I never before heard a father so readily condemn a father.” With these words he disappeared, slipping out of the bundle.
The Raja scolded his son a little for want of obedience, and said that he had always thought more highly of his acuteness—never could have believed that he would have been taken in by so shallow a trick. Dharma Dhwaj answered not a word to this, but promised to be wiser another time.
Then they returned to the tree, and did what they had so often done before.
And, as before, the Baital held his tongue for a time. Presently he began as follows.
THE VAMPIRE’S EIGHTH STORY
—Of the Use and Misuse of Magic Pills.
The lady Chandraprabha, daughter of the Raja Subichar, was a particularly beautiful girl, and marriage-able withal. One day as Vasanta, the Spring, began to assert its reign over the world, animate and inanimate, she went accompanied by her young friends and companions to stroll about her father’s pleasure-garden.
The fair troop wandered through sombre groves, where the dark tamale-tree entwined its branches with the pale green foliage of the nim, and the pippal’s domes of quivering leaves contrasted with the columnar aisles of the banyan fig. They admired the old monarchs of the forest, bearded to the waist with hangings of moss, the flowing creepers delicately climbing from the lower branches to the topmost shoots, and the cordage of llianas stretching from trunk to trunk like bridges for the monkeys to pass over. Then they issued into a clear space dotted with asokas bearing rich crimson flowers, cliterias of azure blue, madhavis exhibiting petals virgin white as the snows on Himalaya, and jasmines raining showers of perfumed blossoms upon the grateful earth. They could not sufficiently praise the tall and graceful stem of the arrowy areca, contrasting with the solid pyramid of the cypress, and the more masculine stature of the palm. Now they lingered in the trellised walks closely covered over with vines and creepers; then they stopped to gather the golden bloom weighing down the mango boughs, and to smell the highly-scented flowers that hung from the green fretwork of the chambela.
It was spring, I have said. The air was still except when broken by the hum of the large black bramra bee, as he plied his task amidst the red and orange flowers of the dak, and by the gushings of many waters that made music as they coursed down their stuccoed channels between borders of many coloured poppies and beds of various flowers. From time to time the dulcet note of the kokila bird, and the hoarse plaint of the turtle-dove deep hid in her leafy bower, attracted every ear and thrilled every heart. The south wind—“breeze of the south,[145] the friend of love and spring” blew with a voluptuous warmth, for rain clouds canopied the earth, and the breath of the narcissus, the rose, and the citron, teemed with a languid fragrance.
The charms of the season affected all the damsels. They amused themselves in their privacy with pelting blossoms at one another, running races down the smooth broad alleys, mounting the silken swings that hung between the orange trees, embracing one another, and at times trying to push the butt of the party into the fishpond. Perhaps the liveliest of all was the lady Chandraprabha, who on account of her rank could pelt and push all the others, without fear of being pelted and pushed in return.
It so happened, before the attendants had had time to secure privacy for the princess and her women, that Manaswi, a very handsome youth, a Brahman’s son, had wandered without malicious intention into the garden. Fatigued with walking, and finding a cool shady place beneath a tree, he had lain down there, and had gone to sleep, and had not been observed by any of the king’s people. He was still sleeping when the princess and her companions were playing together.
Presently Chandraprabha, weary of sport, left her friends, and singing a lively air, tripped up the stairs leading to the summer-house. Aroused by the sound of her advancing footsteps, Manaswi sat up; and the princess, seeing a strange man, started. But their eyes had met, and both were subdued by love—love vulgarly called “love at first sight.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed the warrior king, testily, “I can never believe in that freak of Kama Deva.” He spoke feelingly, for the thing had happened to himself more than once, and on no occasion had it turned out well.
“But there is such a thing, O Raja, as love at first sight,” objected the Baital, speaking dogmatically.
“Then perhaps thou canst account for it, dead one,” growled the monarch surlily.
“I have no reason to do so, O Vikram,” retorted the Vampire, “when you men have already done it. Listen, then, to the words of the wise. In the olden time, one of your great philosophers invented a fluid pervading all matter, strongly self-repulsive like the steam of a brass pot, and widely spreading like the breath of scandal. The repulsiveness, however, according to that wise man, is greatly modified by its second property, namely, an energetic attraction or adhesion to all material bodies. Thus every substance contains a part, more or less, of this fluid, pervading it throughout, and strongly bound to each component atom. He called it ‘Ambericity,’ for the best of reasons, as it has no connection with amber, and he described it as an imponderable, which, meaning that it could not be weighed, gives a very accurate and satisfactory idea of its nature.
“Now, said that philosopher, whenever two bodies containing that unweighable substance in unequal proportions happen to meet, a current of imponderable passes from one to the other, producing a kind of attraction, and tending to adhere. The operation takes place instantaneously when the force is strong and much condensed. Thus the vulgar who call things after their effects and not from their causes, term the action of this imponderable love at first sight; the wise define it to be a phenomenon of ambericity. As regards my own opinion about the matter, I have long ago told it to you, O Vikram! Silliness—”
“Either hold your tongue, fellow, or go on with your story,” cried the Raja, wearied out by so many words that had no manner of sense.
Well! the effect of the first glance was that Manaswi, the Brahman’s son, fell back in a swoon and remained senseless upon the ground where he had been sitting; and the Raja’s daughter began to tremble upon her feet, and presently dropped unconscious upon the floor of the summer-house. Shortly after this she was found by her companions and attendants, who, quickly taking her up in their arms and supporting her into a litter, conveyed her home.
Manaswi, the Brahman’s son, was so completely overcome, that he lay there dead to everything. Just then the learned, deeply read, and purblind Pandits Muldev and Shashi by name, strayed into the garden, and stumbled upon the body.
“Friend,” said Muldev, “how came this youth thus to fall senseless on the ground?”
“Man,” replied Shashi, “doubtless some damsel has shot forth the arrows of her glances from the bow of her eyebrows, and thence he has become insensible!”
“We must lift him up then,” said Muldev the benevolent.
“What need is there to raise him?” asked Shashi the misanthrope by way of reply.
Muldev, however, would not listen to these words. He ran to the pond hard by, soaked the end of his waistcloth in water, sprinkled it over the young Brahman, raised him from the ground, and placed him sitting against the wall. And perceiving, when he came to himself, that his sickness was rather of the soul than of the body, the old men asked him how he came to be in that plight.
“We should tell our griefs,” answered Manaswi, “only to those who will relieve us! What is the use of communicating them to those who, when they have heard, cannot help us? What is to be gained by the empty pity or by the useless condolence of men in general?”
The Pandits, however, by friendly looks and words, presently persuaded him to break silence, when he said, “A certain princess entered this summer-house, and from the sight of her I have fallen into this state. If I can obtain her, I shall live; if not, I must die.”
“Come