. What would happen? What would these two, mere men like themselves, do? Which was backed by divine authority? That both claimed that authority was clear. It held its breath, partly from the desire for a sign from God, partly because of the desire which humanity always has for a sign of the best man. Let the two try which was the better.

So it waited, ready to approve either, till those two, the Eastern and the Western sacerdotalisms, met face to face, within two yards of each other, in the centre of the courtyard, on the platform before the "Teacher of Religion."

Then, not till then, Pidar NarÂyan ceased his chant, shifted the pyx to his left hand, and with his right drew the rapier hidden till then by his long robes.

"Aha, A-ha-a," sighed the crowd approvingly. There would be a bodily as well as a spiritual fight, for jogi-jee's chaplet of skulls swirled dangerously for both attack and defence; since a swinging blow from it would kill a man, and its circling sweep keep him beyond sword-point reach.

Which would be the better man--the better weapon?

But Pidar NarÂyan did not attack. He only stood, the pyx in one hand, the sword in the other--alternatives as it were--and called in a loud voice--

"Let me pass, jogi Gorakh-nÂth!

"Let me pass I say!

"For I carry my GOD!"

Over the whole courtyard, waking now from shadow to light under the coming day, the claim echoed sharply; and the arrogance of it, the strength, the certainty of it, sank deep into the souls of those who heard it.

There was not a sound, not a movement; only a vast, breathless expectancy, and Pidar NarÂyan's fine old face set like the nether mill-stone. Everything that had ever been in him--love, passion, faith, worldly wisdom, sympathy--the grit of the whole man--rose up and claimed the crowd.

"Let me pass!" he cried again, in absolute command, and this time the rapier, twisting like a snake, caught the chaplet of skulls in its upward swirl, a dexterous unexpected turn of the old fencer's wrist followed, sending it flying from the jogi's hand.

The next instant (the rope on which they were strung severed by the strain, by the rapier's edge), the skulls were clattering, bounding like balls, like useless toys, on the stone platform.

"A-ha! A-ha!" came from the crowd; but the sigh was but half content, and men looked at each other wonderingly. Since, no matter which priest was the better man, these were Mai Kali's drinking-cups.

The jogi, however, had fallen back a step, and Pidar NarÂyan was in his place by the old gun. Pidar NarÂyan and his strange God were now the "Teachers of Religion." What had they to say?

The crowd had not to wait long, for Father Ninian's voice, with that nameless ring in it which makes the orator and makes the audience, was already in its ears.

"Listen! Listen to me, for I carry in this cup the Blood of Sacrifice. The Victim required by your God and mine, by all the Gods, is here!

"We are free, brothers! you and I. The Eternal Womanhood hath had Her toll, in full. The Great Mother is appeased. There is no fear.

"Lift up your eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh your help, and follow me and my God, to find yours."

He pointed with the sword--as he paused a second for breath, for strength--to the mountains; to those far peaks which, now that the storm had ended, the earth-atoms returned to earth, had begun to show spectral in the dawn. To show shadowy, yet clear, with never a wreath of mist or a wandering cloud to hide the hollow whither the feet of millions had journeyed seeking righteousness, and journeyed in vain.

Faint and far they showed against the faint, far sky, but as Father Ninian pointed to them, a ray of light from the still unseen sun below the visible horizon of this world, a ray of light seeking perhaps another world among the stars, found the heights of the holy hills in its path, and dyed their snowdrifts red--blood red!

At the sight a roar rose from the crowd.

"Jai Kali Ma! She gives a sign! The sacrifice is there! She is appeased! He speaks the truth. Let us follow him and his God!"

"Ay! as my father did," cried one.

"And mine!"

"And mine!" assented some, while others forgot all save pilgrimage in the shout--

"RÂm, RÂm, Sita RÂm!"

"HÂrÂ! HÂrÎ! HÂrÎ! HÂrÂ!"

So, on that babel of sounds, Pidar NarÂyan's voice rose steadily as, preceded by that ambling figure--strangest of all acolytes--he walked on, chanting the 121st Psalm:--

"Levavi oculos meos in montes; unde veniet auxilium mihi."

The words were in an unknown tongue, the rhythm strange, but the spirit, the idea, were familiar. It was the song of someone seeking the "Cradle of the Gods," as they were.

"He carries his God, and that means all," said an old man, pushing his way to follow. "The other had none: how could he lead the way?"

"That is true," assented many, following suit.

And some, shrugging their shoulders, said, "He is mad. God has touched his brain. Then he goes the way our fathers went. They lingered not beyond the second dawn. Why should we?"

"RÂm! RÂm! Sita RÂm!"

Thus, swiftly, the footfalls gathered in strength behind the little procession, and no one dared to stop it; not even the Mahomedan sentry at the Fort gate, to whom some of the agitators ran in their disappointment. He only laughed contemptuously; though his gravity returned somewhat at his recognition of old Akbar KhÂn.

"Lo! that is a new walking for him!" he muttered, in an awed voice. "Truly, folk are right when they say there is magic in these idolaters. Who would have deemed him pilgrim? Well! let him go, he and his mummery. We soldiers can do without priests and Hindoos!"

He twirled his mustache fiercely, and wondered when his comrades would return victorious from the gaol, and give the word for plunder. That was all he cared for.

"Ay!" assented an angry voice, joining the group, "we can do without the fools. There be plenty of wise men left."

"Plenty," put in another; "but their mood is different. See how they wander!"

It was true. The crowd had broken into groups, and from these, pilgrims, singly, or in smaller groups, were drifting after the lessening sound of that chanting voice. Not so much from any belief in Pidar NarÂyan, not even because of his lead over, but because it was the old way; the way worn by the feet of their fathers, and their fathers' fathers.

So jogi Gorakh-nÂth, who, now the coast was clear, had sprung aloft on the old gun, once more attempting to regain his empire, failed egregiously. The crowd passed him by till a big countryman, with a lumbering jest, asked him if he was sure he had picked up the right skull to put on his own shoulders. Then it laughed uproariously.

"Best come on to the Pool of Immortality," suggested a conspirator, consolingly, as he hurried past. "'Tis no use here. The fools have followed after strange gods and men. But at the Pool there are tens of thousands to one here; and they are weary waiting. Besides, 'tis nearer the gaol. Between the two success will lie."

"Yea," added another, "that was the first plan--the soldiers and the Fort spoilt it. But the Pool and the gaol remain."

Jogi Gorakh-nÂth, with a scowl, gathered up his skulls to a bundle and followed hastily. He would at least be out of hearing of that chanting voice.

It had reached the last verse of its Psalm now, and faltered a little over the words:--

"Dominus custodiat introitum tuum et exitum tuum:
ex hoc et usque in saeculum."

But the echo of the footsteps behind filled up the blanks.