"I go about, now a Moslem fakir with the right of entry to the mosques where I may worship the only true God and Mohammed his prophet, now disguised as a Hindu yogi, crying 'Ram, Ram,' so that I may gain access to the temples of the idolators, there to find the Ganapati with the jewelled eyes, and by that token discover the man for whom I am ever seeking. Every year I revisit Ferishtapur, whence the idol was originally taken by my hand from the wrecked temple, but thither neither the priest nor the Ganapati has ever returned. At other times I travel from one city to another, searching for temples, mingling with the devotees at the recurring festivals, the Holi, the Durgapuga, the feast of lanterns, and watching the processions when the idols and their custodians visit each other's shrines or go to the river for the blessing of the waters. But wander where I may, priest or Ganapati have I never seen again.
"Thus have passed fifty long years, during which I have lived for one thing alone, and that——revenge!"
Pausing before the last word, then uttering it in a scream that pierced the night air, the fakir sprang to his feet, and, swept by a sudden gust of overmastering passion, raised his hands high to heaven—a weird and eerie figure in the silver sheen of the moon.
"Deen! deen! deen!" he cried, dancing around as he shrilly voiced the fanatic call to massacre—the dread call which through the centuries has drenched with human blood a thousand shrines, both Moslem mosques and Hindu temples.
"Subah!" shouted the Afghan general, half rising, his hand on his sword hilt. "Stop that, you son of a dog, or I will make you meat for jackals. Subah!" At the reiterated stern command the dancing figure became instantly rigid. Then, just as suddenly as he had leaped from his crouching attitude, the fakir sank to the ground in a huddled heap, his face buried in the dust.
"You would be happier to-day, O man of many sorrows, had you followed the philosophy of 'kooch perwani'—had you said to yourself: 'What is done is done, and cannot be undone. Let it pass. Kooch perwani—no matter.'"
It was the Rajput who was speaking, in rebuke yet in commiseration.
"Even when all seemed lost" continued the Hindu soldier, "you should have forgotten the blue diamonds, the abiding greed for which was the real cause of your undoing; you should have forgotten your lost wealth and honourable position, your dear ones gone to the abode of bliss, the enemies who had despitefully used you but who, as your own religion teaches, were in truth only God's emissaries sent to punish you for your sins. It is the philosophy of 'kooch perwani' that teaches us to forget the dead past, do the work of the vital present, and by doing it aright build for the future an edifice of happiness and contentment. Had you followed that philosophy, O fakir, you might have been again to-day rich in the good things of the world."
The mendicant raised his face from the dust. "To which I reply, O prince,—kooch perwani. By the ordeals through which I have passed I have come to learn that the treasures of this world are of no account. Therefore is my philosophy to-day greater than your own. You wear costly robes, I the loin cloth of the beggar. Kooch perwani; for when death comes, we are equals. There is no pocket to a shroud."