Chapter Forty Six

A night of the full moon! -- and that dread battlefield was now still. The trampling of horses, the cracking of muskets, the boom of cannon, the all-enveloping smoke -- of these there was no more. None cried "Hurrah" -- none raised the name of Hari.

Only the jackal, the dog, the vulture made sound. Above all rose the brief cry of some wounded man. One had his hand hewn off, another his skull broken, another his leg shattered, another his ribs pierced through; one lay crushed beneath a horse. One called "Mother!" another called "Father!" one craved water, another longed for death.

Bengali, Hindusthani, Englishman, Mussulman, lay tangled all together; the living and the dead, men and horses, were heaped and pressed in one confusion. That full-moon night of the month of Magh, in the bitter cold, beneath the bright moonlight, the battlefield wore an aspect most terrible. None dared draw near.

None dared draw near; yet at the dead of night a woman walked alone upon that forbidden field. With a kindled torch she searched among the heaps of slain for something. To the face of every dead man she brought the torch and gazed; then passed on to the next. Where some man's body lay crushed beneath a fallen horse, the young woman laid down her torch upon the earth and with her two hands lifted the horse aside and drew the body forth. When she saw that it was not him whom she sought, she took up her torch and went on.

Thus searching, the young woman wandered over all the field -- but him whom she sought she found nowhere. Then, casting down her torch, she flung herself upon that blood-soaked ground heaped with the slain, and began to weep. It was Shanti; she was searching for the body of Jibananda.

Shanti lay weeping, when of a sudden a most sweet and pitying voice fell upon her ear. Someone seemed to say, "Arise, Mother! Weep not." Shanti looked up -- and there, standing in the moonlight before her, she beheld an extraordinary figure: a vast personage with matted locks piled upon his head.

Shanti rose to her feet. He who had come spoke: "Weep not, Mother! I will find for thee the body of Jibananda. Come thou with me."

Then that personage led Shanti to the very midst of the battlefield, where the slain lay piled in countless heaps one upon another. Shanti had not been able to stir them. That mighty personage, moving the heaped corpses aside, drew forth a single body. Shanti knew it: it was the body of Jibananda. His every limb was torn and gashed, drenched with blood. Like any common woman Shanti began to weep aloud.

Again he spoke: "Weep not, Mother. Hath Jibananda truly perished? Be calm, and examine thou his body. First feel the pulse."

Shanti pressed the pulse of the corpse, and there was no motion at all. The personage said, "Lay thy hand upon his breast."

Where the heart should beat, there Shanti laid her hand, and there was no motion at all; all was cold.

Again he spoke: "Lay thy hand at his nostril -- is there any breath?"

Shanti felt none.

Again he spoke: "Look once more. Put thy finger within his mouth -- is there any warmth at all?" Shanti put in her finger and said, "I cannot tell." Shanti was bewildered with hope.

The great personage laid his left hand upon the body of Jibananda. He said, "Thou art crushed with fear, and so thou canst not tell. It seems to me there is yet some warmth in the body. Look again, I pray thee."

Then Shanti felt the pulse once more, and there was some motion. Marvelling, she laid her hand upon his heart -- there was a faint throbbing! She laid her finger at his nostril -- there was a faint breath! Within his mouth she found a slight warmth. In wonder Shanti said, "Was the life yet there? Or hath it come back again?"

He answered, "How could that be, Mother? Canst thou bear him to the tank? I am a physician; I will tend him."

Without difficulty Shanti took Jibananda up in her arms and bore him toward the tank. The physician said, "Take him thither and wash away the blood. I go to fetch the medicine."

Shanti bore Jibananda to the bank of the tank and washed away his blood. Then the physician came with a poultice of wild leaves and creepers, which he laid upon every wound; thereafter he passed his hand many times over Jibananda's whole body. Then Jibananda drew a long breath and sat upright. Looking into Shanti's face he asked, "Whose was the victory in the battle?"

Shanti said, "Thine indeed. Make thy obeisance to this great soul."

But when both looked about, there was none anywhere! To whom should they bow?

Near at hand could be heard the great rejoicing of the victorious army of the Children, but neither Shanti nor Jibananda arose -- they sat together upon the steps of the tank, all bright with the rays of the full moon. By the virtue of the physician's medicine the body of Jibananda was, in a very little while, made whole. He said, "Shanti! Marvellous is the virtue of that physician's medicine! In my body there is now neither pain nor weariness -- come, whither shall we go? Hark to the tumult of the victory-feast of the Children."

Shanti said, "No more thither. The work of the Mother is done -- this land hath become the Children's own. We seek no share in the kingdom -- what now should we do there?"

Jibananda: "What we have seized by force, by the strength of arms we must hold."

Shanti: "There is Mahendra to hold it, and Satyananda himself is there. Thou hadst made thy penance and yielded up thy body for the religion of the Children; in this body now restored to thee, the Children have no further claim. We have died for the Children's cause. Now if they see us, the Children will say, 'Jibananda hid himself in fear of his penance while the battle raged; and now, seeing the victory won, he comes to claim his portion of the kingdom.'"

Jibananda: "What sayest thou, Shanti? Shall I forsake my work for fear of men's reproach? My work is the Mother's service; let men say what they will, I shall serve the Mother still."

Shanti: "To that thou hast no longer the right -- for thou didst yield up thy body for the Mother's service. If now thou wert to serve the Mother again, what then were thy penance? To be cut off from the Mother's service is the chief part of this penance. Else were the mere casting away of a poor life so very great a matter?"

Jibananda: "Shanti! Thou alone canst grasp the heart of it. I will not leave this penance imperfect. My joy is in the religion of the Children -- of that joy I will deprive myself. But whither shall I go? Forsaking the Mother's service, I cannot return home and live in ease."

Shanti: "Do I say so? Fie! We are householders no longer; even as we are, both of us, we shall remain ascetics -- we shall keep perpetual chastity. Come, let us now go forth and wander through the holy places of our land."

Jibananda: "And after that?"

Shanti: "After that -- upon the Himalaya we shall raise a hut, and there we two shall worship the gods -- and the boon we shall crave is the welfare of the Mother."

Then both rising up, hand in hand, in the moonlit night they passed away into the infinite.

Alas! Wilt thou come again, O Mother? Wilt thou bear again in thy womb such a son as Jibananda, such a daughter as Shanti?