



Produced by Al Haines.





[Illustration: A mad whirl of sound and colour. "Do you mind?" he said.
"Can you face it?"
Drawn by William J. Shettsline.  (See page 266.)]




                      *The Hermit Doctor of Gaya*

                      A Love Story of Modern India


                                   By

                             I. A. R. Wylie

                   Author of "The Native Born," etc.



                     "This kiss to the whole world"
                      _Beethoven's Ninth Symphony_



                          G. P. Putnam's Sons
                          New York and London
                        The Knickerbocker Press
                                  1916




                            COPYRIGHT, 1916
                                   BY
                             I. A. R. WYLIE



                   The Knickerbocker Press, New York




                               *CONTENTS*

                                _BOOK I_

CHAPTER

I.--The Story of Kurnavati
II.--Tristram the Hermit
III.--Tristram Becomes Father-Confessor
IV.--The Interlopers
V.--A Vision of the Backwater
VI.--Broken Sanctuary
VII.--Anne Boucicault Explains
VIII.--The Two Listeners
IX.--Lalloo, the Money-Lender
X.--An Encounter
XI.--Inferno
XII.--In which Fortune Pleases to Jest
XIII.--Crossed Swords
XIV.--Tristram Chooses his Road
XV.--The Weavers
XVI.--A Meredith to the Rescue
XVII.--Mrs. Smithers Does Accounts
XVIII.--The Feast of Siva


                               _BOOK II_

I.--Mrs. Compton Stands Firm
II.--A Home-Coming
III.--Mrs. Boucicault Calls the Tune
IV.--Anne Makes a Discovery
V.--Crisis
VI.--"Of your Blood"
VII.--The Price Paid
VIII.--Return
IX.--For the Last Time
X.--Anne Chooses
XI.--Freedom
XII.--The Meeting of the Ways
XIII.--To Gaya!
XIV.--Resurrection
XV.--The Snake-God
XVI.--Towards Morning




                      *The Hermit Doctor of Gaya*


                               _*BOOK I*_


                              *CHAPTER I*

                        *THE STORY OF KURNAVATI*


"Thus it came about that, for her child's sake, the Rani Kurnavati saved
herself from the burning pyre and called together the flower of the
Rajputs to defend Chitore and their king from the sword of Bahadur
Shah."

The speaker's voice had not lifted from its brooding quiet.  But now the
quiet had become a living thing repressed, a passion disciplined, an
echo dimmed with its passage from the by-gone years, but vibrant and
splendid still with the clash of chivalrous steel.

The village story-teller gazed into the firelight and was silent.
Swift, soft-footed shadows veiled the lower half of his face, but his
eyes smouldered and burnt up as they followed their visions among the
flames.  He was young. His lithe, scantily-clad body was bent forward
and his slender arms were clasped loosely about his knees.  Compared
with him, the broken circle of listeners seemed half living.  They sat
quite still, their skins shining darkly like polished bronze, their eyes
blinking at the firelight. Only the headman of the village moved,
stroking his fierce grey beard with a shrivelled hand.

"Those were the great days!" he muttered.  "The great days!"

The silence lingered.  The Englishman, whose long, white-clad body
linked the circle, shifted his position.  He lay stretched out with a
lazy, unconscious grace, his head supported on his arm, his eyes lifted
to the overhanging branches of the peepul tree, whose long, pointed
leaves fretted the outskirts of the light and sheltered the solemn,
battered effigy of the village god like the dome of a temple. A suddenly
awakened night-breeze stirred them to a mysterious murmur.  They rustled
tremulously and secretly together, and the clear cold fire of a star
burnt amidst their shifting shadows.  Beyond and beneath their
whispering there were other sounds.  A night-owl hooted, a herd of
excited, lithe-limbed monkeys scrambled noisily in the darkness
overhead, chattered a moment, and were mischievously still.  From the
distance came the long, hungry wail of a pariah dog, hunting amidst the
village garbage. These discords dropped into the night's silence,
breaking its placid surface into widening circles and died away. The
peepul leaves shivered and sank for an instant into grave meditation on
their late communings, and through the deepened quiet there poured the
distant, monotonous song of running water.  It was a song based on one
deep organ note, the primaeval note of creation, and never changed.  It
rose up out of the earth and filled the darkness and mingled with the
silence, so that they became one. The listeners heard it and did not
know they heard it.  It was the background on which the night sounds of
living things painted themselves in vivid colours.

The Englishman turned his face to the firelight.

"Go on, Ayeshi," he said, with drowsy content.  "You can't leave the
beautiful Rani in mid-air like that, you know.  Go on."

"Yes, Sahib."  The young man pushed back the short black curls from his
neck and resumed his old attitude of watchfulness on the flames.  But
his voice sounded louder, clearer:

"Thereafter, Sahib, the need of Chitore grew desperate. In vain, the
bravest of her nobles sallied forth--the armies of Bahadur Shah swept
over them as the tempest sweeps over the ripe corn, and hour by hour the
ring about the city tightened till the very gates shivered beneath the
enemy's blows.  It was then the Rani bethought her of a custom of her
people.  With her own hands she made a bracelet of silver thread bound
with tinsel and gay with seven  tassels, and, choosing a trusty
servant, sent him forth out of Chitore to seek Humayun,