“But it is true? Those words—are they the law, then? Must Oman follow them? Must I be thrust forth? Master!—Help me!—Master!” And Hushka felt the wretched creature clasping his knees in the darkness.
Then silence fell. Only Oman’s breath could be heard, rushing in and out, like that of a dying dog. At this sound, Hushka felt a sudden revulsion, a sudden despairing anger with him. Was Oman to be pitied:—Oman, who had wrecked his, Hushka’s life, as well as his own? The monk rose from his knees, walked across the hall, and stood at one of the unscreened openings, staring out into the starlit night. Here, silently, he struggled with himself:—struggled for justice toward Oman, justice toward the Samgha, toward himself. Oman had not moved from the place where he was at first. Only now he lay prone on the floor, and his breathing was quiet. He was waiting, without any feeling, without any emotion, for his sentence.
The suspense continued for a long time. Hushka’s heart was full, and his brain reeling. Now he addressed himself passionately to Gautama, now he turned to his own judgment. Prayer and reasoning, however, led him alike to one conclusion—a conclusion pitiless to himself, pitiless to Oman. Nay, the cruel result was inevitable. Oman had dared formulate nothing to himself; but Hushka was obliged to face the situation.
After a long time, then, the monk went back to his pupil, sat down beside him, laid a trembling hand on the prostrate shoulder, and began to speak, softly, as a mother might:
“Thou knowest, Oman, that the word of the Mahavagga is our law. If the Samgha knew this thing that thou hast told me, thou wouldst suffer public exposition and expulsion. I, knowing, dare not let thee remain here. Thou must escape to-night, quietly; and I will be here to—to accept the consequences of thy going. I can do no more for thee. But the blessed Buddha, the Sakya—”
He broke off, suddenly, for Oman, raising himself halfway from the floor, had begun to laugh. Hushka shuddered as he listened. It was so high, so harsh, so quavering, that it seemed as if it must go on forever. But suddenly it broke, and melted into a long, heart-broken wail. Oman was going to pieces; and Hushka sanely set to work to stop it. How it was accomplished he scarcely knew. Under sharp command and gentlest soothing Oman was presently quiet again, save for the trembling of his body, and the little, broken moans that involuntarily escaped him. Now that he had pulled himself together, Hushka left him for a quarter of an hour, and then reappeared, carrying over one arm an old and much-worn garment that was not yellow. In the other hand he had a small millet loaf.
Oman was dimly aware of being stripped of his robes, of having the other garments put upon him. Then he received into his hand the food. After that he followed his preceptor quietly out into the empty veranda. Behind them the monastery was still. Over the great world beyond, the golden moon was slowly rising. In its light, Oman turned a dumb face to the man he had so worshipped. He saw that Hushka was suffering—suffering as perhaps high Sakyamuni had not suffered. Neither one of them, however, could speak. Hushka, with an air of benediction, pressed his fingers, once, to the cold brow of the outcast. Then,—he was gone. Oman was alone on the brink of the world, irrevocably and forever shut out from the protecting walls behind him. Outcast of men, he stood, facing life. And, since he had already drunk the dregs of feeling, mercifully his heart was numb. After a little he moved off, unsteadily, into the faint-starred blackness of the ravine: halted, went on again to the edge of moonlight, and then paused once more, struck by some new thought, expectant, his head uplifted. Out of the night came the sound of whirring wings. He opened wide his arms, and into them flew a small, gray bird that nestled to his breast as if it had been at home. Holding the mysterious creature close, Oman proceeded, staggering, through the night, down and down the ravine, till all the Viharas were passed, and a few lights, twinkling in the distance, showed him the town of Bágh. Then, utterly exhausted in body and mind, he crawled, on his hands and knees, under a spreading bush, and, with the bird still warm in his bosom, gave himself up to merciful sleep.
CHAPTER VIII
THE OUTCAST
Blank hours passed. The glimmer of false dawn came and went again. At last the day, inevitable, rose, like an opal, out of the East. The silent world was overspread with clear light; and, in its first moments, the bird, which till now had lain motionless on Oman’s breast, fluttered up, hovered for a second over the quiet form, and then took flight, winging away into the invisible. Oman was still sleeping: a heavy, transitional sleep.
Day swept up the sky, and the blazoning sun whirled from the heart of the hills. Now, at last, Oman opened his eyes, sat up, looked around—stared, indeed, and all at once remembered fully. For the moment memory unnerved him. Then the strain proved again too great; and, with a renewed sense of dulness, he rose. The bird was gone. He seemed to have known that before. He wished now to discover his whereabouts. In the darkness he had reached the end of the ravine, and was at the edge of a long, barren slope, to the west of Bágh. The houses of the town began not far away. He could see people moving about there; and the sight of them reminded him that he was hungry. He felt faint, a little weak, and shaken, with the after effects of last night’s tumult. He determined not to enter Bágh. With an undefined weight of grief and ruin upon him, he began to toil upward along the slope, turning his face to the north, where the high hills rose. And, as he went, he ate the millet-loaf that Hushka had put into his hand.