The Hungry Stones | Page 8

with delight, and there around me in
the breeze, amid all the perfume of the woods and hills, floated through
the silent gloom many a caress and many a kiss and many a tender
touch of hands, and gentle murmurs in my ears, and fragrant breaths on
my brow; or a sweetly-perfumed kerchief was wafted again and again
on my cheeks. Then slowly a mysterious serpent would twist her
stupefying coils about me; and heaving a heavy sigh, I would lapse into
insensibility, and then into a profound slumber.
One evening I decided to go out on my horse--I do not know who
implored me to stay-but I would listen to no entreaties that day. My

English hat and coat were resting on a rack, and I was about to take
them down when a sudden whirlwind, crested with the sands of the
Susta and the dead leaves of the Avalli hills, caught them up, and
whirled them round and round, while a loud peal of merry laughter rose
higher and higher, striking all the chords of mirth till it died away in the
land of sunset.
I could not go out for my ride, and the next day I gave up my queer
English coat and hat for good.
That day again at dead of night I heard the stifled heart-breaking sobs
of some one--as if below the bed, below the floor, below the stony
foundation of that gigantic palace, from the depths of a dark damp
grave, a voice piteously cried and implored me: "Oh, rescue me! Break
through these doors of hard illusion, deathlike slumber and fruitless
dreams, place by your side on the saddle, press me to your heart, and,
riding through hills and woods and across the river, take me to the
warm radiance of your sunny rooms above!"
Who am I? Oh, how can I rescue thee? What drowning beauty, what
incarnate passion shall I drag to the shore from this wild eddy of
dreams? O lovely ethereal apparition! Where didst thou flourish and
when?" By what cool spring, under the shade of what date-groves, wast
thou born--in the lap of what homeless wanderer in the desert? What
Bedouin snatched thee from thy mother's arms, an opening bud plucked
from a wild creeper, placed thee on a horse swift as lightning, crossed
the burning sands, and took thee to the slave-market of what royal city?
And there, what officer of the Badshah, seeing the glory of thy bashful
blossoming youth, paid for thee in gold, placed thee in a golden
palanquin, and offered thee as a present for the seraglio of his master?
And O, the history of that place! The music of the sareng, the jingle of
anklets, the occasional flash of daggers and the glowing wine of Shiraz
poison, and the piercing flashing glance! What infinite grandeur, what
endless servitude!
The slave-girls to thy right and left waved the chamar as diamonds
flashed from their bracelets; the Badshah, the king of kings, fell on his
knees at thy snowy feet in bejewelled shoes, and outside the terrible
Abyssinian eunuch, looking like a messenger of death, but clothed like
an angel, stood with a naked sword in his hand! Then, O, thou flower
of the desert, swept away by the blood-stained dazzling ocean of

grandeur, with its foam of jealousy, its rocks and shoals of intrigue, on
what shore of cruel death wast thou cast, or in what other land more
splendid and more cruel?
Suddenly at this moment that crazy Meher Ali screamed out: "Stand
back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!" I opened my eyes and
saw that it was already light. My chaprasi came and handed me my
letters, and the cook waited with a salam for my orders.
I said; "No, I can stay here no longer." That very day I packed up, and
moved to my office. Old Karim Khan smiled a little as he saw me. I felt
nettled, but said nothing, and fell to my work.
As evening approached I grew absent-minded; I felt as if I had an
appointment to keep; and the work of examining the cotton accounts
seemed wholly useless; even the Nizamat of the Nizam did not appear
to be of much worth. Whatever belonged to the present, whatever was
moving and acting and working for bread seemed trivial, meaningless,
and contemptible.
I threw my pen down, closed my ledgers, got into my dog-cart, and
drove away. I noticed that it stopped of itself at the gate of the marble
palace just at the hour of twilight. With quick steps I climbed the stairs,
and entered the room.
A heavy silence was reigning within. The dark rooms were looking
sullen as if they had taken offence. My heart was full of contrition,