The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-07-11
BEYOND THE PALE.
By RUDYARD K1PL1Ne.


I went in search of love and lost myself. Hin
doc Proverb.
A man should, whatever happens. keep
to his own caste, race and breed. Let
the white go to the white and the black
to the black. Then whatever trouble
falls is in the ordinary course of things
neither sudden, alien nor unexpected.
This is the story of man who will
fully stepped beyond the safe limits Of
decent everyday society and paid for it
heavily
He knew too much in the first in
stance, and he saw too much in the
second. He took too deep an interest in
native life. But he will never do 60
again.
Deep away in the heart Of the city.
behind Jitha Megji's bustee, lies Amir
Mathis gully, which ends in a dead
wall pierced by one grated window. At
the head Of the gully is big cowbyre,
and the walls on either side of the gully
are without windows Neither Suchet
Singh nor Gaur Chand approves Of his
women folk looking into the world. If
Durga Charan had been of their opin-
ion, he would have been happier man
today, and little Bisesa would have
been able to knead her own bread. Her
room looked out through the grated
window into the narrow dark gully
where the sun never came and where
the buffaloes wallowed in the blue slime
She was widow, about 10 years old.
and she prayed the gods day and night
to send her lover. for she did not APP
prove of living alone.
One day the man-Trejago his name
was-came into Amir Mathis gully On
an aimless wandering, and after he had
passed the buffaloes stumbled over big
heap Of cattla food.
Then he saw that the gully ended in
a trap and heard little laugh from
behind the grated window. 1t was a
pretty little laugh. and Trejago, know
ing that for all practical purposes the
old ''Arabian Nights" are good guides,
went forward to the window and whis-
pered that verse of 1.-The Love Song of
Har Dyal, which begins:
Can man stand upright in the face Of the
loved2
If my feet fail me, o heart Of my heart, am
to blame, being blinded by the glimpse of
your beauty?
There came the faint tchinks of a
woman's bracelets from behind the
grating, and a little voice went on with
the song at the fifth verses
Alas. aasl Can the moon tell the Lotus Of her
love when the gate of heaven is shut and the
clouds gather for the rains?
They have taken my beloved and driven her
with the pack horses to the north.
There are iron chains on the feet that were
set on my heart.
Call to the bowmen to make ready
The voice stopped suddenly, and Ire
jago walked out of Amir Mathis gully
wondering who in the world could have
capped .sThe Love Song Of Har Dyal
SO neatly
Next morning. as he was driving to
Office, an old woman threw packet
into his dogcart In the packet was the
half OF a broken glass bangle, one flower
of the blood red dhak, pinch of bhusa
or cattle food and II cardamoms. That
packet was a letter-not clumsy, COM
promising letter, but an innocent unin-
telligible lovers epistle.
Trejago knew far too much about
these things, as have said. No Eng
ishman should be able to translate OBJ
ject letters But Trejago spread all the
tritles on the lid of his Office box and
began to puzzle them out.
A broken glass bangle stands for a
Hindoo widow all India over, because,
when her husband dies, woman's
bracelets are broken on her wrists. Ire
jago saw the meaning Of the little bit
of the glass. The flower of the dhak
means adversely desire, +" ..colne.
"write" or "danger." according to the
other things with it. One cardamom
means jealousy" but when any arti-
Gle is duplicated in an object letter it
loses its symbolic meaning and stands
merely for one of number Indicating
time, or, if incense, curds or saffron be
sent also, place. The message ran then:
"a widow-dhak flower and bhusa-
at II o'clock. =" The pinch Of bhusa en-
lightend Trejago. He saw-this kind of
letter leaves much to instructive knowl-
edge-that the bhusa referred to the
big heap Of cattle food over which he
had fallen in Amir Mathis gully, and
that the message must come from the
person behind the grating. she being a
widow. So the message ran then: "a
widow. in the gully in which is the head
Of bhusa, desires you to come at II
O'Clock.
So he went that very night at II into
Amir Mathis gully. clad in boorka.
which cloaks man as we'll as a wom-
an. Directly the gongs in the city made
the hour the little voice behind the
grating took up 1.-The Love Song Of Har
Dyal" at the verse where the Paythan
girl calls upon Har Dyal to return. The
song is really pretty in the vernacular
In the English you miss the wall Of it.
1t runs something like this:
Alone upon the house tops, to the north
turn and watch the lightning in the sky
The glamour OF thy footsteps in the north
Come back to me. beloved, or diei
Below my feet the still bazaar is laid;
Far, far below the weary camels lie
The camels and the captives Of thy raid.