"Your code is simple enough if you have it all laid down by your law-giver. All you have to do is to take care not to break your rules," observed Wenaston, ignoring a fact that he was well aware of.
The conversation had gone beyond the limits of light inconsequent talk; and he was watching for an opportunity to express his views courteously and without giving offence on caste and the absurdity of clinging to a belief in rigid ceremonial. By profession he was an educationalist. Without any intention of proselytising it came naturally to him to combat beliefs that he considered to be obsolete and obstructive to progress of thought. He had started the conversation simply to pass the time as they travelled. He continued it that he might tilt without offence at that which he took to be the greatest obstacle to the advancement of education among the Hindus. His words were not without effect. It was Bopaul who ventured to speak out and declare what was in the mind of all three.
"In our case we have broken the rules of caste, and broken them badly. The journey to England alone involves a rupture of a serious nature."
Ananda wore an expression of anxiety that he did not attempt to hide. It was true. From the Hindu point of view he was living in sin. He had not only offended against the order of his caste in crossing the sea; but every day that was passed in the foreign country was a continuance of sin. The sense of sin lay heavy on his conscience and at times weighed him down to the verge of nervous melancholy. Under its influence he had, soon after his arrival in England, written an urgent letter to his father praying that he might be permitted to return and perform those purificatory rites which would remove the burden of offence.
There was no possibility of escape as long as he remained in a foreign land. The daily ablutions were but half performed; the daily worship of the household gods was omitted altogether for want of the necessary accessories—the metal image, the rice, camphor, sugar and ghee. In the matter of diet there was dire offence in the preparation of his food; also in the method of partaking it. Contamination was in the very shadow of the crowd that jostled him in his going and coming. His appeal to his father met with no response.
Resigning himself to his fate he did his best to become reconciled to his environment. Occasionally he regarded the English men and women who surrounded him with something like envy. They did not appear to be overshadowed by any gloomy apprehensions of the future. Did they cover their fears and forebodings with a contentment that was assumed? A few questions put to the Professor disabused his mind of that suspicion. They were as happy as they appeared to be, he was told. Their creed reassured them and banished fear. Christ, their great teacher, had given them definite promises in the Gospels that left them in no uncertainty. The way was easy for any one who chose to follow it, and no man could complain that he was driven against his will into a state of sin and offence equivalent to that which troubled the exiled Hindu. Ananda, as he listened to the Professor, went so far as to envy the Christians their faith. He had no intention of becoming a Christian, but there was undoubtedly relief for them in their immunity from the horrible dread of re-entering this world as a disgusting insect or a miserable beast of burden. With eyes fixed eagerly upon Wenaston he listened for his comment on the situation.
"You are the victims of circumstances over which you have no control. Your parents sent you to England without consulting your wishes. Do you really believe that their action has caused you to sin and deprived you of your hope of heaven?"
"Not our hope of the future," corrected Bopaul. "When the offence is wiped out by propitiatory ceremonies we shall be restored to the favour of the gods."
"What if you die before your return to India?"
"Ah! then we die in sin, and the dreaded rebirth cannot be avoided; but we hope to escape such a catastrophe and to return safely to our country to perform the necessary expiatory ceremonies."
"It is a monstrous belief!" cried Wenaston, moved in spite of himself as he glanced at Ananda overshadowed by fear, and at Coomara on whose countenance was written the hopeless resignation of the fatalist. "It is incredible that a beneficent Deity can order a weary round of innumerable re-births in a lower instead of a higher existence, and condemn men to undergo this penance for deeds in which there is no evil intention; deeds for which they themselves are not responsible. Even if you are fortunate enough at the end of unthinkable cycles of earthly existence to reach the limit, you can hope for nothing better than absorption in an impersonal Spirit. To my mind such a fate is little short of annihilation."
He looked at Coomara, who, with eyes averted and lips firmly closed, listened to these heretical suggestions unmoved. As Wenaston spoke, the Hindu moved his seat, slipping into the opposite corner near the other window. It was his method of showing that he did not wish to take any further part in the conversation. Bopaul was eager to continue it, and Ananda could not resist the fascination that heresy had for his inquiring nature. None of them ventured to comment on the opinions just enunciated; and Wenaston continued.
"The thought of the extinction of the ego in man is nothing less than appalling. I know that there are certain men among our Western students who have entertained the idea; they honestly try to persuade themselves that they believe in the cessation of every kind of life after death; but I cannot credit them with faith in such a theory. To begin with, extinction is not possible to the human understanding. The scientist pronounces extinction to be unknown with matter. There is mutation, disintegration, but never extinction. We have every reason to believe that the spiritual law follows on the same lines as the law of material life, although the theory is not supported by any known law. There is undoubtedly implanted in every soul the belief in a hereafter. Your faith leads you to expect rebirth in this world. Mine is immeasurably superior. It transcends all earthly——"
His words were suddenly cut short. The carriage rocked on its wheels and lurched on one side, throwing its occupants forward with great violence. A moment later a steel monster crashed through the panelling, rending the cushions and splintering the wood.
On it came with horrible celerity, catching Coomara in the corner where he had just settled himself. Before he could struggle out of its reach, it pinned him down with its full weight.
A cry that was stifled into a groan escaped his lips as the horrible buffer crushed the life out of his fragile body; Coomara the orthodox went to meet his fate, whatever it might be; the relentless cycle of inferior rebirths or the peace that passeth all understanding promised by a loving and merciful God.
CHAPTER III
Coomara, the orthodox, the punctilious observer of caste rule and ceremony, was dead. He had died in sin before the cleansing rites could be performed which alone could restore the purity of his birth and reinstate him in his caste.
Bopaul, when he had recovered from the stunned condition into which the accident threw him, fell back upon the deadening doctrine of fatalism. It was destiny, and there was no escape. All-powerful fate had ordained it; first, that they should miss the earlier train which reached its journey's end in safety; secondly, that Coomara should make a move to the opposite side of the carriage and seat himself on the very spot to which the buffer penetrated. The rest of the occupants escaped with bruises and a few cuts from broken glass. What else could have brought about the occurrence but the direct will of the gods?
To Ananda the affair was a great shock. His nervous system was completely upset. The memory of the scene recurred again and again during the day and the night, depriving him of sleep and rest. It was not only the loss of his friend and companion in exile that grieved him, but the appalling thought that the dead man had been thrust into a cycle of rebirths and existences wherein pain, sordidness and unspeakable degradation would be his lot; where beauty, joy and comfort would find no part. At that very moment the troubled spirit might be entering upon its new life with groans and sighs in squalid environment. He recalled Coomara's careful observance of everything that related to his religion; his dislike of all that was not strictly orthodox; his unwillingness even to listen to heretical teaching. No man could be more innocent of intention in transgressing caste rule than Coomara. With his sensitive temperament, his pride of birth and caste, none could feel his punishment in a