The flame-gatherers

by Margaret Horton Potter

“I go there to pray to the great Brahma for two erring souls.”

“The souls of the Ranee and the slave who were drowned together?”

Oman bent his head.

“And dost thou not think, O Oman, that for such sinful ones there must be hundreds of reincarnations to expiate their crimes?”

“Was there happiness enough in their sin to repay a thousand years of suffering?” he asked, bitterly. “Nay, woman, I tell thee that thirty years of sorrow and struggle hath more than paid—more than paid! There is a strict justice over all things. The Divine Soul alone knows the real measure of happiness and misery meted out to each of us. He also knows in how much the crime carries with it its punishment.”

“Thou art a strange man, Oman,” she answered, looking at him curiously. “Sometimes I could think thee mad if thou wast not so—so assured. Whence come these thoughts of thine? Art thou inspired?”

“Nay, Zenaide. Knowledge must come to all who, by bitterness and tears, have drawn near the infinite. Suffering brings much beauty to the soul. I begin to think that men shun it too much.” And then Oman smiled, and went away, fearing lest he had spoken too plainly to one who, through her nature, might understand.

Much to Oman’s surprise, and to the amazement and consternation of the whole plateau, Bhavani, after six months of deliberation, acted upon the impulsive suggestion made by Oman, in the river temple on the anniversary of the death of Ahalya and Fidá. In the autumn of that year the ashes of Rai-Khizar-Pál were removed from their tomb in the palace, and borne down the river to a new grave. The act came very near to causing a general uprising. Bhavani’s own son pleaded with his father on his knees not to dishonor the great warrior, his grandfather, and thus bring infamy upon himself and the whole line. It was in vain. Oman’s secret idea had taken root in Bhavani’s heart; and a revolution would not have turned him from his object. In the month of October, just before the rains, Rai-Khizar’s ashes were laid beside those of his dead wife, in a new marble tomb, the magnificence of which a little consoled the people for the disrespect to their warrior king.

It was Oman who was charged with the matter of the reinterment; and, when the priests had finished their service after the burial, he went down to the river bank, and at the risk of his life began to talk to the angry mob that waited there. It was a dramatic scene. In the beginning his voice was completely drowned by the roars and cries that rose from the usually passive and obedient people. Probably only the presence of Bhavani saved the hermit, as he was called, from personal violence. But Oman held doggedly to his place; and, after a time his very appearance, as he stood upon a block of stone twenty yards from the temple, silenced the noise, and brought the people, against their will, to listen to him. As he began to speak, his voice was like the melodious ripple of a summer stream. He talked of wrong-doing and the forgiveness of sin; and the doctrine that he preached had never been heard in the east at all. One long before, in the west, had spoken such words; but they had not lived truly in the hearts of men. Before Oman paused, however, he had brought all the throng literally to his feet, because of the things he said and the way he said them. And, in that hour, Oman won his place with the low castes of Mandu, among whom, henceforth, he was privileged to much that their priests could not obtain of them.

By this unpremeditated act, Oman made possible for himself something that he had desired long and earnestly. It opened the way for him to go down among the humbler people, and cause them to reveal their souls to him, that he might give them his truths. In the next months he studied, ardently, the nature of mankind, in the hope of finding means of escape from temptation for those too weak to resist it, and of giving proper strength to those who could still struggle against themselves. But, even while he labored, a new discouragement came upon him. He succeeded only too well in probing the natures of those who sought his help. To him, whose severe and troubled life had been exempt from the complicated wrong of living, the constant discoveries made to him of selfishness, pettiness, deceit, of warped and perverted notions of right and wrong, thrown before him in all the chaotic tangle of actual existence, brought revelations that overpowered him with their barefacedness. All alone he wrestled with problems that have neither beginning nor end; where, from the first, all has been so wrong that there is no hope of setting it right. He saw almost as the Almighty must see:—the terrible falsity of each individual; and, the reason for it, the reason for the fact of existence, being withheld from him, he fainted under the burden of seemingly irreparable wrong. It was no joy to him to reflect that, compared with most men, he had lived the life of a saint. Oblivious of himself since his victory was won, he tried to take up the battle for others too ill-equipped for resistance. And thus, after all, Oman showed himself not very wise; for he had not learned that, by the first law of creation, man works out his destiny alone. But this new problem proved to be also his last turning-point. He had ceased to live for himself. Henceforth all his desire was for others. It is the last lesson:—one that men are not often trusted here to learn.