'So they called you mad. All the beasts in the jungle speak to me too, except the elephant. The elephant is too sad even to talk. Usually when I see him he is eating; for he is always hungry because of his sins in the previous birth. But sometimes I find him standing alone away among the rocks, swaying from side to side. He is very sad, thinking of his sins in the previous birth. Then I say to him, "Brother, your feet too are upon the path. It is good to think of the sins of the previous birth, but there is no need of such sadness." Then he sways more and more, and his trunk moves from side to side, and he lifts one foot up after the other very slowly, but he never says a word, watching me with his little eye. Once, indeed, I remember, he lifted up his trunk and screamed. I too lifted up my hands and cried out with him, for we were both on the path.'
'You do not know the jungle, father,' said Silindu. 'It is of food and killing and hunting that the beasts talk to me. They know nothing of your path, nor do I.'
'Aiyo, it is not only in the jungle that they say that. They say the same in the small villages and the great towns. What do you say, sir?' he said, turning to one of the traders.
'I do not go into the jungle or talk to elephants, old man,' said the trader. 'I know the bazaar, and there they think of fanams[51] first and the path last.'
'A man must live,' said the other trader. 'It is only priests and beggars who have full bellies and idle hands.'
'The Lord Buddha was a beggar and a priest too,' said the old man, and began to mumble to himself. The laugh was against the trader.
'Aiya,' said the old man to the peon, 'who is going to hang this hunter?'
'The Government of course. He will be tried by the judge, and then they will hang him.'
'This is another thing which I do not understand. To the madman this seems foolish to kill a man because he has killed. If it is a sin, will he not be punished in the next birth?'
The old beggar had a strange influence on Silindu, who watched him the whole time, fascinated. The mumbled words seemed to excite him greatly.