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                                  THE
                              MISSIONARY:

                                  AN
                             Indian Tale.

                                  BY
                             MISS OWENSON.

                    WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR.

                           IN THREE VOLUMES.

                           _FOURTH EDITION._

                               VOL. II.

                                LONDON:
                     PRINTED FOR J. J. STOCKDALE,
                          NO. 41, PALL MALL.
                                 1811.




                          THE MISSIONARY, &c.




CHAPTER VIII.


It was the season of visitation of the Guru of Cashmire to his
granddaughter. The Missionary beheld him with his train approach her
abode of peace, and felt the necessity of absenting himself from the
consecrated grove, where he might risk a discovery of his intentions
unfavourable to their success. He knew that the conversion of the
Brachmachira was only to be effected by the frequent habit of seeing
and conversing with her, and that a discovery of their interviews would
be equally fatal to both. Yet he submitted to the necessity which
separated them, with an impatience, new to a mind, whose firm tenour
was, hitherto, equal to stand the shock of the severest disappointment.
Still did his steps involuntarily bend to the skirts of the grove, and
still did he return sad, without any immediate cause of sorrow, and
disappointed, without any previous expectation. To contemplate the
frailty, to witness the errors of the species to which we belong, is to
mortify that self-love, which is inherent in our natures; yet to be
dissatisfied with others, is to be convinced of our own superiority. It
is to triumph, while we condemn--it is to pity, while we sympathize.
But, when we become dissatisfied with ourselves; when a proud
consciousness of former strength unites itself with a sense of existing
weakness; when the heart has no feeling to turn to for solace; when the
mind has no principle to resort to for support; when suffering is
unalleviated by self-esteem, and no feeling of internal approbation
soothes the irritation of the discontented spirit; then all is hopeless,
cold, and gloomy, and misery becomes aggravated by the necessity which
our pride dictates, of concealing it almost from ourselves. Days
listlessly passed, duties neglected, energies subdued, zeal weakened;
these were circumstances in the life of the apostolic Nuncio, whose
effects he rather felt than understood. He was stunned by the revolution
which had taken place in his mind and feeling, by the novelty of the
images which occupied his fancy, by the association of ideas which
linked themselves in his mind. He would not submit to the analysis of
his feelings, and he was determined to conquer, without understanding
their nature or tendency. Entombed and chained within the most remote
depths of his heart, he was deaf to their murmurs, and resisted their
pleadings, with all the despotism of a great and lofty mind, created
equally to command others and itself. With the dawn, therefore, of the
morning, he issued from his cave, intending to proceed to Sirinagur,
determined no longer to confine his views to the conversion of the
solitary infidel; but to change, at once, the scene and object, which
had lately engrossed all the powers of his being, and to bestow upon a
multitude, those sacred exertions, which he had, of late, wholly
confined to an individual.

His route to Sirinagur lay near the dwelling of the Priestess. He
perceived, at a considerable distance, the train of the Guru returning
to his college; Luxima, therefore, was again mistress of her own
delicious solitude. The impulse of the man was to return to the grotto,
but the decision of the Priest was to proceed, to effect his original
intention. As he advanced, the glittering shafts of Luxima’s verandahs
met his eye, and he abruptly found himself under the cannella-alba tree,
beneath whose shade he had last beheld her. He paused, as he believed,
to contemplate its luxuriancy and its beauty, which had before escaped
his observation. He admired its majestic height, crowned by branches,
which drooped with their own abundance, and hung in fantastic wreaths of
green and brilliant foliage, mingling with their verdure, blossoms of
purple and scarlet, and berries bright and richly clustered. But an
admiration so coldly directed, was succeeded by a feeling of amazement
and delight, when he observed the date of the day of his last interview
with Luxima carved on its bark; when he observed, hanging near it, a
wreath of the may-hya, whose snowy blossoms breathe no fragrance, and to
which an oly-leaf was attached, bearing the following inscription from
the Persian of Saddi: “The rose withers, when she no longer hears the
song of the nightingale.”

The lovely elegance of mind, which thus so delicately conveyed its
secret feeling, received a tribute, which the votarist trembled as he
presented; and pure and holy lips, which had hitherto only pressed the
saintly shrine, or consecrated relic, now sealed a kiss, no longer cold,
upon an object devotion had not sanctified. But the chill hand of
religion checked the human feeling as it rose; and the blood ran coldly
back to the heart, from which, a moment before, it had been impelled,
with a force and violence he shuddered to recollect.

Suddenly assuming a look of severity, as if even to awe, or to deceive
himself, he hurried on, nor once turned his eye towards the sunny
heights which Luxima’s pavilion crowned. He now proceeded through the
rocky defile, which formed the mouth of the valley, and advanced into an
avenue, which extended for a league, and led to various towns, and
different pagodas. This avenue, grand and extensive as it was, was yet
composed of a single tree; but it was the banyan-tree, the mighty
monarch of Eastern forests; at once the most stupendous and most
beautiful production of the vegetable world. The symbol of eternity,
from its perpetual verdure and perpetual spring, independent of
revolving seasons, and defying the decay of time, it stands alone and
bold, reproducing its own existence, and multiplying its own form, fresh
and unfaded amidst the endless generation it propagates; while every
branch, as emulous of the parent greatness, throws out its fibrous
roots, and, fastening in the earth, becomes independent, without being
disunited from the ancient and original stem. Thus, in various
directions, proceeds the living arcade, whose great and splendid order
the Architect of the universe himself designed; while above the leafy
canopy descend festoons of sprays and fibres, which, progressively
maturing, branch off in lighter arches, extending the growing fabric
from season to season, and supplying, at once, shade, fruit, and odour,
sometimes to mighty legions, encamped beneath its arms; sometimes to
pilgrim troops, who make its shade the temple of their worship, and
celebrate, beneath its gigantic foliage, their holy festivals and mystic
rites. This tree, which belongs alone to those mighty regions, where God
created man, and man beheld his Creator, excited a powerful emotion in
the bosom of the Missionary as he gazed on it.

It was through the arcades of the wondrous banyan, that a scene finely
appropriate struck his view--an Eastern armament in motion, descending
the brow of one of the majestic mountains of Sirinagur: the arms of the
troops glittering to the sun-beam, flashed like lightning through the
dark shade of the intervening woods, while, in their approach, were more
visibly seen, elephants surmounted with towers; camels, bearing on their
arched necks the gaudy trappings of war; the crescent of Mahomet beaming
on the standard of the Mogul legions; and bright spears, and feathery
arrows, distinguishing the corps of Hindu native troops; the van
breaking from the line to guard the passes, and detachments hanging
back in the rear to protect the equipage; while the main body, as if by
an electric impulse, halted, as it gradually reached the valley where it
was to encamp. This spectacle, so grand, so new, and so imposing, struck
on the governing faculty of the Missionary’s character--his strong and
powerful imagination. He approached with rapid steps the spot where the
troops had halted; he observed the commander-in-chief descend from a
Tartar horse; he was distinguished by the imperial turban of the Mogul
princes, but still more by the youthful majesty of his look, and by the
velocity of his movements. Darting from rank to rank, he appeared like a
flashing beam of light, while his deep voice, as it pronounced the word
of command, was re-echoed from hill to hill with endless vibration.
Already a camp arose, as if by magic, among the luxuriant shrubs of the
glen. The white flags of the royal pavilion waved over a cascade of
living water, and tents of snowy whiteness, in various lines,
intersected each other amidst the rich shades of the mango and
cocoa-tree; the thirsty elephants, divested of their ponderous loads,
steeped their trunks in the fountains; and the weary camel reposed his
limbs on banks of odorous grasses. All now breathed shade, refreshment,
and repose, after heat, fatigue, and action. Faquirs, and pilgrims, and
jugglers, and dancers, were seen mingling among the disarmed troops; and
the roll of drums, the tinkling of bells, the hum of men, and noise of
cattle, with the deep tone of the Tublea, and the shrill blast of the
war-horn, bestowed appropriate sounds upon the magic scene. As the
Missionary gazed on the animated spectacle, a straggler from the camp
approached to gather fruit from the tree under which he stood, and the
Missionary inquired if the troops he beheld were those of Aurengzebe?
“No,” replied the soldier; “we do not fight under the banners of an
usurper, and a fratricide; we are the troops of his eldest brother, and
rightful sovereign, Daara, whom we are going to join at Lahore, led on
by his gallant son, the ‘lion of war,’ Solyman Sheko. Harassed by
fatigue, and worn out by want and heat, after crossing the wild and
savage mountains of Sirinagur, Solyman has obtained the protection of
the Rajah of Cashmire, who permits him to encamp his troops in yonder
glen, until he receives intelligence from the Emperor, his father, whose
fate is at present doubtful[1].”

The soldier, having then filled his turban with fruit, returned to his
camp.

He who truly loves, will still seek, or find, a reference, in every
object, to the state and nature of his own feelings; and that the fate
of a mighty empire should be connected with the secret emotions of a
solitary heart, and that “the pomp and circumstance of war” should
associate itself with the hopes and fears, with the happiness and misery
of a religious recluse living in remote wilds, devoted to the service of
Heaven, and lost to all the passions of the world, was an event at once
incredible--and true!

A new sense of suffering, a new feeling of anxiety, had seized the
Missionary, when he understood the gallant son of Daara, the idol of the
empire, had come to fix himself in the vicinage of the consecrated
groves of the Cashmirian Priestess. He knew that, in India, the person
of a woman was deemed so sacred, that, even in all the tumult of
warfare, the sex was equally respected by the conqueror and the
conquered; but he also knew in what extraordinary estimation the beauty
of the Cashmirian women was held by the Mogul princes; and though Luxima
was guarded equally by her sacred character and holy vows, yet Solyman
was a hero and a prince! and the fame of her charms might meet his ear,
and the lonely solitude of her residence lure his steps. This idea grew
so powerfully on his imagination, that he already believed some rude
straggler from the camp might have violated, by his presence, the
consecrated groves of her devotion, and, unable to dismiss the thought,
he hurried back, forgetful of his intention to visit Sirinagur, and
believing that his presence only could afford safeguard and protection
to her, who, but a short time back, shrunk in horror from his approach.
So slow and thoughtful had been his movements, and so long had he
suffered himself to be attracted by a spectacle so novel as the one he
had lately contemplated, that, notwithstanding the rapidity of his
return, it was evening when he reached the sacred grove; he advanced
within view of the verandah, he darted like lightning through every
alley or deep-entangled glen; but no unhallowed footstep disturbed the
silence, which was only animated by the sweet, wild chirp of the mayana;
no human form, save his own, peopled the lovely solitude; all breathed
of peace, and of repose. In the clear blue vault of heaven the moon had
risen with a bright and radiant lustre, known only in those pure
regions, where clouds are deemed phenomena. The Missionary paused for a
moment to gaze on Luxima’s verandah, and thought that, haply, even then,
with that strange mixture of natural faith and idolatrous superstition,
which distinguished the character of her devotion, she was worshipping,
at the shrine of Camdeo, in the almost inspired language of religious
sublimity. This thought disturbed him much; and he asked himself what
sacrifice he would not make, to behold that pure but wandering soul,
imbued with the spirit of Christian truth; but what sacrifice on earth
was reserved for him to make, who had no earthly enjoyment to
relinquish? “Yes,” he exclaimed, “there is yet one: to relinquish, for
ever, all communion with Luxima!” As this thought escaped his mind, he
shuddered: had she then become so necessary to his existence, that to
relinquish her society, would be deemed a sacrifice? He dismissed the
terrific idea, and hurried from a place where all breathed of her, whom
he endeavoured to banish from his recollection. As he approached his
cave, he was struck by the singular spectacle it exhibited: a fracture
in the central part of the roof admitted the light of the moon, which
rose immediately above it; and its cloudless rays, concentrated as to a
focus, within the narrow limits of the grotto, shone with a dazzling
lustre, which was increased and reflected by the pendent spars, and
surrounding congelations; while a fine relief was afforded by the more
remote cavities of the grotto, and the deep shadow of the œcynum,
whose dusky flowers and mourning leaves drooped round its entrance. But
it was on the altar, from its peculiar position, that the beams fell
with brightest lustre; and the Missionary, as he approached, thought
that he beheld on its rude steps, a vision brighter than his holiest
trance had e’er been blessed with; for nothing human ever looked so
fair, so motionless, or so seraphic. His eye was dazzled; his
imagination was bewildered; he invoked his patron saint, and crossed
himself; he approached, and gazed, and yet he doubted; but it was no
spirit of an higher sphere; no bright creation of religious ecstacy:--it
was Luxima! it was the pagan! seated on the steps of the Christian
altar; her brow shaded by her veil; her hands clasped upon the Bible
which lay open on her knee, and a faint glory playing round her head,
reflected from the golden crucifix suspended above it. She slept; but
yet so young was her repose, so much it seemed the stealing dawn of
doubtful slumber, that her humid eyes still glistened beneath the deep
shadow of her scarce-closed lashes: the hue of light which fell upon her
features, was blue and faint; and the air diffused around her figure,
harmonized with the soft and solemn character of the moonlight cave. The
Monk stood gazing, every sense bound up in one; his soul was in his
glance, and his look was such as beams in the eye when it snatches its
last look from the object dearest to the doting heart, till an
involuntary sigh, as it burst from his lips, chased by its echo, the
soft and stealing sleep of Luxima. She started, and looked round her, as
if almost doubtful of her identity. She beheld the Missionary standing
near her, and arose in confusion, yet with a confusion tinctured by
pleasurable surprise.

“Luxima!” he exclaimed, in a voice full of softness, and for the first
time addressing her by her name. “Father!” she timidly returned,
casting down her eyes; then, after a short but touching pause, she
added, “Thou wonderest much to see me here, at such an hour as this!”

“Much,” he returned: “but, dearest daughter, seeing thee as I have seen
thee, I rejoice much more.”

“Many days,” she said, in a low voice, “many days have fled since I
beheld thee; and I prophesied, from the vision of my last night’s dream,
that thy wound would gangrene, were it not speedily touched by the three
sacrificial threads of a Brahmin; therefore came I hither to seek thee,
and brought with me thy Christian Shaster, but I found thee not:
thinking thou wast performing poojah, near some sacred tank, I sat me
down upon thy altar steps, to wait thy coming, and to read thy Shaster;
till weariness, the darkness, and the silence of the place, stole upon
my senses, the doubtful slumber in which thou didst find me wrapt.”

“And dost thou regret,” said the Missionary, with a pensive smile, “that
the spirit of thy prophecy is false? Or dost thou rejoice, that my
wound, which awakened thy anxiety, is healed?” Luxima made no reply--the
feeling of the woman, and the pride of the Prophetess, seemed to
struggle in her bosom; yet a smile from lips, which on _her_ had never
smiled before, seemed to excite some emotion in her countenance. And
after a short pause, she arose, and presenting him the Scriptures, said,
“Christian, take back thy Shaster, for it should belong to thee alone.
’Tis a wondrous book! and full of holy love; worthy to be ranked with
the sacred _Veidam_, which the great Spirit presented to Brahma to
promote the happiness and wisdom of his creatures.” The Missionary had
not yet recovered from the confusion into which the unexpected
appearance of Luxima, in his grotto, had thrown him; he was, therefore,
but ill prepared to address her on a subject so awfully interesting, as
that to which her simple, but sacrilegious commentary, led. He stood,
for a moment, confounded; but, observing that Luxima was about to
depart, he said, “Thou camest hither to seek and to do me a kindness,
and yet my presence banishes thee: at least, suffer me to give thee my
protection on thy return.” As he spoke, they left the grotto together;
and, after a long silence, during which, both seemed engaged with their
own thoughts, the Missionary said, “Thou hast observed truly, that the
inspired work I have put into thy hands is full of holy love; for the
Christian doctrine is the doctrine of the heart, and, true to all its
purest feelings, is full of that tender-loving mercy, which blends and
unites the various selfish interests of mankind, in one great sentiment
of brotherly affection and religious love!”

“Such,” said Luxima, with enthusiasm, “is that doctrine of mystic love,
by which our true religion unites its followers to each other, and to
the Source of all good; for we cannot cling to the hope of infinite
felicity, without rejoicing in the first daughter of love to God, which
is charity towards man. Even here,” she continued, raising her eyes in
transport, “in a dark forlorn state of separation from our beloved, we
live solely in him, in contemplating the moment when we shall be
reunited to him in endless beatitude!”

“Luxima! Luxima!” exclaimed the Missionary, with emotion, “this
rhapsody, glowing and tender as it is, is not the language of religion,
but the eloquence of an ardent enthusiasm; it bears not the pure and
sacred stamp of holy truth, but the gloss and colouring of human
feeling. O my daughter! true religion, pure and simple as it is, is yet
awful and sublime--to be approached with fear and trembling, and to be
cultivated, not in fanciful and tender intimacy, but in spirit and in
truth; by sacrifices of the earthly passions, and the human feeling; by
tears which sue for mercy, and by sufferings which obtain it.” As he
spoke, his voice rose; his agitation increased. Luxima looked timidly in
his eyes, and sighed profoundly: the severity of his manner awed her
gentle nature; the rigid doctrines he preached, subdued her enthusiasm.
She was silent: and the Monk, touched by her softness and trembling,
lest, in scaring her imagination or wounding her feelings, he might
counteract the effects he had already, and with such difficulty,
produced; or, by personally estr