like a dog. The strength is gone from me. I am an old man and the fire-carriage has made the ford desolate. They were wont to call me the Strong One of the Barhwi.
Behold my face, Sahib. It is the face of a monkey. And my arm. It is the arm of an old woman. I swear to you, Sahib, that a woman has loved this face and has rested in the hollow of this arm. Twenty years ago, Sahib. Believe me, this was true talk . . . . twenty years ago.
Come to the door and look across. Can you see a thin fire very far away down the stream? That is the temple-fire, in the shrine of Hanuman, of the village of Pateera. North, under the big star, is the village itself, but it is hidden by a bend of the river. Is that far to swim, Sahib? Would you take off your clothes and adventure? Yet I swam to Pateera—not once but many times; and there are crocodiles in the river too.
Love knows no caste; else why should I, a Musalman and the son of a Musalman, have sought a Hindu woman—a widow of the Hindus—the sister of the lambardar—the headman—of Pateera? But it was even so. They of the lambardar's household came on a pilgrimage to Muttra when She was but newly a bride. Silver clamps were upon the poles of the litter, and silken curtains hid the woman. Sahib, I made no haste in their conveyance, for the wind parted the curtains and I saw Her. When they returned from pilgrimage the boy that was her husband had died, and I saw Her again in the litter, By God, these Hindus are fools! What was it to me whether she was Hindu or Jain—outcaste, leper or whole? I would have married Her and made Her a home by the ford. The Seventh of the Nine Bars says that a man may not marry one of the infidels? Is that truth? Both Shiahs and Sunnis say that a Musulman may not marry one of the infidels? Is the Sahib a priest, then, that he knows so much? I will tell him something that he does not know. There is neither Shiah nor Sunni, lawful nor forbidden, in Love; and the Nine Bars are but nine little faggots
