He tore down its fellow, and passing the dead girl without a look, dashed out into the courtyard again, his last trace of sanity gone.
The next instant his horse's feet were echoing madly along the pilgrims' road. His enemy must have a quarter of an hour's lead, but that was nothing; he could overtake him, anyhow, at the first station in the pilgrimage,--a temple under a vast banyan tree at the foot of the first rise, where the pious must pause to make offerings.
The road was almost empty at first; for the news that the miracle had only been deferred had spread instantly through the unrestful town, so to a space beyond it, making those who heard the tale turn back to see for themselves. But after a few minutes' wild gallop, he came up with those who had been beyond recall, who had gone on content with that strange lead of a strange God; of a saint, a sinner. Yet, after a time, forgetful of that leadership utterly. For they needed it no more. The danger of novelty had passed with their first step along the beaten track which their fathers had followed. Father Ninian, wise with the wisdom of long years, of secret sympathy, had known this; had counted on it in his forlorn hope of leading them into familiar bondage. He had told himself that he need only go as far as that first station; that then, during the pause for offerings, he might return, as it were, to realities, to something more consistent with the nineteenth century! But to him, also, as he led the way, chanting his offices for the day, had come a strange peace, a strange desire to go on to the end of the pilgrimage; a strange desire to leave those realities behind him in a world from which he was taking nothing, not even his love.
Surely it was time. Surely he was old enough to claim rest. No! not rest. It was something more than that. Surely, now that he had left every atom of earth behind him lying with a dead woman on the Altar steps, he also was free to find the "Cradle of the Gods"!
"My soul fleeth unto the Lord! before the morning watch I say, before the morning watch," he chanted; he had gone on blindly from psalm to psalm intent on the desire to lead those voices behind.
"Have a care, baba-jee! thou and thy God!" said a half-tender, half-jesting one as he stumbled among the stones, and a dark hand stretched itself out to steady the old priest, and a dark face turned to nod approval at other saffron robes; since here was a true pilgrim, a true madman, forgetful of this world, to judge by the face lifted towards those distant hills.
Yet the desire in him to reach them seemed to the wise old heart something that must be set aside. He must return. Yes! he must return. To do what? What could an old man do who had left life, a useless life, behind him? He crushed down that thought also, and stumbled on.
"Man is like a thing of nought, his time passeth away like a shadow!"
His voice spent itself tremulously on that one certainty, and those behind him joined their testimony to his all unwittingly, as they called on Hârâ or Hârî; on the Creator, the Destroyer, as One and Indivisible.
And in the rear again, Roshan in his search for Death, for annihilation, bore witness also, as he came, cursing those who stood in his way, his horse slithering among the stones in its effort to obey whip and spur, and sending a dry clangour of hoof-beats through the little stony valley to startle the sleepy snakes coiled on the distant rocks, and drive them back to their crannies with a hiss.