nacre and lac. He lifted his hand, and Thorneycroft noticed that it was trembling violently.
"Brother Brahman," he said, "Martab Singh was my kinsman, my friend, my king. He was cousin to me, and cousin to the gods. I loved him greatly, and for years, with me by his side, he stepped in the footsteps of his ancestors, in the way of salvation, the way of the many gods. Then one day—shall I ever forget it?—madness came to him. He, the Maharaja of Oneypore, he, the incarnation of Rama and Vishnu and Brahm himself, declared that the desire was in his nostrils to leave India. To leave the sacred soil! To go traveling in the far lands and see the unclean witchcraft of the foreigners, the Christians, the English, the mlechhas! Gently I spoke to him as I might to a child. This and that I told him, quoting the sacred books, the words of Brahm, our blessed Lord. 'This is lust,'I quoted, 'born of the quality of rajas. Know this to be a great devourer, great sin, and the enemy on earth. As by smoke fire is enveloped, and the looking-glass by rust, as the womb envelops the unborn child, so by this it is enveloped. By this—the eternal enemy of the wise man, desire-formed, hard to be filled, insatiate—discrimination is enveloped.
