Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/159

tribunal of a certain Brahmin clan. Imagine, if you please, a huge quadrangle, impressively bare but for a low dais at one end. covered with a few Bengali shawls and an antelope skin or two—ah!—and then the dramatic atmosphere. Not the atmosphere of death—oh, no!—much worse than death, much worse. For what is death compared to the loss of caste? And that afternoon they were going to try a man who had polluted his blood, who had sinned a great sin, a sin more heinous than the killing of cows—not a sin according to your code of laws—but then they were men of a different race, and their ins are not your sins—eh?—and mayhap their virtues may not be your virtues.

"On the dais sat his Holiness Srimat Muniswamappa Rama-Swami, and on either side of him stood anxious disciples who looked with awe at his thin, clean-shaven lips and fanned his holy old poll with silver-handled yak tails. Near him sat the pleader and a few Brahmin grandees, whom he was in the habit of consulting in cases of importance. At a respectful distance were the men of the clan: they filed in slowly, prostrating themselves in turn before the Swami and uttering the name of the presiding deity with trembling lips, while his Holiness smiled a contemplative smile, and while his fingers counted the beads on his rosary.

The proceeding opened with a sermon pronounced by the Swami. First, he praised Ganesa, Sarasvati, and half a dozen other assorted deities, and then with a great abundance of detail and many long-winded quotations he set forth the duties of the twice-born. He told them that a Brahmin should not break up clods of earth nor tear up the grass under his feet; that he should not look at the setting sun, the vising