In the Permanent Way

the Dead, for the years had passed since the child had sat in the sunlight planting gardens. How many the old man did not consider; in point of fact it did not mat

that hot summer evening beneath the sirus blossoms smiting the voice from the quavering disc of metal, knew no more than this--that the time was at hand. Whether it was always so, or whether the great

an

n was almost at its setting. St. John's-in-the-Wilderness sh

an

silence, as it had gone all

an

ow long, O L

*

Prophet! w

beyond mistake--one word, "Deen!

and stirred the perfumed puff-blossoms--a scorching wind from the east whirled the

Deen!

er, till, like the breath of one who dies in his sleep, the vibration ceased. But

Deen!

that men have ma

*

al, and had smitten remorselessly. A terrible figure this; his old hands trembling with their work; his fierce old eyes ablaze; his garments stained and bloody. Beyond the white pile of the tomb the red flare of burning roof trees told their tale, and every

at pulse of satisfied revenge. The tomb was his again; nay, not his, but the saint

every movement the fatigue of unusual exertion. Well, he had done his part; he had slain, and s

cessories of that past worship. And yet it was not light enough for Shub'rat, not even when he had lit the candles on the altar. Still, that was soon remedied. A journey or two backwards and forwards to his own hovel, and a ring of flick

Rahmut, on whom be pea

d into the sonorous Arabic formula of faith it trembled not at all, but

n through the land with that cry of "Deen! Deen!" on their lips, and had conquered. As they, the descendants, would conquer now! Yea! let them judge; even Huzrut Isa[1] himself and the blessed Miriam his mother; for there were times when even motherhood must be forgotten. His trembling old hands, strained under the task which will not bear descriptio

ort of trance, a paralysis, not of action deferred, as in the past, but of deeds accomplished. And so, after a time, with his head still against

n! D

how you will; but, even in it

ast-like cries of those who had taken advantage of the times to return to their old evil doings. Within, there was nothing

haps it had slept through the horrors of the night, perhaps slept on, even when snatched up by mother or nurse in the last wild flight for safety towards a sanctuary. Who knows? Who will ever know half the story of the great Mutiny? But there it was, sleep still lingering in the wide blue eyes

*

g towards the cressets below them, or was it only the rising breeze of midnight? Was it the Finger of

n earth, the passion and the pity, the strain and stress of it all need a more impartial judgment than the living can give. So let the child and

*

looked round him fearfully as men do when roused, by God knows what,

air and pale faces? He crouched forward on his hands like a wild beast about to spring, his eyes fixed in a stupid stare. There, within the ring of holy lights

o! (see)--de

et, though he had begun to grasp the truth, his he

t's portion, had claimed the chi

legs would carry him to a new victim. But he had reckoned without that unseen figure crouching in the shadow by the lectern; reckoned without the confused clashing and clamour of emotion

lish face, full of the lust of blood, had passed a

en! Allah

the huddled figure on its face which lay before him, so close that th

ast, and, after all, it had been Rahmut's platter! With these thoughts clashing and echoing through heart and soul Deen Mahomed sprang forward, seized the child, stifling its cries with his hand, and disappeared into the darkness. None too soon, for the yell of rage greeting the discovery of the murdered comrade reached him ere he had gained the shelter of the trees. Whither now? N

g save the one fierce desire to get away to some spot where the child's cries would not be heard--where he woul

were heard, they might be set down to some wounded thing dreeing its deadly debt of suffering. A minute afterwards he stood in a room, unroofed and reeking yet with the smell of fire, but scarcely disturbed otherwise in its peaceful, orderly arrangements--a room wi

ly, "Hil'ao, hil'ao, neendhi argi

terly, and had any come to interrupt it he would have given his life calmly for its fulfilment. Why, he did not know. It was Fate. So the old voice, g

row! G

ums are

to sleep,

o pounds f

om the beginning without an answer, for he had gone so far along the road, simply by following close on the Finger of Fate; and now there was no possibility of turning back. For woe or weal he had taken the c

e gauntlet of his comrades, and reach the entrenched position which the infidels--curse them!--had defended against odds such as no man had dreamed of before. It was seven miles to the north, that cantonment which would have been destroyed but for those renegades from the Faith who had stood by their masters, and that handful of British troops which had refused to accept defeat. Seven miles of jungle and open country alive with armed and reckless sepoys and sowars, to whom a man in mufti was fair game, no matter what the colour of his race, lay between him and that goal, and Deen Mahomed's grim face grew grimmer as he raised th

ntry ceremoniously set, as in p

rue; he was for God and his Prophet when all was said and done. But this was littl

p in the street; "before God he hath more than hi

n Mahomed fiercely. "Better for thee in Paradise, All

ail, he hath no more than he deserves for this day's work. And he is a devil with that s

nd through it all a growing doggedness, a growing determination came to him to do this thing, yet still remain, as ever, a guardian of

se aid had been sought to throw off the yoke--who would soon find it on their own shoulders. A step back, a mighty slash as the horse sped by, maddened by bit and spur, a stumble, a crash, an

God's earth from the next, and making it impossible to see one's way. On and on swiftly, forcing a path throug

d of warning, came an open s

al

not unless you made that burden on your back a target for pursuing bullets. A fair mark,

d up within him; for there was not even a sahib there who might, perchance, understand. Yet there was no doubt, no doubt at all, even t

ar wa Maho

e fell forward on his face, it

*

the ole beast neat as a nine

me on for like th

ts the drink aboard, an' don't care for nothing but religion--r

n Mahomed's fall had

the sun tipped over the tiger-gr

at was

foot, and looking thoughtfully at the face, fierce even in death. But no one hazarded a theory, and the F

PERMA

for the brief rest which merges at the first hint of lessened speed into the old racing measure. Whir and slide, racing and resting!--while the wheels spin like bobbins and the brick rubble in the permanent way slips under your feet giddily, until you could almost fancy yourself sitting on a stat

I was just thinking this when the buzz of the b

y companion who was giving me a li

conically. "Now, th

only however, much to my surprise, to be replaced upon the rails some half a dozen yards further along them. I was o

t the dicke

arly, the other with a round purplish one--curiously ringed with darker circles--set in it horizontally. On the stu

my friend, climbing

hing in the permanent way!" I

t audible above the first whir o

ed, and I thought he was going to relapse into the silence for

to the first curve, and no trains due, so if

he

*

say it was a thin man. There is nothing more to be said. He may have been old, he may have been young, he may have been tall, he may have been short, he may have been halt and maimed, he may have been blind, deaf, or dumb, or any or all of these. The only thing I know for certain is that he was thin. The kalassies[4] said he was some kind of a Hindu saint, and they fell at his feet promptly. I shall never forget the R.E.'s face as he stood trying to classify the cre

ejoicing until we came to our camp, a mile further on. It doesn't look like it, but there is a brackish well a

and could see a landmark or two, that I noticed the R.E. come up from his prism

e next station, and as that would have ruined the R.E.'s professional reputation we harked back to rectify the error. We found the bronze image still sitting on the sand with its hands on its knees; but apparentl

gosain or sunyasi, whichever he may be, has had the unparalleled effrontery to mo

t seemed to me rough on the thin man to stick a red flag at the small of his back, as a threat that we meant to annex the only atom of things earthly to which he still clung; time enough for that when the line was actually under construction. So I told the kalassies to let him do duty as a survey mark; for, from what I had heard

rs. As good a fellow as ever stepped when he was sober. Well, we came right on the thin one again, plump in the very middle of the permanent way. We dug round him and levelled up to him for some time, and then one day Craddock gave a nod at me and walke

stooping over the other, "you're

with his byraga or cleft stick under the left arm, as if he were quite satisfied with the change. But next day he was in the old place. It was no use arguing with him. The only thing to be done was to move him out of the

the waiy--in th

by the way, I found him quite a godsend as a companion, for when he was on the talk the quaintness of his ideas was infinitely amusing

Hom-Hommipuddenhome[5] it is, sir, I've bin told--an' doin' 'is little level to make the spiritooal man subdoo 'is fleshly hinstinckts. And I, Nathaniel James Craddock, so called in Holy Baptism, I do assure you, a-eatin' and a-drinkin' 'earty, catches 'im right u

d running up and down the section. The first time I went with it on business I had an inspection carriage tacked on behind the truck loads of coolies and ballast, so that I could not make out why on earth we let loos

in the reg'lations. You see, sir, I wouldn't 'ave 'arm come to the pore soul afore 'is spiritooal nater 'ad the straight tip ho?m. Neither wo

out and lift him off the line?" I asked, wonderi

ne come along. Lordy! the cold sweat broke out on me that time. I brought 'er up, sir, with the buffers at the back of 'is 'ed like them things the photographers jiminy you straight with. But 'e ain't that sort, ain't

m. You see, sir, it's by their marks, like cattle, as you tell 'em. Some says he worships bloody Shivers[6]--'im 'oos wife you know, sir, they calls Martha Davy[7]--a Christian sort o' name, ain't it, sir, for a 'eathin idol?--and some says 'e worshi

ne to?" I asked, for the sake

for the spiritooal nater, like old Meditations there. Now Wishnyou Lucksmi an' that lot is the Preservers. They eats an' drinks 'earty, like me. So it stands to reason, sir, don't it? that 'e's a Shiver, and I'm a Wishnyou Lucksmi." He stood up under pretence of giving a wipe round a va

ar, and I am not ashamed

don't run over that old chap some

hope to God I don't," he said in a low voice.

the engine, being determined to see how that bronze image

ten for that matter. It ain't so easy t'other side with the sun a-shining bang inter the eyes. And there

r, first against the rosy flush of dawn, aft

y, sir," said Craddock, "so as

at streak of red with the dark stain upon it; but the stain never moved, never

fixed on that bronze image straight ahead of us. Could we stop in time--would it move? Yes! no! yes! Slower and slower--how many turns of the flywheel to so many yards?--I felt

-subdooin' of mortality beautiful?" The next instant he was

move. You're in the way--t

, he had been promoted to drive the solitary passenger train which now ran daily across the desert. He had not been on the spree once, I was told; indeed, the R.E., who was of the M

sked, when the great rough ha

a native driver on the Goods now. 'E's a Shiver-Martha Davy lot, so I pays 'im five rupee a month to nip

t, and that I hoped it might long continue; whereat he

outbreak, and I could not refrain from congrat

led br

Holy Baptism, I do assure you, was going to knuckle down that way to old Hommipuddenhome? 'Twouldn't be fair on Christmas noways,

and hoped again that they would last; to whi

make matters worse an electrical dust-storm was blowing hard. You never saw such a scene; it was pandemonium, background and all. I thought I caught a glimpse of a corn-coloured beard and a pair of blue eyes in a wooden balcony among tinkling sútáras and jasmine chaplets, but I wasn't sure. However, as I was stepping into the in

ich come, heaven knows why, I took my foot

ttle was at his mouth. This decided me. Perhaps my face showed my thoughts, for as I climbed into the cab he gave an uneasy laugh. "Don't be afraid, sir: it's black as pitch, but I knows where old

t a red light I l

seventeen minutes on goes the brake. That's the ticket for Shivers and Martha Davy; though I am a W

0]--you'd 'ave thought he'd 'ave been a decent chap by 'is name, but 'e went on orful with them Gopis--that's Hindu for milkmaids, sir. And Harry[11]--well, he wasn't no better than some other Harrys I've heard on. And Canyer,[12] I expect he could just about. T

ood what he meant perfectly. In that brief glimpse of the big bazaar I had seen the rows of Western b

fresh air was having its usual effect. "Perhaps if you sleep a bit you'

let go the stanchion,

nutes from the distance signal. I'll keep 'im out o'

clutched at him frantically; but with another lurch and an indistinct admonition to me not to be afraid, he sank into the corner of th

ght suffocate. It was the noisiest, and at the same time the most silent, journey I ever undertook. Pandemonium, with seventy times seven of its devils let loose outside the cab; inside Craddock asleep, or dead--he might have been the latter from his stillness. It became oppressive after a time, as I remembered that other still figure, miles down

ide. And then when I had taken this precaution a perfectly unreasoning anxiety seized on me. I stepped on to the footboard and craned forward into the darkness which, even without the wind and the driving dust, was blinding. The lights in front shot slantways, showing an angle of red ballast, barred by gleaming steel; beyond that a formless void of sand. But the centre of the permanent way, where that figure would be sitting, was da

though I became conscious of a hand on my shoulder, of some one stand

one was out in the darkness. Then I saw a big white fig

yo're in the way--

*

trolly wheels. In the distance a semaphore was dropping its red arm and a p

?" I

hard--hard to tell--well, which is Shivers Martha Davy, and which is Wishnyou Lucksmi. It was right out in

re tombstone

are blood. The flat one, decorated with flowers, is the salagrama[15] sacred to Vishnu the Preserver. You see nobody really knew whether old Meditation

does for b

oints prevented

SECON

nce. For the passing feet of generations had worn down the levels of the alley outside, and the toiling hands of generations had added to the

ambs, square-hewn, roughly-carven, were the only sign of antiquity visible in the house from the alley; the rest being the usual straight-up-and-down almost windowless wall built of smal

r to shoulder, as if trying to escape skywards from the yearly increasing pressure of humanity. It was, briefly, a deep, dark, irregular drain of a place, shadowful u

ountless generations and green with the slime of countless ages, lay one of those wells to which the natives cling so fondly in defiance of modern sanitation and water-works. But there was a third reason why the platform was so much frequented; on the second story of the house to which it belonged stood the oldest Hindu shrine in the city. How it came to be there no one could say clearly. The Brahmins who tend

en he was on his way downstairs, and deep in preparation for the day's work, he did not mind a minute or so of delay for further study; and he would go on with his elementary treatise on logarithms until the tinkle of the anklets merged into the giggle which generally followed, when in the comparative seclusion of the ante-shrine, the veils could be lifted for a peep at the handsome young man. But Ramanund, albeit a lineal descendant of the original Brahmin priests of the temple, had read Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill; so he would g

mitations of life which brings content to the most of humanity. He was, by birth, as it were, a specialised speculative machine working at full pressure with a pure virtue escapement. As President of a Debating Club affiliated with the "Society for the General Improvement of the People of India," he was perhaps needlessly lavish of

refused to replace a wife, deceased of the measles at the age of six, for another of the good lady's choosing. For that other matter of slighting the shrine downstairs is too common now-a-days in India to excite any recrimination; its only effect being to make the women reg

the exact sciences. Even the clang of the great bell which hung in front of the idol within tip-toe touch of the worshipper, as it used to come pealing after him down the stairs, proclaiming that the goddess' attention had been called to a new petitioner, did not bring a comprehension of

l others which appealed to his kindly moral nature. He and his friends of the same stamp--pleaders, clerks, and such-like living in the alley--used to sit on the mud steps after working hours, and discuss such topics before adjourning to the Debating Club; but they always left one of the flights of steps free. This was for the

ome shuffling through the alleys with a pinch or two of new-ground flour, and the neighbouring Brahmins--hurriedly devotional after the manner of priesthoods--would speed up the stair (muttering prayers as they sped) to join for half a minute in the sevenfold circling

upstairs, after sitting up past midnight over his pupils' exercises; for one of

ore numerous than ever. Indeed, one or two half-hearted free-thinker hangers-on to the fringe of Progress and Debating Clubs began to hedge cautiously by allowing their women folk to make

y distributed cholera pills and the very soundest advice to their neighbours; especially to those who persisted in using the old well. Ramanund, indeed, went so far as to circulate a

ure blasphemy. If She wishes blood shall She not drink it? Our fathers messed not with

, just as Ramanund and his like did from theirs; for this passivity is characteristi

hining of its turreted roofs set, as it were, upon the solid darkness of the narrow lane below, a new voice broke in on t

g fiercely. "Is Her arm shortened that it cannot save? Is it straightened that it

from head to foot with cowdung ashes, was squatting on the threshold, daubing it with cowdung and water; for the

anund, cut short in his eloquence, frowned; but he resumed his paper, which was in Eng

ean tricksters and rogues wandering like locusts through the land to prey on the timid fears

ue for sure. Yea! curse if thou likest, and praise the new wisdom; yet thou--Ramanund, Brahmin, son of those who tend Her--hast no

twice-born may repeat. It brought back to him, as if it had been yesterday, the time when, half-frightened, half-important, he had heard it whispered in his ear for the first time. When for the first time also he had felt the encircling thread of the twice-born castes on his soft young body. That thread which girdled him from the common herd

hou, with all thy trickery. But remember this. We of the Sacred Land[18] will not

esting their consistency by letting a few drops fall from his lifted fingers back into the pot. They were thick and red, showing in the dim light

, his high thin tones rising. "And I do know one at leas

n English. "What use to rouse anger

ed Ramanund. "The

ted another, looking uneasily at the j?gi'

lculated to cause a breach of peace," remarked a rotund little pl

et us purge the old, pure faith of our fathers from the defilements which have crept in! Let us, by the light of new wisdom revealing the old, sweep from our land the nameless horrors which deface it. Let us teach

djectives on a single thread of meaning, when

ma! Jai

t hand, reddened with the pigment he had been preparing for the purpose, printed itself upon one lintel of the door, "and Her right hand so----" here his right did the same for the other lintel, and he paused, obviously to give effect to the situ

ee," sneered Rama

ress, as he clenched his reddened hands and stooped forward to bring his scowl closer to t

ey will no

he one side, backed by the cavernous darkness of the low, wide door, was the naked savage-looking figure, with its hands dripping still in heavy red

--you--yo

t one of his red hands and drawn three curving fingers down the centre of Ramanund's immaculate forehead. The emblem of his discarded faith, the bloody trident of Siva, showed there distinctly ere the modern hemstitched handkerchief wiped it away petulantly

" protested the pleader soothingly. "I will conduct same

emarked that to use violence to a priest of Kali on the threshold of Her temple during Her sacred month was as much as their lives were worth; since God only knew how

of Her Imperial Majesty's liege subjects by imprinting the symbol of a decadent faith on his forehead. And thereinafter it repaired to the Debating Club, where Ramanund recovered his self-respect in a more than usually per-fervid outburst of eloquence. So fervid, indeed, that o

ley itself was peace personified. It was dark no longer, for the great silver shield of the moon hung on the notched ribbon of pale sky between the roofs, and its light--with the nameless message of peace which seems inhe

ay garments which had fluttered past not so long before. Or, perhaps, the twin passions of Love and Worship, which even Logarithms cannot destroy, were roused in him by the memory of these things. Whatever it was, something made him pause to hold his breath and listen on that three-cornered landing

hat was as it should be

ods sl

such divinities--the sound of his own steps as he passed suddenly, impulsively, into the ante-sh

which reached up into the shadows of the vaulted roof. And by their light the hideous figure of the idol could be half-seen, half-imagined, through the fretted panels of the iron doors fast-locked on Her sleep; fretted panels g

leep! And yet he drew back hastily into the further shadows, forgetful of everything save s

ilanthropic pity thrill through heart and brain even in his relief; for this was some poor widow, no doubt, come on the sly to offer her ill-omened[19] prayers, and though he might rely on her rapt devotion allowing him to

ig bell which hung above her head. Once, twice, thrice, she tried; standing full in the flare of the lamp, her veil falling back from the dark head, close-cropped like

e will not hear! No one

omething which had till then been asleep in Ramanund. Not listen! Was he not there in the dark listening? Was he not ready to help?-

ou sendest the other for my lover--thy priest! But I will not, Mother, if they kill me for it. Thou wouldst not give thyself to such as he, Kali, ugly as Thou art--and I am pretty. Far prettier than the other girls who have husbands. Mai Kali! listen this once--this once only! K

ve and worship, of sex and religion, which seemed t

, in the shadow, a man looked and listened till

ce more looking upwards at the silent bell, her hands, empty of their chaplets, cl

g clang which forced a vibrating response from the dim arches as Ramanund's nervous hand smote the bi

d! She had listened also,