DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5828#0074
50
THE ROYAL DEVOTEE,
distance, absorbed in grave but tender reflections.
Youghal at length heard from his retreat the tripping
step of his beloved, as she pattered with her naked
feet the beaten pathway. On her nearer approach
he sprang forward to meet her, but she started back
as if a huge scorpion had risen before her feet. For
a moment the slave had forgotten his transformation,
and, actuated by an impulse of indignant surprise, he
exclaimed—
" How now, girl! why, you start from me as if I
were a white man who had his unholy stomach filled
with sacred beef, and made no distinction between a
cow and a guana1. Why do you shun me thus
eagerly ?"
" Because you need not be told that a Pariah
maiden may not come within reach of a Brahmin's
breath, and that Brahmin a Suniassi, without hazard-
ing her own life."
" Ha! ha! ha!" cried the transformed menial;
" by the chuckra2 of Vishnoo, that cannot be denied ;
but I am no Brahmin, bibi: I am Youghal your slave,
though no longer a bondman. Why do you stare ?
Do I look like a Brahmin ? If so, all the better. I am
a rare counterfeit, but no true saint, as you will find
when we come to be man and wife."
Mariataly was incredulous. She imagined that the
Suniassi, who, among the few unhappy outcasts resid-
ing in the immediate neighbourhood of his sacred
1 A large lizard so called. It is, at its full size, from tlirce to four
feet long.
2 The chuckra is a sort of missile discus, with which the god
Vishnoo is always represented armed.
12
THE ROYAL DEVOTEE,
distance, absorbed in grave but tender reflections.
Youghal at length heard from his retreat the tripping
step of his beloved, as she pattered with her naked
feet the beaten pathway. On her nearer approach
he sprang forward to meet her, but she started back
as if a huge scorpion had risen before her feet. For
a moment the slave had forgotten his transformation,
and, actuated by an impulse of indignant surprise, he
exclaimed—
" How now, girl! why, you start from me as if I
were a white man who had his unholy stomach filled
with sacred beef, and made no distinction between a
cow and a guana1. Why do you shun me thus
eagerly ?"
" Because you need not be told that a Pariah
maiden may not come within reach of a Brahmin's
breath, and that Brahmin a Suniassi, without hazard-
ing her own life."
" Ha! ha! ha!" cried the transformed menial;
" by the chuckra2 of Vishnoo, that cannot be denied ;
but I am no Brahmin, bibi: I am Youghal your slave,
though no longer a bondman. Why do you stare ?
Do I look like a Brahmin ? If so, all the better. I am
a rare counterfeit, but no true saint, as you will find
when we come to be man and wife."
Mariataly was incredulous. She imagined that the
Suniassi, who, among the few unhappy outcasts resid-
ing in the immediate neighbourhood of his sacred
1 A large lizard so called. It is, at its full size, from tlirce to four
feet long.
2 The chuckra is a sort of missile discus, with which the god
Vishnoo is always represented armed.
12