"Nothing will be more likely to keep Bandhu in my service," thought the tyrant, "than to invest him with the janeo. No one is suffered to wear such a thing at the court of the king; and if the weak-witted boy be suffered in this manner to have his own way, he will be more likely to be submissive to me in others."
So a Brahmin was consulted on the difficult question of Bandhu's caste. The Brahmin was the creature of Farebwala, and for a few rupees was ready to tell any amount of lies. After fasting and using arts of divination, the old man declared that the secret had been revealed to him. Bandhu was the son of a Chhatri, and as such might be invested with the holy string. The ceremony, accordingly, took place with all accustomed forms.
Farebwala took another precaution to prevent any chance of Bandhu's receiving a message from the king. He made the Brahmin recommend the young Chhatri to undertake a pilgrimage to some holy place about eighty miles distant. This would be at once a proof of his piety and of his manhood. Bandhu, whose head was almost turned by the dignity of wearing a string, and the effect of the tyrant's drug, would have agreed to the pilgrimage had he had to crawl on his chest all the way. It was therefore settled that on the day after that on which Farebwala should depart on his journey, the young pilgrim should start on his, going alone as far as a village some sixteen miles distant, where he would join a party, bound, like himself, for the holy place.
Soon after this arrangement was made, Farebwala set off to do mischief in some other place, for he never ceased from evil. As naturally as the king sought to make men happy, so naturally Farebwala tried to make them wretched. There are no means so certain to gain this end as that of leading men into sin.
[CHAPTER V.]
THE MESSENGER.
FAREBWALA had gone, though but for a time. It was morning; Bandhu had bathed, and holding water in his hands had offered it to the sun. He had then resumed his upper garments, which were of a very shabby description, for Farebwala spent very little of the boy's own money upon him. Bandhu stretched himself on the ground, listening to the songs of some wild young companions near, songs which I could not write down without blotting my pages. The janeo was to the weak-minded Bandhu what a new toy is to a child; he was perpetually feeling for the end of the string to be sure that he actually wore it.
Presently the songs ceased, and a voice from another quarter, exquisitely sweet, began to recite the following verses of the renowned Goru Nanak:—
"Kindness, the cotton; Contentment, the thread; Truth, the twist,—this be the sacred cord of the creature; thou O Pandit! put it on. This does not break, nor doth filth stick to it, nor is it burnt, nor does it go off. Blessed is that man, O Nanak, who departs, having put this on his neck."