Referring to the first cure, I said: “Then you believe in the efficacy of good works, oh! Truth-Named Singh.” And he said: “Good works are fetters, fetters of gold, but still fetters.”
When the Datura tree hung out its burden of bells, and the pilgrim season had begun, he came to me with as much excitement as his calm abstraction from all emotion permitted. And, “There is a Lat (Lord) Swami,” he said, “sitting in a grove at Dum Dum. Would the Miss Sahib like to talk with him?”
“Is he holy?” I asked.
“I know him not, but he is called a Lat Swami, he should be so. He has been teaching the people of the farther England (America) about God and the one religion, it is said, and he has many disciples in every country. Besides, he speaks the language of the Miss Sahib’s friend (English), and it is a chance for the Miss Sahib’s friend to question in her own tongue, as she cannot me.” ...
So we went, and the first time lost our way. We met strolling minstrels and were offered seats at wedding feasts, and fighting rams for our diversion, but no Swami sitting by his Lake of Lotuses.
Our Wise Man was distressed: “I gave my word you would come. Even by mistake we cannot break a word, it is damage to Sainthood”—one’s own he meant. “Make a speedy occasion to remove the disease of this error. I myself will conduct you.”
But no! he would not arrange the train by which we were to go. “Shall I who am free, compel any to be slaves to time? Come when you will, I will sit at the Station all day.” It was late afternoon when we could make the expedition but the “Truth-Named” was there. He had awaited us since morning, meditating undisturbed by the bustle of a Railway Station. We were soon in the suburbs among palm-trees, and rank undergrowth, and we found the Lat Swami clad in yellow-silk robes, sitting cross-legged in a grove of mango-trees, beside a bed of white lotuses. His face did not appeal, but that we mused, might be prejudice.
“Ask him the big-little questions,” prompted our Wise Man—himself retiring deferentially to the level of the least of the Lat Swami’s disciples. And we asked, only to hear in pompous English, “I refer you to my book, which has been well-reviewed by the ‘Daily Mail.’ My Disciple will explain.” And before our gasp of astonishment had spent itself, came the disciple, a follower from that “farther England” who, grovelling before the Master, produced the book.
But we were busy inventing excuse for flight. Silence, as we walked away. Then said our Truth-Named, tolerant humour in his eyes, “So the Miss Sahib’s Friend, and the Miss Sahib liked not that Holy Man?”