Atmâ | Page 3

as he had come. The dreams of youth make
the habit of age, and Raee had revered the Khalsa in childhood, and in
manhood he had urged its high commission to his own hurt. As a
Khivan proverb has it, "That which goes in with the milk only goes out
with the soul," and the soul of Raee Singh gathered the fragments of its
broken faith and prepared to depart with them to the Land of
Restoration.
He lay for four days, taking no food, and only wetting his lips with the
water which his sole surviving son proffered from time to time. His
heart was crushed, he was full of years, his end was near; and his son,
knowing this, was dumb with sorrow. On the evening of the fourth day
he turned his face to the boy, and spoke,
"Son, well beloved, My parting hour is nigh; A heavenly peace should
glorify A life approved By God, by man, by mine own soul; The record
of my stainless years unroll-- My years beset From infancy to age with
pitfalls deep In pathway winding aye on mountain steep Of perilous
obedience, and yet In bitterness of soul I lay me down, Of home bereft,
with hope and creed o'erthrown In woe that will not weep; My reeling
spirit ere from sense set free Is loosed from mooring, beaten to and fro,
And in the throbbing, quick'ning flesh I know The lone desertion of the
Shoreless Sea. O Brotherhood! O hope so high, so fair, That would the
wreck of this sad world repair Had ye but stood! Can God forget? This
Khalsa of his own supreme decree Vanquished, debased, in loss of

liberty Has lost its own mysterious entity. And yet, and yet, A strange
persuasion fills my breast that He Who wrecked my home, Who bade
my people from their mountains flee And friendless roam, Will soon
with tenderest pity welcome me, And, if my lips be dumb, Will frame
the prayer that fills my dying breast, And give my heavy-laden spirit
rest, And grant me what He will--His will is best. I go--I know not
where, Upward or down, or toward the setting sun None knows,--some
shadowy goal is won, Some unseen issue near, So oft with death I
journeyed hand in hand, The spectral pageant of his border land I do
not fear.
* * * * *
Weep not when I have passed, but go thy way, Thou art not portionless
nor service free, A warrior Sikh, for thee a high behest Abides, to claim
thy true-sword's ministry. Go, Atmâ, from those echoing hillsides, lest
The haunting voices of the vanished say 'Vain is thy travail, poor thine
utmost store, We loved and laboured, lo, we are no more,' And thy fond
heart in fealty to our clay Fail in allegiance to the name we bore. Go,
seek thy kinsman, to a brother's hand I gave possession of a gem more
fair, More costly far than gold, than rubies rare, Thy part and heritage,
of him demand Its just bestowal, and with dauntless tread Pursue the
pathway of thy holy dead."
When the old Sikh had ceased speaking, he lay greatly exhausted. The
night deepened. It was a remote spot. Now and then the sound of
trampling feet or the tread of a horse climbing the difficult road reached
the ear. The hours were long and dreary, but they passed. Morning
dawned, and Atmâ found himself alone. He had known that it would be
so, and yet it came with the sharpness of an unexpected blow. He
mourned, and, as is the way with mourners, he accused himself from
hour to hour of having failed in duty to the departed during his lifetime.
Looking on the face of the dead, he wondered much where the spirit
that so lately had seemed to be with the frame but a single identity, one
and indivisible, had fled. He recalled his father's words,
"Upward or down, or toward the setting sun, None knows,"

and with the recollection, the sense of loss deepened. An old cry rose to
his lips, "Oh, that I knew where I might find him!"
The words by which his father had sought to comfort him still sounded
in his hearing, but Grief is stronger than Wisdom. Human speech is the
least potent of forces, and arguments that clash and clang bravely in the
tournament of words, slaying shadows, and planting the flag of triumph
over fallen fancies, on entering the lists to combat the fact of Death, but
beat the air, and their lusty prowess only fetches a laugh from out of the
silence.
CHAPTER III.
After his father's death Atmâ betook himself to Lahore, where dwelt
Lehna Singh, only brother of the departed Sikh. A