Tara: A Mahratta Tale

by Meadows Taylor

"Get up, girl," said Bheemee roughly, as she advanced, followed by several other women—"get up; dost thou not hear? else we will cast thee out."

Gunga came forward boldly. "Do not touch or hurt her," she said: "I fear she is not now in her right mind. If I may take her, I will look after her. Get up, Tara," she whispered in her ear: "come, we will go and hide ourselves. Come, for thy life, come!" and she tried to lift her up and drag her away.

But Tara could not rise; her limbs seemed paralysed by grief or terror, and she did not evidently understand what had occurred. Not noticing the Máhá Ranee, she disengaged herself from Gunga, and once more stretched out her arms to the shrine before her, and cried in piteous tones which affected many around her to tears, "O Mother, I will not leave thee: do with me as thou wilt, even to death!" and so lay moaning.

"Send for Govind Rao and Wittul Shastree, lady," said the old Brahmun priest, who was sobbing and wiping his eyes: "they know of her, and you will hear about her from them."

"Good," replied the Ranee, already softened, "let them be brought instantly,—they are without. We will await their coming."

Some little time elapsed, and others assembled. No one knew what was going to happen. After a while Tara seemed to regain sense and to remember why she was there, for she sat up, and they saw her lips moving as if in prayer. As the trumpets sounded the setting of the first watch at sunset, and the great kettle-drums and pipes played the evening music in the Nobut Khana above the gate, the Brahmun priests entered with the usual offerings, and began to chant one of the evening hymns of praise, as they moved round the shrine in time with the faint clash of the silver cymbals, which one of them carried. Then, timidly and faintly at first, but increasing in power as she sang, Tara joined the chant. It was an emotion which she could not restrain, and which not even the sense of desolation and dull misery which had overwhelmed her, could repress. She was unconscious of the effect it produced upon those who listened to her, as her full rich voice rose above the hoarse and unmusical chant of the priests; but as it gradually ceased, and the sound died away in the recesses of the temple, it affected many of those who heard it to tears, and was never forgotten.

"No wonder," said the Ranee, who had listened to the hymn with emotion which she hardly chose to acknowledge,—"no wonder they say she is a sorceress. See, she has no fear—no perception of what is to happen, or who are around her. That is not natural; it is magic, and may not be looked upon."

"Lady," said Wittul Shastree, who, with Govind Rao and the other Brahmuns, now approached her, "we attend you; what are your commands?"

"We doubt the girl yonder, and they tell us she is dangerous, and a sorceress; we would have her removed ere we render sacrifice for victory," she replied; "but the priests tell us she is there by your order. Is it so?"

"By her own will," said the Shastree; "not our orders. We would have made her over to the council for chastisement and discipline, because, as a priestess of Kalee, she hath been residing among the Moslems; but she claimed ordeal and sanctuary with the goddess, and we sent her here. Has any vision appeared to her?" he asked of the attendant priest.