A strange enthusiasm indeed! Ah yes,—from the period to which we can trace it in a dim legendary superstition of the past, through the two thousand years since the Greek philosopher stood on the banks of Indus and Ganges and recorded it, to the time when it was made to cease under the stern power of a purer creed—how many have died, alike self-devoted, alike calm, alike fearless! Women with ordinary affections, ordinary habits of life, suddenly lifted up into a sublimity of position,—even to death,—by an influence they were unable to repress or control—barbarous and superstitious if you will, but sublime.
Tara had conquered. Her father hung upon her words with an absorbing reverential fear, as the last sound of them died away and was drowned in the shouts of "Jey Toolja Máta!" which burst from the Brahmuns around, and were taken up by the people without, whose frantic efforts to gain entrance were redoubled. He had heard her doom from her own lips, and, believing in the inspiration which prompted them, his head fell on his bosom; then the men, feeling his frame relax, let him go, and he fell prostrate before his child and worshipped her.
They had removed Anunda into an inner room, and her senses had rallied under the care paid to her. As he rose with a despairing gesture, and turned away from his child, the Shastree sought Anunda. "There is no hope," he said, "wife—none. It is her own act, and the Mother takes her. She is doomed, and I saw it in her eyes. It is enough that we have come to see it; she is already gone far beyond us, and we dare not recall her."
He closed the door, and within were Radha, Anunda, and himself. What he said to them—how he consoled them, no one ever knew; but after a while they came forth, bathed and purified themselves, and went and sat silently near their daughter.
Now, they looked at her calm, glorious beauty as she sat within the bower, decked for the sacrifice, with heavy wreaths of jessamine flowers about her head, and rich golden ornaments about her person,—their faith, cruel as it was, bid them rejoice. No more contumely now, no more reproach, no more sin, no more persecution. Her little history was told them by Vishnu Pundit, and believed. Tara was pure, and if the Mother had called her—even through the fire—she must go.
So they sat listening to her, as she recited those passages from the Holy Books which her father loved, relative to humble and yet glorious martyrs like herself,—men and women who had undergone the trial, and were at last free. Sometimes she spoke to them calmly—told them how she wished her ornaments to be disposed of—what charitable donations were to be given in her name—what messages were to be delivered to her friends, and the servants who had tended her; but she never spoke of the past, nor alluded to her parents, as though she had believed them dead. She never mentioned Afzool Khan or his family; she shed no tear, nor did any human weakness appear to mingle with the rapt devotion which it was evident filled her mind, and absorbed every other faculty.
So they sat—the girl within, the father and mother and Radha without, the bower—their eyes blinded by tears, their voices choked with sobs. Tara bid them not to weep; but that emotion could not be denied. No one dared to intrude upon that last terrible severing of earthly ties. And so the priests chanted, and the shadows fell eastwards, and lengthened.
[CHAPTER LXXXIV.]
After a while, they heard the sound of drums and cymbals, and of the rude Mahratta pipes, advancing up the street, playing a wailing, mournful air, and the musicians stopped at the door of the outer court. The people within fell back, and made a lane of egress, and Tara rose and came forth from the bower. Once she prostrated herself before her father and mother, and those with her saw a shiver—whether of grief, despair, or terror, who could say—pass through her body; but she recovered herself quickly, and as she stood on the upper step of the basement, she asked for flowers, and, throwing handfuls among the crowd, descended the steps into the court.