"Is it a vow?" Menzies asked.
"It is a vow."
"But tell me," put in Prior, "does the water of your spring differ from that of a thousand others on these hills?"
"The younger sahib," answered the hermit, "understands not the meaning of a vow; which a man makes to his own hurt, perhaps, or to the hurt of another, or it may even be quite foolishly; but thereby he stablishes his life, while the days of other men go by in a flux of business. As for the water of my hillside," he went on with a sharp change of voice and speaking, to their amazement, in English, "have not your countrymen, O sahibs, their particular springs? Churchman and Dissenter, Presbyterian and Baptist—count they not every Jordan above Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus?"
He turned and walked swiftly from them, mounting the slope with swift loose strides. But while they stared, Bhagwan Dass broke from them and ran in pursuit.
"Not without thy blessing! O Annesley sahib, go not before thou hast blessed me!"
Two days later, at sunset, a child watching a little below the hermit's spring saw him limp back to it and drink and seat himself again at the entrance of the cave; and pelted down to the village with the news. And the hill-people, who had supposed him gone for ever, swarmed up and about the cave to assure themselves.
"Alas!" said the holy man, gazing out upon the twilight when at length all had departed, leaving him in peace. "Cannot a man be anywhere alone with God? And yet," he added, "I was something wistful for their love."
CHAPTER I.
"To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him: neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws which he set before us. O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing."