CHAPTER XII.
The habit of suffering brings not always with it the power of endurance;the nerves, too frequently acted on, become morbid and less capable ofsustaining the pressure of a reiterated sensation; and the mind, nolonger able to support or to resist a protracted conflict, sinks underits oppression, or by some natural impulse abandons the object of itspainful cogitation, and finds relief in the effort of seeking change.
The Missionary had reached the crisis of passion, the feverish paroxysmof long-combatted emotions. He had reached the utmost limits of humantemptation and human resistance, and shuddered at the risk he had runand the peril he had escaped. He resembled a wanderer in an unknownland, who reaches a towering and fearful eminence; who beholds at asingle glance the dangers he has passed, and those he has still toencounter; and who endeavours to regulate his future course by theinferences of his past experience. That wild delirium of the senseswhich left him an unpractised victim to their tyranny, subsided in somedegree with the absence of that tender and enchanting object whodistanced all that his fancy had ever dared to picture of woman’sloveliness or woman’s love; and his mind, comparatively enabled tothink and to decide, with something of its former tone and vigour, gaveitself up to a meditation which had for its subject the consequences ofthat fatal avowal by which he had so irretrievably committed hischaracter and his profession. The mysterious veil which the cold purehand of religion had flung over his feelings, was now for everwithdrawn, and the frailties of a being once deemed infallible, thepassions and weaknesses incidental to his nature as being human, werenot only exposed to himself, but were betrayed to others; and to thefollowers of Brahma and Mahomet, the apostle of Christianity appearedalike frail, alike subdued by passion and open to temptation, as he onwhom the light of revealed truth has never beamed. He felt that he haddishonoured the religion he professed, by making no application of itsprinciples to his conduct in the only instance in which his virtue hadbeen put to a severe test; and that the doctrine of opinion had failedpractically in its influence upon the interests and feelings ofself-love. He could no longer conceal from his awakened conscience, thatthe proselyte his zeal had sought for Heaven, had become the object of ahuman passion; of a passion, imprudent in the eye of reason, criminal inthe eye of religion; and which, in its nature and consequences, wasscarcely referable to any order, or to any state of society; for, by thedoctrines of their respective religions, by the laws and customs oftheir respective countries, they could never be united by thosevenerated and holy ties, which regulate and cement the finest bonds ofhumanity, and which obtain from mankind, in all regions of the earth,respect and sanction, as being founded in one of the great moral laws ofnature’s own eternal code. No Brahmin priest could consecrate an union,sacrilegious according to his habits of thinking and believing. NoChristian minister could bless an alliance formed upon the violation ofvows solemnly pledged before the altar of the Christian’s God. If,therefore, human opinion was of moment to one, whose secret ambition toobtain its favour had rendered even _religion_ subservient to itspurpose; if the habits, the principles, and the faith of a whole life,held any power over conduct and action in a particular instance; ifself-estimation were necessary to the self-love of a proud and loftycharacter, between the Christian Priest and Heathen Priestess was placedan insuperable bar, which if once removed, risked their exposure toinfamy and to shame in this world, and offered, according to theirrespective creeds, eternal suffering in the next. But the alternativewas scarce less dreadful. In the first instance it was deemedimpossible, for it was immediate and eternal separation! Reasondictated, religion commanded, even love itself, influenced by pity,admitted the terrific necessity. Yet still passion and nature struggled,and resisted, with an energy and an eloquence, to which the heart, theimagination, and the senses, devotedly listened. Oh! it is long, verylong, before the strongest mind, in obedience to the dictates ofprudence and of pride, can dismiss from its thoughts the object of anhabitual meditation, before it can strike out some new line ofexistence, foreign to its most cherished sentiments and dearest views.It is long, very long, before we can look calmly into the desertedheart, and behold unmoved a dreary void, where late some image erectedby our hopes, filled from the source of pleasure, every artery with thetide of gladness. It is difficult for human reason to argue awaypassion, by cold and abstract principles, and to substitute the torporof indifference for the pang of disappointment; but it is still moredifficult for human fortitude, though actuated by the highest humanvirtue, to tear asunder the ties of love, in all their force and vigour,ere habit may have softened their strength, or satiety relaxed theirtension. To effect this sudden breaking up of the affections, ere theyhave been suffered gently to moulder away in the mild and sure decay ofconsuming time, the silent, certain progress of mortal oblivion, somepower more than human is requisite.
On the luxurious shores of the confluence of the streams, with the lightof heaven dying softly round them, the air breathing enjoyment, and theearth affording it, the stoicism of the man would not perhaps havecontinued proof against the charms of the woman. But in darkness, insolitude, and in silence, in a cavern cold and gloomy, religionborrowed a superadded influence from the impression of the senses; andat the foot of the cross, raised by his own hands in the land of theunbelieving, and faintly illuminated by the chill pure rays of anapproaching dawn, that season of the day so solemn and so impressive,when passion slumbers, and visions of fear and gloom steal upon thesoul, did the Christian Missionary vow to resign for ever, the object ofthe only human weakness which had disgraced his sinless life. The vowhad passed his lips; it was registered in heaven; and nature almost sunkbeneath the sacrifice which religion had exacted.
The great immolation resolved on, all that now remained to be effected,was to fly from a spot which he had found so fatal to his pious views,and to pursue the holy cause of the Mission in regions more favourableto its success; but the energy of zeal was subdued or blunted, and acomplexional enthusiasm, once solely directed to the interests ofChristianity, had now found another medium for its ardour and activity.Scarcely knowing whither to direct his steps, he mechanically inquiredfrom a Goala, whom kindness that morning brought to his grotto with somefruit, the road, which at that season, the caravan passing throughCashmire from Thibet, usually took. The information he received tendedto facilitate his departure from Cashmire, for the caravan had halted inthe district of Sirinagur.
To behold Luxima for the last time was now all that remained! But thefeelings of tenderness and despair, with which this trying interview wascontemplated, plunged him in all the pangs of irresolution; vibratingbetween desire and fear, between the horror of leaving her, unpreparedand unexpecting their eternal separation, or of beholding her in loveand in affliction, expressing in her beautiful and eloquent countenance,the agony of that tender and suffering heart which, but for him, hadstill been the asylum of peace and happiness.
At last, a day of conflict and of misery, alternately devoted to anheavenly and to an earthly object, now passed in tenderness and grief,and now in supplication and in prayer, hastened to its conclusion! Thesun had set--a few golden rays still lingered in the horizon, and founda bright reflection on the snows which covered the mountains of Thibet.It was the hour of _the appointed interview_! The Christian prostratedhimself for the last time before the altar, and invoked the protectionof Heaven to support him through the most trying effort of his life; tosubdue the hidden “man of the heart,” and, upon the ruins of a frail andearthly passion, to raise a sentiment of hope and faith, which shouldpoint alone to that eternal recompense reserved for those who suffer andwho sustain, who are tempted and who resist. He arose, sublimed andtranquillized, from the foot of the altar. Religion encompassed himwith her shield, and poured her spirit on his soul. He took from thealtar the Scriptural volume, and placed it on his bosom; and grasping inhis right hand the pastoral crosier, he paused for a moment, and gazedaround him; then proceeding with a rapid step, he passed, for the lasttime, the rude thresho
ld of a place which had afforded him so sweet andso fatal an asylum, which had so often re-echoed to his sighs ofpassion, and resounded to his groans of penitence. Yet once again hepaused, and cast back his eyes upon this beloved grotto: but the fadedwreath of the Indian Priestess, suspended from one of its projections,caught his glance. He shuddered. This simple object was fatal to hisresolutions--it brought to his heart the recollection of love’sdelicious dawn; the various eras of its successive and blissfulemotions. But he wished to meet _her_, on whose brow this frail mementohad once exhausted its odours and its bloom, as he had first met her,with eyes so cold, and thoughts so pure and so free from human taint,that even Religion’s self might say, “A communion such as this belongsto Heaven!” Yet he withdrew his eyes with a long and lingering look, andsighed profoundly as he retreated. He reached the arcade of the banyans,as the sunbeam reflected from the mountains threw its last light on adark bower of branches, beneath whose shade he beheld the IndianNeophyte. She was kneeling on the earth, pale, and much changed in herappearance, and seemingly invoking the assistance of Heaven with ferviddevotion. No consecrated flower bloomed amidst the dark redundancy ofher neglected tresses. No transparent drapery shadowed, with folds ofsnow, the outlines of her perfect form: her hair, loose and dishevelled,hung in disorder round her; and she was habited in the dress of aChancalas, or _outcast_--a habit coarse and rude, and calculated toresist the vicissitude of climate to which such unhappy wanderers areexposed. A linen veil partly shaded her head: her muntras were fastenedround her arm with an idol figure of Camdeo: from the dsandam whichencircled her neck, was suspended a small cross, given to her by theMissionary; and those symbols of faith and of idolatry expressed theundecided state of her mind and feelings, which _truth_ taught by_love_, and _error_ confirmed by _habit_, still divided--equallyresembling in her look, her dress, and air, a Christian Magdalene, or apenitent Priestess of Brahma.
In this object, so sad and so touching, nothing appeared to change theresolutions of the Missionary, but much to confirm them. It was a fineimage of the conquest of virtue over passion--and the most tender ofwomen seemed to set a bright example to the firmest of men. Yet, whenLuxima beheld him, a faint colour suffused her cheek, her whole framethrilled with obvious emotion. She arose, and extended her tremblinghand--but he took it not; for her appearance awakened sensations of loveand melancholy, which, when they mingle, are of all others the mostprofound; and casting down his eyes, he said,
“I am come, my daughter, in obedience to thy commands, to behold theefor the last time, and to give thee up exclusively to Him, whose gracemay operate upon thy soul, without the wretched aid of one so frail andweak as I have proved. Thou wearest on thy breast, the badge of thatpure truth which already dawns upon thy soul. Take also this book--it isall I have to bestow; but it is all-sufficient for thy eternalhappiness.” He paused, and the emotion of his countenance but illaccorded with the coldness of his words.
Luxima took the book in silence: something she would have said, but thewords died away on her trembling lips; and she raised her eyes to hisface, with a look so tender, and yet so despairing, that the Missionaryfelt how fatal to every resolution he had formed, another such lookmight prove.
Averting his eyes, therefore, and extending his hands over her head, hewould have spoken--he would have blessed her--he would have said,“Farewell for ever!” but the power of articulation had deserted him.Again he tried to speak, and failed; his lips trembled, his eyes grewdim, his heart sickened, and the agonies of death seemed to convulse hisframe. Luxima still clung to his arm. Had the lifeblood flowed from herbosom, beneath the sacrificial knife, her countenance could not haveexpressed more acute anguish. He sought, by a feeble effort, to releasehimself from her grasp: but he had not power to move; and the mutualglance which mingled their souls at the moment they were about to partfor ever, operated with a force they had no longer power to resist.Faint and pale, Luxima sunk on his bosom. At that moment, sounds cameconfusedly on the winds, and growing louder on the ear, seemed topierce the heart of the Indian. She started, she trembled, she listenedwildly; and then, with a shriek, exclaimed,
“So soon, so soon, does death overtake me. Now then, now, farewell forever! Leave me to die, and save thyself!” As she spoke, she would havefallen to the earth, but that the Missionary caught her in his arms. Allthe powers of life seemed to rush upon him; a vague idea of somedreadful danger which threatened the object of his pity and his love,roused and energized his mind and nerved his frame. He no longerreasoned, he no longer resisted. Obedient only to the impulse of theimmediate feeling, he bore away his lifeless charge in his arms, andplunging into the deepest shades of the banyan, endeavoured to reach adark pile of towering rocks, whose sharp high points still caught a hueof light from the west, and among whose cavities he hoped to find refugeand concealment. The mists of evening had hid from his view a mightyexcavation, which he now entered, and perceived that it was thevestibule of an ancient Pagoda: its roof, glittering with pendentstalactites, was supported by columns, forming a magnificent colonnade,disposed with all the grand irregularity which Nature displays in hergreatest works, and reflecting the images of surrounding objects, tingedwith the rich and purple shade of evening colouring. This splendidportico opened into a gloomy and terrific cavern, whosehalf-illuminated recess formed a striking contrast to the exteriorlustre. Pillars of immense magnitude hewn out of the massive rocks, andforming an imperishable part of the whole mighty mass, sustained theponderous and vaulted ceiling: receding in the perspective, they losttheir magnitude in distance, till their lessening forms terminated indim obscurity, and finely characterized the awful mystery of theimpervious gloom. Idols of gigantic stature, colossal forms, hideous andgrotesque images, and shrines emblazoned with offerings, and dimlyglittering with a dusky lustre, were rudely scattered on every side. Forthe Missionary had borne the Priestess of Brahma to the temple in whichshe herself presided: the most ancient and celebrated in India, afterthat of Elephanta. This sanctuary of the most awful superstition, worthyof the wildest rites of a dark idolatry, was now wrapt in a gloom,rendered more obvious by the faint blue light which issued from theearth, in a remote part of the cavern, and which seemed to proceed froma subterraneous fire[11], which burst at intervals into flame, throwinga frightful glare upon objects in themselves terrific.
The Christian shuddered as he gazed around him: but every thought, everyfeeling of the lover and the man, was soon concentrated to the objectstill supported in his arms, and who he believed and hoped, in this sadand lonely retreat, had nothing to apprehend from immediate danger. Lifeagain reanimated her frame, but she was weak and faint, and anexpression of terror was still marked on her features. He placed hernear a pillar, which supported her drooping form, and flew to procuresome water from a spring, whose gushing fall echoed among the rocks;when the sound of solemn music, deep, sad, and sonorous, came upon thewind, which at intervals rushed through the long surrounding aisles ofthe cavern, disturbing with their hollow murmurs the deathlike silenceof the place. The Missionary listened: the sounds grew louder; they wereno longer prolonged by the wind; they came distinctly on the ear; theywere accompanied by the echo of many footsteps; and hues of light thrownon the darkness of the rocks, marked the shadows of an approachingmultitude. The Missionary rushed back to his charge: she had raised herhead from the earth, and listened with the air of a maniac to theincreasing sounds.
“Unfortunate as innocent,” he said, encircling her with his extendedarms, “there is now, I fear, no refuge left thee but this. O Luxima! thydanger has reunited us, and I am alike prepared to die for or withthee.” As he spoke, a blue phosphoric light glanced on the idols nearthe entrance of the Pagoda: it proceeded from a large silver censer,borne by a venerable Brahmin, who was followed by a procession of thesame order, each Brahmin holding in his hand a branch of the gloomy andsacred ocynum, the symbol of the dreadful ceremony of _Brahminicalexcommunication_. The procession, which passed near the pillar, by whosedeep shadow the unfortunate vict
ims who thus had rushed upondestruction, stood concealed, was closed by the venerable Guru ofCashmire; he was carried in a black palanquin, and his aged countenancewas stamped with the impress of despair. The Brahmins circled round thesubterraneous fire, each in his turn flinging on its flame the leaves ofthe sandaltree and oils of precious odour. The kindling flamesdiscovered on every side, thrones, columns, altars, and images; whilethe priests, dividing into two bands, stood on each side of the fire,and the Guru took his place in the centre of his disciples.
All now was the silence of death, and the subterraneous fire spreadaround its ghastly hues: the chief of the Brahmins, then prostratinghimself before the shrine of Vishnu, drew from his breast the volume ofthe sacred laws of MENU, and read the following decree, in a deep andimpressive voice: “Glory be to Vishnu! who thus speaks by the mouth ofhis Prophet Menu[12]. He who talks to the wife or the widow of aBrahmin, at a place of pilgrimage, in a consecrated grove, or at theconfluence of rivers, incurs the punishment of guilt; the seduction of aguarded Priestess is to be repaid with life: but if she be not onlyguarded, but eminent for good qualities, he is to be burnt with thefires of divine wrath!” At these words the solemn roll of the tublea,or drum of condemnation, resounded through the temple; and when theawful sound had died away in melancholy murmurs, two Brahmins comingforward, made their depositions of the guilt of the chief Priestess ofthe temple. They deposed, that, passing near the sacred grove which ledto the pavilion of the Priestess, they observed issuing from its shadesthe Mogul Prince Solyman--that, induced by their zeal for the purity oftheir sacred order, they repaired at the same hour on the followingevening to the place of her evening worship, where they had discoveredthe Brachmachira, not indeed as they had expected, with the worshipperof Mahomet, but with a Frangui or Impure, who had already endeavouredto seduce some of the children of Brahma to abandon the God of theirfathers; that they found her supporting the infidel in her arms--acircumstance sufficient to confirm every suspicion of her guilt, and tocall for her excommunication, or forfeiture of cast. The sanctity, theage and reputation of the Brahmins, gave to their testimony a weightwhich none dared dispute. It was now only reserved for the Guru topronounce sentence on his granddaughter. He was supported by two Yogis.A ghastly and livid hue diffused itself over his countenance; and in hisdespairing look were mingled with the distracted feelings of the dotingparent, the superstitious horrors of the zealous Priest. Thrice heessayed to pronounce that name, hitherto never uttered but with triumph;and to heap curses upon that beloved head, on which blessings and tearsof joy had so often fallen together. At last, in a low, trembling, andhollow voice, he said,
“Luxima, the Brachmachira of Cashmire, Chief Priestess of the Pagoda of Sirinagur, and a consecrated vestal of Brahma, having justly forfeited cast, is doomed by the word of Brahma, and the law of Menu, to become a Chancalas, a wanderer, and an outcast upon earth!--with none to pray with her, none to sacrifice with her, none to read with her, and none to speak to her; none to be allied by friendship or by marriage to her, none to eat, none to drink, and none to pray with her. Abject let her live, excluded from all social duties; let her wander over the earth, deserted by all, trusted by none, by none received with affection, by none treated with confidence--an apostate from her religion, and an alien to her country, branded with the stamp of infamy and of shame, the curse of Heaven and the hatred of all good men[13].”
The last words died on the lips of him who pronounced them; and theunfortunate grandsire fell lifeless in the arms of his attendants. Theconch, or religious hell, was then blown with a blast so shrill andloud, that it resembled the sound of the last trump; the tublea rolled,and was echoed by endless reverberations; hideous shouts ofsuperstitious frenzy mingling their discordant jar, ran along the mightyconcave like pealing thunderbolts, until gradually these sounds ofterror fainted away in sobbing echoes; and the awful procession departedfrom the temple to the same solemn strains, in the same order in whichit had entered it. All was again silent, awful, and gloomy; like thenight which preceded creation, or that which is to follow itsdestruction. The subterraneous fires still faintly emitted their flameabove the surface of the earth, and threw their mystic light on thebrow of the excommunicated Priestess. She lay lifeless on the earth,where she had fallen during the conclusion of the ceremony of herexcommunication, with a shriek so loud and piercing, that the horridcrash of sounds, which at that moment filled the Pagoda, could alonehave drowned her shrill and plaintive voice, or prevented the discoveryof her situation to the ministers of the temple. The Missionary kneltbeside her, watching, in breathless agony, the slow departure and fadingsounds of the procession. When all was still, he turned his eyes on theOutcast; he saw her lying without life or motion, cold and disfigured,and, save by him alone, abandoned and abhorred by all. Thus lost, thusfallen, he beheld her in a place where she had once received the homageof a deity: he saw her an innocent and unoffending victim, offered byhimself, by his mistaken zeal and imprudent passion, on the altar of arigid and cruel superstition: his brain maddened as he gazed upon her,for he almost believed her tender heart had broken its life-chords,under the pressure of feelings and sufferings beyond the power of humanendurance; and, in this dreadful apprehension, all capability of thoughtor action alike deserted him. Alike bereaved of reflection or resource,alike destitute of effort or energy, he remained mute, agonized, andgazing on the object of his tenderness and his despair. At last a sigh,soft, yet convulsive, breathed from the lips of Luxima, and seemed tooperate on his frame like electricity: it was a human sound, and itdispelled the dead-like silence of all around him; it was the accent oflove and sorrow, and his heart vibrated to its respiration. He raisedthe sufferer in his arms; he addressed to her soothing murmurs of loveand pity, of hope and consolation. At the sound of his voice, she raisedher eyes, and gazed, with a look of fear and terror, round her, as ifshe expected to meet the forms, or to hear the voices, of the awfulministers of her malediction; but the moment which succeeded was cheaplypurchased, even by its preceding horrors. She turned back her languideyes in despair, believing herself abandoned alike by Heaven and earth,but she fixed them in transport on him who was now her universe; herwhole being received a new impulse from the look which answered to herown.
“Thou art safe! thou art near me!” she exclaimed, in a sobbing accent;and, falling on his shoulder, she wept. Some moments of unbroken silencepassed away, devoted to emotions too exquisite and too profound to beimaged by words. Where a true and perfect love exists, there is amelancholy bliss in the sacrifices made for its object; and the tenderIndian was now soothed, under her affliction, by the consideration ofhim for whose sake she had incurred it: for to suffer, or to die, forhim she loved, was more precious to her feelings, than even to haveenjoyed security and life, independent of his idea, his influence, orhis presence. But equal to sustain her own miseries, she was overpoweredby the fate which remotely threatened him; and in a moment when heraffection rose in proportion to the peril he risked for her sake, sheresolved on the last and greatest sacrifice the heart of woman couldmake to effect his safety, by again urging his flight, and resigning himfor ever. Gazing on him, therefore, with a melancholy smile, which loveand agony disputed, she said, “My father and my friend! a creatureavoided and abhorred by all, labouring under the curse of her nation andthe wrath of Heaven, has no alternative but to submit to a fate, whichshe can neither avert nor avoid: but for thee, who hast incurred thepenalty of a crime, of which thou art innocent, and which thy pure soulabhors, a life of safety and of glory is yet reserved. A law, whichseems dictated by cruelty, is always reluctantly executed by the gentleand benevolent Hindus; and they shudder to take the life which they yetforbear not to render miserable. Provoke not then their wrath by thypresence, but fly, and live for those most happy and most blessed, whoshall meet thy looks and hang upon thy words. For me, my days arenumbered--sad and few, they will wear away in some trackless desert;where, lost to my cast, my country, and my
fame, death, welcome andwished for, shall yet find my soul wedded to one deathless bliss, thebliss of knowing I was beloved by thee.” As she spoke, her head droopedon the trembling hands which were clasped in hers; her tears bathedthem. A long and an affecting pause ensued.
A thousand feelings, opposite in their nature and powerful in theirinfluence, seemed to struggle in the bosom of the Missionary: a thousandideas, each at variance with the other, seemed to rush on and to agitatehis mind. At last, withdrawing the hand which trembled in hers, and withthe look and voice of one whose soul, after a long tumultuous conflict,is wound up to unalterable resolution, he said, “Luxima, I am aChristian, and a priest, and I am bound by certain vows to Heaven, fromthe observance of which no human power can absolve me; but I am also aman; as such, led by feeling, impelled by humanity, and bound by duty,to aid the weak and to succour the unfortunate:--but when I am myselfthe cause of sorrow to the innocent! of affliction to theunoffending!--O Luxima!” he passionately added, “lost to thee for ever,as lover or as husband, thinkest thou that I can also abandon thee aspastor and as friend? Hast thou then, my daughter, the courage to leavefor ever the temples of thy God, and the land of thy forefathers? Artthou so assured of thyself and of me, as to follow me through distantregions, to follow me as my _disciple only_; to take up the cross ofChristianity, and to devote what remains of thy young and blooming lifeexclusively to Heaven? Luxima, wilt thou follow me to Goa?”
“Follow _thee_?” wildly and tenderly repeated the Indian. An hystericlaugh burst from her lips, a crimson blush rushed over her face, andagain deserting it, left it colourless. “Follow thee! O Heaven! _throughlife to death_!”
The Missionary arose: he averted his eyes from the fatal eloquence ofhers: he paced the temple with an unequal but rapid step; he seemedwrapt in thoughts wild and conflicting. At last, turning to Luxima, hefixed his eyes on her face, and said, with a voice firm, solemn, andimpressive, “Daughter, it is well! from this moment I am thy guide onearth to heaven--no more!”
“No more!” faintly repeated Luxima, casting down her looks and sighingprofoundly. Then, after a short pause, the Missionary extended his handto raise her; but suddenly relinquishing the trembling form hesupported, he moved away. Luxima, with a slow and feeble step, followedhim to the entrance of the temple; but, as they reached together theextremity of the cavern, the blue light of the subterraneous fireflashed on an image of Camdeo, her tutelar deity. She started,involuntarily paused before the idol, and bowed her head to the earth.
The Missionary threw on her a glance of severe reproof, and, taking herhand, would have led her on; but this little image had touched on thechord of her most profound feelings, and awakened the most intimatelyassociated ideas of her mind.
“Father,” she said, in a timid supplication of look and voice, “forgiveme; but here, in this spot, no less an idol than that at whose shrine Ibow--my nation’s pride and sex’s glory--here did I devote myself toHeaven; and becoming the Priestess of mystic love, here did I renounce,by many a sacred vow, all human passion and all human ties.”
“Luxima,” he replied, still leading her on, “such as were thy vows, such_are_ mine; let us alike keep them in our recollection, and renew themin our hearts. O my daughter! let us more than tacitly renew them in ourhearts; let us together kneel, and----”
“_But not here, father!_” tremulously interrupted Luxima, lookingfearfully round her--“not here!”
“No,” he replied, and shuddered as he spoke, “not here!”
In silence, and with rapid steps, they passed beneath the frowning andgigantic arch, which hung its ponderous vault above the threshold of thePagan temple; to its impervious gloom, its mysterious obscurity,succeeded the sudden brightness of the moonlight glen, in whose lovelysolitudes the awful pile reared its massive heights, to intercept therising, or catch the parting beam of day. Here the proscribed wandererspaused; they listened breathlessly, and gazed on every side; for danger,perhaps death, surrounded them: but not a sound disturbed the mysticsilence, save the low murmurs of a gushing spring, which fell with morethan mortal music from a mossy cliff, sparkling among the matted rootsof overhanging trees, and gliding, like liquid silver, beneath thenetwork of the parasite plants. The flowers of the Mangoosten gave tothe fresh air a balmy fragrance. The mighty rocks of the Pagoda, whichrose behind in endless perspective, scaling the heavens, which seemed torepose upon their summits, lent the strong relief of their deep shadowsto the softened twilight of the foreground.
“All is still,” said the Missionary, pausing near the edge of thefalling stream, and relinquishing the hand he had till now clasped; “allis still, and spirits of peace seem to walk abroad, to calm the tumultof human cares, to whisper hope, and to inspire confidence. Mydaughter, eternity is in these moments. The brief and frail authority ofman, reduced to its own insignificance, holds no jurisdiction now, andthe spirit ascends free and fearless to the throne of its Creator.” TheMissionary stood gazing on the firmament as he spoke, his soul minglingwith the magnificent and sublime objects he contemplated; then, turninghis eyes on Luxima, he was struck with the peculiar character of her airand person. She looked, as she stood at a little distance, half hid inthe mists of shade, like some impalpable form, which imaged on the airthe spirit of suffering innocence, in the first moment of its ascent toheaven. Her head was thrown back, and a broken moonbeam, fallingthrough the trees, encompassed it with a faint glory: the tears of humansuffering had not yet dried upon her cheek of snow; but it was the onlytrace of human feeling visible: her soul seemed to commune with him ofwhom it was an emanation.
“Luxima,” said the Missionary, approaching her, “the moment of thyperfect conversion is surely arrived: in spirit thou belongest to Himwho died to save thee; be then his also by those rites, which, in aplace like this, he thought it not beneath him to receive, from thehands of one by whom he was preceded, as the star of the morning ushersin the radiance of the rising sun. O my daughter! ere together wecommence our perilous and trying pilgrimage, we have need of all thefavour which Heaven’s mercy can afford us, for we have much to dread,from others and ourselves; let then no tie be wanting which can bind usfaster to virtue and religion. Luxima, innocent and afflicted as thounow art, pure and sublime as thou now lookest, feelest thou thyself notworthy to become a Christian in form as in faith?”
“If _thou_ thinkest me not unworthy,” she replied, in a low voice, “thatwhich thou art, I am willing to be.”
The Missionary led her forward, in silence, to the edge of the spring,and blessing the living waters as they flowed, he raised his consecratedhands, and shed the dew of salvation upon the head of the proselyte,pronouncing, in a voice of inspiration, the _solemn sacrament ofbaptism_. All around harmonized with the holy act; Nature stood solesponsor; the incense which filled the air, arose from the bosom of theearth; and the light which illuminated the ceremony, was light fromheaven.
A long and solemn pause ensued; then the Missionary, clasping andholding up the hands of Luxima in his, said, “Father, receive into thyservice this spotless being; for to thy service do I consecrate her.”
A beam of religious triumph shone in the up-turned eyes of theMissionary. The conversion of the Priestess of Brahma was perfected, andhuman passion was subdued. “Daughter of heaven!” he said, “thou hast nownothing to fear; and I, on this side eternity, have nothing to hope.” Ashe spoke the last words, an involuntary sigh burst from his lips, and heturned his eyes on the Christian vestal; but hers were fixed upon thePagoda, the temple of her ancient devotion. Her look was sad and wild;she seemed absorbed and overwhelmed by the rapidity of emotions whichhad lately assailed her. “Let us proceed,” he said, in a softened voice,“if thou be able; let us leave for ever the monument of the darkidolatry which thou hast abjured.” As he spoke, he took her arm to leadher on; but he started, and suddenly let it fall, for he found it wasencircled with the muntra, or Brahminical rosary, from which the imageof Camdeo was suspended. “Luxima,” he said, “these are not the ornament
sof a Christian vestal.”
Luxima clasped her hands in agony; the tears dropped fast upon herbosom; and she fell at his feet, exclaiming, in a voice of tendernessand despair, “Oh! thou wilt not deprive me of these also? I have nothingleft now _but these_! nothing to remind me, in the land of strangers, ofmy country and my people, save only these: it makes a part of thereligion I have abandoned, to respect the sacred ties of nature; doesmy new faith command me to break them? This rosary was fastened on myarm by a parent’s tender hand, and bathed in Nature’s holiest dew--aparent’s tender tears: hold not the Christians relics, such as these,precious and sacred? Thou hast called thy religion the religion of theheart; will it not then respect the heart’s best feelings?” A deepconvulsive sob interrupted her words; all the ties she had brokenpressed upon her bosom, and the affections of habit, those close-knitand imperishable affections, interwoven, by time and circumstance, withthe very life-nerves of the heart, bore down for the moment, every otherpassion. The Outcast, with her eyes fixed upon the religious ornamentsof her youth, wept, as she gazed, her country, parents, friends--“andwould not be comforted.”
The Missionary sighed and was silent: he sighed to observe the stronginfluence of a religion, which so intimately connected itself with allthe most powerful emotions of nature and earliest habits of life; andwhich, taking root in the heart, with its first feelings, could only beperfectly eradicated by the slow operation of expanding reason, by thestrengthening efforts of moral perception, or by the miraculous effectsof divine grace, and he was silent; because, the appeal which the tenderand eloquent Indian made to his feelings, found an advocate in hisbreast it was impossible to resist. Instead, therefore, of reprovingher emotion, he suffered himself to be infected by its softness, andmingled his tears with hers.
The grief of Luxima subsided in the blessed consciousness of a sympathyso precious, so unexpected; and love’s warm glow dried up the tear,which the grief of natural affection shed on the cheek of the Outcast.“Thou weepest for me,” she said, chasing away the trembling drops whichhung in her up-turned eyes; “and in the indulgence of a selfish feeling,I hazard thy safety and thy life! That cruel, that accusing Brahmin, whohas watched my steps to my destruction, whom I mistook last night forthe vision of that God he too zealously serves--may he not even nowlurk in these shades; or may he not, when we are vainly sought for inour respective asylums, seek us here?--O my father! forgive these tears.But it was the tenderness of him who lately cursed me; it was my agedgrandsire, whom I have dragged to death and covered with shame (forsomething of my infamy must light on all my kindred); it was he who,with the morning’s dawn, sent me the tidings of my approaching fate, andbade me fly and shun it: he would not see, he would not hear me; nordare he breathe my name, but to heap curses on my head. But for thistimely tender warning I should have else been hunted, like some noxiousreptile, to wilds and wastes, there to die and be forgotten. All day Ilay concealed amidst the shades of the impervious banyan, to wait thycoming with the evening sun, to bid thee a last farewell, and urge theeto save thyself by an immediate flight; but by a miracle, wroughtdoubtlessly by thy God for thee, that which seemed to lead us todestruction, became the wondrous mean of preservation; and we foundsafety where we could only hope for death.”
“Luxima,” said the Missionary, “let us believe that He, who alone couldsave us, still extends around us the shelter of his wing. Let us, whileyet thou hast strength, fly these fatal shades. Behind thosepine-covered rocks, which the moon now silvers, there lies, I know, adeep and entangled glen, which, I have heard, is held in superstitioushorror, and never approached by pious Hindus. This glen leads to Bembar,by many a solitary path, made to facilitate the march of the caravanfrom Thibet to Tatta, at this season of the year[14]. It was butyesterday, some straggling troops, belonging to the caravan, passedthrough the valley, and halted at no great distance hence, to trafficwith the Cashmirian merchants: these, as they often halt, we mayovertake in some lone way, out of the view of thy intolerantcountrymen.” While he spoke, they had proceeded on, and reached theentrance to a ravine in the rocks, which, dark and tremendous, seemedlike a closing chasm above their heads, threatening destruction; but,when they had reached its extremity, they found themselves in adelicious glen, through whose trees were discernible the crescentbanners of the Mogul camp; and the sky-lamps, which marked the outpostsof the midnight guards. At this sight, the prophetic warning andgenerous offers of the gallant Solyman rushed with equal force to theminds of the wanderers; but both remained silent--Luxima, from aninstinctive delicacy, which mocked the refinement of acquired sentiment;the Missionary, from a feeling less laudable and less disinterested.Both involuntarily turned their eyes on each other, and suddenlywithdrawing them, changed colour; for, in spite of the awful vows sincemade, and the virtuous resolutions since formed, the hearts of eachthrobbed responsively to the dangerous recollection of that fatal scene,to which the unexpected presence of the Mogul Prince had given birth.
Ere the mild and balmy night had passed its noon, the weary proselyte,exhausted equally from fatigue of mind and body, felt that she would beunable to proceed, if she snatched not the invigorating refreshment of ashort repose. The Missionary, with tender watchfulness, was the firstto observe her faltering steps, and sought out for her a mossy bank,cradled by the luxuriant branches of a mango-tree; and, withdrawing to alittle distance, he at once guarded her slumber and gave himself up tomeditate on some precise plan for their future pilgrimage; which, ifthey could overtake the caravan, whose track they had alreadydiscovered, would be attended with but few difficulties. Yet he dared nolonger seek “the highways and public places,” to promulgate hisdoctrines, and to evince his zeal. Withheld less by a principle ofself-preservation than by his fears for the safety and even life of hisinnocent proselyte; he also felt his enthusiasm in the cause weakened,by the apparent impossibility of its success; for he perceived that thereligious prejudices of Hindostan were too intimately connected with thetemporal prosperity of its inhabitants, with the established opinions,with the laws, and even with the climate of the country, to beuniversally subverted, but by a train of moral and political events,which should equally emancipate their minds from antiquated error, inwhich they were absorbed, and which should destroy the fundamentalprinciples of their loose and ill-digested government. He almost lookedupon the Mission, in which he had engaged, as hopeless; and he felt thatthe miracle of that conversion, by which he expected to evince thesacred truth of the cause in which he had embarked, could produce noother effect than a general abhorrence of him who laboured to effect it,and of her who had already paid the forfeit of all most precious to thehuman breast, for that partial proselytism, to which her affections,rather than her reason, had induced her. Yet, when he reflected that heshould return to Goa, the scenes of his former triumphs, followed onlyby one solitary disciple, and that disciple a young and lovely woman,his mind became confused, and he trembled to dwell on an idea fraughtwith a thousand mortifying and cruel recollections. The dawn had alreadybeamed upon his harassing vigils, when Luxima stood before him,resembling the star of the morning, bright in her softness, the mistsof a tender sadness hanging on the lustre of her looks. The Missionarywas revived by her presence; but the sweet and subtle transport, whichcirculated through his veins, as he gazed on the being who nowconsidered him as her sole providence, he endeavoured to conceal beneatha tranquil coldness of manner, which the secret ardour of his feelings,the delicacy of his situation, and the pure and virtuous resolutions ofhis mind, alike rendered necessary and laudable.
As they proceeded, he spoke to her of the plans he had devised, and ofhis intention of placing her in a religious house when they arrived atGoa. He spoke to her of the false religion she had abandoned, and ofthe pure faith she had embraced.
Luxima answered only by gentle sighs, and by looks, which seemed to say,“Whatever may be my future destiny, I am at least _now_ near you.”
The Missionary sought to avoid these looks, which, when they met hiseye, sunk
to his heart, and disturbed his best resolutions; for neverhad his Neophyte looked more lovely. Supported by a white wand, which hehad formed for her, of a bamboo, she moved lightly and timidly by hisside, like the genius of the sweet and solitary shades, in which theywandered. The course of the rivers, the variation of the soil, and thebeacons held out to them by the surrounding mountains, with whose formsthey were well acquainted, were their guides; while the milk of theyoung and luscious cocoa-nut, the cheering nectar extracted from thepulp of the bilva-fruit, and the rice, and delicious fruits, which onevery side presented themselves, afforded at once nutrition andrefreshment[15]. Sometimes catching, sometimes losing, the faint trackof the caravan, the conviction of increasing safety, and the certaintyof overtaking it at Bembar, left them scarcely a fear, and scarcely ahope, on the subject. For to wander through the lovely and magnificentvalley of Cashmire, was but to loiter amidst the enjoyments of Eden; andto proceed by each other’s side--to catch the half-averted eyebeam,which penetrated the soul--to observe the sudden glow which mantled onthe cheek--to participate in the same blissful feeling, and yet toheighten, by submitting it to the same pure sense of virtue, was a stateof being too exquisite not to obliterate, in its transient enjoyment,the memory of the past and the apprehension of the future. Restrainedand reserved even in the intimacy of their intercourse, they sought toforget the existence of a passion it was now so dangerous to cherish.The Missionary was regulated by religion and by honour; the Indian, bysentiment and by instinctive delicacy. Solicitude tempered by reserve,tenderness blended with respect, distinguished the manner of the Priest.Modesty, which shrunk from the appearance of intrusion; and bashfulness,trembling to betray the feelings it guarded, marked the conduct of theNeophyte. Silent, except on subjects of religious sublimity, a look,suddenly caught and as suddenly withdrawn, alone betrayed theirdangerous secret. They were frequently parted during the ardours of theday, which prevented their continuing their journey; and sometimes, whenthe night-dews fell heavily, the guardian Priest sought out for hisweary charge a grassy couch, where the madhucca had spread its downyleaves; or where a luxurious and perfumed shade was afforded by thesephalica, whose flowers unfold only their bloom and odour to the sighsof night, and droop and wither beneath the first ray the sun darts o’ertheir fragile loveliness: while _he_, not daring, even by a look, toviolate the pure and seraph slumber of confiding innocence, waked onlyto guard her repose; or slept, to woo to his fancy the dream, which toooften, in illusive visions, gave to his heart her whom waking hetrembled to approach. When they arose, the twilight of the dawnconducted them to the respective bath, which innumerable springsafforded; and, when again they met, they offered together the incenseof the heart to Heaven, and proceeded on their pilgrimage. The path theyhad taken was so sequestered, that they seldom risked discovery; butwhen, amidst the haze of distance, they observed a human form, or caughta human sound, they plunged into the umbrage of the surrounding shades,until the absence of the intruder again gave them up to solitude andsilence. It was in moments such as these only, that the high mind of theMissionary felt that it had forfeited its claim to the independencewhich belongs to unblemished rectitude, and that the Indian rememberedshe was an alien and an Outcast.
THE END OF VOL. II.
S. GOSNELL, _Printer, Little Queen Street, London_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The new Emperor Aurengzebe had scarcely mounted his throne nearDelhi, when he was alarmed with intelligence of the march of SolymanSheko, by the skirts of the northern mountains, to join his father,Daara, at Lahore.--Dow, 286.
[2] The Brahminical hell.
[3] Saint Catherine de Genes.
[4] It is thus Brahma is represented in his avatar of divine wisdom.
[5] Paraubahzah Vushtoo, or First Cause.
[6] The Indian Cupid is frequently represented armed with a flash oflightning.
[7] Gungee, the presiding deity of the Ganges: she has eight vestalattendants, which personify the eight principal rivers in Hindoostan.
[8] Flowers have always been the tasteful medium for the eloquence ofEastern love: like the Peruvian quipas, a wreath, in India, isfrequently the record of a life.
[9] To quit life, before it quits them, is among the Hindus no uncommonact of heroism; and this fatal custom arises from their doctrine ofmetempsychosis, in which the faith of all the various casts is equallyimplicit.
[10] This mystery is called the _Matricha-machom_. The Brahmins believethat the soul is thus conducted to the brain, and that the spirit isre-united to the Supreme Being.
[11] The vapour of naphtha which issues through the crevices of theearth, is supposed to be the cause of the flame which is sometimesobserved in India. At Chittagong is a fountain which bursts into flame,and which has its tutelar deities and presiding priests. When it ispurposely extinguished, it rekindles spontaneously.
[12] See translation of the Laws of Menu, by Sir William Jones.
[13] Such is the form of the Indian excommunication.
[14] “Selon les témoignages de tous les Katchmeriens, on voyoit partirchaque année de le pays plusieurs caravans.”--_Voyages de_ BERNIER.
[15] “Il faut surtout considérer que l’abstinence de la chair desanimaux est une suite de la nature du climat.”--_Essai sur les Mœurs desNations, &c. &c. &c._
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