When he said goodbye to his sister, he did not take the road to his concubine but went straight northwards, for Allah called him there. And at every village men came to offer food to Moti Khan and women came to offer milk to the serpent, for it swung round children’s legs and swung out, and cured them of all scars and poxes and fevers. Old men slept better after its touch and women conceived on the very night they offered milk to it. Plague went and plenty came, but Moti Khan would not smell silver. That would be death.
Now sometimes, at night in caravanserais, they had wrangles. Moti Khan used to say: ‘You are not even a woman to put under oneself.’
‘But so many women come to see you and so many men come to honour you, and only a king could have had such a reception though you’re only a basket-maker.’
‘Only a basket-maker! But I had a queen of a woman, and when she sang her voice was all flesh, and her flesh was all song. And she chewed betel-leaves and her lips were red, and even kings. . ’
‘Stop that. Between this and the vision of the rupee. . ’
Moti Khan pulled at his beard and, fire in his eyes, he broke his knuckles against the earth. ‘If only I could see a woman!’ ‘If you want God forget women, Moti Khan.’ ‘But I never asked for God. It is you who always bore me with God. I said I loved a woman. You are only a fanged beast. And here I am in the prime of life with a reptile to live with.’
But suddenly temple bells rang, and the muezzin was heard to cry Allah-o-Akbar. No doubt it was all the serpent’s work. Trembling, Moti Khan fell on his knees and bent himself in prayer.
From that day on the serpent had one eye turned to the right and one to the left when it danced. Once it looked at the men and once at the women, and suddenly it used to hiss up and slap Moti Khan’s cheeks with the back of its head, for his music had fallen false and he was eyeing women. Round were their hips, he would think, and the eyelashes are black and blue, and the breasts are pointed like young mangoes, and their limbs so tremble and flow that he could sweetly melt into them.
One day, however, there was at the market a dark blue woman, with red lips, young and sprightly; and she was a butter woman. She came and stood by Moti Khan as he made the serpent dance. He played and he played on his bamboo pungi and music swung here and splashed there, and suddenly he looked at her and her eyes and her breasts and the nagaswara went and became moha-swara, and she felt it and he felt she felt it; and when night came, he thought and thought so much of her and she thought and thought so much of him, that he slipped to the serai door and she came to the serai gate, flower in her hair and perfume on her limbs, but lo! like the sword of God came a long, rippling light, circled round them, pinched at her nipples and flew back into the bewildering night. She cried out, and the whole town waked, and Moti Khan thrust the basket under his arm and walked northwards, for Allah called him thither.
‘Now,’ said Moti Khan, ‘I have to find God. Else this creature will kill me. And the Devil knows the hell I’d have to bake in.’ So he decided that, at the next saint’s tomb he encountered, he would sit down and meditate. But he wandered and he wandered; from one village he went to another, from one fair he went to another, but he found no dargah to meditate by. For God always called him northwards and northwards, and he crossed the jungles and he went up the mountains, and he came upon narrow valleys where birds screeched here and deer frisked there but no man’s voice was to be heard, and he said, ‘Now let me turn back home’; but he looked back and he was afraid. And he said, ‘Now I have to go to the North, for Allah calls me there.’ And he climbed mountains again, and ran through jungles, and then came broad plains, and he went to the fairs and made the snake dance, and people left their rice shops and cotton-ware shops and the bellowing cattle and the yoked threshers and the querns and the kilns, and came to hear him play the music and to see the snake dance. They gave him food and fruit and cloth, but when they said, ‘Here’s a coin,’ he said, ‘Nay.’ And the snake was right glad of it, for he hated to kill Moti Khan till he had found God, and he himself hated to die. Now, when Moti Khan had crosssed the Narbuda and the Pervan and the Bhagirath, he came to the Jumna, and through long Agra he passed making the snake dance, and yet he could not find God and he was sore in soul with it. And the serpent was bothersome.
But at Fatehpur Sikri, he said, ‘Here is Sheikh Chisti’s tomb and I would rather starve and die than go one thumb-length more.’ He sat by Sheikh Chisti’s tomb and he said, ‘Sheikh Chisti, what is this Fate has sent me? This serpent is a very wicked thing. He just hisses and spits fire at every wink and waver. He says, ‘Find God.’ Now, tell me, Sheikh Chisti, how can I find Him? Till I find Him I will not leave this spot.’
But even as he prayed he saw snakes sprout through his head, fountains splashed and snakes fell gently to the sides like the waters by the Taj, and through them came women, soft women, dancing women, round hips, betel-chewed lips, round breasts — shy some were, while some were only minxes — and they came from the right and went to the left, and they pulled at his beard — and, suddenly, white serpents burst through the earth and enveloped them all, but Moti Khan would not move. He said: ‘Sheikh Chisti, I am in a strange world. But there is a darker world I see behind, and beyond that dark, dark world, I see a brighter world, and there, there must be Allah.’
For twenty-nine days he knelt there, his hands pressed against his ears, his face turned towards Sheikh Chisti’s tomb. And people came and said, ‘Wake up, old man, wake up’; but he would not answer. And when they found the snake lying on the tomb of Sheikh Chisti they cried, ‘This is a strange thing,’ and they took to their heels; while others came and brought mullahs and maulvis but Moti Khan would not answer. For, to speak the truth, he was crossing through the dark waters, where one strains and splashes, and where the sky is all cold, and the stars all dead, and till man come to the other shore, there shall be neither peace nor God.
On the twenty-ninth night Skeikh Chisti woke from his tomb and came, his skull-cap and all, and he said: ‘My son, what may I give you?’
‘Peace from this serpent — and God.’
‘My son, God is not to be seen. He is everywhere.’
‘Eyes to see God, for I cannot any more go northwards.’
‘Eyes to discern God you shall have.’
‘Then peace from this serpent.’
‘Faithful shall he be, true companion of the God-seeker.’
‘Peace to all men and women,’ said Moti Khan.
‘Peace to all mankind. Further, Moti Khan, I have something to tell you; as dawn breaks Maulvi Mohammed Khan will come to offer you his daughter, fair as an oleander. She has been waiting for you and she will wed you. My blessings on you, my son!’
‘Allah is found! Victory to Allah!’ cried Moti Khan. The serpent flung round him, slipped between his feet and curled round his neck and danced on his head, for, when Moti Khan found God, his sins would be worn out like the quern-stone with the grindings of man, and there would be peace in all mankind.