Atma - A Romance

They reached the Burying Ground. It was a lovely spot. Fallen into

disuse, the bewitching grace of carelessness was added to the

architectural beauty of the tombs. The verdure was rank, and luxuriant

trees and marble tombs alike were festooned with clematis and jasmine.

Here they were pleased to find Nawab Khan and the servant, whom he

dismissed on their arrival, and himself guided them to an old tomb

simpler in form than the rest, but more tenderly and beautifully clothed

in moss and wild flowers than any. They sat down while the Nawab related

the story of the maiden whose goodness it commemorated.

"Sangita," said he, "was a princess of incomparable beauty and

surpassing gentleness. Her spirit was humble; and as the heavenly

streams of wisdom and virtue seek lowly places, her nature shone every

day with a purer lustre. She loved tenderly a gazelle which she had

reared, and which was the companion of her happy hours. It was not of

the King's flocks but had been found in Sangita's own garden, and none

knew who had brought it there. The talkative people, noting the sagacity

of the pretty creature and the tender solicitude of its mistress, who

crowned it anew with garlands every morning and fed it with sweetest

milk and the loveliest flower buds, whispered to one another of its

mysterious appearance, and alleged for it miraculous origin. One day as

it fed among lilies, the princess near by, overcome by the heat,

slumbered. She slept long and heavily, and when she awoke her favourite

was nowhere to be seen. Calling and weeping, she wandered through vale

and glade, searching the hare's covert, but starting back, for she

descried a viper there; peering into the den of a wild beast and

shuddering, for it was strewn with bones; hastening to a gorgeous clump

of bloom where she thought it might have rested, but the splendid

blossoms were poisonous and she turned away. All the dark, damp,

dangerous night she sought, and it was morning when she found the gentle

creature stretched on the moss, its piteous eyes glazed over with death,

for it had been pursued and had sunk from exhaustion.

In delirious ravings Sangita told her people that when she knelt on the

moss, and, wringing her hands, bewailed that it had not sought the

shelter of a Secure Resting Place, the gazelle reproached her.

'I know not of that country,' it said, 'it is not here.' And this, although the wild speech of a fevered brain, gained credit

with the populace, and the Wild Gazelle cherished by the good princess

became a memory fraught with awe and superstition. For me, I believe

that the devout and good heart utters wisdom unawares, and that the

tongue habituated to golden speech may drop riches even when the light

of reason is withdrawn. The sickness of Sangita was mortal, but her mind

cleared before she expired, and she then obtained from the King her

father a promise that over her ashes should be erected a lodge whose

door, never fastened, might afford a Haven of Retreat such as her

fevered dream desired!"