Wenaston avoided the exceedingly difficult question of impersonality and exercise of the Divine will; and turned the conversation to a subject that was directly and humanly personal.
"Then if you were killed suddenly like that aviator, you would die in the comfortable assurance that you would join your God and become part of Him."
Somewhat to his surprise there was no reply. He glanced round at his companions under the impression that they had tired of the topic, and were no longer interested. The expression of their faces did not confirm this idea. Coomara's eyes were averted, but Ananda's were fixed upon the speaker; and in their depths lurked a shadow of fear that Wenaston could not fathom. He turned to the half-closed window. The wind had increased and the threatened storm of rain had begun. It was coming down in driving sheets that beat against the glass and obliterated the landscape.
"We are going to have a stormy night; this is not a shower," he remarked, as he drew up the window and closed it completely.
It was Bopaul who broke the silence. The seriousness of the subject had no effect on him. On the contrary, Wenaston thought he detected an undercurrent of amusement in his tone.
"Our future life depends on the circumstances surrounding death. The attainment of everlasting happiness would by no means fall to our lot, I am afraid. It is more likely that we individually would be overtaken by punishment."
"You have no hell to fear," replied Wenaston.
"We need not fear the hell described by the teachers of your religion; but we have an equivalent. It lies in our transmigration doctrine. Rebirth on earth as some inferior creature is our hell; existence as a horse, a dhoby-donkey, a rat, a loathsome pariah, a dog or a reptile according to the heinousness of our sins."
Bopaul smiled grimly as he caught the expression on the faces of Coomara and Ananda. The latter could not conceal his horror at the contemplation of an existence in a lower birth, where pain and servitude, he believed, would crush out every joy of life. His sensitive nature revolted against the thought of the indignities and sufferings such a birth must involve. Coomara's fatalism saved him in some degree from the dread that overwhelmed Ananda. If he were destined to a succession of inferior births it would be impossible to avoid them. The inevitable must be faced. As well might a man try to draw the sun down from its place in the heavens and stop its course as to endeavour to upset the law of destiny.
"It certainly sounds appalling," commented Wenaston.