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

and betray his trust, and to give away another man’s wife.

      Pray do not lose your temper, O warrior king! Subichar, although a Raja, was a weak man; and you know, or you ought to know, that the wicked may be wise in their generation, but the weak never can.

      Well, the ministers hearing their lord’s last words, took courage, and proceeded to work upon his mind by the figure of speech popularly called “rigmarole.” They said: “Great king! that old Brahman has been gone many days, and has not returned; he is probably dead and burnt. It is therefore right that by giving to the grand treasurer’s son his daughter-in-law, who is only affianced, not fairly married, you should establish your government firmly. And even if he should return, bestow villages and wealth upon him; and if he be not then content, provide another and a more beautiful wife for his son, and dismiss him. A person should be sacrificed for the sake of a family, a family for a city, a city for a country, and a country for a king!”

      Subichar having heard them, dismissed them with the remark that as so much was to be said on both sides, he must employ the night in thinking over the matter, and that he would on the next day favour them with his decision. The cabinet councillors knew by this that he meant that he would go and consult his wives. They retired contented, convinced that every voice would be in favour of a wedding, and that the young girl, with so good an offer, would not sacrifice the present to the future.

      That evening the treasurer and his son supped together.

      The first words uttered by Raja Subichar, when he entered his daughter’s apartment, were an order addressed to Sita: “Go thou at once to the house of my treasurer’s son.”

      Now, as Chandraprabha and Manaswi were generally scolding each other, Chandraprabha and Sita were hardly on speaking terms. When they heard the Raja’s order for their separation they were—

      —“Delighted?” cried Dharma Dhwaj, who for some reason took the greatest interest in the narrative.

      “Overwhelmed with grief, thou most guileless Yuva Raja (young prince)!” ejaculated the Vampire.

      Raja Vikram reproved his son for talking about thing of which he knew nothing, and the Baital resumed.

      They turned pale and wept, and they wrung their hands, and they begged and argued and refused obedience. In fact they did everything to make the king revoke his order.

      “The virtue of a woman,” quoth Sita, “is destroyed through too much beauty; the religion of a Brahman is impaired by serving kings; a cow is spoiled by distant pasturage, wealth is lost by committing injustice, and prosperity departs from the house where promises are not kept.”

      The Raja highly applauded the sentiment, but was firm as a rock upon the subject of Sita marrying the treasurer’s son.

      Chandraprabha observed that her royal father, usually so conscientious, must now be acting from interested motives, and that when selfishness sways a man, right becomes left and left becomes right, as in the reflection of a mirror.

      Subichar approved of the comparison; he was not quite so resolved, but he showed no symptoms of changing his mind.

      Then the Brahman’s daughter-in-law, with the view of gaining time—a famous stratagem amongst feminines—said to the Raja: “Great king, if you are determined upon giving me to the grand treasurer’s son, exact from him the promise that he will do what I bid him. Only on this condition will I ever enter his house!”

      “Speak, then,” asked the king; “what will he have to do?”

      She replied, “I am of the Brahman or priestly caste, he is the son of a Kshatriya or warrior: the law directs that before we twain can wed, he should perform Yatra (pilgrimage) to all the holy places.”

      “Thou hast spoken Veda-truth, girl,” answered the Raja, not sorry to have found so good a pretext for temporizing, and at the same time to preserve his character for firmness, resolution, determination.

      That night Manaswi and Chandraprabha, instead of scolding each other, congratulated themselves upon having escaped an imminent danger—which they did not escape.

      In the morning Subichar sent for his ministers, including his grand treasurer and his love-sick son, and told them how well and wisely the Brahman’s daughter-in-law had spoken upon the subject of the marriage. All of them approved of the condition; but the young man ventured to suggest, that while he was a-pilgrimaging the maiden should reside under his father’s roof. As he and his father showed a disposition to continue their fasts in case of the small favour not being granted, the Raja, though very loath to separate his beloved daughter and her dear friend, was driven to do it. And Sita was carried off, weeping bitterly, to the treasurer’s palace. That dignitary solemnly committed her to the charge of his third and youngest wife, the lady Subhagya-Sundari, who was about her own age, and said, “You must both live together, without any kind of wrangling or contention, and do not go into other people’s houses.” And the grand treasurer’s son went off to perform his pilgrimages.

      It is no less sad than true, Raja Vikram, that in less than six days the disconsolate Sita waxed weary of being Sita, took the ball out of her mouth, and became Manaswi. Alas for the infidelity of mankind! But it is gratifying to reflect that he met with the punishment with which the Pandit Muldev had threatened him. One night the magic pill slipped down his throat. When morning dawned, being unable to change himself into Sita, Manaswi was obliged to escape through a window from the lady Subhagya-Sundari’s room. He sprained his ankle with the leap, and he lay for a time upon the ground—where I leave him whilst convenient to me.

      When Muldev quitted the presence of Subichar, he resumed his old shape, and returning to his brother Pandit Shashi, told him what he had done. Whereupon Shashi, the misanthrope, looked black, and used hard words and told his friend that good nature and soft-heartedness had caused him to commit a very bad action—a grievous sin. Incensed at this charge, the philanthropic Muldev became angry, and said, “I have warned the youth about his purity; what harm can come of it?”

      “Thou hast,” retorted Shashi, with irritating coolness, “placed a sharp weapon in a fool’s hand.”

      “I have not,” cried Muldev, indignantly.

      “Therefore,” drawled the malevolent, “you are answerable for all the mischief he does with it, and mischief assuredly he will do.”

      “He will not, by Brahma!” exclaimed Muldev.

      “He will, by Vishnu!” said Shashi, with an amiability produced by having completely upset his friend’s temper; “and if within the coming six months he does not disgrace himself, thou shalt have the whole of my book-case; but if he does, the philanthropic Muldev will use all his skill and ingenuity in procuring the daughter of Raja Subichar as a wife for his faithful friend Shashi.”

      Having made this covenant, they both agreed not to speak of the matter till the autumn.

      The appointed time drawing near, the Pandits began to make inquiries about the effect of the magic pills. Presently they found out that Sita, alias Manaswi, had one night mysteriously disappeared from the grand treasurer’s house, and had not been heard of since that time. This, together with certain other things that transpired presently, convinced Muldev, who had cooled down in six months, that his friend had won the wager. He prepared to make honourable payment by handing a pill to old Shashi, who at once became a stout, handsome young Brahman, some twenty years old. Next putting a pill into his own mouth, he resumed the shape and form under which he had first appeared before Raja Subichar; and, leaning upon his staff, he led the way to the palace.

      The king, in great confusion, at once recognized the old priest, and guessed the errand upon which he and the youth were come. However, he saluted them, and offered them seats, and receiving their blessings, he began to make inquiries about their health and welfare. At last he mustered courage to ask the old Brahman where he had been living for so long a time.

      “Great king,” replied the priest, “I went to seek after my son, and having found him, I bring him to your majesty. Give him his wife, and I will take them both home with me.”