He raised his cap, almost obediently, with a brief "Certainly," and passed on; but as he left the court on his way to the Fort, the first note of her voice made him turn, for a second, to look.
She was seated on the top step of the tank, the children grouped inquisitively round her, and she held her head high-almost defiantly.
"The Son of God goes forth to war,
Who follows in His train?"
The words were distinctly audible, following him as he passed on, the gun on his shoulder, the dead bird in his hand, and something between blessing and cursing in his heart. But above and through all, he seemed to hear a never-ceasing voice that said, "The pivots of Life are Birth and Death. Death and Birth."
[CHAPTER XI]
WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS
"Half a minute, Dillon!" said the Commissioner abruptly, as the doctor, ushered in by a scarlet-sin-stain of an orderly, entered the tent where the former was working. "I must attend to these gentlemen first."
These gentlemen were Dya Ram, Ramanund, and a third very different sort of person, obtrusively Hindoo in face, figure, attire.
The Commissioner's manner, as he returned to the business in hand, changed from careless familiarity to an elaborate courtesy.
"I quite understand, pundit-sahib," he said in English to Ramanund, "that you are, as you say, actuated by no personal motive. A man of your attainments and culture can scarcely feel a keen interest in jogi Gorakh-nâth's--that is the name, I think--domicile in a gun barrel!"