The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1907-09-17
DALI Y SHORT
STORY
At THE TOWERS OF SILENCE

1
Yaruba, the great high priest,
was dead. Long rows of weeping
women lined the dirty street of
| Bombay on either side. For va
ruba, despite his youth, had been
a great and good man. All India
knew that. His death was counted
! a public calamity.
1t seemed, indeed, as though the
whole of Bombay was in the street
today. The customary staccato
chatter was stilled, and an expect
ant hush made itself felt through
out the great concourse of people.
| They spoke, in lowered tones, of
the goodness and kindness of va
| ruba, the WellBeloved, spoke of
his blorified face while at devotion,
| of his tireless energy, and of the
strange fact that he had never
! taken to himself wife. They lit
tie knew, these many foolish peo-
pie, that in the dark little house Of
Sim, just where the bier is passing
| now, dark, slenderly-beautiful
young girl, scarce II. is weeping
in an agony Of grief, sobbing con-
vulsively as the sounds from below
| come into her room through the
heavy curtains at the window. She
knew-alas! she alone knew-the
great secret of Yaruba, the idol of
the people.
| Close by the bier walk two
bearded patriarchs. and behind
them in long line of Parsees,
dressed in spotless white, with
their robes linked, who do honor to
their dead chief. Out past the
bungalows at the outskirts of the
town they go, past the Tulsi reser-
voirs. to a scene of fairy beauty.
A wide spreading forest of palms,
an azure little basin, inlaid in cool,
green moss, and the cleaning white
of the native houses are all ulti-
mately dissolved in the deep blue
hills Of the Mahratta land. Just
beyond one can see the fair harbor
of Bombay.
But 10! the procession turns and
makes for the dismal wall which,
as everyone knows, incloses the
Towers of Silence. Here the Par
sees have always deposited their
dead to be devoured by vultures
since the beginning of time. See,
the door of the Towers is reached,
the relatives are leaving the body,
and two priests are taking it with
in. And at the same instant there
is rush and whirring of great
evil wrings, the obscene vulture
rise in the air and hover above in
ghoulish expectancy. On the third
and topmost of the great stone
tiers the stark naked body is
placed. The priests depart, the
people who have been waiting at a
distance start to return home, and
one by one the vultures lower
themselves towards their prey.
All the long afternoon there was
talk of nothing but Yaruba in the
great city-of his generosity, his
mildness of temper, his justice and
his goodness. But when the popu-
lace already had begun to think and
speak of other matters, and to take
up again the gossip of everyday
scandal (for in some things Bonn
bay is highly civilizeO, a lissom
shadow might have been seen slip
ping through the wood by the great
road, and finally stopping at the
side of the grim, hideCus walls Of
the Towers of Silence.
For Yaruba had loved her dearly.
And she-ah! the light that shone
through the tears in her great
brown eyes showed how she had
loved him. Yet they were not for
each other, the daughter of Sim and
the great young high priest. Of the
secret trysts at dusk, of the sweet,
sweet words he spoke, of the pain
and the VOWS at parting-as she
thought of it all, first she cried a lit
tie and then she smiled happy,
contented smile of peace. For he
had shown her the way.
She sat down comfortably beside
the great stone wall and half
affectionately caressed an old tree
stump covered with damp. clinging
moss. All the trouble was gone
from her face now; there was a
half-smile on her lips, and a Won
drous brightness in her eyes. From
her girdle she took a short dagger,
urquoise-studded and gold-inlaid,
and watched the scintillating lights
fash from its jeweled handle in the
soft, unreal moonlight. She sighed
bit wistfully, and started with a
blanched face when the hOarse
shouts of some boatmen were
borne to her from the river bank
below. ut is time" she said soft
ly.
For her the road of death was
neither hard nor fearsome. He
would be there. She raised her eyes
once to the deep blue sky and the
smiling stars; little thrust, soft
low sigh that might have been only
the night wind, and so she passed