Literature.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 80, 8 April 1904, Page 4

Literature.

% TIIE WOOING OF KASIM THE j STRANGLER. j ' 5 -. (By George Griffith.) I J ' (Continued.) , Many of the bond had come forward and encircled us while we were | speaking. I took a thin, ivory-hilt- 1 -Y Cd dagger from my girdle, and I.eld ' it towards her by the blade, .saying : ; " This is thy choice and mine ! | ! v Thou hast heard that only the bond | •k, of blood can unite us. Wilt thou | •lake sacrifice and live, or shall w# I sleep together this night in the sume a bed as the diggers have dug for these ? As thou livest so I will live, and as tnou diest so I will die, for thou art my world and my life and ' without thee 1 cannot live." "The, Lord, I will live with ; . thee !" she said, taking the dagger •_ from me. " What is this daughter of a cow who would have sold me into slavery and infamy for a few bars of gold that her life -should weigh against thy life and mine ? And what was he who strangled my mother because, by an accident, she looked upor. a gallant soldier ? lie is well dead, and she shall die too, rather than thou. Where shall I strike ?" Two of our men bad dragged the screaming widow of Mohun to her feet and covered her face with a cloth, stifling her cries. Old ITous- ' ain put a linger to his side, and said : "If thou has strength and courage maiden, strike here, and we shall . hail thee Daughter of llhowabee !" She raised the dagger and went closer to the trembling body of the old woman, hate and fear in her eyes flashing for the mastery, and said : " Oh, Mallee, thou knowest that thou wast the slayer of mv mother. Thy lying words killed her because she was younger and fairer and brighter of soul than thee. Shalt thou live and I die and him who would die with me ? Nay.it is for the young to live and the old to die.'-'-A stifled cry came from under the eloth, and the old woman's tody writhed, but the dagger point struck true, and the next moment the maiden whose beauty had turned my heart into water fell fainting beside the body of her victim. That night we were annointed with blood in token of our lawful union, and for eight days we passed through the ceremony of purification, after which we wedded according to the rites of our order ; and so Ganeesna, the daughter of Mohun the Braumin, became the bride of Kasim, the y Strangler, and later, as all men , know, Queen of the Stranglers—the only woman who carried the sacred handkerchief since the far off duys when Bhowanee sent her sons upon » their first mission until now. With me and my comrades, she travelled in many years far and wide, f seeking out all the blood of Mohun IChoda, and destroying them until, as we believed, none of the destrjycr's kith or kin were loft alive on the earth, and the world was cleansed from the stain of his polluted blood for ever. Yet, wondrous are the ways of Allah, and, truly, the wisest and the ... mightiest of men are but as little children before him ! When I, Kasim tho Strangler, won and wedded Ganeesha, the daughter of Mohun, enemy of my house and blood, 1 believed that I had filled to the brim the cup of vengeance and the cup of my life's bliss. Yet dearly did I buy both, as a few more words may now tell. Ganeesha blessed and cursed me with a daughter, our only child, and she grew up fair of skin and beautiful of feature even as her mother had appeared to me on that fata! night of our wooing. I, hot-hearted and stiff-necked, had sinned the sin which may not be forgiven. I Kasim, the Thug, in whose veins the blood of the Prophet ran, had, for , tho sake of a girl's beauty, polluted that sacred blood and mingled it with that of the infidel and unbeliever. Ganeesha died of a fever, and •. her tomb, every brick and stone of which may be marked with the blood of sacrifices we had made to the great Goddess, may be seen yet under the palms of a little grove outside Sangore. Within it, besides her -j grave, is an empty space in which the bones of Kasim the Strangler f; will never be laid. » When our daughter Ganeesha came 1 to the proper age, according to our religion, she was sought in marriage from me by one whose soul is even now as I write these lines of the story of my love and my life writhing in tile tortures of Jehannaun, whither the Ipst blow I struck in liberty has sent it. May the fires be hot about him, and the thirst that is never quenched be his ! He joined our band and made many ■ journeys with us, doing so well that, Allah forgive me, I took him for a true son of llhowanee and a true believer as well. So he won by confidence and the love of my dead Ganecsha's other self. They were married by the rites of Islam. All the treasure that I had collected was placed safely for her in a bank at Sangore, for I had no can* for wealth which did not enrich her, and upon this the unsainted son of a Kaffir calculated. It was at the beginning of the time when the English—may ihe wrath of Allah bo upon them—having conquered a great part of the land, made ruthless war on the sons of Bhowanee, murderers as in their ignorance they called us. Alas, in every company of men there is ore faithless to his friends and false to his salt ! t The English Raja knew this, and destroyed us by treason. Prices of thousands of rupees were ' : sot upon the heads of the leaders of ouir band, and in my case, as in that of the other great captains, the blood money was increased by half the plunder that might be seized. ' It was on a moonless night, twenty years almost to the hour after my eyes had first been dazzled by the beauty of Ganeesha, and in the ?elf- " glade to which the fate that no man can resist had brought mo back, that the traitor did his work. We had decoyed a party of travellers away from the main road by telling them that a few leagues further on it passed through a thick jungle in- ... tested with Thugs and Ilaroots, and that the by-path was shorter and safer. All had been prepared, ami J was about to give a signal 1 ' for the sacrifice when t'hetoo-Peer—may his name be blotted from the book of •»' Life-r-put his hnnds to his mouth and imitated the braying of a jack- , ass, which, as I have said, is one of the most favourable omens which the Goddess vouchsafes to he"chilJrei. It was instantly answered by loud commands in the English tongue. Lights of an unearthly colour blazed blue about us, and, behold, on all sides about us closed in lines of Sepoys with rifles and the long knives called bayonets fixed on (hern. One glance told me that we were betrayed and lost. Our victims ran together, crying out to the Sepoys for help, and Chetoo-Peer came to my side and said, with a laugh, that sounded like the hiss of a snake : . . " Ah,Kasim Aii. now is thy breath already in thy mouth, and the cup of my revenge is full. Know now that I have done this thing, and ; that my name is not Cheloo-Pecr but Mohun Peer, son of the brother of him whom thou didst slay her.' on this spot, and son, too, of the sister of her whom thy daughter and my wife slew at the same time at thy bidding. Behold. lam the husband of thy daughter, and master of half thy wealth ! Blood for blood, said the Law. and life for life—and the justice of the English is sure !"■ ■r— " Yet not more sure than this." T cried, snatching from my girdle' the self-same dagger with which Ganeesha had stabbed the wife of JTohun and the sister of this unsainted Kaffir's mother. He shrank back, and the Sepoys rushed forwarded with guns levelled : but before they could reach him the , dagger had sped from my hand and the long thin blade was buried in .. his left breast. ?.! I had made daughter a widow and ■ her children fatherless, yet I am if content. To-morrow, on the galsi; flows. Kasim, the Strangler, will ocy

<he penalty, not' of his deeds as a t rue son of Bhowanee, but of the pollution of the Sacred lllood. Life paid for life, and blood for !,i,n..' and what am I that 1 should quest i.-.n of the justice of Allah ? itismil'u,:!—is it not Kismet !" (The End.)