"In my excitement at the scene itself I had forgotten its cause, and was regretting the all too sudden ending of the spectacle, when Taylor touched me on the arm. 'The tragedy is about to begin! Look!'
"Following his eyes I saw, indeed, tragedy enough to make me forget what had gone before; yet I knew well that I did not, could not, fathom its depth or measure its breadth. Still, in a dim way I realised that the boy, standing as if turned to stone, had passed in those few moments from life as surely as if a physical death had struck him down; that he might indeed have been less forlorn had such been the case, since some one for their own sakes might then have given him six feet of earth. And now, even a cup of water, that last refuge of cold charity, was denied to him for ever, save from hands whose touch was to his Brahmanised soul worse than death. For him there was no future. For the old man who, burdened by the weeping girl, stood opposite him, there was no past. Nothing but a hell of defilement; of daily, hourly impurity for twelve long years. The thought was damnation.
"'Come, Premi! come!' he muttered, turning suddenly to leave the platform. 'This is no place for us now. Quick! we must cleanse ourselves from deadly sin--from deadly, deadly sin.'
"They had reached the steps leading down to the tank when the boy, with a sob like that of a wounded animal, flung himself in agonised entreaty at his master's feet. 'Oh, cleanse me, even me also, oh my father!'
"The old man shrank back instinctively; yet there was no anger, only a merciless decision in his face. 'Ask not the impossible! Thou art not alone impure; thou art uncleansable from birth--yea! for ever and ever. Come, Premi, come, my child.'
"I shall never forget the cry which echoed over the water, startling the pigeons from their evening rest amid the encircling trees. 'Uncleansable for ever and ever!' Then in wild appeal from earth to heaven he threw his arms skyward. 'Oh, Shining Ones! say I am the same Amra, the twice-born Amra, thy servant!'
"'Peace! blasphemer!' interrupted the Brahman sternly. 'There are no Shining Ones for such as thou. Go! lest they strike thee dead in wrath.'
"A momentary glimpse of a young face distraught by despair, of an old one firm in repudiation, and the platform lay empty of the passions which had played their parts on it as on a stage. Only from the distance came the discordant triumph of the jogi's procession.
"I besieged Taylor's superior knowledge by vain questions, to most of which he shook his head. 'How can I tell?' he said somewhat fretfully. 'The cord was manipulated in some way, of course. For all that, there may be truth in Gopi's story. There is generally the devil to pay if a Brahmani goes wrong, and she may have tried to save the boy's life by getting rid of him. If you want to know more, I'll send for Victor Emanuel. Five rupees will fetch some slight fraction of truth from the bottom of his well, and that, as a rule, is all we aliens can expect in these incidents.'
"So the old ruffian came and sat ostentatiously far from our contaminating influences in the attitude of a bronze Buddha, his mustaches curled to his eyebrows, his large lips wreathed in solemn smiles. 'It was a truly divine miracle,' he said blandly. 'Gopi, the bikshu, never makes mistakes, and performs neatly. Did the Presence observe how neatly? Within the cotton marking the Brahman came the hempen thread of the Kshatriya, inside again the woollen strand of the Vaisya; all three twice-born. But last of all, a strip of cowskin defiling the whole.'