“And it is good. Yes, it is good. Yet thy creed is pitiless, O sage. Tell me: what of those that yield their lives to matter, that give themselves up wholly to the evil influence? Is there no punishment for them?”
“Those that travel backward along their road must, with double pain and suffering, retrace their steps. That is their punishment.”
“But there is no Kutashala Máli—no place of everlasting punishment?”
“How can there be? Spirit is good. Spirit cannot die. And the only power in matter is its inertia. Who is there to decree such a place as that?”
“Listen, Oman, while I tell thee the story of two that I knew and loved in my childhood, who sinned together past forgiveness. Thou shalt tell me if they yet strive toward happiness; whether they do not still walk, helpless and despairing, along the Sinners’ Road. For of such sin as theirs, thou surely canst know naught.
“My father had a wife, the fairest and the youngest in his zenana, brought from Dhár, but of Persian blood, so that her skin was pale, like the lotos petal. She was called Ahalya; and every one that saw her, loved her. She had been a bride for two years when my father brought hither, out of the north, a noble captive of the invading race:—by name, Fidá el-Asra. And my father favored him greatly, and came in time to value him above all his other slaves. And at last he was made my master, my guardian in my father’s absence. By some means that I do not know, this slave once saw Ahalya, the lady of my father’s heart; and, like all men, he loved her. Then, because he was young and a captive, she loved him also, through pity. And here he dwelt, for many months, deceiving the King who had so trusted him. More than this, Ahalya, like all women, weak, also gave herself up to wickedness. Thus these two loved until they sinned themselves even unto death. For they died together, at last, by drowning in the Narmáda stream, after the slave had murdered one of my father’s counsellors, who, I believe, died in defending the honor of his King. Now tell me, Oman, if thou canst, what these two found waiting for them beyond the river of death?”
“They found,” answered Oman, slowly and distinctly, “a life of the deepest woe, a constant suffering, a shame that they can never escape. For those two, unlawfully joined in one life, are, in the next, inseparably united. Their two miserable souls inhabit but one body, in which they have struggled vainly for release. And,” here Oman rose and lifted his face, straining upward as if the words he spoke were received from some invisible source, “and thus they shall exist till they have drunk the cup of retribution to the very dregs. But, in the end, they shall escape their bondage. In time they will complete the expiation and know the blessed end:—freedom from travail and from woe. For they will regain their right to move forward alone, on the road to the Great Release.”
With the last words, he sank back upon the divan, and a silence followed. Bhavani sat amazed at the absolute conviction with which this man had spoken; and he was again seized with strange wonders and suspicions concerning the stranger’s identity. After a long pause the Rajah, groping for his words, asked, hoarsely:
“Wilt thou remain here in my kingdom and in my palace, master, and lay the foundation of thy faith in the heart of my son?”
For answer, Oman solemnly bowed his head. He knew it to be written that he should remain in Mandu.