"It is the Gayâtri, Huzoor, and yonder is Maha-deo. He is but half-way, so we must press on. The sahib can see now; there is no fear."
None. Yet did I see them, or was I only conscious of that teeming life in the jungles? Of the tiger crouching by our path, the snakes slipping from it, the deer standing to watch us, and strangest of all, those shapes hiding in the dim shadows--undreamt-of monsters, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl? Was it a dream? or--the idea brought a faint hysterical laugh--was it the Zoological Gardens and the British Museum rolled into one?
"We must cross the river, Huzoor," said the dim form flitting before me; "Buniah-man sahib will have taken the boat."
I suppose it was the usual rope bridge swung across the narrowing chasm of the river, but it seemed to me that night as if I walked on air. Below me, not ten feet from the lowest curve of the loop, was the Ganges, wrinkled and seamed, slipping giddily eastwards: overhead, a stream of clouds speeding eastwards also.
"She rises fast," muttered Sambo. "Mai Gunga is in a hurry to-night."
The whole world was in a hurry. I seemed to hear flying feet keeping time with our own. Not an instant's pause was there even for breath until we reached the last declivity above the little oasis of the valley. The moon had risen, but the clouds hurrying across her face gave greater uncertainty to the scene; still I could see a woman's figure standing with widespread arms by the edge of the rising river. I could see a man sending a boat across the shallows with mighty strokes. And above the growing rush of the water I could hear two murmuring voices, which seemed to fill the world with soft antagonism. "Ooma! Ooma!" from the hills; "Râdha! Râdha!" from the valley. These were calling to the woman, and, as in a dream, I seemed to remember and understand; Râdha, the queen of pleasure; Ooma, the mother of the universe. Krishna's mistress, and Siva's wife!
I looked round for Sambo. He was gone; so I ran on alone feeling there was no time to be lost. My foot slipped and I fell heavily. But I was up again in a second unhurt, save, perhaps, for that scratch on my forehead, whence I could feel the blood flowing as I dashed into the shadow of the banyan tree. Merciful heaven! what was this? A glare as of noonday, and two radiant forms with a cowering woman between them! between the chaplets of skulls and the chaplets of flowers. And behind them was an empty plinth! Before I had time to realise what I saw, came shouts and cries, a mêlée and a scuffle. Armed men ran out of the shadows, and then Sambo's voice was insistent, "Run, sahib, run! 'Tis your only chance. The boat--the boat!" Then some one hit me over the head from behind, and when I came to myself I was lying in the bottom of the boat. Bannerman was standing beside me shaking his fist impotently at the twinkling lights on the bank, and Sambo sat aft steering as best he could; for the oars had gone and we were racing with the flood towards the rapids. They had bound up my head with something, but I still felt stunned, and the rush of the rising river surged in my ears through the thin planks as I lay. So perhaps it was only my fancy that those two sat talking, talking, arguing, arguing, about the old, old problems.
Till suddenly I sat up to the clear sound of Sambo's voice.
"It is not to be done, Huzoor. We are in the hands of fate. If death comes, it will come, but it will end in birth."
The answer was that half-jeering laugh I knew so well. "I'll chance it, Nil-kunt; I don't believe you."