"As though I shouldn't" she muttered fiercely. "My dear, as though I shouldn't——"
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FEAST OF SIVA
They came, so it seemed, from all the corners of India—from the east and west, north and south—thin streams of life trickling across the fields and down the mountain sides, till they converged in a broad, sluggish river which poured ceaselessly, irresistibly towards the place of its dreams and prayers. They had appeared miraculously, as though at a signal they had sprung up on the edge of the horizon and began their pilgrimage, as a conquering army bears down from all sides on a helpless citadel. But in reality they knew nothing of each other, and there was no order in their advance. Some had come from the neighbouring villages, some from villages hundreds of miles away. Some had packed up with wife, child, and household gods the night before—some many months ago. They had come over the mountains, down lonely passes, through wild tracts of country where dangerous and desperate marauders, man and beast, preyed on their defencelessness. They had borne hunger and thirst and much sickness. Many of them had dropped by the way. But there had been no lamentation, no turning back. They had no interest in each other. Humanity, brotherhood, a common faith—these things were without meaning for them. Yet, where danger threatened, little groups had herded together, driven by fear and instinct rooted deep in the trackless jungle of humanity's beginnings. They knew no pity. A pilgrim died by the roadside, and they looked at him indifferently, as at a commonplace, and he himself watched them pass with patient, unexpectant resignation. Suffering and death were part of the scheme of things. They lived under the shadow of a Juggernaut, and today it was this man's turn to go under, tomorrow another's. They had no hope and no clear faith. Their imaginations could not conjure up much to hope for—a child perhaps, the fulfilment of a curse against a neighbour, sufficient harvest—and there were so many gods. And yet they came, mile after mile, footsore and hungry, gravely or passionately intent on a mystic goal whose significance they could not formulate even to themselves. The gods knew, and the priests perhaps; but the gods were silent in these days, and the priests kept their counsel.
Tristram stood on the outskirts of the village and watched them come down through the glory of the sunrise. They rolled past him in a cloud of dust and a blare of harsh-throated instruments and the rattle of native drums. The bright morning rays picked out a hundred glints of colour from among them—here, a gay woman's chudder, there a rich puggri, or the glitter of gold ornaments, carried secretly and at great risk through the long journey, or the saffron robe of a holy man. All the stages of growth and decay were there—Youth restraining its steps to the halting measure of age, rags and tatters and gaudy finery, gentle, mysterious-eyed women, lithe-limbed boys and half-naked, pot-bellied babies rolling bow-legged at their parents' side, comic as young puppies. Last of all, grey-bearded and scarcely human, a fakir crawling on hands and knees through the rising dust. So his oath bound him. Years ago, he had started out on this pilgrimage. Now the end was in sight. He glanced up as he passed, but his face was without expression. Perhaps in those years he had reached his goal—indifference, Nirvana, where there is neither desire nor hope, pain nor happiness.
An odd misery laid hold of Tristram as he watched them. It was a pageant of life, all humanity struggling on through the heat and turmoil of years, driven by a secret, fathomless impulse, obeying the behests of self-created gods, seeking a self-created goal out of the desperate need of their hearts. And tricksters and men of God, fanatics, conventionalists, bread-and-butter priests, preying on each other, trampling on each other, pushing always forward in pretended knowledge of the Force that drives them.
But, to the man standing at Tristram's side, it was just a tiresome business. He was a captain in the native regiment, and was there with a handful of men to keep order if order could be kept.
"I daresay there'll be a shindy by nightfall," he remarked. "There always is. Can't think why we put up with it. We shall have a Holy Place on every inch of the river if we go on encouraging them like this."
"I suppose they've got to have a religion," Tristram observed absently.
"Well, I wish they'd have a nice, quiet, Sunday-go-to-meeting one like mine. Besides, it doesn't mean anything to them. It's just their way of taking a summer holiday."