[RÂMCHUNDERJI.]
"But the tenth avatar of the Lord Vishnu is yet to come."
"Exactly so, pundit-ji," I replied, looking at my watch. "It is yet to come, seeing that time's up. Half-past eight; so not another stroke of work to-day. No, not for twice a thousand rupees!"
A thousand rupees being the sum with which the Government of India rewards what they are pleased to call "high proficiency" in languages, I, having regard to its literature, had chosen Sanskrit as a means of paying certain just debts. To which end the head-master of the district school came to me for two hours every morning, and prosed away over the doings of the Hindoo pantheon until I came to the conclusion that my Lord Vishnu had been rather extravagant in the matter of incarnations.
The pundit, however, to whom would be due a hundred rupees of the thousand if I succeeded, smiled blandly. "The tenth avatar will doubtless await his Honour's leisure; the tenth, and last."
"Last!" I echoed with scorn. "How do you know? Some authorities hold there are twenty-four, and upon my soul I don't see why there should not be twenty-four thousand. 'Tis the same old story all through; devils and demigods, rakshas and rishies, Noah's ark and Excalibur. That sort of thing might go on for ever."
Now, Pundit Narayan Das was a very learned man. He had taken a Calcutta degree, and was accustomed to educate the rising generation on a mixture of the Rig-Veda and The Spectator. So he smiled again, saying in English, "'History repeats itself.'"
Thereupon he left me, and I, going into the verandah with my cigar, came straight upon Râmchunderji and his wife Seeta. At least I think so.
They were the oddest little couple. He, at a stretch, might have touched a decade of life, she, something more than half such distance of time. That is, taking them by size: in mind and manners, and in their grave, careworn faces, they were centuries old. His sole garment consisted of a large yellow turban twined high into a sort of mitre, with just a tip of burnished silver fringe sprouting from the top; and, as he sat cross-legged against the verandah pillar, a hand resting on each knee, his figure awoke a fleeting memory which, at the time, I failed to catch. Afterwards I remembered the effigies in Indra's celestial court as represented by some Parsee actors I had once seen. Seeta was simply a bundle, owing to her being huddled and cuddled up in a veil ample enough for an ample woman.
"I am Râmchunderji, and this is my wife Seeta," said the boy gravely. "If the Presence pleases, I will beguile time by singing."