Yes, it was she. No possibility of mistaking those features—and yet they in no way resembled hers, were indeed like nothing that I had ever seen—in such nameless, superhuman misery did they seem to be petrified.
When I came to my senses again, the end of the procession was just passing us. My fainting so suddenly was ascribed to the heat and to the crush of people. Utterly without power of volition, I suffered myself to be taken to the next caravanserai.
There I lay down in the darkest corner, with my face to the wall, and remained in the same position for many days, bathed in tears and refusing all food. To our old servant and caravan leader, the same that had accompanied me on my first journey, I gave directions to sell all our wares as quickly as possible—if necessary, even on the most unfavourable terms—as I was too ill to attend to any business. Of a truth, I was able to do nothing but brood upon my inconceivable loss; in addition to which, I did not wish to show myself in the town, lest I should be recognised by some one. Before all things, I desired to keep Vasitthi from learning anything of my presence in Kosambi.
Her picture as I last saw her floated unceasingly before my vision. True, I was indignant at her fickleness, or rather at her weakness; for I could not fail to realise that only the latter came into question, and that she had not been able to withstand the pressure brought to bear upon her by her parents. That she had not turned her heart to the triumphant son of the Minister was evidenced plainly enough by her attitude and look. But when I remembered her as, standing in the Krishna grove, her whole face transfigured, she had sworn eternal fidelity to me, I did not understand how it was possible for her to yield so soon, and I said to myself, sighing bitterly, that on maidens' oaths no reliance was to be placed. Yet always that face full of deepest misery rose again before me—and, in a moment, all resentment was dispelled and only tenderest pity went surging forth to meet it; so I firmly made up my mind not to add to her trouble by allowing any news of my presence in Kosambi to come to her ears. Never again should she learn anything of me; she would then, beyond all question, believe that I was dead, and would gradually resign herself to her fate, which was, after all, not lacking in outward splendour.
Fortunately, circumstances rendered it possible for my old servant, in an unexpectedly short time, to exchange or sell his wares to great advantage, so that, after but a few days, I was able very early one morning to leave Kosambi with my caravan.
When I passed the western gate on my way out, I turned to take a last look at the city within whose walls I had lived through so much, both of joy and sorrow, that could never be forgotten. A few days before, as I entered the town, I was filled to such a degree with restless anticipation that I had eyes for nothing round about me. Impossible as it may seem, I had thus remained blind to the fact that not only the battlements of the gate, but also the coping of the walls to either side, were hideously decorated with impaled human heads.
There was no room for doubt—these were the heads of the executed robbers from Angulimala's band.
For the first time since I had seen Vasitthi's face under the baldachin, another feeling than that of grief possessed me, and I gazed with unspeakable horror upon these heads, of which the vultures had long since left nothing but the bones, with, at the very most, the pigtails, and here and there a beard whose wild tangle had protected the place on which it grew. So all of them would have been unrecognisable had not his savage red beard betrayed one, and his pigtail wound around on the top of his head, after the manner of the ascetic plait-wearers, another. These two, and without doubt many of the others, had often nodded to me in comrade-like fashion from the camp circle at night; and I remembered with ghastly distinctness how that red beard, flaring in the moonlight, had wagged with merriment on the occasion of the lecture upon the "Stupidity of Night-watchmen." Yes, so realistic was it all that I could almost imagine I still heard the droning laughter from that lipless mouth.
But about the middle of the battlements over the gate, and somewhat raised above the rest, a powerful skull shone forth in the rays of the rising sun and imperiously drew all my attention to itself. How should I not recognise those lines again? He it was who that day forced us all to laugh without himself moving a muscle of his Brahman face. Vajaçravas' head dominated here, while, without doubt, Angulimala's had been put up over the eastern gate. And a curious sensation stole over me as I thought of the profundity with which the former had in those past days expounded the mysteries of the various modes of capital punishment,—quartering, rending by dogs, impalement, decapitation,—and with what nice care he thereupon sought to prove that the robber should not let himself be caught; but if unfortunately caught, how he must seek by all possible means to escape. Ah! of what help had his science been to him? So little may man avoid his fate, which is, as we know, the fruit of his deeds—it may be in this, it may be in some former life!
To me it seemed as though he looked very earnestly from the hollows of his empty eyes, and his half-open mouth called to me: "Kamanita! Kamanita! Look closely upon me, consider well what thou seest. For thou also, my son, wast born under a robber star, thou also shalt tread the nightly paths of Kali, and, just as I have ended here, so wilt thou also one day end."
Yet, strangely enough, this phantasy, which was vivid as any sense perception, filled me neither with fear nor horror. My—according to this supposition—appointed robber career, to which I had up to this time never given an earnest thought, stood suddenly before me, and not merely not in sober, but even in seductive colours.
Robber chief!—what could be more alluring to me in my misery? For I did not doubt for a moment but that, with my many talents and accomplishments, and particularly with those that I owed to the teaching of Vajaçravas, I should at once take the position of leader. And what position could mean as much to me as that of robber chief? Why, even that of a king would be of little count beside it. For could it give me vengeance on Satagira? Could it bring Vasitthi to my arms? I saw myself in the midst of a forest, fighting Satagira, whose skull I split with a powerful stroke of my sword; and again I saw myself as I bore the fainting Vasitthi out of the burning palace, which rang with the voices of robbers.
For the first time since that woeful sight of my lost Vasitthi met my eyes, my heart beat with courage and hope, and I began to think of the future; for the first time, I wished for myself, not death, but life.
Full of such pictures, I had scarcely gone a thousand paces when I saw before me a caravan which, evidently coming from the opposite direction, had halted while its leader, to all appearance, offered up a sacrifice beside a little hillock close to the highway.
I went up to him with a polite greeting, and asked what deity he was here worshipping.
"In this grave," he replied, "rests the holy Vajaçravas, to whose protection I owe it that, passing through a dangerous neighbourhood, I am yet able to reach home safe and without damage to life or property. And I counsel thee earnestly not to neglect to offer up a fitting sacrifice here. For if, when thou enterest the wooded region, thou wert to hire a hundred forest warders, their help would be as nothing to thee compared with the protection of this holy man."
"My dear friend," I replied, "this mound seems to be only a few months of, and if a Vajaçravas lies buried beneath, it certainly will not be any saint, but the robber of that name."
The merchant quietly nodded assent.
"The same … certainly … I saw him impaled at this spot. And his head is still up over the city gate. But since he has suffered the punishment imposed by the king, he has, purged thereby from his sins, entered heaven without spot or stain, and his spirit now protects the traveller from robbers. Over and above this, however, people say that even during his robber life-time he was an exceedingly learned and almost saintly man; for he knew even secret parts of the Veda by heart—at least that is said."
"And it is perfectly true," I replied, "for I knew him well, and may even call myself his friend."
As the merchant looked somewhat appalled when I said this, I continued—
"Thou must know that I was once made prisoner by this band, and that at that time Vajaçravas twice saved my life."
The merchant's look passed from fright to envious admiration.
"Then indeed thou canst truly count thyself happy! Did I so stand in his favour, I should in a very few years be the richest man in Kosambi. And now, a prosperous journey to thee, O enviable one!" Saying which, he gave the signal for his caravan to proceed on its way.
I naturally did not neglect to lay an offering for the dead on the grave of my famous and esteemed friend; but my prayer, in contrast to all of the others offered up here, had for its burden that he would lead me straight into the arms of the nearest robber band, to which, with his help, I decided then to join myself, and the leadership of which, as I did not doubt, would of itself soon pass into my hands.
I was presently to see, however, and that plainly, that my learned and, by popular pronouncement, now "sainted" friend had been mistaken when he averred that a robber constellation had shone upon me at my birth. For on no part of the way to Ujjeni did we see even a trace of robbers, and yet scarcely a week later a caravan we met after we had gone through a large forest hard on the borders of Avanti was fallen upon by robbers in this very wood.
It has been the source of many a curious reflection to me that the purest chance should to all appearance have led to my remaining in civil life, instead of adopting, as my heart so ardently desired, the life of the robber. Not that it is impossible for one of the nightly paths of Kali to lead directly to the path of the pilgrim; just as, of the hundred and one veins filled with quinque-coloured fluid, but a single one leads to the head, and is that one by which, at death, the soul leaves the body.
So also it is quite possible that even had I become a robber, I might nevertheless have been a pilgrim now, and on the way, with salvation as my goal. Besides, when a man has attained to salvation, all his works, whether good or bad, disappear, burnt to ashes, as it were, in the fervour of his knowledge.
Moreover, the interval, had it been given to the life of the robber rather than to civil life, might not, in so far as its moral fruits are concerned, have fallen out so differently as thou wouldst expect, O brother. For, during the time I dwelt among the robbers, I came to know that there are among them many different types, of which some possess most excellent qualities, and that, certain external features apart, the difference between robbers and honest folks is not quite so vast as the latter would fain have us believe. And, furthermore, in the ripe period of life on which I now entered, I could not help noticing that the honest folks dabbled in the handiwork of the thieves and robbers—a number of them, as opportunity offered, and, as it were, improvising; others regularly, and with great as well as, so far as they personally were concerned, highly profitable skill, so that by mutually lessening the dividing distance, not a little contact, even, took place between the groups.
For which reason I am really unable to say whether I have or have not, by the help of the favouring fate which held me back from the nightly paths of the goddess-dancer with her swaying necklace of human skulls, actually won so very much.
After this profound reflection, the pilgrim Kamanita became silent, and turned his eyes, lost in thought, on the full moon, which rose large and glowing into the heavens directly over the distant forest—the haunt of the robbers—and flooded with a stream of light the open hall of the potter, where it seemed to transform the yellow mantle of the Master into pure gold, like to the raiment of some godlike image.
The Lord Buddha—on whom the pilgrim, attracted by the splendour, but without having the smallest inkling of the identity of him whom he beheld, involuntarily turned his gaze—indicated his sympathy by a measured inclination of the head, and said—
"Still I but see thee, pilgrim, turning thy steps rather towards home than homelessness, although the path to the latter had of a truth opened itself to thee with sufficient plainness."
"Even so, O Reverend One! My dim eyes failed to see the path to freedom, and I took my way, as thou sayest, to the home."
The pilgrim sighed deeply, and by and by, in a fresh, clear voice, resumed the record of his experiences.