But when the rumour spread through the town that Isa Dás was going to quit it, that he was now the confidential Munshi of a grand Government Sahib, in whose service he was sure to make heaps of rupees, a great change came over his neighbours.
"Trust my word for it, Isa Dás will make his fortune at last!" cried the woman who had been the first to bring to him her almost expiring child. "This morning I saw him walk through the bazaar, looking like a fakir, with clothes that would hardly hold together. This evening he is wearing a good turban, and a blanket with a border of red, and looks like a sardar. We did not value him enough while we had him, and now he is going away!"
"Hae! Hae!" sighed her neighbour, who had once been vociferous in abuse of the newly-made Christian. "Who will now come to us in our need? Who will ease our pain, and give back health to the sick, and watch by the dying? Alas! That Isa Dás should leave us!"
Is it not written that "When a man's ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him"? (Prov. xvi. 7).
Isa Dás had a good many farewell visits to pay, but his time for preparation was so short that he could only go to a few. Amongst these few was Gopal, the kahar.
"We are never likely to meet again in this world; would that I had any sure hope of a meeting in the next!" said Isa Dás. "I have talked with that man, I have prayed for him, I have tried to lead him to Christ; but I sometimes fear that the seed of the Word has been with him like that sown by the wayside, which the birds of the air carried away."
When Isa Dais reached Copal's door, to his surprise and pleasure, he heard within the mud-built dwelling the familiar voice of his missionary friend. Isa Dás entered through the low doorway, and as he stood in the half-darkened room, he heard the sick man thus answer some question put by the missionary.
"O sir! It was goodness—mercy—love that drew me towards the Saviour. I remember the proverb, 'As the Goru is, so is the disciple;' as is the Deity, so is the worshipper. I thought, 'if all men should follow the examples of Khrishna and Mahadeo, the world would not be fit to live in; if all women were like the goddesses Kali and Doorga, the land would be running with blood. If theft, lying, and murder be crimes in a human being, can they be worthy of gods?'"
"The deities whom you speak of never existed; they are but the creation of men's minds, and those very wicked polluted minds," said the missionary. "He must have been deeply sunk in vice indeed who could even imagine such wickedness as your so-called religious books attribute to the false gods whom you worship."
"I only worship the one true God," replied Gopal faintly. "I cast myself, sinner as I am, at the feet of the Holy One who died for sinners."