had been his guests went to the indentured labourers’ succour and suffered imprisonment in the act of doing so. He realized that he owed a debt of duty to the labourers too and therefore gave me shelter at his place. He not only sheltered me but he devoted his all to the cause. My stopping there converted his house into a caravanserai. All sorts and conditions of men would come and go and the premises at all times would present the appearance of an ocean of heads. The kitchen fire would know no rest day and night. Mrs Lazarus would drudge like a slave all day long, and yet her face as well as her husband’s would always be lit up with a smile as with perpetual sunshine.
But Lazarus could not feed hundreds of labourers. I suggested to the labourers, that they should take it that their strike was to last for all time and leave the quarters provided by their masters. They must sell such of their goods as could find a purchaser. The rest they must leave in their quarters. The coal-owners would not touch their belongings, but if with a view to wreak further revenge upon them they threw them away on the streets, the labourers must take that risk as well. When they came to me, they should bring nothing with them except their wearing apparel and blankets. I promised to live and have my meals with them so long as the strike lasted and so long as they were outside jail. They could sustain their strike and win a victory if and only if they came out on these conditions. Those who could not summon courage enough to take this line of action should return to work. None should despise or harass those who thus resumed their work. None of the labourers demurred to my conditions. From the very day that I made this announcement, there was a continuous stream of pilgrims who ‘retired from the household life to the houseless one’ along with their wives and children with bundles of clothes upon their heads.
I had no means of housing them; the sky was the only roof over their heads. Luckily for us the weather was favourable, there being neither rain nor cold. I was
