The Missionary: An Indian Tale; vol. III

by Lady Morgan

  CHAPTER XIV.

  The left arm of the Missionary had suffered from the flames; Luxima wasthe first to perceive it: she applied to it the only remedy which natureafforded them in a spot so desolate; and the ingenuity of love, and ofnecessity, supplied the place of skill. She gathered from theneighbouring spring, the oily _naptha_, whose volatile and subtil fluidso frequently floats on the surface of Indian wells, and, steeping in itthe fragment of her veil, she bound it round the arm of her patient.Thus engaged, the thoughts of the wanderers, by a natural association,mutually reverted to their first interview in the grotto ofCongelations; when the rigid distinctions of prejudice first gave way toan impulse of humanity, and the Priestess of Brahma, no less in fearthan pity, bound up the wound of him whom she then deemed it a sacrilegeto approach! The sympathy of the recollection was visible in thedisorder of their looks, which were studiously averted from each other;and the Neophyte, endeavouring to turn the thoughts of her spiritualguide from a subject she trembled to revert to, spoke of the dangerwhich he had recently incurred for her sake, and spoke of it with allthe fervour which characterized her eloquence.

  The Missionary replied with the circumspect reserve of one who fearedto trust his feelings: he said, “That which I have done _for thee_, Iwould have done for another, for it is the spirit of the religion Iprofess, to sacrifice the selfish instinct of our nature to thepreservation of a fellow-creature whose danger claims our interference,or whose happiness needs our protection.”

  “Oh! Father,” she returned in emotion, “refer not to thy faith alone, asentiment inherent in thyself; let us be more just _to him_ who made us,and believe, that there is in nature, a feeling of benevolence whichbetrays the original intention of the Deity, to promote the happiness ofhis creatures. If thou art prone to pity the wretched, and aid theweak, it is because thou wast thyself created of those particles which,at an infinite distance, constitute the Divine essence.”

  The Missionary interrupted her by a look of reprehension; he knew suchwas the doctrine, and such the phrase of the Brahmins, with respect tothose of their holy men who led a religious and sinless life: but hefelt, at the moment, how little claim he had to make any application ofit to himself.

  “Thy religion, at least,” continued Luxima, with softness and timidity,“forbids not the expression of _gratitude_. It is said in the Shaster,that the first thought of Brahma, when created by the great Spirit, wasa sentiment of gratitude; he offered up thanks to the Author of hisexistence, for the gift of life, and a reasonable soul: is then theChristian doctrine less amiable than that I have abandoned? and, ifthrough thee, my life has been preserved, and my soul enlightened, mustI stifle in my heart, the gratitude thou hast awakened there?”

  “Luxima” exclaimed the Missionary, with vehemence, “_all_ sentimentsmerely of the heart are dangerous, and to be distrusted; whateversoothes the passions, tends to cherish them,--whatever affords pleasure,endangers virtue,--and even the love we bear to Heaven, we should try,were it possible, to separate from the happiness which that loveconfers Oh! Luxima, it is a dangerous habit,--the habit of enjoying anyearthly good, and until now--” he broke off suddenly, and sighed, thenadded, “Thou talkest much of gratitude, Luxima; but wherefore? It wasfor Heaven I sought thee--it is for Heaven I saved thee! It was not for_thy_ sake, nor for mine, that I lured thee from the land of theunbelieving, or that I would risk a thousand lives to save thine,--it isfor _his_ sake, whose servant I am. But, if _thou_ talkest of gratitude,to whom is it due? _Art thou not here?_ in dreary deserts, encompassedround by danger and by death: to follow me, thou art here,--thou, thenative of an earthly paradise,--the idol of a nation’s homage. Oh! Ishould have left thy pure soul, all innocent as it was of voluntaryerror, to return to its Creator, untried by the dangers, unassailed bythe tempting evils of passion and of life, virtuous in thy illusions,pure from the errors and misfortunes of humanity, an inmate fit for theHeaven which awaited thee.”

  “Be that Heaven my witness,” returned Luxima, with devotion andsolemnity, “that I would not for the happiness I have abandoned, and theglory I have lost, resign that desert, whose perilous solitudes I sharewith thee. Oh! my father, and my friend, thou alone hast taught me toknow, that the paradise of woman is the creation of her heart; that itis not the light or air of Heaven, though beaming brightness, andbreathing fragrance, nor all that is loveliest in nature’s scenes, whichform the _sphere_ of _her_ existence and enjoyment!--it is alone thepresence of _him she loves_: it is that mysterious sentiment of theheart, which diffuses a finer sense of life through the whole being; andwhich resembles, in its singleness and simplicity, the _primordialidea_, which, in the religion of my fathers, is supposed to havepreceded _time_ and _worlds_, and from which all created good hasemanated.”

  The Missionary arose, in disorder; he turned, for a moment, his eyes onLuxima: the glow which mantled to her brow, the bashful confusion of herlook, the modesty with which she drew her veil over her downcast eyes,spoke the involuntary error of one, whose ardent feelings had for amoment over-ruled the circumspect reserve of a rigid virtue. He sighedprofoundly, and withdrew his glance. Luxima now also arose; and theywere both proceeding on in silence, when a rustling in the thicket wasdistinctly heard, and the next moment a large but meagre dog sprangforward, followed by an Indian, on whose dark and melancholy countenancethe light of the moon fell brightly; a scanty garment, woven of thefibres of trees, partially concealed his slender and worn form; anIndian pipe was suspended from his girdle; and he leaned, as he paused,to gaze on the wanderers, upon a huntsman’s _spear_. But, scarcely hadhe fixed his haggard eyes on the brow of Luxima, which still bore theconsecrated _mark of the tellertum_,[9] than he fell prostrate on theearth, in token of reverential homage. Luxima shrieked, and hiding herhead in the bosom of the Missionary, exclaimed “Let us fly, or we arelost! it is a _pariah_!”

  The _unfortunate_, rising from the earth, and withdrawing a few paces,said, in a timid and respectful accent:--“I am indeed of that wretchedcast, who live under the curse of Heaven--an outcast! an alien! I claimno country, I _own no kindred_; but still I am human, and can pity inothers the suffering I myself endure: I ask not the daughter of Heaven,who sprang from the head of Brahma, to repose beneath the roof of apariah; but I will conduct her to a spot less perilous than this, and Iwill lay at her feet the pulp of the young cocoa-nut, which grows by theside of my hut; and when the morning star dawns above yonder forest, Iwill guide her steps to a path of safety, and teach her how to shun theabode of the wild beast, and to avoid the nest of the serpent.”

  To these humane offers, Luxima replied only by tears: an _outcast_herself, the unconquerable prejudice and religious pride of the cast shehad forfeited, still operated with unabated influence on her mind, andshe shuddered when she beheld the Missionary stretch out his hands andpress in their grateful clasp those of the unfortunate and benevolent_pariah_: he had been the saviour of the life of her he loved; for itwas the music of his sylvan reed, which had seduced the serpent from hisprey, and the point of his spear was still red with the blood of thereptile he had destroyed.[10]

  But for the first time, neither the example nor the persuasions of theMissionary had any effect upon the mind of his neophyte. Suddenlyawakened to all the tyranny of habitual prejudice and superstitiousfear, she rejected the repose and safety to be found beneath the shadowof a pariah’s _hut_, she rejected the fruit planted by a pariah’s hand;and the pride of a Brahmin’s daughter, and the bigotry of a Brahminpriestess, still governed the conduct of the excommunicated _chancalas_,still over-ruled the reason of the Christian neophyte: accepting,therefore, only the advice of the unhappy pariah, who directed them to awoody path, by which they might soonest gain the caravan road, and whotaught them how to avoid whatever was most dangerous in theseunfrequented wilds, they again re-commenced their wanderings. TheMissionary, with difficulty guiding the Arabian through the intricaciesof the forest-path, remained silent and thoughtful; while Luxima,fearing that she had displeased him by an unc
onquerable obstinacy, whichhad its foundation in the earliest habits and feelings of her life,sought to cheer his mind and amuse his attention by the repetition ofsome of those mythological romances, which had formed a part of herprofessional acquirements. But the Missionary, alive to dangers which inhis society _she_ felt not, and borne down by the recent disappointmentof his flattering hopes, of which _she_ was ignorant, gave not to herbrilliant and eloquent details, the wonted look of half-repressedtransport, the wonted reserved smile of tenderness and admiration; hiswhole thoughts rested in a faint expectation of overtaking the caravan,which moved slowly, and which had taken a more circuitous road than thatto which the pariah had directed him.

  In the unfrequented wilds through which they now passed, no trace ofhuman life appeared, save that once, and at an immense distance, theybeheld the arms of some Indian troops glittering brightly to themoon-beams; but the welcome spectacle passed away like a midnightphantom; and, that again they observed a circle of glimmering fires,before which the remote shadows of an elephant’s form seemed to pass.Luxima, acquainted with the customs of her country, believed thisspectacle to belong to a hunting match of elephants; a diversion inIndia truly royal. At last, having recovered the traces of the caravan,which were deeply impressed on the soil, they found themselves on a wildand marshy waste, skirted by the impenetrable forest, from whose gloomthey now emerged;--the earth trembled beneath their sinking feet, andparticles of light arising from putrescent substances, rose like meteorsbefore them; while frequently the high jungle grass, almost surmountingthe lofty figure of the Missionary, stubbornly resisted the effortswhich he made with his extended arms to clear a passage for the animalon which Luxima was mounted;--the moon, suddenly absorbed in clouds,left them with “_danger and with darkness compassed round_;”--while thelow and sullen murmurs of the elements foretold a rising storm.Exhausted by heat and by fatigue, no longer able to perceive the trackof the caravan, the unfortunate wanderers sought only to avoid thedreadful inclemency of the moment: sounds of horror mingled in the wildexpanse; the hiss of serpents, and the yell of ferocious animals whichinstinctively sought shelter amidst the profound depths of the forest,(whose mighty trees, bending their summits to the sweeping blast, rolledlike billows in deep and dying murmurs) all around bowed as in awfulreverence to the omnipotent voice of nature, thus pouring her accents ofterror in the deep roll of endless thunder; the crash of shatteredrocks, the groans of torn-up trees, and all those images of terrorwhich mark the _land-tempests_ in those mighty regions, where evendestruction wears an aspect of magnificence and sublimity, all struckupon the soul of the fainting Indian, and left there an impression neverto be effaced. It was then that the religion which she had abandoned,less from _conviction_ than from _love_, and the superstitious errorswhich were still latent in her mind, resumed at this moment (to her, ofdreadful retribution) all their former influence; and she felt the wrathof Heaven in every flash of lightning which darted round her head: forthe mind long devoted to an illusion interwoven with all its ideas,however it may abandon its influence in the repose of safety, or theblessings of enjoyment, still clings to it, as to a resource, insuffering and in danger; and, contrite for the transient apostacy, addsthe energy of repentance to the zeal of returning faith.

  The Missionary, who beheld remorse in the bosom of his proselytestrengthening under the dangers which had awakened it, in vainendeavoured to soothe and to support her; she shrank from his arms, and,prostrate on the earth, invoked those deities whom she still believed tohave been the tutelar guardians of the days of her innocence and herfelicity; while he, still feeling only through her, stood near to shieldand to protect her: awed, but not subdued, he presented a fine image ofthe majesty of man;--his brow fearlessly raised to meet the lightning’sflash, a blasted tree in ruins at his feet, and while all lay desolateand in destruction round him, looking like one whose spirit, unsubduedby the mighty wreck of matter, defied that threatened annihilation,which could not reach the immortality it was created to inherit!

  The storm ceased in a tremendous crash of the elements, with all theabrupt grandeur with which it had arisen; and a breathless calm,scarcely less awful, succeeded to its violence; the clouds dispersedfrom the face of the Heavens, and the moon, full and cloudless, rose inthe firmament: every thing urged the departure of the wanderers, fordanger, in various forms, surrounded them.--Luxima, alive to everyexisting impression, was cheered even by the solemn calm, but nearlyexhausted and overcome by suffering and fatigue, the Missionary wasobliged to support her on the horse; and though she tried to smile, yether silent tears, and uncomplaining sufferings, relaxed the firmness ofhis mind; he felt, that, were even her conversion perfected, which hehourly discovered it was far from being, she would have purchased thesacred truths of Christianity at the dearest price, and that Heavenalone could compensate the unhappy and apostate Indian, who thus soughtit at the expence of every earthly good and human happiness.

  At length the trees of the forest, on whose remotest skirts theywandered, gradually disappeared; and, still following the track of thecaravan, which in the course of the night they had again recovered aswell as the moon’s declining light would permit, they crossed a hill,where it seemed by its impressions on the soil recently to have passed:they then descended into a boundless plain, dismal, wild, and waste. Erethe sun had risen in all its fiercest glories above the horizon, theyfound themselves surrounded by a desert: the guiding track indeed stillremained; but, in the illimitable waste, far as the eye could stretchits view, no object which could cheer their hearts, or dispel theirfears, presented itself:--sky and earth alone appeared, alike awful,and alike unvaried; the heavens, shrouded with a deep red gloom, spreada boundless canopy to the view, like the concave roof of someearth-embosomed mine, whose golden veins shine duskily in gloomysplendour; and the sandy and burning soil, unvaried by a single tree orshrub, reflected back the scorching ardour of the skies, and mingled itsbrilliant surface with the distant horizon; both alike were terrific tothe fancy, and boundless to the eye; both alike struck horror on themind, and chased hope from the heart; alike denying all resource,withholding all relief; while the disconsolate wanderers, as they trodthe burning waste, now turned their looks on the bleak perspective, nowtenderly and despairingly on each other. Convinced that to return or toadvance threatened alike destruction, thus they continued to wander inthe lonesome and desolate wild, enduring the intense heat of the ardentday, the noxious blast of the chilly night, with no shelter from thehorrors of the clime but what a clump of naked rocks at intervalsafforded them; and when this rude asylum presented itself, theMissionary spread his robe on the earth for Luxima--endeavouring tosoothe her to repose, only leaving her side to seek some spring, alwaysvainly sought, or to look for those hardy shrubs which even the desertsometimes produces, and which frequently treasure in their flowers thelingering dews of moister seasons; if he found them, it was moulderingamidst the dry red sand of the soil. At last the delicate animal, whichhad hitherto afforded them so much relief and aid, sunk beneath theintemperature of the clime, and expired at their feet. Luxima was nowborne hopelessly along by the associate and the cause of her sufferings;and they proceeded slowly and despairingly, their parched and burninglips, their wearied and exhausted frames, scarcely permitting them tospeak without effort, or to move without pain. But it was for Luximaonly the Missionary suffered--he saw her whom he had found in thepossession of every enjoyment, now almost expiring beneath his eyes; herlips of roses, scorched by the noxious blasts, and gust after gust ofburning vapour, drying up the vital springs of life; while she,confounding in her mind her afflictions, and what she believed to betheir cause, offered up faint invocations to appease those powers, whomlove had induced her thus to provoke and to abandon.

  It was in moments such as these, that the unfortunate Hilarion beheldthat hope frustrated, which had hitherto solaced him in all thesufferings he had caused, and those he sustained; it was then that hefelt it was the heart of the woman he had seduced, and not the mind ofthe
heathen he had converted. At last, wholly overcome by the intenseheat and immoderate fatigue, by insupportable thirst and a longprivation of sustenance and sleep, Luxima was unable to proceed. TheMissionary bore her in his feeble clasp to the base of a rock, whichafforded them some shelter from the rays of the sun. He would havespoken to her of the Heaven to which her soul seemed already taking itsflight; he would have assured her that his spirit would soon mingle withhers, and that an eternal union awaited them: but, in a moment, whenlove was strengthened by mutual suffering, and despair gave force topassion, and when each at once only lived and died for the other, wordswere poor vehicles to feelings so acute; and sighs, long and deep drawn,were the only sounds which emotions so profound, so tender, and soagonizing, would admit of: all was the silence of love unspeakable, andthe awful stillness of dissolution. But when over the beautifulcountenance which lay on his bosom, the Missionary beheld the suddenconvulsion of pain throw its dread distortion,--madness seized the brainof the frantic lover, and he threw round a look wild and inquiring, butlooked in vain; all was still, hopeless, and desolate. At last,something like a vapour appeared moving at a distance. He sprungforward, and, ascending the point of a rock, discovered at a distance aform which resembled that of a camel: faint as was the hope nowawakened, it spread new life through his whole being; he snatched thedying Indian to his bosom; strength and velocity seemed a supernaturalgift communicated to his frame; he flew over the burning sand, heapproached the object of his wishes; hope with every step realizes theblessed vision; human forms grew distinct on his eye, human soundsvibrate on his ear--“She lives, she is saved!” he exclaims with afrantic shriek, and falls lifeless beneath his precious burthen in themidst of the multitude which forms the rear of the caravan. The caravanhad stopped in this place near a spring, accidentally discovered, andthe motley crowd which composed it, were all verging towards one point,eagerly contending for a draught of muddy water; but the sudden andextraordinary appearance of the now almost lifeless strangers, excitedan emotion in all who beheld them. The few Hindus who belonged to thecaravan shrank in horror from the unfortunate _Chancalas_, thus soclosely associated with a _frangui_, or impure; but those in whomreligious bigotry had no deadened the feelings of nature, beheld themwith equal pity and admiration. Every assistance which humanity coulddevise was administered; and cordials, diluted with water, moistenedlips parched with a long consuming thirst, and recalled to frames nearlyexhausted, the fading powers of life. The Missionary, more overcome byhis anxiety for Luxima, and the sudden transition of his feelings fromdespair to hope, than even by weakness, or personal suffering, was thefirst to recover consciousness and strength, and love instinctivelyclaimed the first thought of reviving existence. In the transport of themoment he forgot the crowd that was its witness; he flew to Luxima, andshed tears of love and joy on the hands extended to him. He beheld thevital hues revisiting that cheek which he had lately pressed in hopelessagony, and saw the light of life beaming in those eyes whose lustre hehad so lately seen darkened by the shades of death. Again, too, thevoice of Luxima addresses him by the endearing epithet of “Father:” andthough the venerated title found no sanction in their looks or years,yet many who beheld the scene of their re-union were touched by itsaffecting tenderness; and a general interest was excited for persons sonoble, and so distinguished in their appearance, so interesting by theirsufferings and misfortunes, which were registered in their looks, andattested by the singularity of their situations.