第72章

"`Traveller,' said he, in a voice broken by sudden pauses, `why that black mark on your forehead, stretching from one temple to the other? It is a mark of doom and your look is sad as death.Have you been a victim?

Come with us; Kallee will avenge you.You have suffered?'--'Yes, I have greatly suffered.'--'For a long time?'--'Yes, for a very long time.'--

`You suffer even now?'--'Yes, even now.'--What do you reserve for those who injure you?'--'My pity.'--'Will you not render blow for blow?'--'I will return love for hate.'--'Who are you, then, that render good for evil?'--'I am one who loves, and suffers, and forgives.'"

"Brother, do you hear?" said the negro to Faringhea; "he has not forgotten the words of the traveller before his death."

"The vision follows him.Listen! he will speak again.How pale he is!"

Still under the influence of his dream, the Indian continued:

"`Traveller, we are three; we are brave; we have your life in our hands--

you have seen us sacrifice to the good work.Be one of us, or die--die--

die! Oh, that look! Not thus--do not look at me thus!'" As he uttered these last words, the Indian made a sudden movement, as if to keep off some approaching object, and awoke with a start.Then, passing his hand over his moist forehead, he looked round him with a bewildered eye.

"What! again this dream, brother?" said Faringhea."For a bold hunter of men, you have a weak head.Luckily, you have a strong heart and arm."

The other remained a moment silent, his face buried in his hands; then he replied: "It is long since I last dreamed of that traveller."

"Is he not dead?" said Faringhea, shrugging his shoulders."Did you not yourself throw the cord around his neck?"

"Yes," replied the Indian shuddering.

"Did we not dig his grave by the side of Colonel Kennedy's? Did we not bury him with the English butcher, under the sand and the rushes?" said the negro.

"Yes, we dug his grave," said the Indian, trembling; "and yet, only a year ago, I was seated one evening at the gate of Bombay, waiting for one of our brothers--the sun was setting behind the pagoda, to the right of the little hill--the scene is all before me now--I was seated under a figtree--when I heard a slow, firm, even step, and, as I turned round my head--I saw him--coming out of the town."

"A vision," said the negro; "always the same vision!"

"A vision," added Faringhea, "or a vague resemblance."

"I knew him by the black mark on his forehead; it was none but he.I remained motionless with fear, gazing at him with eyes aghast.He stopped, bending upon me his calm, sad look.In spite of myself, I could not help exclaiming: `It is he!'--'Yes,' he replied, in his gentle voice, `it is I.Since all whom thou killest must needs live again,' and he pointed to heaven as he spoke, `why shouldst thou kill?--Hear me! I have just come from Java; I am going to the other end of the world, to a country of never-melting snow; but, here or there, on plains of fire or plains of ice, I shall still be the same.Even so is it with the souls of those who fall beneath thy kalleepra; in this world or up above, in this garb or in another, the soul must still be a soul; thou canst not smite it.Why then kill?'--and shaking his head sorrowfully, he went on his way, walking slowly, with downcast eyes; he ascended the hill of the pagoda; I watched him as he went, without being able to move: at the moment the sun set, he was standing on the summit of the hill, his tall figure thrown out against the sky--and so he disappeared.Oh! it was he!" added the Indian with a shudder, after a long pause: "it was none but he."

In this story the Indian had never varied, though he had often entertained his companions with the same mysterious adventure.This persistency on his part had the effect of shaking their incredulity, or at least of inducing them to seek some natural cause for this apparently superhuman event.

"Perhaps," said Faringhea, after a moment's reflection, "the knot round the traveller's neck got jammed, and some breath was left him, the air may have penetrated the rushes with which we covered his grave, and so life have returned to him."

"No, no," said the Indian, shaking his head, "this man is not of our race."

"Explain."

"Now I know it!"

"What do you know?"

"Listen!" said the Indian, in a solemn voice; "the number of victims that the children of Bowanee have sacrificed since the commencement of ages, is nothing compared to the immense heap of dead and dying, whom this terrible traveller leaves behind him in his murderous march."

"He?" cried the negro and Faringhea.

"Yes, he!" repeated the Hindoo, with a convinced accent, that made its impression upon his companions."Hear me and tremble!--When I met this traveller at the gates of Bombay, he came from Java, and was going towards the north, he said.The very next day, the town was a prey to the cholera, and we learned sometime after, that this plague had first broken out here, in Java."

"That is true," said the negro.

"Hear me still further!" resumed the other."`I am going towards the north, to a country of eternal snow,' said the traveller to me.The cholera also went towards the north, passing through Muscat--Ispahan--

Tauris--Tiflis--till it overwhelmed Siberia."

"True," said Faringhea, becoming thoughtful:

"And the cholera," resumed the Indian, "only travelled its five or six leagues a day--a man's tramp--never appeared in two places at once--but swept on slowly, steadily,--even as a man proceeds."

At the mention of this strange coincidence, the Hindoo's companions looked at each other in amazement.After a silence of some minutes, the awe-struck negro said to the last speaker: "So you think that this man--"