The youths around, easily moved to mirth or to mockery—as the chaff is whirled round by a light puff of wind—joined in the insulting Cry, "O ass, and son of an ass!"
Prem Chand kept his temper, and waited till the noise had sunk into silence, before he made reply to the Brahmin.
"I came for a day's hospitality, I came with a message from the king," he began.
But the Brahmin cut him short with the words, "We want neither you nor your message! The jackal who sneaks into the camp, finds there nothing to eat, but blows. Go to him who sent you, and come near us no more!"
"Go back to him who sent you!" echoed the youths; and one of them, picking up a handful of dust, threw it over the messenger's pure white garments.
"Is this your treatment of strangers who seek your hospitality?" said Prem Chand. "Is it not written in the Rájneet, 'Even towards an enemy going to our house the offices of hospitality must be exercised, as the tree impedes not even the woodcutter who stands under its shade.'"
The mild manner in which insult had been borne, and the graceful proverb so aptly quoted, were not without some effect. Prem Chand was suffered to retire without further molestation. The hospitality denied to him by Bandhu and his companions, the king's messenger found in the tent of a poor shepherd.
Prem Chand, though baffled in his first attempt to deliver his message, had by no means lost hope.
"I must not go to Bandhu when he is surrounded by his gay associates," said Prem Chand to himself, "nor when that old Brahmin is near. I will return in a few hours, in the heat of the day, when he may be resting alone. I have that to tell Bandhu which must stir his heart, if any heart beat in his bosom. From his shabby appearance, I can see that he has been cruelly cheated, and from his conversation I learn that he has been grossly deceived. Bandhu has doubtless been kept ignorant in order that he may safely be robbed. Any labour I shall count light, any insult I shall readily bear, if I can but rescue this poor victim from Farebwala, and bring him in safety to his merciful king."
