Aidu.

BY HERO DESPARD.

In the early fall of 1880 I was in Dahbol, India, having run down from Bombay, upon a sister who had set up a little bungalow there.

Dahbol is charmingly situated between the sea and the wooded heights of the Western Ghauts, and as nothing pressed me at the time, I remained there, spending my time rambling about the place and sometimes running into a chance adventure. Thus it happened that the following strange experience befell me.

One evening, in the cool of the late twilight, I was strolling about through the sea-end of the town, and, stopping before a small temple which was a little removed from the houses around, stood studying out the lines of the usual grotesque figures cut upon its face. Dense shadows cast by the rising moon threw the entrance into such obscurity that nothing could be seen within. In fact, I thought the place deserted for the time, and was about to obey an impulse to step up into the shadows banked in the doorway, when, suddenly, a human figure hurled itself upon me from out the darkness with such force that I staggered back and almost lost my footing. I had instinctively thrown out my arms and clasped the figure for support, and now, as I recovered my balance and looked down, it was into the face of the fairest woman I have ever seen in any land.

The marvelousness of her beauty served to steady my faculties where ordinarily I should have felt bewildered, and, still holding her close, for she trembled as if she would fall from my arms, I said in such Hindustani as I was capable of:

“Something has frightened you. You are fleeing from danger?”

“Sir,” she answered, in a voice soft and rich, though broken by low gasps, “I must hasten;” and she pulled against my arms for release.

From my knowledge of the country, I felt sure no woman like the one who stood before me could safely venture into the streets at this hour, and, having an Anglo-Saxon’s feelings for all womankind, I acted on a quickly formed resolve.

“I do not know what sends you out into the night, nor what pursuit you fear, but I am ready to take you where you wish to go,” I said.

“I must go far from this place,—and alone,” she answered, speaking agitatedly.

“We will go,” I said reassuringly. “I will take you to your own people.”

Upon this her slender body trembled anew, and replying, “I have no people. I cannot stay here,” she turned from me and began to walk quickly away.

I as quickly followed, walking behind her through street after street, she choosing the deserted by-ways, until we came out through some suburban orchards, and finally reached the edge of a stretch of thick forest which belts the eastern side of the town. Here she stopped suddenly, and, turning to me, said entreatingly:

“Leave me! You cannot help.”

I looked at the town behind, at the forest in front, and felt it a moral impossibility to obey.

“I think I can,” I ventured, “if you will confide in me. I have a sister here in whose care I can place you, and if anything is threatening you I can hide you with her. She is an English doctor, and is devoting her life to work among your countrywomen.”

It would be impossible to describe the changes of expression which flashed over her face at this. Relief, questioning, consent, and doubt arose from the depths of her dark eyes and looked out at me. For some time she stood thus, inwardly debating, and at last answered:

“Yes, if I may come out alone once in seven days.”

“You shall have perfect liberty, of course,” I eagerly assured her.

This promise seemed so completely to allay any lurking feeling of fear or doubt that at once she laid her hand upon mine, saying, “I will go with you.”

Now, I had no hesitation whatever in taking this girl to my sister, who, as I had said, lived in India for the purpose of dealing with the conditions of life surrounding the Oriental women. Indeed, no sooner had she seen Aidu and heard her story than she insisted upon taking this beautiful waif into our household as one of ourselves; and as time passed and the lovableness of her nature was fully revealed to us, we found that we had rescued one of the rarest of pearls from the depths of the human sea around us.

She was pathetically gentle, and when the first constraint of the situation wore off showed herself possessed of a brilliant though unformed mind.

My sister built many hopes upon Aidu—for that was the name of our waif—as a future coadjutor in her chosen work; though I may as well confess at once that I had other intentions about her.

After only a few weeks spent in her society, I found myself deeply in love, and but for one singular, inexplicable circumstance would have begged her then and there to become my wife.

The mystery was this:

While she looked the perfection of sweet and elastic health and possessed an unusually pure vitality, no one ever saw Aidu partake of food. At first we thought that perhaps she shrank from burdening us, and believed that in some way she secretly procured cheap food outside. To all questions on the subject she returned a jesting reply, or else remained pleadingly silent. Once only, during each week, was she seen to leave the house, when she went upon those twilight walks for which she had stipulated. And the mystery of her sustenance, puzzling at first, grew darker and denser every day, the more so as Aidu steadily became more radiant in health and tinted like a ripe pomegranate from a fountain of rich vitality. Indeed, she seemed the incarnation of some flawless vital force consciously masking itself in human form.

But there came a day when I could restrain my love no longer.

My jealousy of those walks, during which she went I knew not where nor whom to see, became at last unbearable, and I determined to push my misgivings to a conclusion by questioning her outright.

Late in the afternoon of one of these seventh days of the week, on which she never failed of her twilight walk, I sought her where she sat in the shade of a trellised veranda, and, seating myself beside her, took her hands in my own.

“Aidu, you must know how I love you!” I said impetuously.

I could wipe out the fact of my own soul sooner than I could forget the measureless depth and meaning of the look she gave me, straight from her lifted eyes! Oh, cold and reasonable Westerner! Never, even through eternity, will you know the infinity of meaning hidden in the lotus-heart of love, never having looked into the eyes of Aidu raised in a pure and perfect confession!

“I love you!” she murmured. Echo of my own words only, but enough.

“You will not go out alone again, now, Aidu?” I questioned pleadingly.

“I would try to do what you ask, even that which I cannot,” she said wistfully.

Having gained so much, I was in a measure satisfied; but I determined, in virtue of my now undoubted right, to follow her should she again go on her secret errand. This I hoped she would not do; but later I saw her steal out from the house and walk away, not briskly, as was usual, but with a certain languor, as if pulling against her will. It was an easy matter to follow her at a little distance, for she went straight forward, as to a well-known goal, never once looking back. On she went, past the houses of the town, out into a stretch of the suburban orchards, until we stood again upon the edge of the same tangled forest where we had stopped on the evening I first found her. Surely, it could not be that Aidu would venture within those dense shadows!

Yes, even here she did not hesitate, but forced her way through the gloomy thicket, deftly stepping over obstructions and pushing away the drooping vines as if the path were a clear and familiar one. And all the while I followed, possessed by an intensity of curiosity and feeling which must have given me the eyes of a night animal, for I never for a moment lost sight of her; but, while she walked easily and swiftly, I rushed on, panting through excitement, until when, at last, she halted and leaned back against a tree in an attitude of expectation, I stopped, trembling and weak from agitation.

And now that happened which is burnt into my memory forever.

As she stood there, motionless, her slight figure in its snowy garments dully outlined against the dark tree trunk, I noted that Aidu’s eyes were fixed upon a certain spot in the ground before her, whither mine followed. At first I saw only a faint glow in the grass at her feet, like the light of two phosphorescent insects side by side, but as this rapidly grew and widened, the shape of a dark head was outlined within the rays. Brighter and brighter the light grew until—yes, a cobra’s hooded head appeared! and from the glowing eyes streamed the rapidly increasing light in a coruscating flood.

Horror-stricken, I looked at Aidu! She was gazing down into those burning, venomous eyes, whose radiance was momentarily intensified until her rapt face and figure, the coiled length of the serpent, and even the grass and trees around were illuminated as by the shining of two small suns.

Under this compelling gaze Aidu’s languor melted. Her form dilated and changed in my sight as if the very crucible of vital life were there, purging away the particles of mortality and building her form anew out of imperishable materials. Her glowing beauty was indescribable; it was a revelation.

And now the monster slowly raised himself, stretching up out of his coils, until his scintillating, fiery orbs were on a level with the smiling, dewy eyes of the woman whom I loved. She leaned gently forward and softly stroked the mottled neck. A tremor shook my whole body. In that moment I was overwhelmed by the horrible certainty that here I beheld the rites of the ancient mystic serpent worship still practised in certain parts of India; and that Aidu, my Aidu, served as the unwilling instrument of the priests of the temple, from whose fearful power she had vainly attempted to escape on the night of our first meeting.

Crazed by a fury of conflicting emotions, I seized a stone that lay near and hurled it upon the erect serpent. It struck his neck just below the level of Aidu’s matchless chin, and as the ugly head dropped suddenly down upon the coils of his body, slowly settling to the ground, the wonderful light faded, and a heart-rending shriek from Aidu rang through the woods. I sprang to her side, and lifted her in my arms!

“Aidu! my love!” I cried, “speak to me.”

But the exquisite form hung relaxed in my embrace, and the white lids slowly shut down over the eyes of my love.

The fearful spell had been broken, but at what cost! By arresting too suddenly that strange, magnetic current, I had checked the fountain from which her life was fed.

Aidu was dead!