In the Permanent Way

The church-gong hung from the level branch of a spreading sirus tree, whence the slight breeze of dawn, rustling the dry pods of a past summer and stirring the large soft puff-blossoms of the present, seemed to gather up a faint whisper and a fainter perfume to be upborne into space--further and further and further--by the swelling sound-waves of the gong as it vibrated to old Deen Mahomed's skilful stroke.

More like a funeral knell, this, calling the dead to forgetfulness, than a cheerful summons of the living to give thanks for life, for creation and preservation. You could hear each mellow note quiver into silence, before--loud and full with a sort of hollow boom--the great disc of bronze shook once more to its own resounding noise; seeming in its agitation to feel the strangeness of the task more than the striker; though, to say sooth, few things in earth or heaven were more incongruous than this church chime and the man who rang it. For Deen Mahomed, as his name implies, was of the faith of Islâm; fierce-featured, hawk-eyed, with the nameless look of his race; a look suiting the curved sword he wore, in virtue of his office as watchman, better than the brass badge slung over his shoulder proclaiming him to be a member of the Indian Church Establishment--that alien Church in an alien land.

And yet the old man's figure fitted close with the building he guarded; for despite the new title of St. John's-in-the-Wilderness, the church remained outwardly what it had been built to be--a Mahomedan tomb. Its white dome and corner cupolas rose familiarly into the blue sky beyond the sirus trees, where, even at this early hour, a hint of coming heat was to be seen in a certain pallidness and hardness. Within, beneath that central dome, encircled now by pious Christian texts, lay buried a champion of another God, whose name, interlaced into a thousand delicate traceries, still formed the decoration of each architrave, each screen; lay buried, let us hope, beyond sight or sound of what went on above his helplessness.

How this change had come about is of no moment to the story. Such things have been, nay, are, in India, seeming in truth more fantastic when set down in pen and ink than they do when seen in the warm clasp of that Indian sunlight which shines down indifferently on so many a strange anomaly of caste, and creed, and custom. Most likely when the wave of evangelical fervour reached the East to prepare the way for the Great Sacrifice of purification by blood and fire which came to native and alien alike in the horrors and wonders of "Fifty-seven," some pious bureaucrat had felt a certain militant satisfaction in handing over a heathen edifice to Christian uses. Such things have their sentimental side; and this tomb had been--like many another--Crown property, and so had become ours by right of conquest. No one else, at any rate, had laid claim to it, except, in some vague, mysterious way, old Deen Mahomed, and he only to its guardianship as being "the dust of the feet of the descendants of Huzrut-Ameerulla-moomeereen-ulli-Moortáza, the Holy." In other words, an inheritor of the saints in light.

Now this sort of title is one not likely to find favour in alien eyes. Despite this, Deen Mahomed remained guardian of the Church of St. John's-in-the-Wilderness, thanks to that ineradicable sense--one may almost say common sense--of justice which dies hard in the Englishman of all creeds. The only difference to the old man--at least so the authorities assumed--being that he wore a sword, a badge, chimed the church-gong, and received the munificent sum of five rupees a month for performing these trivial duties; which latter fact naturally put the very idea of discontent beyond the pale of practical politics. Apparently Deen Mahomed was of this opinion also; at least he never hinted at objection.

Even now, as he stood unmovable save for one slowly swinging arm, there was neither dislike nor approval on the fierce, yet indifferent face looking out at the white glare of the tomb beyond the sirus shade, at the worshippers--laden with Bibles and Prayer-books--passing up the steps, crossing the plinth and so disappearing within, and at the long line of vehicles--from the Commissioner's barouche to the clerk's _palki_--seeking the shade to await their owners' return when the service should be over. Not so wearisome a task as might be imagined, since the big bazaar was near for refreshment or recreation; so near, in fact, that any solemn pause was apt to give prominence to the twanging of unmentionable sutaras or bursts of unmistakable laughter. For, as ill-luck would have it, not only the bazaar, but the very worst quarter of it, lay just behind the fringe of date palms which gave such local colour to the sketches of the church which the Chaplain's wife drew for their friends at home. And yet, in a way, this close propinquity to the atrocious evils of heathendom had its charm for the little colony of the elect who lived beside the Chaplain. In the still evenings, when the scent of the oranges which were blossoming madly in the watered gardens round the houses filled the air, the inhabitants would sit out among the fast-fading English flowers, and shake their heads in sorrowful yet satisfied sympathy with their own position as exiles in that invisible Sodom and Gomorrah. Invisible, because St. John's-in-the-Wilderness rose between them and it, shutting out everything save the impartial sky, whence the sunshine poured down alike on Christian and heathen, just and unjust. Thus the visible church was to them as the invisible one; a veil between them and the people.

It was a square building recessed and buttressed to a hexagon. The Chaplain, however, preferred to call it a St. Andrew's cross, and perhaps he was right. Perhaps again Deen Mahomed and his cult had really had as little to say to its form as the Chaplain; such responsibility being reserved to the primeval sraddha, or four-pointed death-offering. Be that as it may, there was a coolness between the new parson and his watchman, owing to the former declaring it to be a scandal that the latter should hold such office in a Christian place of worship, when he was not even an inquirer! Certainly he was not. He neither inquired of others nor tolerated inquiry from them. He slept on the plinth of nights, chimed the gong by day, and kept the rest of his life to himself. That was all.

Not one of the congregation filing into the church that morning knew more of him than this. So he stood indifferently waiting for the first note of the harmonium to tell him his task was over; listening for it to pulsate out into the sunshine, and, blending with the last note of the gong, go forth upon the endless waves of ether. Go forth hand-in-hand, plaintiff and defendant; a quaint couple seeking extinction, or perhaps the Great White Throne against which the ripple of life beats in vain.

The note came this morning as on other mornings, and Deen Mahomed turned, indifferent as ever, to his house. It was a mud and thatch hovel clinging to one side of a miniature tomb, half in ruins, which some follower of the saint had built within the shadow of his master's grave. It stood just opposite the flight of steps up which a late worshipper or two was hurrying, glad, even at that early hour, to escape from the glare of sunlight. Yet on the warm dust before the hovel a child of four or five sat contentedly making a garden, while the coachman of a smart barouche and pair drawn up close by looked down with interest on the process. 'Twas God Almighty, says Bacon, who first planted a garden; but ever since the task has had a strange charm for man, and even Deen Mahomed paused with a smile for the little watered plots and pretended paths.

"Thou hast encroached on thy neighbour's land to-day, Rahmut," he said, "and gone into the roadway. Lo! the Sirkar will make thee pay revenue, little robber."

"Trust them for that," put in the coachman quickly; then he chuckled. "But the boy grows; yea! he grows to take his father's place."

The old man frowned, yet laid his hand gently on the child's head, as he said evasively: "Have a care, Rahmut, whilst I am gone, and water thy rose, or 'twill die in this heat."

He pointed to a drooping white rosebud which the little boy had stuck in his centre bed.

"Ay," replied the coachman, "'tis hot indeed for the time of year."

"As hot a Shub'rât as I remember. God send the night be cool and bring peace."

"God send it may," echoed the coachman piously, his evil-looking face showing the worse for his unction. "God send all get their deserts on this the great Night of Record."

He made the remark without a quiver, oblivious, apparently, of a long series of petty thefts against his master's grain, and many another peccadillo of the past year. But then, though every faithful Mahomedan believes that on Shub'rât God comes to earth with all the saints in glory, there, in the presence of the Dead, to write his Record for the coming year upon the foreheads of the Living, things had a knack of going on after this judgment much as they did before; especially in regard to such trivial offences as the theft of grain from a horse.

"God send they may," re-echoed the old man, suddenly, fiercely. The words seemed to cut like a knife; yet once more he laid his hand upon the child's head almost in caress.

"Have a care, child, for thy self and thy rose. Thou didst not pick it, sure, from the sahib's garden?" he added hastily.

Rahmut threw up a handful of dry dust and spread his little skinny arms in gay denial.

"Lo! nâna! what a thought! I begged it of the padre's baba. He comes ever to the assemblage with flowers, and the white mem, his mother, bade him give it to me and that too--she brought it in her bag of books."

He pointed with pride to some strips of torn white paper stuck in the sand as walls to the garden. Then his tone changed to tears. "Oh, nâna! nâna! thou hast spoilt it!--thou hast spoilt it!" For the old man in sudden fury had swept the remains of the offending tract from their foundations, crushed them to a ball, and flung it across the sunshiny roadway to the plinth, where it skimmed along the smooth surface to roll finally to the very door of the church.

"No tears, child--no tears, I say," came in a fierce order. "If thou wouldst not have me beat thee, no tears. Thou shalt not even play with such things, thou shalt not touch them. I, the dust from the feet of the saints, say it."

So, leaving the child whimpering, he turned to the hovel, muttering to himself. Rujjub, the coachman, nodded to the next on the rank.

"The elephant escaped through the door and his tail stuck in the keyhole," he said, with a sneer. "_Meean fakeer-ji_ will not have his grandson touch the Ungeel (Evangel), and chimes the church-gong himself. But, in truth, he loves the old tomb--God smite those who defile it--as he loves the boy. God smite those who sent the boy's father over the Black Water to fight the infidel in China. Lo! even Jehad (holy war) is accursed with such leaders."