The Wandering Jew — Complete
the cord round Kennedy's neck, that we perceived on a sudden a traveller
close at hand. He had seen us, and it was necessary to make away with
him. Now, since that time," added Faringhea, "the remembrance of the
murder of that man pursues our brother in his dreams," and he pointed to
the sleeping Indian.
"And even when he is awake," said the negro, looking at Faringhea with a
significant air.
"Listen!" said the other, again pointing to the Indian, who, in the
agitation of his dream, recommenced talking in abrupt sentences;
"listen! he is repeating the answers of the traveller, when we told
him he must die, or serve with us on Thuggee. His mind is still
impressed--deeply impressed--with those words."
And, in fact, the Indian repeated aloud in his sleep, a sort of
mysterious dialogue, of which he himself supplied both questions and
answers.
"'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--"
"I think that this man, whom we killed, restored to life by some
infernal divinity, has been commissioned to bear this terrible scourge
over the earth, and to scatter round his steps that death, from which he
is himself secure. Remember!" added the Indian, with gloomy enthusiasm,
"this awful wayfarer passed through Java--the cholera wasted Java. He
passed through Bombay--the cholera wasted Bombay. He went towards the
north--the cholera wasted the north."
So saying, the Indian fell into a profound reverie. The negro and
Faringhea were seized with gloomy astonishment.
The Indian spoke the truth as to the mysterious march (still
unexplained) of that fearful malady, which has never been known to
travel more than five or six leagues a day, or to appear simultaneously
in two spots. Nothing can be more curious, than to trace out, on the
maps prepared at the period in question, the slow, progressive course of
this travelling pestilence, which offers to the astonished eye all the
capricious incidents of a tourist's journey. Passing this way rather
than that--selecting provinces in a country--towns in a province--one
quarter in a town--one street in a quarter--one house in a
street--having its place of residence and repose, and then continuing
its slow, mysterious, fear inspiring march.
The words of the Hindoo, by drawing attention to these dreadful
eccentricities, made a strong impression upon the minds of the negro and
Faringhea--wild natures, brought by horrible doctrines to the monomania
of murder.
Yes--for this also is an established fact--there have been in India
members of an abominable community, who killed without motive, without
passion--killed for the sake of killing--for the pleasure of murder--to
substitute death for life--to make of a living man a corpse, as they
have themselves declared in one of their examinations.
The mind loses itself in the attempt to penetrate the causes of these
monstrous phenomena. By what incredible series of events, have men been
induced to devote themselves to this priesthood of destruction? Without
doubt, such a religion could only flourish in countries given up, like
India, to the most atrocious slavery, and to the most merciless iniquity
of man to man.
Such a creed!--is it not the hate of exasperated humanity, wound up to
its highest pitch by oppression?--May not this homicidal sect, whose
origin is lost in the night of ages, have been perpetuated in these
regions, as the only possible protest of slavery against despotism? May
not an inscrutable wisdom have here made Phansegars, even as are made
tigers and serpents?
What is most remarkable in this awful sect, is the mysterious bond,
which, uniting its members amongst themselves, separates them from all
other men. They have laws and customs of their own, they support and
help each other, but for them there is neither country nor family; they
owe no allegiance save to a dark, invisible power, whose decrees they
obey with blind submission, and in whose name they spread themselves
abroad, to make corpses, according to their own savage expression.(6)
For some moments the three Stranglers had maintained a profound silence.
Outside the hut, the moon continued to throw great masses of white
radiance, and tall bluish shadows, over the imposing fabric of the
ruins; the stars sparkled in the heavens; from time to time, a faint
breeze rustled through the thick and varnished leaves of the bananas and
the palms.
The pedestal of the gigantic statue, which, still entire, stood on the
left side of the portico, rested upon large flagstones, half hidden with
brambles. Suddenly, one of these stones appeared to fall in; and from
the aperture, which thus formed itself without noise, a man, dressed
in uniform, half protruded his body, looked carefully around him, and
listened.
Seeing the rays of the lamp, which lighted the interior of the hovel,
tremble upon the tall grass, he turned round to make a signal, and
soon, accompanied by two other soldiers, he ascended, with the greatest
silence and precaution, the last steps of the subterranean staircase,
and went gliding amongst the ruins. For a few moments, their moving
shadows were thrown upon the moonlit ground; then they disappeared
behind some fragments of broken wall.
At the instant when the large stone resumed its place and level, the
heads of many other soldiers might have been seen lying close in the
excavation. The half-caste, the Indian, and the negro, still seated
thoughtfully in the hut, did not perceive what was passing.
(6) The following are some passages from the Count de Warren's very
curious book, "British India in 1831:" "Besides the robbers, who kill
for the sake of the booty they hope to find upon travellers, there is a
class of assassins, forming an organized society, with chiefs of their
own, a slang-language, a science, a free-masonry, and even a religion,
which has its fanaticism and its devotion, its agents, emissaries,
allies, its militant forces, and its passive adherents, who contribute
their money to the good work. This is the community of the Thugs or
Phansegars (deceivers or stranglers, from thugna, to deceive, and