AN INDIAN TALE.*
The Bond of Blood, which makes the sixth volume in Mr.. Fisher Unwin's series of sixpenny novels, is a story of very different scope and colour from the other tales in the same series, which have run too much upon the lines of the modern problem fiction. We wonder, by the way, how long it will take publishers to find out what a large and respectable reading world there is that has not yet bowed the knee to. this new Baal, and is eager to welcome a good story with a motive of more wholesome and universal appeal. Mr. Forrest has found an admirable subject for his novelette in a strange and terrible custom which once made part of the sacred law of certain Indian castes : the custom of the blood-bond. A loan of money registered by a bond bearing the mark of the bloody dagger and signed by the public herald carried with it peculiar obligations. In case the debtor should refuse to repay the debt according to the terms of the agree. ment, the creditor could go to the herald and call upon him either to compel payment or to make atonement for failure to pay by the sacrifice of his own life on the threshold of the defaulter. At.a first thought one is inclined to consider this custom as futile as it is awful. But it was founded upon the religious beliefs and reverences of the people among whom it obtained, and the debtor, who by failing to meet his obligations obliged the herald to make forfeit of his life, knew that he brought upon himself and his- house the curse of blood-guiltiness ; and the fear of this curse often operated after the event upon the conscience of the defaulter, and forced him to make tardy payment of the debt in order to deliver himself from the consequences of his action. The native chronicles of India record cases where the atonement demanded by the Bond of Blood was made not by the herald himself, but by some member of his family who was eager to save the honour of the house and be faithful to the obligations of caste, bat yet could not bear that it should, be done at the price of the life of the head of the house. The terrible debt has actually been paid voluntarily by a daughter and a widow. In the story before us it is • The Bond of Brood: an Indian Tale. By B. B. Forrest. "Little Novels' Series. London : T. Fisher Unwin.
the mother who comes forward to die instead of her son ; and Mr. Forrest has told the tale in such a manner as to bring out all the splendour of devotion and fidelity to the claims of religion and honour involved by its motive, and also with due regard to the pathos of the situation and the tender- ness of the domestic affections heroically sacrificed. In its small compass this "little novel" comprises as much great and moving passion and pity as would furnish a Greek tragedy.
The scene is laid in a valley several hundred miles south- west of Delhi ; the people among whom the action takes place are called the well-folk, and described as belonging to a secondary Rajpoot clan. The first chapter gives a brisk and interesting sketch of the history of the tribe up to the time of its coming under English rule. And the second intro- duces us to Hurdeo Singh, the spendthrift libertine who is the debtor in the story, sitting with a group of friends in the gateway of his dwelling-house. The description of this group is admirably picturesque and vivid, and it is contrived so as to make the reader realise the importance of the gateway in domestic and social life, and understand the superstitious horror that falls upon the member of the house when his threshold is stained with blood, for the shedding of which he is answerable :—
"The gateway before us is a very handsome one of the usual demi-vaulted type. The demi-vault spans a greater width than that needed for the gateway, and on either side of the stonepaved approach leading up to the gate is a raised masonry platform. On one of these the watchmen sit and sleep. The other is a favourite sitting-place with the master of the house, for while sheltered from sun and rain it is open to the air, and while within the sacred confines of the house, it is in immediate contact with the world without. On the handsome carpet spread on this platform sit and recline five men. The stout man leaning with his elbow on the silk-covered bolster is Hurdeo Singh, the owner of the mansion. His dress betokens the man of pleasure, the dandy, the rake. His long coat is of fine muslin covered with little sprays and sprigs worked in thread of gold ; his pyjamas are very loose and of silk; his turban, which, after the fashion of his tribe, was made with the long narrow strip of linen twisted tight into a cord, and not wrapped on loose, is placed very much on one side of his head, very much over one ear, a position of the headgear betokening rakishness all the world over. In each ear hangs a circlet of gold wire on which is strung one single large uncut emerald. He wears a necklace of large gold beads. Round each big toe is a silver band ; on the fingers many rings. His feet, of which you have full view—they being bare—and his hands, are fat, as was to be expected from his person, but small and well-formed, and of a dainty, superlative cleanliness. He has a big good-looking, good-humoured face. The qualities that you would note on it at a casual glance were self.indulgence, an easy good-nature. His large eye is amorous. He has a laughing, sensual mouth. And from the big but well-cut lips—stained red by the palm he has just been eating—comes a silky mellow laugh. His thick moustache has strs.ng double curves ; his bushy whiskers are brushed back ; his well-oiled locks hang low down and curl up at the ends. Evidently a gay Lothario, an Oriental Lovelace. He is a man of middle age. The other four are all young men. They all look g roystering blades," gay young sparks," wild bloods.' They are reclining on the carpet, against pillows and bolsters, in -various attitudes. In the eyes of this one, there is the lack-lustre look of an abused manhood; how passion-worn and passion-torn is the face of that other; and the wan, grey look on the face of that one there betrays the habitual opium-eater. If this slave and victim has his opium about him, as is most probable, then they have at ccmmand here every known form of intoxicant. On the carpet stand handsome hookahs, from which some of the men are smoking tobacco, others a preparation of hemp. Those sweet- meats, the square tablets of crystallised sugar, white, pink, green, which look so pretty, contain another preparation of the madden- ing drug. And when Hurdeo Singh cries Jowahir,' and a pretty page-boy appears responsive to his name, he bids him bring them -each an ounce of wine,—the wine is always drunk by weight. Wine, tobacco, opium, hemp, they have them all here."
One member of the group differs from all the others in character and appearance, and the difference is summed up thus,—they are fools, he is a knave. The knave is Tukht Singh, the card-sharper who has been winning large sums from the host. The boon companions are very jovial, very merry. They tell stories, some insipid, some of unpleasant flavour. They sing songs, play cards, bet, drink, and smoke. Suddenly the group is joined by Luchmee Singh, the moneylender, of whom we are told that, probably because he is not a money- lender by choice or temperament, but through the compelling force of caste, "he has not the sharp, keen, self-satisfied, triumphant look of those who rob their fellow-men." He has no cause to look triumphant, for he is an unsuccessful man, and accordingly his look is sad and dejected, his manner feeble. Hurdeo Singh, on the other hand, is elated by wine and comnany. He rallies the money-lender on his downcast air, and invites him to drink. But Luchmee Singh says that he has not come to drink ; his affairs are in a bad way—he has come—. He is not allowed to say what he has come for. The host knows it only too well. More wine is offered him. One of the young men begins a burlesque recitation. The moneylender watches his opportunity, and at the first pause announces that he has come to demand payment of his bond. Hurdeo Singh puts him off till the day after to-morrow. But when he calls on the day after to-morrow Hurdeo Singh and his friends are engaged in seeing and hearing a celebrated Nautch singer, and again the moneylender is put off. His submission to these delays infuriates his wife at home ; their daughter is to be married, and the arrangements for the betrothal cannot be completed unless the bond is paid. But Flurdeo is in difficulties, and he pats off the day of settle- ment again and again. Then the knave, Tukht Singh, inquires the nature of this blood-bond, which is a thing unknown to him, he being but a foreigner, and not of the same caste.
And Hurdeo Singh explains the custom, and confesses his dread of incurring blood-guiltiness. Hurdeo Singh, though a dissolute man and a gambler, has his reserve of religious, or at least superstitions, feeling. He cannot pay the debt, but he dares not incur the guilt of blood. Bat the gamester has no scruples, no superstitions. "These ideas about blood- guiltiness and curses and so forth," he explains, "are for the vulgar, and not for men like us." Besides the bond dates from twelve or thirteen years back. The capital has been more than paid back in the interest. And the coming in of the English rule, which has altered everything, may be said to have cancelled the bond. An ingenious argument takes place between the two, and leaves Hurdeo Singh persuaded contrary to his instinct that the gamester is right, and he is no longer bound by the bond.
They put this view of the matter before the moneylender; but the idea of a bond attested by the bloody dagger ever becoming invalid, or of a religious man like the herald Doorjun Sul failing to fulfil his part of the obligation, does not obtain a moment's credence with the moneylender.
Hardeo Singh may refuse payment ; the arrangements for his daughter's betrothal may be indefinitely postponed; but the herald will keep his promise, the fearful atonement will be made on the threshold of Hurdeo Singh, and the crime of blood-guiltiness will be for evermore upon the defaulting debtor. The scene in which the creditor lays his case before the herald is very fine, and still finer is that in which the herold tells the tale to his mother, and explains how honour
and religion require that he shall die. The mother hears her son to the end, and then says quietly, "Bat you need not kill yourself, my son." The herald thinks for a moment that his mother is infected with the same modern laxity as Ttiltht Singh. Bat the venerable lady explains herself. Certainly
some one must die in fulfilment of the bond, and some one of the herald's family it mast be. But it is not necessary that it shall be the herald himself. On the contrary, it is necessary that he shall live and marry again—for he is a widower and childless—and raise up male children for the house, and also in order to provide for the younger brother, Omed Sul. The boy has offered to be himself the victim, but that neither mother nor brother will hear of. All that filial love and generosity can urge is urged by both sons, but the heroic mother's will prevails, and the tragedy moves on to the conclusion she has indicated. On the threshold of Hardeo Singh's dwelling-place,. on the spot where he sat with his boon companions, the herald stabs his mother, and the terrible agreement is fulfilled in the sight of gods and men. Then the curse begins to work. Hurdeo Singh becomes afraid to cross his own threshold, "for a mist of blood hangs over it ":—
"And so Hurdeo Singh passed into close confinement in his own dwelling-place. For long it was very close confinement, for he could not bear to go out into the courtyard even. He was a haunted man. The sight of the descending poignard was ever in his eyes. The reek of blood was ever in his nostrils. He grew thin. He wasted away. Hurdeo Singh sold his hawks and his hounds, his horses and his guns, not because of his confinement, because he could no longer use and enjoy them : he did so for the same reason that he sold all his own jewellery and as much belonging to those of the household as he could; for the same reason that he sold the valuable shawls, and swords and daggers, and the splendid pairs of carriage bullocks, and the !pity painted vehicles they drew, because he was determined to pay Luchmee Singh, discharge the bonds that there was now no obligation to discharge. Might he
not allay the curse ? With the amount so raised, aid some money borrowed elsewhere, he did so. And then he felt a sense of relief. The burden was lightened. But it could not be removed. You cannot bring the dead to life again. A deed done is a deed done. The curse worked on. Horses and cattle died. An elephant died: a heavy loss. The old foster-mother, a very important personage in an Eastern household, died. Death had entered into the house after that death before the gateway. Every loss was put down to the working of the curse. That the foster-mother and the valuable elephant had attained to a great age made no difference. To Hurdeo Singh every misfortune was double blow, because he knew that he was looked upon as the cause of it."
We do not apologise for telling the story of this little book and giving long extracts from it. It is worth reading even when one knows all that is coming ; for it is excellently told, with concentrated force, great simplicity, and a, very remark- able attention to illustrative detail.
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