Tara: A Mahratta Tale

by Meadows Taylor

Then slowly on through the people, who worshipped her as she passed; and out of the court into the street, where an open litter, such a one as she had sat in when they made her a priestess of the temple at Tooljapoor, awaited her. Carried in this, as in a triumphant procession, and with baskets full of flowers before her, she threw them among the crowd. As she proceeded through the streets, shouts from the people around her, and from those on house-tops, trees, and terraces, were redoubled; many women shrieked, and most prayed aloud for the Sutee. The clash of the music increased, and the march played was one of victory; while companies of Brahmuns, bare-headed, joined the procession, singing and chanting the hymns of death. So, on through the town, past the holy temples, and into the river bed, where thousands awaited her, and set up a hoarse shouting as they saw her first. What was the first honour of life as a priestess, to this glory of its death?

She reached the pile, now covered with fluttering pennons, and streamers,—orange, white, and crimson,—and thousands of garlands, which the people had hung or thrown upon it as votive offerings since the morning,—and the litter was set down for her to alight. It was with difficulty the crowd was kept back so as to form a space round the pile which would admit of her passing in procession; but it was cleared at last by the Brahmuns, and the people hung back awestruck and staring at the beauty of the victim.

Tara looked at the pile; but there was that strange ecstasy glowing in her eyes which appeared to have rendered her unconscious of its purport, or of all else about her. Sometimes she cast up her eyes with a strange bright smile, and nodded as if she were saying, as perhaps she did, "I come, I come." Again she looked round her dreamily. The roar of the people's voices, the clash of cymbals, the shrill screams of the pipes and horns, the hoarse braying of trumpets, and the continuous beating of deep-toned drums, were around her, drowning the sound of words, and the bitter sobs and low shrieks of her mother and Radha at her side. Her father's spirit seemed to have risen to the need of the occasion, for he stood near her joining the solemn chant, which blended with, and softened, the rude music.

As she stood, the Brahmuns worshipped her, and poured libations before her and on her feet, touched her forehead with sacred colour, and put fresh garlands over her neck. Then the last procession was formed, in which she would walk round the pile thrice, and ascend it, as her last act of ceremonial observance. Now, and before she had to take off her ornaments, she turned her full gaze on it, and they thought, who were watching her, that she seemed to comprehend its purpose. A huge platform of logs, black with oil and grease that had been poured upon them, strewed with camphor and frankincense, which had been scattered lavishly by the people in their votive offerings, and smeared with red powder. A rude step had been made for Tara to ascend by, and on the summit some bright cloths were laid as a bed, where she might recline, upon which a small effigy of a man, rudely conceived and dressed, had been placed. Her marriage-bed in the spiritual sense of the sacrifice, on which, through fire, she would be united to her husband. The whole was garish, hideous, and cruel. Face to face with death so horrible, so imminent, the girl seemed to shiver and gasp suddenly, and sank down swooning.

Vishnu Pundit, and another old Brahmun, raised her up. "It must not be," they said to each other in a whisper; "she must not fail now, else shame will come upon us."

Moro Trimmul was near her also, and had been one to seize her mechanically as she was falling. To him the scene was like some mocking phantasy, which held him enthralled, while it urged him to action. Since he had murdered Gunga, his evil spirit had known no rest; no sleep had come to him, except in snatches more horrible than the reality of waking. Again and again he had felt the rush of the girl's warm blood upon his hands, and the senseless body falling from his arms into the black void of air, to be no more seen or heard of—and had started up in abject fear. Day or night, it was the same;—the short struggle, the frantic efforts of the girl for life, his own maddened exertions to destroy her, were being acted over and over again. Every moment of his life was full of them; and nothing else, do what he might, go where he would, came instead. He had eaten opium in large quantities, but it only made the reality of this hideous vision more palpable, and exaggerated all its details. He had busied himself deeply in the arrangements consequent upon the victory and the distribution of plunder, but with no effect. Haunted by Gunga's murder on the one hand, by Tara's determination to die as Sutee on the other, the remonstrances of Maloosray and other friends only irritated him the more. They had endeavoured to restrain him from going to Wye to see her burned, but with no result—he had broken from them, and ridden over alone that morning.

Soon after he arrived, he heard that Vyas Shastree and his sister were already there, and he had sought her, and in his former desperate manner, threatened and persuaded in turn. It might be that, having experience of these threats, Radha no longer feared them, or that the position she now occupied was so utterly hopeless as regarded Tara, that even he must see that it was useless to persecute her further. As a last resource, he had proposed to some of his own men, desperate and licentious as himself, to attack the procession, and carry Tara away; but, hardened as they were, the sacrilege of violently abducting a Sutee, was an impossible crime against their faith, and his proposal had been rejected.

He was there, therefore, alone. He had bathed and performed the needful ceremonies with the other Brahmuns, and the thought that he should at least see Tara die, came, for the time, like sweet revenge into his heart, feeding his evil passions and sustaining them. Devils both, Tara and Gunga, witches and sorceresses. What matter if both died horrible deaths? it was the penalty of their crimes; and in such thoughts a momentary consolation was offered by the mocking fiend at his heart, to be whirled away to the chaos of despair, in which Gunga seemed writhing in her blood, and Tara tossing her arms in the agony of the fire.

Thus he had walked with her, almost beside her, from the house, through the streets, to the pile by the river-side. In the litter, surrounded by chanting priests, she was unapproachable; but, sinking to the earth helpless before him, she seemed once more fated to be his prey.

"Tara, Tara," he whispered quickly and sharply in her ear, as, helping her to rise, he passed his arm under her. "Come, O beloved! save thyself, even now—even now. I can do it. Come, O beloved!"