The Outcaste

The aviation ground was thronged with spectators. Eyes were turned skywards and men held their breath. Women uttered ejaculations, drawn unconsciously from them in their intense excitement. The wind blew gustily with an upward sweep that sent dead leaves and fragments of paper into the air. A furious blast heralding the coming storm seized one of the aviators as he was in the act of turning. It seemed to shake him with a living enmity. Under the violent motion the tips of the delicate wings of his machine snapped.

He recognised the seriousness of the accident; and the breathless multitude watched his efforts to avoid impending catastrophe. As well might the dying bird, winged by the October sportsman, try to sustain its arrested flight. The machine ceased its horizontal movement, folded its broken planes about its struggling guide, and dropped almost vertically to the ground.

Some, fascinated by the horror of it all, stared at the falling wreck. Others withdrew their gaze, but could not shut their ears to the thud and crash in which the earthly life of a human being came to an abrupt end.

The hush was followed by a murmur as emotion found expression in speech and exclamation. Many of the women shed tears; some screamed; a few fainted. Ten minutes later there was a general stir as the sightseers, sick at heart, began to depart.

Eola Wenaston beckoned to her brother, who stood at a little distance talking to a couple of men. He approached the motor car into which she had just stepped. Before she could speak he hastened to reassure her, anticipating the question that was on the lips of all.

"It's all right; the man is not dead. Of course he has had a shock, falling from such a height, and the machine is smashed to atoms. You need not be nervous--"

"I'm not nervous. It was a horrid sight, but I'm not troubled with nerves. The man must be dead after such a fall."

"Well, no one can say how--"

She interrupted him with a touch of impatience born of anxiety.

"Would you mind going home by train? Mrs. Greenford is thoroughly unhinged. She is in that tent over there crying her heart out, and she ought to be taken away at once."

"She doesn't know him, does she?"

"Yes, slightly. It appears that he dined with her and her husband last night."

"What do you wish to do?"

"Drive her home at once; but it leaves you to go by rail. You won't mind giving her your seat in the motor?"

She did not doubt for a moment that he would object. The car was a new purchase made by Wenaston on his arrival in England on furlough. He intended to take it back to India on his return to his work.

"Not a bit," he replied readily.

"I can't ask Miss Stuart to give up her place in the car."

"Of course not; I'll join Ananda and his friends. They are travelling up by the special leaving in about an hour's time."

"You need not journey in their company. Now-a-days, when our blood is curdled by assassinations--"

He interrupted her.

"They are all right-three of the nicest fellows I know."

She made a little grimace, not noticing that a Hindu, faultlessly frock-coated and top-hatted, had approached on the other side of the motor, and was waiting for an opportunity to speak, waiting with the courtesy of good breeding that happily is not the monopoly of the European.

"Still, one cannot forget--" she mentioned the name of a well-known public man who had been done to death by an Oriental fanatic.

The blood rushed to the temples of the Hindu. He raised his hat as he said quietly-

"You must not suppose that we are all assassins, Miss Wenaston, any more than I may suppose you English to be all murderers like--" and he in his turn named a notorious criminal who had recently been convicted of a murder perpetrated under circumstances of peculiar cruelty.

"Of course not! I beg your pardon, Mr. Ananda. I ought not to have said it."

In her contrition she turned and held out her hand. She felt the nervous close grip, momentary as it was, and the friendliness of the Englishwoman warmed towards the exile.

"My brother proposes to travel home with you by rail and give his seat in the motor to Mrs. Greenford, who is upset by the accident. Have you heard how the aviator is?"

"I am afraid from all accounts he is in a bad way. The committee has decided to stop the competitions for to-day. Visitors ought to have no objection."

"It is sad to have an ending like this!" She turned to Wenaston. "Please go and find Mrs. Greenford; Miss Stuart is with her. Bring them both here. Tell them I am in a hurry to start. I should like to get Mrs. Greenford away before she hears worse news. Oh! I wish he hadn't attempted that last flight! It was quite unnecessary, and not on the programme-a mere show to please the people."

Ananda stood by the motor whilst Wenaston went to do his sister's bidding.

"You take these things too seriously, Miss Wenaston. If you were a fatalist you would believe that it was preordained by the gods; and you would be resigned. It is of no use to fight against fate. He had to meet it whether he flew upon an aeroplane or whether he remained in his own house. We are taught that we cannot escape the fulfilment of our destiny."

She looked at him, her attention suddenly rivetted.

"You are taught, you say; but do you believe your teacher in these days of greater enlightenment?"

A reply was not immediately forthcoming. Perhaps he would have left the question unanswered if she had not uttered an interrogatory, "Well?" in a tone that held something more than mere curiosity.

"I am trying to retain my belief in all that my guru instilled into my mind before I left India."

"You find it hard to keep the old faith unshaken?"

"Not exactly. The difficulty is to graft the new teaching on the old. We of the advanced school cannot stand still; we must progress."

"And then comes the difficulty of putting new wine into old bottles."

She glanced in the direction of the tent, and he knew that he had lost half her attention. Wenaston was visible in the distance with Mrs. Greenford and Miss Stuart. The sympathy that was so marked a characteristic in Eola had tempted the Hindu to say more than was his wont. It was deflected from himself and turned towards the unnerved woman, whom she was charitably befriending.

Mrs. Greenford was allowed no time to plunge into fresh tears and regrets. She was prevailed upon to enter the car without delay. Wenaston gave his orders to the chauffeur and the motor glided from the field.

"It is too early in the day to make gala shows of this aviation business. An accident such as has just happened upsets the women with their highly strung nerves. Even men feel it to be a bit of a shock," remarked Wenaston, as he glanced round at the white faces of the spectators.

"Anyway, women should not be present where there is a likelihood of accidents," replied Ananda. "It seems to me that you Englishmen go to the opposite extreme from us. We shut up women and overdo the purdah business. You give them too much liberty."

"My dear fellow! They take it without asking our permission!"

They were slowly moving towards the exit. There was no need of haste as their train was not due to start for another half-hour, and the station was but ten minutes' walk. Before Ananda could reply they were joined by two more Hindus. In appearance these men were like Ananda, although there was no blood relationship between them. Their complexions were of the wheaten tint that frequently goes with high caste and good birth. They were equally well dressed in the latest English fashion, without extravagance or display. To Wenaston they were well known, and he greeted them as old acquaintances.

"The show is at an end, Dr. Wenaston. It is reported that the poor fellow is dead. It only remains for us to go back to town," said one who was called Bopaul by his friends.

"I am sorry it has ended fatally. I suppose every new scientific venture must have its victims. The claims of aviation will be every whit as heavy as were the claims of steam and electricity," responded Wenaston.

"The death dues of the gods!" murmured the other, known as Coomara.

Bopaul laughed lightly but Ananda turned a pair of serious eyes upon Wenaston.

"You don't believe that the higher power ruling our destinies requires to be propitiated by a holocaust of victims, do you?" he asked.

"Certainly not. Accidents occur through the imperfection of machines; and with each accident it is only natural that an important step is made towards a more perfect knowledge."

"Exactly so," rejoined Coomara, eagerly. "In return for a life, the Fountain of all knowledge in his justice and rectitude gives knowledge."

"Life is not demanded in exchange or in payment for knowledge," objected Wenaston. "Knowledge might be acquired without loss of life if men were more careful and less rash. The death of the experimenter is due to his own ignorance, to his rashness, or to the imperfection of the machine in its inception."

"You do not believe that it is the direct act of God?"

Wenaston did not reply. They were threading their way through the crowd that had gathered near the exit of the field, and conversation was not easy. On all sides they heard comments upon the accident. Regrets were expressed freely that the new cult had lost one of its cleverest pioneers. His death-by this time it was known that the fallen aviator had breathed his last even as they carried him from the field-his death was sad from every point of view. He was a good, a thoroughly good fellow; clever beyond most men. Married? no; but there was a girl-he was living at home with his people, and he was going to be married shortly. Money? Oh yes, plenty, or he could not have experimented as he did. And the cause of the accident? Ignorance of air currents and the power of the wind. His wings were broken, and there was no hope from the very first of salvation. Although he struggled with the machine he must have been aware that he had no chance of escape. The next thing to invent must be some life-saving apparatus.

Among their acquaintances the three Hindus were spoken of as A, B, and C; or as Ananda, Bopaul, and Coomara. In addition to these names they possessed others unfamiliar to the English ear and difficult of pronunciation. The men were of good birth and high caste; they belonged to a native State south of Poona, called Chirakul, the chief town being Chirapore. Under pressure of modern times the parents-people of substance and wealth-had sent their sons to Poona and Bombay to be educated. Later on, arrangements were made for a visit to England. It was due to the friendly offices of Wenaston that they entered the house of Dr. Twyford, professor of oriental languages. Their future was assured without the necessity of taking up any of the professions. It was the intention of their parents to make homes for them under the ancestral roof, where they would lead the life of the leisured Hindu landowner. If any occupation were adopted it would be of a political nature-some appointment of importance and trust under the Maharajah's Government.

Although the three men were alike in dress, complexion and features, and belonged to the same caste, they were very dissimilar in character and temperament.

Ananda was gentle and speculative. His nerves were finely strung, and he shrank like a woman from physical pain and discomfort, and from anything that was of a rough and discordant nature. The timidity of the Hindu peeped out on various occasions, a timidity that was not so much cowardice as an inbred loathing of coarseness and brutality. The strong religious instinct, which seems to bring the Asiatic close to his strangely conceived deities in worship and propitiation, underlaid all his actions.

In early youth he had been married to the sister of his friend Coomara. The marriage had been consummated, and there was a child, a son four years of age; and during his absence mother and son found a happy home with his parents.

Bopaul was a fair specimen of the product of modern education. Untainted with disloyalty towards the ruling power, he was never likely to become a disciple of disaffection, and join with ambitious men of lower caste. Aristocratic to his finger-tips, he believed in his Prince, and hoped to find a place on his council at some time in the future.

By nature he was sunny and buoyant, taking life as he found it. Eager to listen to the latest theories and ready to argue, he nevertheless proved elusive and disappointing to the serious propagandist. Tolerant, without being weak, courteous and even-tempered, he seemed to be flexible; but when it came to uprooting inherited beliefs, he proved immovable. The casual observer accused him of flippancy and infidelity. His host and guardian, Professor Twyford, knew better.

"Bopaul is an extraordinary fellow," he used to say. "I introduce him to all the latest theories, to all the facts most recently revealed by science; he receives them with intelligence and avidity, not to exchange new lamps for old, but to graft them on to the old Hindu stock. I can understand when I look at Bopaul the wonderful receptivity of the Hindu nature. It has preserved the caste system for the last three thousand years, a unique survival that has no equal in the history of the world. The Hindus absorb and orientalise theories that ought to deal their social and religious system a death blow. I can see Bopaul fitting the latest and most revolutionary ideas into niches in his mind without permitting any conflict with the tenets of his ancient faith. He is a very interesting character."

Coomara was unlike either of his companions. He held to the letter of his faith; listened courteously but without interest to modern teaching; wherever it clashed with the teaching of the Vedas, he rejected it as being incompatible, and therefore useless to himself. He refused to discuss the subject of religious differences. It was waste of time if nothing else. When he first fell under the influence of the professor he showed a disinclination to speak on religion at all. Gradually he gained confidence as he discovered that Twyford had no design of converting him to the Christian faith, and became more communicative. Somewhat to his astonishment he learned that the Englishman possessed a greater and more intimate knowledge of the sacred books of his nation than himself. As his confidence strengthened, he became more communicative and less afraid of listening to other doctrines.

Coomara had been married to Bopaul's sister when he was ten years old; hence the link that bound the three men together. The period of exile appointed by their respective parents was within a few months of its termination, and they were looking forward to their return to Chirakul, when the ceremonies necessary to restore their caste would be performed and Coomara's wedding be completed; for his marriage had been practically only a betrothal from the European point of view. The honeymoon had yet to be spent.