and quiet in his weakness he began to struggle and cry out, “I don't want to leave the ashram. Take me back.” “I won't go. I want to go back to the ashram.” “Why are you taking me away?”
The doctor became alarmed and said that it would be dangerous to take him if he struggled and cried, so the boys turned back towards the ashram again. The moment he realised that he was returning to his ashram the little fellow lay quite still and was happy again.
He began to get worse, however, and in spite of the best medical aid that could be got from Calcutta it soon became clear that we were to lose his bright presence. Day after day the boys took their turns in watching by his side and carrying out the doctors’ instructions, and would sit up all through the night bathing his fevered body with cool water.
An hour or two before he died I was sitting by his side and he said in Bengali, in a voice weak and full of pathos, “The flower will not blossom.” I whispered to him, “Don’t be afraid, for the flower will blossom.”
He was cremated out on the open fields near the ashram at dawn, and as the flames crept slowly upwards I knew that for us at least his
