Creatures of the Night (Boxed Set Edition). Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

death; everything he wished to eat was ordered to him in order to prolong life and misery. And when death should draw near, melted gold was to be poured down his throat till it should burst from his neck and other parts of his body.

In the evening the thief was led out for execution, and by chance the procession passed close to the house of a wealthy landowner. He had a favourite daughter named Shobhani, who was in the flower of her youth and very lovely; every day she improved, and every moment added to her grace and beauty. The girl had been carefully kept out of sight of mankind, never being allowed outside the high walls of the garden, because her nurse, a wise woman much trusted in the neighbourhood, had at the hour of death given a solemn warning to her parents. The prediction was that the maiden should be the admiration of the city, and should die a Sati-widow[110] before becoming a wife. From that hour Shobhani was kept as a pearl in its casket by her father, who had vowed never to survive her, and had even fixed upon the place and style of his suicide.

But the shaft of Fate[111] strikes down the vulture sailing above the clouds, and follows the worm into the bowels of the earth, and pierces the fish at the bottom of the ocean—how then can mortal man expect to escape it? As the robber chief, mounted upon the camel, was passing to the cross under the old householder’s windows, a fire breaking out in the women’s apartments, drove the inmates into the rooms looking upon the street.

      The hum of many voices arose from the solid pavement of heads: “This is the thief who has been robbing the whole city; let him tremble now, for Randhir will surely crucify him!”

      In beauty and bravery of bearing, as in strength and courage, no man in Chandrodaya surpassed the robber, who, being magnificently dressed, looked, despite his disgraceful cavalcade, like the son of a king. He sat with an unmoved countenance, hardly hearing in his pride the scoffs of the mob; calm and steady when the whole city was frenzied with anxiety because of him. But as he heard the word “tremble” his lips quivered, his eyes flashed fire, and deep lines gathered between his eyebrows.

      Shobhani started with a scream from the casement behind which she had hid herself, gazing with an intense womanly curiosity into the thoroughfare. The robber’s face was upon a level with, and not half a dozen feet from, her pale cheeks. She marked his handsome features, and his look of wrath made her quiver as if it had been a flash of lightning. Then she broke away from the fascination of his youth and beauty, and ran breathless to her father, saying:

      “Go this moment and get that thief released!”

      The old housekeeper replied: “That thief has been pilfering and plundering the whole city, and by his means the king’s archers were defeated; why, then, at my request, should our most gracious Raja Randhir release him?”

      Shobhani, almost beside herself, exclaimed: “If by giving up your whole property, you can induce the Raja to release him, then instantly so do; if he does not come to me, I must give up my life!”

      The maiden then covered her head with her veil, and sat down in the deepest despair, whilst her father, hearing her words, burst into a cry of grief, and hastened to present himself before the Raja. He cried out:

      “O great king, be pleased to receive four lakhs of rupees, and to release this thief.”

      But the king replied: “He has been robbing the whole city, and by reason of him my guards have been destroyed. I cannot by any means release him.”

      Then the old householder finding, as he had expected the Raja

       inexorable, and not to be moved, either by tears or bribes, or by

       the cruel fate of the girl, returned home with fire in his heart, and

       addressed her:

       “Daughter, I have said and done all that is possible but it avails

       me nought with the king. Now, then, we die.”

      In the mean time, the guards having led the thief all round the city, took him outside the gates, and made him stand near the cross. Then the messengers of death arrived from the palace, and the executioners began to nail his limbs. He bore the agony with the fortitude of the brave; but when he heard what had been done by the old householder’s daughter, he raised his voice and wept bitterly, as though his heart had been bursting, and almost with the same breath he laughed heartily as at a feast. All were startled by his merriment; coming as it did at a time when the iron was piercing his flesh, no man could see any reason for it.

      When he died, Shobhani, who was married to him in the spirit, recited to herself these sayings:

      “There are thirty-five millions of hairs on the human body. The woman who ascends the pile with her husband will remain so many years in heaven. As the snake-catcher draws the serpent from his hole, so she, rescuing her husband from hell, rejoices with him; aye, though he may have sunk to a region of torment, be restrained in dreadful bonds, have reached the place of anguish, be exhausted of strength, and afflicted and tortured for his crimes. No other effectual duty is known for virtuous women at any time after the death of their lords, except casting themselves into the same fire. As long as a woman in her successive transmigrations, shall decline burning herself, like a faithful wife, in the same fire with her deceased lord, so long shall she not be exempted from springing again to life in the body of some female animal.”

      Therefore the beautiful Shobhani, virgin and wife, resolved to burn herself, and to make the next life of the thief certain. She showed her courage by thrusting her finger into a torch flame till it became a cinder, and she solemnly bathed in the nearest stream.

A hole was dug in the ground, and upon a bed of green tree-trunks were heaped hemp, pitch, faggots, and clarified butter, to form the funeral pyre. The dead body, anointed, bathed, and dressed in new clothes, was then laid upon the heap, which was some two feet high. Shobhani prayed that as long as fourteen Indras reign, or as many years as there are hairs in her head, she might abide in heaven with her husband, and be waited upon by the heavenly dancers. She then presented her ornaments and little gifts of corn to her friends, tied some cotton round both wrists, put two new combs in her hair, painted her forehead, and tied up in the end of her body-cloth clean parched rice[112] and cowrie-shells. These she gave to the bystanders, as she walked seven times round the funeral pyre, upon which lay the body. She then ascended the heap of wood, sat down upon it, and taking the thief’s head in her lap, without cords or levers or upper layer or faggots, she ordered the pile to be lighted. The crowd standing around set fire to it in several places, drummed their drums, blew their conchs, and raised a loud cry of “Hari bol! Hari bol! [113]” Straw was thrown on, and pitch and clarified butter were freely poured out. But Shobhani’s was a Sahamaran, a blessed easy death: no part of her body was seen to move after the pyre was lighted—in fact, she seemed to die before the flame touched her.

By the blessing of his daughter’s decease, the old householder beheaded himself.[114] He caused an instrument to be made in the shape of a half-moon with an edge like a razor, and fitting the back of his neck. At both ends of it, as at the beam of a balance, chains were fastened. He sat down with eyes closed; he was rubbed with the purifying clay of the holy river, Vaiturani[115]; and he repeated the proper incantations. Then placing his feet upon the extremities of the chains, he suddenly jerked up his neck, and his severed head rolled from his body upon the ground. What a happy death was this!

      The Baital was silent, as if meditating on the fortunate transmigration which the old householder had thus secured.

      “But what could the thief have been laughing at, sire?” asked the young prince Dharma Dhwaj of his father.

      “At the prodigious folly of the girl, my son,” replied the warrior king, thoughtlessly.

      “I