"The Huzoor can go when he chooses," remarked the old man placidly; "but he must leave many things behind him first; the mem sahiba, for instance."
The doctor felt himself flush up to the very roots of his hair, and his first instinct was to fall upon the evident eavesdropper. Consideration natheless condemning this course, he tried cool indifference.
"You have been here some time, I perceive," he said calmly.
"I have been all the time behind the shivala," acquiesced the other, with beautiful frankness, as he pointed to a large black upright stone set on end by the water. "The Huzoor was--was too much occupied to observe this slave."
"So that is a shivala, is it?" interpolated the Englishman hurriedly; "it doesn't look much like a temple."
"We pilgrims call it so, Huzoor, and we worship it."
"Then you are a pilgrim--whither?"
"To the Lake of High Hope, Huzoor," came the answer, and there was a tinge of sadness in the tone. "I have been going thither these twenty years past, but my feet are against me. God made them crooked."
He drew them out of the water as he spoke, and the doctor's professional eye recognised a rare deformity; recognised also that they were unconceivably blistered and worn.
"You will not get to Mānasa Sarovara on those," he said kindly; "they need rest, not travel."