The Daughter of Brahma by I. A. R. Wylie (read aloud books .txt) 📖

antiquity. Cautiously he slipped them off and tossed them on a heap beside him. Then he looked up.

"And afterwards?" he echoed. "What do you mean?"

"The ' afterwards ' is very close to us and very threatening," Heilig answered. "You haf saved the girl but to what? If she is discovered here or even in India those to whom she belonged will never rest until she is either dead or back in their hands. And you too will be tracked down. That is the least thai) can happen. At the most there will be another and more determined rising, headed by the Brahmans whose secret stands the risk of exposure. If the goddess whom they haf set up is proved an ordinary mortal their prestige will be shaken. They know it, and will not stop at the most violent measures."

"She must leave India," Hurst answered.

Heilig threw up an exasperated hand.

"Dear Heaven how simple! How shall she leaf India? As what? with whom?"

"With me as my wife."

There was a petrified silence. Hurst rose to his feet and confronted Father Romney.

"You will marry us now the moment she awakes," he said. The priest recoiled as though from a blow. Heilig had dragged himself into a sitting position.

"Junge, Junge, you are quite mad!" he burst out.

"Mad? Why mad? I love her I have saved her from a certain death. She is mine."

Heilig shook his head.

"It's not that. If you marry her you make yourself an outcaste, you ruin yourself. Think of your family your name mother. The whole world will be against you."

"The whole world is against me. I am an outcaste -- I marry an outcaste. We shall face life together. I am free I am responsible to no one." He turned with a stern, resolute gesture to Father Romney. "Marry us!" he demanded.

The priest held out a white protesting hand.

"I cannot even if I would," he said. "You are not of my faith."

"I am of no faith. Hitherto I have believed in nothing not even in God. But I will believe. You are an honourable man. I have learned to honour you. I will accept your teaching as a child as she shall do. Accept me as a child baptize us both into your church. Father! "He stamped impatiently. "Are you a follower of Christ or of a lifeless rule?" "Of Christ, but you as well as I must have time--"

"I have no time " he pointed to his forehead "I am wounded. The wound may be poisoned you know these natives. If I am to die I will leave her with my name and with such private means as I possess. Professor, you shall be her guardian promise you will give her your protection!"

Heilig ran his hand through his disordered hair.

"Dear God in heaven yes yes. But it is all impossible utterly impossible."

"Nothing is impossible to men who have freed themselves from the narrow conventions of their kind. It is your own teaching; you jeered at me for my slavish adherence to the laws laid down for what you called the Dutzendmenschen. You preached freedom. I am free, I have made myself free. I demand the rights of freedom. This is the woman I love to whom I owe the salvation of my soul. Father Romn ey, you are a priest of that God who has given her to me. I believe in Him I will believe in Him. Accept me! You dare not refuse a convert who comes to you at the hour of death. To all your rules there must be an exception that of emergency."

The priest looked at him steadily with a curious fire in his dark eyes, but he did not speak and Hurst went on with increased passion :

"You talk of the brotherhood of man, of us as being the children of God. How dare you reject me or this woman because respectively we are not of your blood or faith? You preach what you dare not act. What do I care? But I, at least, will dare to be what I am, and to act as my will, my desire dictates. To me this woman is my wife. Will you give me the blessing of God, or will you not? If not, then either I shall believe that you are a liar and your God a lie, or I shall believe that you do not know God, and never knew Him."

"Hush! "Heilig said softly. "She is waking."

All three were silent. Hurst knelt down by Sarasvati's side and raised her head gently on his arm. Her eyes opened and she looked up at him without fear or wonder. The smile which dawned about her lips was one of most tender, most trusting recognition.

"I knew that thou wouldst come," she whispered dreamily. "I was not afraid. When the fire began to rise up about me I was glad, for I knew then that thou wert near."

"Sarasvati! Where wert thou in all these long days?"

Her eyes closed for an instant.

"In darkness and silence. They knew that thou hadst been with me. They threatened and cursed me. They told me that Siva, my Lord, had died and that I must follow him. They told me that I had brought misfortune on the land. It is not true?"

"It is not true," he answered.

"And Siva is dead?"

"He never lived can stone images live or die?"

Her eyes darkened with a moment's thoughtfulness, then she drew herself up with her head against his shoulder.

"I am glad," she said simply. "His face frightened me. And now thou wilt never have to leave me?"

"Never," he answered. "Thou art mine my wife." He looked up and encountered Father Romney's eyes fixed on him "Sarasvati, wilt thou accept me as thy husband according to the law and faith of my people?" he asked.

She stirred, conscious for the first time that they were not alone, and, freeing herself gently from Hurst's arms, she rose and confronted the two silent witnesses with a grave, untroubled dignity. Longest of all her deep eyes rested on the Professor, whose white faee flushed crimson under her steady, questioning gaze.

"Are these thy people?" she asked.

"They are my friends."

"And thy faith?"

"Is in God."

She turned to him.

"Then is thy faith my faith," she said. "For in all the world there is but one God Brahma, the All-One."

"We call Him by another name," Hurst said. He took her hands and drew her to him. "Wilt thou learn to know Him as we know Him, Sarasvati?"

"Surely has God as many names and as many forms as there are stars in heaven," she answered. "Why should I not know thy God, my beloved?"

Hurst threw a glance of fierce triumph at the priest, who stood silently attentive. Heilig dropped back on his pillow with a grim, satisfied laugh.

"Verily, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings " he muttered.

But Hurst paid him no heed. Once again he turned to the woman who watched him in grave wonder, and his voice softened to a compassionate tenderness.

"Once thou saidst that on earth there was no peace," he said. "Sarasvati, I am no god, but a man, and my world is a hard world. Art thou afraid?"

"I love thee," she answered, and said no more.

It seemed as though in those three short words she had given the answer to every question, had laid bare the deepest secrets of her soul. And the three men were silent, overtaken by the awe which comes to those who stand on the threshold of a beautiful cathedral. Then Heilig brought his fist down with a thump upon his covering.

"Marry them, Romney!" he said. "Marry them, in God's name. They will break their necks, but what is that? It is good it is beautiful it is worth it. We haf not the right to stop them. Marry them, I say!"

The priest laid his white hand on Hurst's shoulder.

"You have counted the cost?" he said in English.

Hurst did not turn.

"There is no cost," he said. "I am free, and I have chosen my own course, that is all. It remains for you to give me your answer."

"I consent."

Hurst swung round.

"Your faith must be worthy of you," he said.

Father Romney made no answer. His face was set and white, but his eyes gleamed with the fiery enthusiasm of the believer who feels the flame of his belief pass on to other souls. He motioned his two strange converts to kneel, and in the quiet of the dimly lighted room the solemn service of acceptance into the Roman Catholic Church began. Shorn of all pure ceremony and ritual, it gained in dignity, and there was something at once tragic and pathetic in the little group beneath the lamplight the haggard, blood-stained man with the dark resolute face, and beside him a woman of an alien race, exotic yet beautiful, still touched with the mystery of her life, her profound and wondering eyes lifted to the whiterobed priest who stood before them, his hands clasped about the silver crucifix, his lips moving in silent prayer.

Heinrich Heilig lay on his couch and watched them. The grimly contracted brows and livid cheeks told that he suffered, but he was also smiling with a curious tenderness free from all mockery. Though weakness constantly threatened to master him, he never shifted his position till the last blessing had been pronounced over the strangely united pair. Then he fell back with a low gasping sigh and lay still, but apparently fully conscious, for an instant later his eyes opened.

"See that your wife becomes dry clothes," he muttered. "The shawls are in the top drawer see to it Schafskopfe--"

Then he lay quite still. Romney came quietly to his side and bent over him.

"He is asleep," he whispered. "Do as he says or will you go straight home?"

Hurst shook his head. His arm still encircled Sarasvati's shoulders, and she leant against him with eyes half -closed in happy exhaustion.

"With your permission my wife will remain hidden here," he said. "At the earliest opportunity I shall start with her for England. Until then she will be safest with you. Are you willing?"

"Perfectly." A faint smile flickered about the priest's grave mouth. "Having begun the business we must at least be thorough. My room is next door it is at your wife's disposal. I shall give orders that no one is to enter it."

Five minutes later when David Hurst returned he found that the curtains had been drawn back, and that the judge stood at Father Romney 's side. In the dreary morning light he looked old and weary, and yet he came forward with his buoyant step, both hands outstretched, his pale face lighted with an almost boyish enthusiasm.

"Thank God you're safe!" he said. "We've been in a perfect fever about you. Then somehow it occurred to us that you might be here, and I came on ahead. But your mother is following, David, and Diana and, when they know for certain, the half of Kolruna will be whirling round you. Thanks to you the whole native affair has gone like a pricked bubble. We're proud of you, David all of us all of us."

He laid emphasis on the last words, and Hurst understood, but he said nothing. He looked at the judge's excited face critically, as a stranger might have done, and suddenly the elder man's expression grew grave.

"But it's not that I have come about, David," he went on. "I think it better that I should tell you. I have news it came last night during the ball it's bad news -- very bad news. Your cousin, Harry Hurst, is dead."

David Hurst started slightly, but gave no other sign. The judge laid an unsteady hand on the other's arm.

"It's been a shock for everybody, David," he said. "The whole thing was so terribly sudden a hunting accident. We have no details but Sir Lawrence is completely broken he is not even expected to recover. And your mother you know what that means to her. You're everything now.