Love and Death

I tell you, Stewart, it’s playing the very deuce with a man’s life to treat him as I’ve been treated.”

“I thought that had been uncommonly well: by Fate certainly, in the way of fulfilled desires; and by your father, also undoubtedly, in the way of allowance. And what more can a man want?”

“Nothing—unless he’s a married man.”

“Ah! an indiscretion. You have my condolences, old chap: our follies always do vex us more than our sins, I know.”

“Yes! and the offence is aggravated when you consider that it was someone else’s folly. Listen, Stewart, and I’ll tell you—I’m feeling communicative tonight, and this weed draws nicely.”

The two men stood on the forward deck of the P. &.O. S.S. Khartoum, bound for India, and now in harbour off Brindisi, awaiting the mails.

A bright moon looked down on the squalid town and the great expanse of sea, on the farther shore with its Turkish gardens and its tale of handsome brigands, and on the lithe Indian sailors, bending their supple bodies under the precious weight of the post-office consignments. One after another they crossed the bridge in well-trained rapidity. Pity the night was so brilliant! What thrill might not the darkness have lent to that scene of swift, noiseless activity!

Presently the foreigner spoke—“I was but seven years old,” said he, “when my grandfather sent me to England, and, as you know, I have had no other home ever since. But there still linger with me Indian sights and sounds—music, and bright colours, and the scent of roses. I remember her, who must have been my mother, surrounded by chattering serving-women, who fed me with sweets, and flattered and spoilt me. But the memories all grow out of a noisy procession on a glaring day in midsummer. Dressed in garments of some startling hue, and smothered under the combined weight of heavy necklets and sickly odorous flowers, I rode gaily on a prancing nag, while the singers went before and the minstrels followed after. In the midst, however, was a single damsel, only—and she was not playing on a timbrel, but drumming two small henna-dyed hands on the horse’s neck, as she sat astride in front of me. . . . They tell me now that that meant my marriage! . . . It must, I think, have been almost immediately afterwards that I was packed away to the dear old dame’s at Summerton, where we first met, you know, Stewart; for my memory comes to its finis about India when I have worried the past so far. And not a word, it’s odd, has my father said on the subject all this long while; but in his last letter he tells me placidly, that both a welcome and a wife await me, in the land of my birth! I tell you, Stewart, it is infamous! She has most likely been kept a semi-prisoner all her life, knowing certainly nothing of the world, either as God or man has made it, and probably also nothing of books, even in her vernacular. I daresay she can cook a palatable Indian dinner, and scour the cooking-pans—but, well! it has not been fair to me at all. Systems cannot alter in a day, you will say. Exactly so! But why alter them at all in this one-sided way? Why create a false position for a pair of innocent children—Oh yes! I know it’s hard on her too. Everything is a huge mistake: new patches can never mean aught but worsened rents to an old garment!”

“Poor old fellow!” said Stewart. “I never guessed such a complication. However, there’ll be your work, you know, and perhaps she’s not impossible, after all. You may even be able to educate her.”

The conversation was not renewed through the voyage, and, on landing, the young Indian doctor and his friend found that stress of plague-work claimed their immediate presence. The welcome and the wife had alike to wait. “Incidental freedom,” said the Indian grimly; but indeed there was scant time for reflection, whether congratulatory or self-compassionate. He was on search duty, and hunting the dread infection from street to street demanded the exercise of every nerve and faculty. Ah, the sadness of it all! The feeble subterfuges, the brave fight against the most patent symptoms, the gasping attempt to propitiate the microbe—and finally, the sullen submission to Fate! The hearts of the two young doctors were heavy within them. Disease and death were sufficiently appalling—but with superstition for ally!

Only this morning they had passed a mad procession carrying the dead plague-infected rats on spikes, while broken-hearted mothers and anxious wives wailed a propitiatory serenade, ghastly in its pathos! “We can’t hold out any longer,” said the Indian one morning after breakfast. “Write to headquarters, Stewart, and beg for a lady-doctor and a nurse. They must spare them to us. The poor women whom we find in the bazaar have to submit to our ministrations. What alternative is there? But the better classes, as you see, choose death rather than be looked upon by a man; and indeed I must confess that I greatly dislike having to search their houses. Don’t you yourself agree with me, that it is our inability to deal with this class of patient which fosters the microbe?”

“Yes,” said Stewart, “I do, and I’ll write this very moment. The fear of the microbe is the mother of virtue.”

“I wish it were the mother of sanitation,” growled the Indian. “That’s the kind of offspring I’m seeking just now.”

In a week came the answer. The request was only just in time. An Indian lady with European qualifications was temporarily at the disposal of the chief medical officer. He had meant to send her elsewhere, but, as this was so sacred and orthodox a town, and as she knew the vernacular of the district, Stewart might have her for six months. They might expect her and a nurse in a fortnight.

“That’s well done,” said the Indian. “Now we’ll get the thing under!”

She was tall and slender, intelligent and eager in face rather than pretty; and she carried herself with the ease and freedom of her race. Indeed her attraction lay in grace of movement, in fineness of proportion, and in a certain delicate sensitiveness, which could hardly escape even the least observant. For such work as fell to her she was pre-eminently suited—tactful, gentle, persuasive; and if she gave out so largely of her sympathising self to each sufferer, was that a fault? Her masculine colleagues thought that it was certainly so. “You’ll break down,” they said. “Besides, it’s not professional!” And they devised common recreation to relieve the tension—golf, on the brown maidan to westward, clear of the temples and the odours; and tennis in the garden of the civil engineer, whose wife and the wife of the padre were indeed the only other ladies in the station, and both were ready to do everything that was hospitable and kindly. Such patches of sunlight were those afternoons!

Suffering and death and all ugliness were forgotten in congenial and healthful companionship. The girl had evidently been responsive to all the best influences of her Western training, while losing nothing of her own charming individuality. The effect was that of brilliant colouring under the brush of a master-painter. Even the women loved her. What of the men? Well! as to one of them, you must have guessed. That which happened was hopelessly inevitable. Could it be avoided between two young people of similar tastes, doing the same work, bearing the same sad burden, seeing the best and most unselfish side of each other, day after day, amid scenes which excited the keenest of sympathies? That it was a surprise to both, made the remedy no easier. The ludicrous side of it all was the similarity of experience. The obstacle was double-barrelled. There was a baby-husband as there had been a baby-wife!

“I always thought it very nice of him to allow me an English education,” she said; “and I have often built him up round that one kind fact. But I begged a year’s freedom on coming to India—and now, how ever am I to face that inevitable introduction? ‘Where is he?’ Ah! that I cannot tell; but I expect you would find him in his native village, a pampered only son, too orthodox to cross the waters himself, and managing the family property, in ignorant and comfortable self-satisfaction. What I cannot understand is my own liberty! There must be some third person acting a reformed up-to-date Providence, I’m sure! Till lately I’ve been so curious about it all, but now curiosity is swallowed up in loathing!”

“Pity we can’t marry those two!” said the man.

*  *  *

It was the festival of the fire-god. “Though thou passest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned!” Who would make good the promise of the deity and face the ordeal? Through long months of prayer and fasting, certain rapt fanatics, and of good women not a few, had been preparing themselves to answer that question. And here was the very day at last! Down the heights into the hollows came the crowds of pilgrims—intending victims and applauding gallery all huddled together—one chattering, rattling, rumbling, seething mass, like to some mountain torrent seeking the level, and, when found, glittering light-imprisoned under the brilliant rays of a lingering sun.

By their dress shall ye know them—many-hued, many-fashioned—and also by their equipages. That long, low, wicker cart, likest to a racing-boat on lumbering wheels, has had other geographical genesis than that flat cradle-shaped construction of wooden poles and bambus.

The great milk-white, soft-eyed bulls, easing tired necks with a graceful sweep of hoary tongue, have not before known as neighbour the small, perky, wiry cattle, tossing impertinent heads to the jingle of aggressive bells, and bellowing staccato inquiries.

But the crowd has one manner of encamping. Under each cart is tied a primitive hammock, and into this are thrown the squalling babies, safely out of the way, while their parents water the beasts and cook the evening meal. Secure are they here from intrusion. Do not the mountains stand sentinel? And are not the very clouds frowning a watchful “cave”? Yet it behoved them to do quickly that which they were purposing, for a wise Government approved not of the rash sacrifice of life; and even now some message of prohibition may be travelling from the camp of the nearest collector.

“In the blackest watch of the night—the inrush!” said the priestly herald, beating a muffled drum among the al fresco cooking-pots.

Gradually, like a long, stealthy shadow, silence creeps over the face of the valley, and out of the wordless darkness arises a great lurid fiery furnace. It shows the mass of onlookers, earnest, fanatic—ringing the sacred enclosure—a phalanx strong enough to withstand any band of venturesome intruders; and, at a sanctified distance, the knot of priests and white-robed devotees.

The head priest was speaking—“To the holy,” said he, “this is no wanton sacrifice of life, but merely a hymn to the praise of the Deity—the rhythm of your bodies to the accompaniment of that angry roar. The evil do indeed take hurt, but is that not the just reward of their offences?”

“Let us go and see the festival,” had said the doctor-girl to her friend. “My mother belonged to these hill-folk, and something stirs within me at thought of the great ordeal. I believe the instincts of the savage still survive. Do let us go, and I will—yes, I shall appear in the white garments of the devotee.”

So they went, man and woman, in high spirits at the dubious adventure.

They arrived in time to hear the introductory address. The drums were growling now, and quaint pathetic incantations rose and fell on the midnight air. The first rush was just about to be made. One poor candidate has fainted. Carry her aside. Now!

They are through, unsinged, and a great shout of enthusiasm greets the semi-deities—canonization dearly bought!

But more stirring matters still are afoot. For now a group of young girls stand hand in hand, gladly responsive to the heavenly call, thrilling with the joy of martyrdom. But a moment, and the priest will give the signal for the fresh inrush!

“The gods will stay the plague,” declares their messenger, “for the willing sacrifice of a band of virgins. Who will come, who will be the brides of death, to buy life for the millions? Who? Who? One short black moment for you, brave virgins. For others, years of glad happiness. See! the corn is ready to harvest, but the hand which would gather it is stiff; the grain is garnered, but the arm which would grind it is withered; the meal is prepared, but they who would eat it are dead! dead and defiled! with no sacred rites to buy them the best eternity. . . . Buy you it for them, O virgins! You! Buy life now, and life hereafter—a double gift—and your own the hand to bestow it. Virgin life-givers!”

In the silence one can almost hear life pulse! Then there is a sudden quick, convulsive sob—for, carried past all self-control, the doctor-girl has joined the band of vestal virgins. The word is given, and there they are, the white-robed seven, treading the flames.

“O Agni! do not burn them altogether,” chanted the priests. “Let the eye go to the sun, and the breath to the wind! Go to sky or earth, as is right; or to the waters, if it is good to be there. But the immortal, the unborn part, warm it with thy heat and flame! Carry them in thy kindliest shape to the world of those who have done well!”

“Peste! Why sings he the death chant!” murmured the crowd. “It is ill luck!” And then—no one knew how it happened. . . . “The doctor-lady!” they shrieked.

“She was tainted with infidel observances!” said the didactic priest; “the gods were angry!”

“She was not quick enough,” said her companions. “Hi! hi!” mourned the multitude. Her friend alone said not a word. And she, poor girl, lay terribly scarred in the accident ward of her own hospital.

The end was not long in coming. “The decision of the gods,” she murmured, and so slept, her hand in his.

Postscriptum.—It was a month later, and the doctor sat in his consulting room. His face wore the look of the man to whom life has proved a resented discipline. There were arrears of correspondence clamouring for attention, and he settled wearily to the pile of multifarious envelopes.

Presently his eye flashed, and the sensitive mouth quivered, as he read a letter longer than the rest.

“Son,” wrote, after much circumlocution, the father of whom he knew so little, “forgive the deception. It was part of your fate. The girl who worked in the hospital was your wife. We experimented for your good; but we were wrong. The gods resent experiments. In the path of orthodox monotony alone lieth safety. So perish all reform!”

But the man thought otherwise.