DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5828#0094
A HINDOO LEGEND.
69
" I am come, Mariataly," said he, " to convince
thee that the love which thou hast so lately slighted
deserved a more grateful requital."
The devotee paused; hut the unhappy maiden
making no replv, he continued, affecting a tone of
extreme tenderness, " Why was I repelled by her
who had received my vows, and from whom I had
heard a declaration of the fondest attachment ? Your
coldness, bibi, was heart-breaking."
" Why thus basely sue to one whom your tvranny
has doomed to an unjust and cruel death ? Does it
become the sanctity of your order to steal into the
miserable prison, where I am to await the doom
which base injustice has pronounced upon me, and
insult me with this mockery of love ? Though de-
graded in the eyes of all save those of my own
unhappy tribe, I am not, still, so lost to the decencies
°f my sex, as to listen to the unhallowed vows of a
saint by profession and avowed practice, whose pro-
fanation of his sacred calling shows him to be a
scorner of the divinities whom he pretends to serve."
" Ha! ha !" burst forth the intemperate ascetic in
Seeming, with an ill-timed merriment, " is it pos-
sible, bibi, you cannot see my soul through my skin ?
Why, it is more transparent than a dried palmyra leaf,
and you can distinguish moonshine through that any
day of the month when Chandra's1 fair lamp is hung
>n the broad heavens. I am not Veramarken, as
I seem to be, but Youghal, whom I seem not to be,
and whom you used to own you loved better than
1 Chandra is the Hindoo Diana, or tlic moon.
69
" I am come, Mariataly," said he, " to convince
thee that the love which thou hast so lately slighted
deserved a more grateful requital."
The devotee paused; hut the unhappy maiden
making no replv, he continued, affecting a tone of
extreme tenderness, " Why was I repelled by her
who had received my vows, and from whom I had
heard a declaration of the fondest attachment ? Your
coldness, bibi, was heart-breaking."
" Why thus basely sue to one whom your tvranny
has doomed to an unjust and cruel death ? Does it
become the sanctity of your order to steal into the
miserable prison, where I am to await the doom
which base injustice has pronounced upon me, and
insult me with this mockery of love ? Though de-
graded in the eyes of all save those of my own
unhappy tribe, I am not, still, so lost to the decencies
°f my sex, as to listen to the unhallowed vows of a
saint by profession and avowed practice, whose pro-
fanation of his sacred calling shows him to be a
scorner of the divinities whom he pretends to serve."
" Ha! ha !" burst forth the intemperate ascetic in
Seeming, with an ill-timed merriment, " is it pos-
sible, bibi, you cannot see my soul through my skin ?
Why, it is more transparent than a dried palmyra leaf,
and you can distinguish moonshine through that any
day of the month when Chandra's1 fair lamp is hung
>n the broad heavens. I am not Veramarken, as
I seem to be, but Youghal, whom I seem not to be,
and whom you used to own you loved better than
1 Chandra is the Hindoo Diana, or tlic moon.