From the Five Rivers. Flora Annie Webster Steel
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but with infinite tenderness.
"Sure, thou dost love her, though she is a girl," said Veru, with the calm of despair.
The man broke into a sob and turned away.
"Mother, canst thou do nothing?" he asked, in all the wistful confidence of a child, laying his great hand on the old woman's head as she bent over her task of kneading the dough for his supper.
"Do! What is to be done with a woman who cries out if the child is touched? I tell thee, O Guneshwa, the little one is bewitched--though God only knows why any one should trouble to cast an eye on a girl. Ask Munlya. Ask Premi, or Chuni, or any wise woman. But Veru heeds us not, saying the books deny it. So be it! The child will die!"
Gunesh Chund lingered, hesitating.
"I--I--perhaps, mother, 'twould be better to fetch the doctor. He is here still, they say."
His mother sprang to her feet, all the vigour and fire of her past youth in eyes and gesture.
"That I should have lived to hear such words in the house where I came a modest bride, where never man set foot save thy father and mine! Wilt thou cast thy honour and mine in the dust for a baby girl? Be it so, Gunesh! Choose now between her and me; or choose, rather, between Veru's barren kisses and my curse, for the child will die if the evil eye be not averted by charms. Choose, I say; for, by my father's soul, if this bastard half-a-man enters the house, I leave it!"
"Nay, mother! I did but suggest. Veru--"
"O Veru! Veru! I am sick of the name. 'Tis she who hath bewitched thee; 'tis her evil eye--"
He interrupted her fiercely, seizing her by the wrist.
"Peace, I say, mother! Peace! I will not hear such words."
"They are true for all that. She hath bewitched thee!"
They stood for a moment face to face, so like each other in their anger and dread. Then the strong man quailed, and fled before her words and his own thoughts. He was no wiser than his fellows, for all the soft heart that betrayed him into progress; perhaps less so, since the superstitions of his fathers enslaved his mind without controlling his affections. He wandered into the fields once more, where the rows of blossoming mustard sown among the wheat showed like a yellow sea against the horizon, but close at hand broke the green gloom of the earing corn in long, curling waves crested with gold--a sight dear to husbandmen's eyes! Yet it brought no comfort to the dull ache in Gunesh's heart, which drove him to finish work with the first excuse of waning light.
The child was at least no worse. Perhaps the warmth had soothed its pain; perhaps the feeble life was sinking silently; but the ignorant, loving eyes that watched it knew not whether the stillness made for sleep or death.
Save for Gunesh Chund and his wife the house was empty, for his mother had sought the relief of words with a neighbouring crony.
"Veru," said Gunesh in a whisper, as if the darkening walls had ears, "dost think the doctor might do her good? The mother will not have him here--mayhap she is right--but I could take the child to him."
"O husband!" Brought face to face with decision, the woman shrank from action. "I know not, and the mother would be so angry."
But the slower mind and warmer heart had been at work on the problem, and ciphered it out once and for all.
"She need never know. Sit within, silent, as if thou hadst it still, should she return. I shall not be long; so give the child to me."
Half fearful, half pleased at his decision, the mother shifted her burden to his awkward arms. How small, how light it seemed, hidden away in the folds of his flowing plaid-like shawl, as he passed through the twilight alleys on his way to the camping-ground where, in the mud caravanserai, the travelling vaccinator was to be found! Neighbours, resting after the day's labour, called to him in various greeting, and he paused to reply with dull patience, conscious always of the unseen burden near his heart. So had he carried the firstling lamb on the night when Nihâli was born. How it had struggled to escape, and sucked at his restraining hand in fierce desire for life! A fear lest the child's quiet was death made him turn aside more than once into a darker corner to look and listen.
Still with the same dull patience he sat down before the vacant room in the serai to await the vaccinator's return; for patience and doggedness are the peasant farmer's unfailing inheritance, not to be reft from him by tyrants or strangers. Some camel-drivers, newly arrived, were cooking their food at a blazing wood-fire in the open, whence the flames threw long shadows, distorted out of all human semblance, into the far corners of the court-yard, where a circle of kneeling camels browsed upon a pile of green branches. Familiar sights and sounds to Gunesh's eyes and ears, yet to-night, with that strange burden near his heart, seeming out of place and unexpected.
Meanwhile Veru, with empty arms and nervous fingers twisting and turning themselves on each other restlessly, was straining her eyes into the darkness, and wondering with greater and greater insistence what kept her husband. Her mother-in-law had not returned. She almost wished she had, for the solitude and silence seemed unending. At last, unable to endure the suspense any longer, she drew her veil tightly, to avoid recognition, and stole like a shadow along the darkest side of the street to meet Gunesh. But he, also weary of waiting, returned from an unsuccessful pursuit of the doctor by another route. Thus no reply came to his whispered call to Veru, as he stepped over the threshold. What had happened? He repeated the call louder.
"Veru!--Mother! Is there no one in the house?"
His mother's voice answered him from behind, and he turned to her, relieved; for all its lightness, the little burden at his heart grew heavy in responsibility. Even in his mother's arms it seemed safer.
Two old women who had accompanied her, with the intention of making a last appeal to common sense, looked at the child critically.
"Truly, O mother of Gunesha," said one, "'tis the evil eye; but there is time yet to cast the devil out by fumigations."
"Without doubt," echoed the other. "I have seen children nearer death than this, snatched from the grave by wisdom such as thine."
Gunesh Chund's mother looked at him, her triumph dimmed and softened by appeal.
"Wilt kill the little thing by over-kindness?" she whispered. "See, chance hath given her to us. Veru, poor fool, is away.--Let us work the charm, Guneshwa. I worked it on thee when thou wast a sickly babe, and see how strong and tall thou art."
He looked from one to the other doubtfully. What was he, an ignorant man, to set his wishes against these wise mothers, when they assured him of success? He gave a sign of assent, and set himself towards authority should Veru come back ere the business was well over.
The old women turned to their task joyfully. The time was past, they cackled, for any but robust measures, and life in Nihâli's frail form must be made unendurable to the devil without delay. For this purpose, what more effectual than red pepper and turmeric? Swiftly, with muttered charms, and many a deft passing through of this thing seven times, and that seven times seven, the child was laid on a low, strong-seated stool, in full blaze of the fire-light, while the grandmother, bringing the drugs from her stores within, mixed them in approved manner. An earthenware saucer filled with smouldering charcoal served for brazier. Then, all being ready and placed beneath the stool, a discordant chant was raised, and the powder flung on the embers.
From the dense yellow smoke enveloping poor little Nihâli came a feeble, gasping cry.
"Mother!" pleaded the man, hiding his face.
"'Tis the devil cries," replied the stern old woman, flinging fresh drugs on the coals.
A fainter cry came, echoed in a shriek from the door, where Veru stood, paralyzed for an instant by rage and terror. The next, dashing the witches aside with furious blows, coughing and suffocating in the fumes, her empty, craving arms sought the child and found it--too late! A sigh, a struggle, and the demon, or angel of life, had fled forever.
Smarting and half blind with the