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

And he quoted the scripture: “No guest must be dismissed in the evening by a housekeeper: he is sent by the returning sun, and whether he come in fit season or unseasonably, he must not sojourn in the house without entertainment: let me not eat any delicate food, without asking my guest to partake of it: the satisfaction of a guest will assuredly bring the housekeeper wealth, reputation, long life, and a place in heaven.”

      The householder’s wife then came to serve up the food, rice and split peas, oil, and spices, all cooked in a new earthen pot with pure firewood. Part of the meal was served and the rest remained to be served, when the woman’s little child began to cry aloud and to catch hold of its mother’s dress. She endeavoured to release herself, but the boy would not let go, and the more she coaxed the more he cried, and was obstinate. On this the mother became angry, took up the boy and threw him upon the fire, which instantly burnt him to ashes.

      Madhusadan, the Jogi, seeing this, rose up without eating. The master of the house said to him, “Why eatest thou not?” He replied, “I am ‘Atithi,’ that is to say, to be entertained at your house, but how can one eat under the roof of a person who has committed such a Rakshasa-like (devilish) deed? Is it not said, ‘He who does not govern his passions, lives in vain’? ‘A foolish king, a person puffed up with riches, and a weak child, desire that which cannot be procured’? Also, ‘A king destroys his enemies, even when flying; and the touch of an elephant, as well as the breath of a serpent, are fatal; but the wicked destroy even while laughing’?”

      Hearing this, the householder smiled; presently he arose and went to another part of the tenement, and brought back with him a book, treating on Sanjivnividya, or the science of restoring the dead to life. This he had taken from its hidden place, two beams almost touching one another with the ends in the opposite wall. The precious volume was in single leaves, some six inches broad by treble that length, and the paper was stained with yellow orpiment and the juice of tamarind seeds to keep away insects.

      The householder opened the cloth containing the book, untied the flat boards at the top and bottom, and took out from it a charm. Having repeated this Mantra, with many ceremonies, he at once restored the child to life, saying, “Of all precious things, knowledge is the most valuable; other riches may be stolen, or diminished by expenditure, but knowledge is immortal, and the greater the expenditure the greater the increase; it can be shared with none, and it defies the power of the thief.”

      The Jogi, seeing this marvel, took thought in his heart, “If I could obtain that book, I would restore my beloved to life, and give up this course of uncomfortable postures and difficulty of breathing.” With this resolution he sat down to his food, and remained in the house.

      At length night came, and after a time, all, having eaten supper, and gone to their sleeping-places, lay down. The Jogi also went to rest in one part of the house, but did not allow sleep to close his eyes. When he thought that a fourth part of the hours of darkness had sped, and that all were deep in slumber, then he got up very quietly, and going into the room of the master of the house, he took down the book from the beam-ends and went his ways.

      Madhusadan, the Jogi, went straight to the place where the beautiful Sweet Jasmine had been burned. There he found his two rivals sitting talking together and comparing experiences. They recognized him at once, and cried aloud to him, “Brother! thou also hast been wandering over the world; tell us this—hast thou learned anything which can profit us?” He replied, “I have learned the science of restoring the dead to life”; upon which they both exclaimed, “If thou hast really learned such knowledge, restore our beloved to life.”

      Madhusadan proceeded to make his incantations, despite terrible sights in the air, the cries of jackals, owls, crows, cats, asses, vultures, dogs, and lizards, and the wrath of innumerable invisible beings, such as messengers of Yama (Pluto), ghosts, devils, demons, imps, fiends, devas, succubi, and others. All the three lovers drawing blood from their own bodies, offered it to the goddess Chandi, repeating the following incantation, “Hail! supreme delusion! Hail! goddess of the universe! Hail! thou who fulfillest the desires of all. May I presume to offer thee the blood of my body; and wilt thou deign to accept it, and be propitious towards me!”

      They then made a burnt-offering of their flesh, and each one prayed, “Grant me, O goddess! to see the maiden alive again, in proportion to the fervency with which I present thee with mine own flesh, invoking thee to be propitious to me. Salutation to thee again and again, under the mysterious syllables any! any!”

      Then they made a heap of the bones and the ashes, which had been carefully kept by Tribikram and Baman. As the Jogi Madhusadan proceeded with his incantation, a white vapour arose from the ground, and, gradually condensing, assumed a perispiritual form—the fluid envelope of the soul. The three spectators felt their blood freeze as the bones and the ashes were gradually absorbed into the before shadowy shape, and they were restored to themselves only when the maiden Madhuvati begged to be taken home to her mother.

      Then Kama, God of Love, blinded them, and they began fiercely to quarrel about who should have the beautiful maid. Each wanted to be her sole master. Tribikram declared the bones to be the great fact of the incantation; Baman swore by the ashes; and Madhusadan laughed them both to scorn. No one could decide the dispute; the wisest doctors were all nonplussed; and as for the Raja—well! we do not go for wit or wisdom to kings. I wonder if the great Raja Vikram could decide which person the woman belonged to?

      “To Baman, the man who kept her ashes, fellow!” exclaimed the hero, not a little offended by the free remarks of the fiend.

      “Yet,” rejoined the Baital impudently, “if Tribikram had not preserved her bones how could she have been restored to life? And if Madhusadan had not learned the science of restoring the dead to life how could she have been revivified? At least, so it seems to me. But perhaps your royal wisdom may explain.”

      “Devil!” said the king angrily, “Tribikram, who preserved her bones, by that act placed himself in the position of her son; therefore he could not marry her. Madhusadan, who, restoring her to life, gave her life, was evidently a father to her; he could not, then, become her husband. Therefore she was the wife of Baman, who had collected her ashes.”

      “I am happy to see, O king,” exclaimed the Vampire, “that in spite of my presentiments, we are not to part company just yet. These little trips I hold to be, like lovers’ quarrels, the prelude to closer union. With your leave we will still practice a little suspension.”

      And so saying, the Baital again ascended the tree, and was suspended there.

      “Would it not be better,” thought the monarch, after recapturing and shouldering the fugitive, “for me to sit down this time and listen to the fellow’s story? Perhaps the double exercise of walking and thinking confuses me.”

      With this idea Vikram placed his bundle upon the ground, well tied up with turband and waistband; then he seated himself cross-legged before it, and bade his son do the same.

      The Vampire strongly objected to this measure, as it was contrary, he asserted, to the covenant between him and the Raja. Vikram replied by citing the very words of the agreement, proving that there was no allusion to walking or sitting.

      Then the Baital became sulky, and swore that he would not utter another word. But he, too, was bound by the chain of destiny. Presently he opened his lips, with the normal prelude that he was about to tell a true tale.

      THE VAMPIRE’S SEVENTH STORY

       —Showing the Exceeding Folly of Many Wise Fools.

       Table of Contents

      The Baital resumed.

      Of all the learned Brahmans in the learnedest university of Gaur (Bengal) none was so celebrated as Vishnu Swami. He could write verse as well as prose in dead languages, not very correctly, but still, better than all his fellows—which constituted him a distinguished writer. He had history, theosophy, and the four Vedas of Scriptures at his fingers’ ends, he was skilled in the argute science of Nyasa or Disputation,