able hope. Sometimes it was from the South that he came—from south of Tuticorin—whence the wonderful fire-boats go to Ceylon and the priests who know Pali; sometimes it was from the wet green West and the thousand cotton-factory chimneys that ring Bombay; and once from the North, where he had doubled back eight hundred miles to talk a day with the Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House. He would go to his cell in the cool, cut marble—for the priests of the temple were good to the old man—wash off the dust of travel, make prayer, and depart for Lucknow, well accustomed now to the ways of the rail, in a third-class carriage. Returning, it was noticeable, as his friend the Seeker pointed out to the head priest, that he ceased for a while to mourn the loss of his River, or to draw wondrous pictures of the Wheel of Life, and preferred to talk of the beauty and wisdom of a certain mysterious chela whom no man of the temple had ever seen. Yes, he had followed the traces of the Blessed Feet throughout all India (the curator has still in his possession a most marvellous account of his wanderings and meditations); there remained nothing more in life but to find the River of Healing. Yet it seemed to him that it was a matter not to be undertaken with any hope of success unless the Seeker took with him the one chela appointed to bring the event to a happy issue, and versed in great wisdom—such wisdom as white-haired Keepers of Images possessed. For example (here came out the snuff-gourd, and the kindly Jain priests made haste to be silent).
'Long and long ago, when Devadatta was King of Benares—let all listen to the Jâtaka!—an elephant was captured for a time by the king's hunters, and ere he broke free, ringed with a grievous leg-iron. This he strove to remove with hate and frenzy in his heart, and hurrying up and down the forest, besought his brother
