Tara: A Mahratta Tale

by Meadows Taylor

"Wait," said Anunda, "and I will come to thee again;" and she went in and whispered it all to Radha. She saw the girl's face flush and her bosom heave rapidly. "Gunga must have helped him," she said, "else he had not dared it, and I will see to it myself." So they both went out to the Ramoosee, and Radha at once declared she would go with him to the town above, and make inquiries.

She was shrewd and active. Accompanied by Jánoo and two of the Bhóslay's retainers, she soon found the man from whom Jánoo had heard of Tara, and listened to his story. They had known nothing of Moro Trimmul's purpose, he said, till that night of the recitation, or how the girl they took was to be decoyed away, or who she was; but as the disturbance began, she was brought out by him in his arms, and then they took her. Yes, he knew what had become of her. Moro Trimmul had been put in irons by the Mahomedan chief, and Tara had been carried off to Sholapoor. He and his companions had watched the palankeen from the rocks in the ravine where they had hidden themselves, because, if it had been left unguarded, they would have gone to it.

It was clear enough now, therefore, that Tara was gone, not dead. That would have been grief—bitter grief; but here was more misery than death would have caused. Who had taken their Tara? for what fate was she reserved? They could only think of her beauty as destined for some Mahomedan harem—reserved for a fate worse than death.

It was piteous to see the mother and the sister-wife prostrated under this misery and the state of their husband; and it was with difficulty that Radha was restrained from going at once to Sholapoor after the camp, and endeavouring to trace and reclaim Tara. If she had only done so—if this energetic girl, used to rough ways and rapid journeys, had been allowed to follow out her own plans, what misery might not have been saved to all! Hard she pleaded, that she could not be denied to her brother. She would force from him an account of Tara, and would bring her back.

But Anunda hesitated; and the Shastree, to whom all was told, weak as he was in body, was more than usually vacillating. The Mahomedan camp, full of licentiousness, was no place for a Brahmun girl. "The Shastree must be attended," Anunda said; and, in Tara's absence, he seemed to cling the more fondly to his young wife, and to miss her ministrations if even she was temporarily absent. Finally, the matter was left in the hands of their friends, the Bhóslay and the old Putwari, and they decided that Radha must not go; but a messenger should be sent, who, assisted by friends and Brahmuns at Sholapoor, would do all that was needful or possible.

In truth, all these friends thought that seeking for Tara at all was injudicious. They could not believe, considering her beauty and public vocation as a priestess, that she could have escaped observation, and they had come to the conclusion that her preservation from dishonour was impossible. Better she were dead; or, if alive, reunion was henceforth impossible, for the hard rules of religious faith must exclude her from all assistance and sympathy. These were home truths which, sooner or later, Vyas Shastree himself would acknowledge; and Radha's plan was overruled.

It was some days before an answer came. Communications were necessarily slow when there were only foot messengers to carry them. The Shastree's fever had passed away, and his wound was progressing favourably. Mentally and bodily, he had passed a fearful crisis; but natures like his bow to these calamities rather than break, and there was hope at least in the messenger who had gone, to which they all clung.

Little by little they heard enough to sustain this hope. The Bhóslay's correspondent, a banker in the town of Sholapoor, had spared no pains for the recovery of Vyas Shastree's child; but beyond the fact that in the family of Afzool Khan there was a new Hindu slave, of great beauty, who was carefully secluded in the zenana, he could ascertain nothing; and the inquiries, he wrote, must be continued in camp, for the force had marched, and was now some stages distant, going towards Wye.

Again, after an interval of weary expectation, and the daily endurance of that heavy weight of uncertainty which is so often worse than the bitterest agony of reality, there came fresh news which they could not doubt. A poor Brahmun of Sholapoor, incited by the offer of reward held out by the Shastree's friends, had proceeded to camp, and returned from it direct. They never forgot that evening of his arrival. The Shastree had, meanwhile, been removed to his own house, as soon as it had undergone purification, and lay, weak as yet, but convalescent, in the verandah of the inner court, living, as he said, in sight of the objects most loved by his lost child; and it was almost an occupation to watch dreamily Tara's bright flowers glowing in the sunlight. He was lying there, watching them, as the evening sun declined, and the colour of its light was growing richer as the shadows of the buildings lengthened, and Anunda had just said he must retire to his room; but he was pleading to be allowed to stay, when the man was announced without.

Weary and footsore, Radha and a servant poured water over his feet, and led him in. "There was no bad news," he said; "none, Tara was well." Then they all listened, with grateful hearts and tears of joy, to the man's tale of having discovered her, though he could not get speech of her or send a message to her; but in Afzool Khan's family there was a Brahmun girl called Tara, who was an honoured guest; her people had been killed, they said, and they were taking her to Wye, to her relatives. He had watched several days about the Khan's tents in hope of seeing her, but in vain; for the servants and soldiers, thinking him a spy, had beaten him and driven him off. Day by day the distance back to Tooljapoor grew greater, so he had returned. But there was no doubt; the man described what he had heard distinctly, and they could now trace Tara from the temple to where she then was. She must believe they were all dead, and was going to their relatives at Wye: and she was at least safe from Moro Trimmul, whom the messenger reported to be in close confinement.