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Updated: May 20, 2025
"Should she stay fainted for a little while, that priest " He stalked into the middle of the outer room. He set the lamp down on a table and looked the priest over as a butcher might survey a sheep he is about to kill. "Now robber of orphans bleeder of widows' blood dog of an idol-briber! This stands between thee and Kharvani!" He drew his sword and flicked the edges of it. "And this!"
He chanted age-old verses, whose very meaning was forgotten in the womb of time forgotten as the artist who had painted the picture of idealized Kharvani on the wall. Ten priests, five on either side of the tremendous idol, emerged chanting from the gloom behind, and then a gong rang, sweetly, clearly, suddenly, and the chanting ceased.
"That is the sacred ring of Kharvani and all men know it. None will touch thee or refuse thee anything, do they have but the merest sight of it!" The Risaldar drew off a clumsy silver ring, set with three stones a sapphire and a ruby and an emerald, each one of which was worth a fortune by itself. He slipped it on his own finger and turned it round slowly, examining it.
I hold the strings of wealth. With a jerk I can unloose a fortune in your lap. I need that woman there!" "For what?" snarled the Risaldar, whirling round on him, his eyes ablaze. "'For power! Kharvani's temple here has images and paintings and a voice that speaks but no Kharvani!" The Rajput turned away again and affected unconcern.
They knew, too, as every one must know who has ever been inside the place, the amazing, awe-inspiring picture of Kharvani painted on the inner wall; of Kharvani as she was idealized in the days when priests believed in her and artists thought the labor of a lifetime well employed in painting but one picture of her Kharvani the sorrowful, grieving for the wickedness of earth; Kharvani, Bride of Siva, ready to intercede with Siva, the Destroyer, for the helpless, foolish, purblind sons of man.
Man, woman and child would pray Kharvani, Bride of Siva the Destroyer, to intercede with Siva and cause him to rise and smite the English. On the skyline, glinting like flashed signals in the early sun, bright English bayonets had appeared; and between them and Hanadra was a dense black mass, the whole of old Hanadra's able-bodied manhood, lined up to defend the city. Now was the time to pray.
"Kharvani!" he muttered, half aloud. "Aye! Call on Kharvani!" sneered the Risaldar. "Perhaps the Bride of Sivi will appear! Call louder!" He stirred again among the charcoal with his tongs, and Ruth and the High Priest both shuddered. "Look!" said the High Priest in Hindustanee, nodding in Ruth's direction. It was the first word that he had addressed to them.
"Could Kharvani but appear, could her worshipers but see Kharvani manifest, what would a lakh, two lakhs, a crore of rupees mean to me, the High Priest of her temple? I could give thee anything! The power over all India would be in my hands! Kharvani would but appear and say thus and thus, and thus would it be done!" The Risaldar's hand had risen to his mustache.
"Kharvani!" said the High Priest to himself again, and the two Rajputs stood still like men dumfounded, and stared and stared and stared. They knew Kharvani's temple. Who was there in Hanadra, Christian or Mohammedan or Hindu, who did not?
"Speak!" he ordered. "What of Kharvani?" "Listen, Mahommed Khan!" Ruth Bellairs laid one hand on his sleeve, and tried to draw him back. "Your ways are not my ways! You are a soldier and a gentleman, but please remember that you are of a different race! I can not let my life be saved by the torture of a human being no, not even of a Hindu priest!
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