Mechanically the holy man muttered a blessing, and taking a pinch of ashes from the fire before him, with a mumbled prayer, dropped them into her hand. "Put these upon his tongue. Bathe his head in the holy Gunga water and forget not to offer a kid to Kali."
"But I cannot offer a kid. I have no money! I have no money! My son will die! My son will die!" sobbed the woman.
The holy man looked at her fixedly for a full minute, realizing her grief and her need. Then with a quick glance about him he leaned forward. He swept up the pile of coins on the offering cloth before him and thrusting them into the woman's hands whispered: "Go and buy! Go and buy!"
The woman went quickly, wiping her eyes with her sari.
The fakir's face became radiant. "Surely that sweet feeling was peace! Blessed peace! Is this the end of my quest? Has my soul at last found rest?"
As suddenly his face darkened. "Yet, yet—I should have given that money to the goddess. I promised in my vow that every anna, above the cost of my fruit and of the wood for my fire, should be given to her."
He bowed his head upon his hands.
"I have broken my vow—on the last day of the five years I have broken my vow! I am unholy! I am unholy!"
After a few minutes he raised his bowed head and seemed to be thinking aloud. "Peace could not have come in cheating the gods. That strange feeling when I gave to the woman to relieve her sorrow could not have been peace—but it was sweet, very sweet!" He paused with a half smile which soon, however, was overcast, for all the joy went out of his face again as he said, "It must be that I have not denied myself enough, have not made enough sacrifices. And I have been unholy! Surely there is peace for the truly holy. I will try again.—I will swear another vow. Take me to Kali!" He called the last sentence loudly, but ere the people in the square understood his wish, he remembered that he had no money, no offering to take; even he, a "holy man," could not go to Kali's temple to make a vow without an offering. He must wait until the people should fill his empty begging cloth.