The blood from her wounded foot, however, trickling from under the seat, attracted the Goru's attention. "Daughter!" he cried, "from whence does this blood come?"
In the simple words of the native narrator, "the girl, not thinking it right to tell lies, on her father's asking her again and again, told him the truth."
The father, deeply touched by his child's loving reverence, tenderly kissed her, and said, "I have nothing else now to bestow on you, but from this day forth I present you with the Goruship."
The offer tells more of parental affection than of wisdom, for a female Goru would have been somewhat analogous to a female Pope. Happily the daughter showed more sense than her parent. The young Sikh shrank back from the strange post of spiritual leadership to which her father's love would have raised her.
Joining her hands, she cried, "O true Goru, my father! Give this dignity to my husband!"
Amrdás saw the propriety of the request, and Rámdas, through this dutiful daughter and wife, was raised to the leadership of the Sikhs.
The Sikh religion is far purer than that of the Hindus, but has unhappily become much corrupted by its professors mingling with the idolaters around them. I have heard an enthusiastic Sikh complaining of the idolatry carried on even in the precincts of the famous centre of Sikh worship, the Golden Temple of Amritsar.
The Sikhs give one the impression of their being a bold, cheerful, kindly people, who would be (as we proved them to be) formidable foes in war, but frank friends in peace. In the Sikh campaigns they almost shook our Indian Empire, but not long afterwards, in the more terrible Indian Mutiny, our late foes stood faithfully by us.
I once asked an experienced missionary, "If you were in danger in a mixed crowd of Mahomedans, Hindus, and Sikhs, to which of the three would you look for help?"
"I would cling to the arm of the Sikh," was the reply; and it pleased me as showing that my friend's riper judgment coincided with my own. It appears to me that the Sikh is more friendly than the Mahomedan, more manly than the Hindu.