"'Why cow-skin?' I asked in my ignorance. 'I always thought you held a cow sacred.'
"Victor Emanuel beamed approval. 'The little Presence is young, but intelligent. He will doubtless learn much if he questions the right people judiciously. He will grow wise like the big Presence, who knows nearly as much as we know about some things--but not all! The cow is sacred, so the skin telling of the misfortune of the cow is anathema. Yea, 'twas a divine miracle. The money of the pious will flow to make the holy fat; at least that is what the doctor sahib is thinking.'
"'Don't set up for occult power on the strength of guessing palpable truths,' replied Taylor; 'that sort of thing does not amuse me; but the little sahib wants to know how much truth there was in Gopi's story.'
"'Gopi knows,' retorted our friend with a grin. 'The Brahman saith the boy was gifted to him by a pious woman after the custom of thanksgiving. Gone five years old, wearing the sacred thread, versed in simple lore, intelligent, well-formed, as the ritual demands. Gopi saith the mother, his wife, was a bad walker, even to the length of public bazaars. Her people sought her for years, but she escaped them in big towns, and ere they found her she had gained safety for this boy by palming him off on Sukya. 'Twas easy for her, being a Brahmani. Of course they made her speak somewhat ere she fulfilled her life, but not the name of the anchorite she deceived. So Gopi, knowing from the mother's babbling of this mongrel's blasphemous name, and the vow of pilgrimage for the expiation of sins, hath come hither, led by the Spirit, every year. It is a tale of great virtue and edification.'
"'But the boy! the wretched boy?' I asked eagerly. Taylor raised his eyebrows and watched my reception of the jog's answer with a half-pitying smile.
"'Perhaps he will die; perhaps not. What does it matter? One born of such parents is dead to virtue from the beginning, and life without virtue is not life.'
"'He might try Amar-nâth and the remission of sins you believe in so firmly,' remarked Taylor, with another look at me.
"Victor Emanuel spat freely. 'There is no Amar-nâth for such as he, and the Presence knows that as well as I do. No remission at all, even if he found the Flower of Forgiveness, as the doctor sahib hopes to do.'
"'Upon my soul,' retorted Taylor impatiently, 'I believe the existence of the one is about as credible as the other. I shall have to swallow both if I chance upon either.'
"'That may be; but not for the boy Amra. He will die and be damned in due course.'