"And the affair must be kept secret, Khan," he continued.
"It is known to thee and me, Pahar Singh, and to no one else; not even my son shall know of it till we march."
"Now let me depart," said the chief, "and the night after next I will come."
"God willing," replied the Khan, dismissing his strange visitor with a courteous salutation.
[CHAPTER LIII.]
On her return home, Tara being still asleep, Radha could not conceal from Anunda the agitation which the scene with her brother had caused her. As she reached the inner apartments, she threw herself upon Anunda's neck, and the terror she felt at what she considered a narrow escape from death, found relief in a flood of tears. The particulars of that scene she dared not fully relate: but Anunda gathered enough from her to believe that Moro Trimmul had threatened, if not struck his sister, and that Tara's suspicions were but too deeply founded.
If Anunda had not felt assured of Tara's purity and devotion to the worship of the goddess, in its spiritual sense only, she would have prevented, at all hazards perhaps, her assumption of service as a devotee. It was, she knew, one of the trials to which the girl would be subject so long as her beauty remained, that her public avocation would expose her to the gaze of all classes of people—the most persistent and dangerous libertines, perhaps, being priests of her own sect. But the act of Tara's profession of service was so sudden, so unlooked for, and had been carried out so immediately, that there was no time to consider the consequences.
Now, too, it was impossible to recede. Once she had vowed herself to the dread goddess she dared not retract, nor could any attempt be made, as they believed, to withdraw her without danger. Many instances of such partial service and relinquishment of it, capricious or meditated, had come to her knowledge, which had been followed by sudden death, or, what was worse, loss of reason and raving madness.
Well, therefore, might the sister-wives tremble at the consequences of transgression, even by temporary withdrawal of Tara's service. It was the first thing that Radha counselled; but, under the instances of punishment which she enumerated, Anunda declared it to be impossible. She could not—dare not—expose Tara to such risk, nor herself be the means of it; and, indeed, she was assured that Tara would never agree. Gradually, however, Anunda's naturally cheerful and sanguine spirit took courage.