The evening was hot; the motion of the gently-moving punkah[3] disposed Fagir to sleep. His eyes gradually closed, and slumber stole over him where he sat, reclining on soft cushions. And as the weary man slept he dreamed, and his dream was as vivid as the realities of daily life could be.
Behold in his dream a beautiful angel appeared unto Fagir. A crown of light was on the head of the messenger of Heaven; glory was as a mantle around him, and when he shook his silvery wings a shower of stars seemed to fall upon earth. Fagir trembled at the sight of the pure and holy being who floated in the air before him without touching the ground with his shining feet.
“O Fagir, thou art bidden to the banquet of Paradise!” said the angel; and his voice was as music at night. “Receive this white robe, in which, if it retain its whiteness, thou mayst be meet to appear in the presence of the great King. But beware of sin; for every sin shall be as a stain on thy robe. Keep it white for but one day, and all the joys of Paradise shall be thine eternal reward.”
As the angel spake, he cast round the form of Fagir a radiant robe, white as the snow on the mountains. Then the angel touched the broad border of the robe, and on the border appeared in letters of gold, Fear God, and keep his commandments (Eccles. xii. 13). Fagir gazed in wonder on the inscription; but even as he gazed it faded away. He turned to look on the angel, but behold! the bright messenger had vanished. Nothing remained but the pure white robe, which Fagir still wore in his dream.
Then the soul of Fagir was filled with hope and triumph. “I have kept the commandments from my youth!” he exclaimed; “and shall I break them now, when my reward is so near at hand? Only one day of trial, and then I shall be walking in my radiant robe in the garden of celestial beauty, and have for companions such beings as the bright angel who left heaven to bear a message to me, the upright and the pious.”
Then there came a change in the dream of Fagir: he deemed that he had risen, as was his wont, at sunrise, to go forth to the business of the day. His thoughts were not now on Paradise, nor on the message borne by the holy one; but still he wore the mysterious robe which the angel had thrown around him.
And on what were the thoughts of Fagir intent as he took his early meal before starting for the cutcherry, in which, as a government official, he worked day after day? It might have been supposed that one so pious would have reflected on holy things, when the first rays of the morning sun bade him thank God for sleep and protection during the hours of darkness. But no; the thoughts of Fagir were all on his worldly gains. He had for years set his heart on buying a piece of land which belonged to a neighbour of the name of Pir Bakhsh, feeling certain that he could derive much profit from its possession; but Pir Bakhsh had always refused to sell the ground. But Fagir thought in his dream that Pir Bakhsh had suddenly died in the night; his heir was only a child, and Fagir rejoiced in the hope that the land would now be sold, as the estate was encumbered with debt.
“The piece of ground is worth four hundred rupees[4] at least,” Fagir said to himself, “and I shall manage now to buy it for two hundred rupees. I shall then contrive to make the Magistrate Sahib purchase it for a garden, as it lies so close to his bungalow;[5] and a goodly sum he shall pay! I am a less sharp fellow than I take myself to be, if, before the year is over, my two hundred rupees have not swelled into seven hundred rupees at the least.”
Fagir laughed to himself at the double profit which he would make, first as purchaser, then as seller. But his mirth suddenly ceased when his glance chanced to fall on his mysterious robe.
“I thought that this garment was whiter than milk!” he exclaimed; “whence comes, then, this dull gray tint upon it?” The answer to his question came in an inscription which for a moment, and only a moment, appeared on the border,—The love of money is the root of all evil (1 Tim. vi. 10).