goats to eager bidders. The poorer applicants sat in a circle, a gory head on each lap. … It was a gruesome sight.
By the Bathing Ghat was a great crowd. Here were two young women in charge of a chaperone. They had come far ways measuring their length along the ground. It was in the rains, and they were all mud and slush from the exercise. The woman stood by, policing them, seeing that they abated no jot or tittle of their vows, where the head had been the feet should lie—there, and not an inch further.
“What was the vow?” I asked.
A prayer for one—that the child then on its way might live. … Oh! the pathos of it. The other woman was giving thanks for the recovery of her reason. … “The dance of Death,” “The dance of Death” —a Minuet. …
“If I were God, I should pity the heart of man …”
They were travelling at the moment towards the drain behind the Image of the Goddess. Oh! the water, oh! the water!—it was black with impurities. It had washed the feet of the
