Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/176

and garden. But there was no sign of the Holy Man.

He called loudly:

"Guru-jee … O guru-jee!"

But no answer came. Then he inquired of the villagers, but none had seen the Holy One.

Then he thought that perhaps the guru had set out in search of him and would return sooner or later. And he waited a long time till finally anxiety and hunger got the better of his fear. He ate, and then he opened the jar with the proper ceremonies …

But the gods had not doubled his riches. In fact, they had removed them altogether and had put in their place three large and heavy bricks.

The babu sat down and wept. That was the end of all things. To call in the police to aid him against the gods would be a futility. He visited the babul tree and looked at the Mahadeo. And it seemed to him that the Mahadeo was solemnly winking at him.

And a great fury seized him by the throat. He cursed the deities of his native land.

And six months later the Christian Messenger printed the glorious news that another pagan, this time a high-class Brahmin, a charitable native Indian banker, after giving away all his wealth in charities to the village where he lived, and tearing up all the mortgages he owned, had been converted to the True Faith; and had even risked his life and been severely beaten because in his righteous new zeal he had endeavored to break a horrid and grinning Mahadeo idol which stood in the shade of a great babul tree at the confines of the village.