“I!” shrieked the harridan. “I touch her after the dones (hangmen) have laid their hands on her! I, a high-caste Braminee! Do with the carrion as thou wilt!” and she spat on the ground and went her way. Thus, after death, neglect and scorn pursued poor hot-tempered Jasoda, even to the grave.
Nevertheless, had she but known it, her wrongs were most amply avenged. Who was there to do the work of the family—nay, of five families? She who had been their slave for years was sorely missed. The lazy, useless womenkind had now to cook and bake, draw water and feed cows, and grumbled loudly and quarrelled savagely among themselves—yea, even to blows—though the task of one was now portioned among so many. The patient, graceful figure, toiling to and from the well, or laden with wood or fodder, was no longer to be met, and was missed by more than her own household.
“She was the fairest girl in all the district,” said Gopal, the bunnia’s son. “There was no joy in her life, she seemed glad to die. Truly her execution was a grand tamasha, and brought many strangers from afar.”
This was her epitaph.
Jasoda’s name is still green in the memory of the villagers of Sharsheo; not that they acknowledge any special claim on her part to beauty, virtue, or martyrdom, but simply because it is not easy to forget that Jasoda, the daughter of Akin-alloo, and the widow of Sapona, was hanged.
AN APPEAL TO THE GODS.
“We be the gods of the East,
Older than all;
Masters of mourning and feast,
How shall we fall?”