"Thereby hangs a tale," replied my companion. "It is invisible here, but I will show you what remains of it presently when we get into the fort. Here is a crowd of pilgrims coming to bathe in the purifying waters of the confluence: let us follow them."
As they reached the shore a Brahman left his position under a great parasol and placed himself in front of the troop of believers, who, without regard to sex, immediately divested themselves of all clothing except a narrow cloth about the loins, and followed him into the water. Here they proceeded to imitate his motions, just as pupils in a calisthenic class follow the movements of their teacher, until the ceremonies of purification were all accomplished.
"A most villainous-faced penitent!" I exclaimed as one of their number came out, and, as if wearied by his exertions, lay down near us on the sand.
Bhima Gandharva showed his teeth: "He is what your American soldiers called in the late war a substitute. Some rich Hindu, off somewhere in India, has found the burden of his sins pressing heavily upon him, while at the same time the cares of this world, or maybe bodily infirmities, prevent him from visiting the Triveni. Hence, by the most natural arrangement in the world, he has hired this man to come in his place and accomplish his absolution for him."
Striking off to the westward from the Plain of Alms, we soon entered the citadel of Akbar, which he built so as to command the junction of the two streams. Passing the Lâth (pillar) of Asoka, my companion led me down into the old subterranean Buddhistic temple of Patal Pouri and showed me the ancient Achaya Bat, or sacred tree-trunk, which its custodians declare to be still living, although more than two thousand years old. Presently we came to a spot under one of the citadel towers where a feeble ooze of water appeared.
"Behold," said my friend, "the third of the Triveni rivers! This is the river Saravasti. You must know that once upon a time, Saravasti, goddess of learning, was tripping along fresh from the hills to the west of Yamuna (the Jumna), bearing in her hand a book. Presently she entered the sandy country, when on a sudden a great press of frightful demons uprose, and so terrified her that in the absence of other refuge she sank into the earth. Here she reappears. So the Hindus fable."
On our return to our quarters we passed a verandah where an old pedagogue was teaching a lot of young Mussulmans the accidence of Oordoo, a process which he accomplished much as the "singing geography" man used to impart instruction in the olden days when I was a boy—to wit, by causing the pupils to sing in unison the A, B, C. Occasionally, too, the little, queer-looking chaps squatted tailor-wise on the floor would take a turn at writing the Arabic character on their slates. A friendly hookah in the midst of the group betrayed the manner in which the wise man solaced the labors of education.
On the next day, as our indigo-planter came to drive us to the Gardens of Chusru, he said, "An English friend of mine who is living in the Moffussil—the Moffussil is anywhere not in Calcutta, Bombay or Madras—not far from Patna has just written me that word has been brought from one of the Sontal villages concerning the depredations of a tiger from which the inhabitants have recently suffered, and that a grand hunt, elephant-back, has been organized through the combined contributions of the English and native elephant-owners. He presses me to come, and as an affair of this sort is by no means common—for it is no easy matter to get together and support a dozen elephants and the army of retainers considered necessary in a great hunt—I thought perhaps you would be glad to accompany me."
Of course I was; and Bhima Gandharva, though he would not take any active part in the hunt, insisted upon going along in order to see that no harm came to me.