Cold winds blew, lightning flashed, and every human being was glad to find shelter in his house and go to sleep. Three hours before day the Guru called out that he wanted water. He called again but no one answered him. The third time he shook one of his sons to awaken him, and told him to go and fetch water. When the son showed no inclination to obey his father, Amar Das at once said, ‘Great king, thy slave will fetch thee water.’ The Guru objected and said that Amar Das was now too old for such service. Amar Das replied that he had grown young on hearing the Guru's order. He at once put a pitcher on his head and started for the river. Intoxicated with the wine of devotion he thought not of his body. On arriving at the Bias, he filled his vessel, began to repeat the Japji, and made the best of his way to his master. He paid no regard to the elements, but went straight towards the Guru's house, feeling his way in the thick darkness as he went along.
On the outskirts of Khadur there was a colony of weavers. The holes in the ground, into which the weavers put their feet when sitting at their looms, were filled with water. Into one of these holes Amar Das fell, striking his foot against a peg of karir[1] wood. Notwithstanding his fall he still succeeded in saving the water on his head. On hearing the noise and uproar, some of the weavers awoke. They cried out, ‘Thief! thief!’ and called on their people to be on the alert. On going out of doors they heard some one repeating the Japji, and one of the weavers wives said, ‘Fear not, it is not a thief. It is that poor homeless Amru whose beard hath grown gray, and who hath taken leave of his senses. Having abandoned his sons and daughters, his house and home, his commerce and his dealings, he is now without occupation, and wandereth from door to door. Other people go to
- ↑ Capparis aphylla, the wild caper tree.
