"'Perhaps 'tis the same thing,' replied Victor Emanuel with another salaam.
"The square tank was edged by humanity in the white and saffron robes of pilgrimage. Brimming up to the stone step, worn smooth by generations of sinners, the waters of the spring lapped lazily, stirred by the myriads of small fish which, in their eagerness for the coming feast, flashed hither and thither like meteors, to gather in radiating stars round the least speck on the surface; sometimes in their haste rising in scaly mounds above the water. The blare of a conch and a clanging of discordant bells made all eyes turn to the platform in front of the temple, where the attendant Brahmans stood with high-heaped baskets of grain awaiting the sacrificial words about to be spoken by an old man, who, with one foot on the bank, spread his arms skywards--an old man of insignificant height, but with an indescribable dignity, on which I remarked to my companion.
"'It is indescribable,' he assented, 'because it is compounded of factors not only wide as the poles asunder from you and me, but also from each other. Pride of twice-born trebly-distilled ancestry bringing a conviction of inherited worthiness; pride in hardly-acquired devotion giving birth to a sense of personal frailty. That is the Brahman whom we lump into a third-class railway carriage with the ruck of humanity, and then wonder--hush! he is going to begin.'
"'Thou art Light! Thou art Immortal Life!' The voice, with a tremor of emotion in it, pierced the stillness for a second before it was shattered by a hoarse, strident cry--'Silence!'
"Taylor leaned forward, suddenly interested. 'You're in luck,' he whispered, 'I believe there is going to be a row of some sort.'
"Once more the cry rose harsher than before: 'Silence, Sukya! Thou art impure.'
"A stir in the crowd, and a visible straightening of the old man's back were the only results.
"'Thou art the Holiest Sacrifice! We adore Thee, adorable Sun!'
"'Silence!'
"This time the interruption took shape in a jogi, who, forcing his way through the dense ranks, emerged on the platform to stand pointing with denunciatory finger at the old Brahman. Naked, save for the cable of grass round his loins and the smearing of white ashes, with hair lime-bleached and plaited with hemp into a sort of chignon, no more ghastly figure could be conceived. The crowd, however, hailed him with evident respect, while a murmur of 'Gopi! 'tis Gopi the bikshu (religious beggar)' passed from mouth to mouth. This reception seemed to rouse the old man's wrath, for after one scornful glance at the new-comer he was about to continue his invocation to the sun, when the jogi, striding forward, flourished his mendicant's staff so close to the other's face that he perforce fell back.