Page:Achmed Abdullah--Wings.djvu/176

160 Calmly he lit a fresh cigarette and replied:

"Why, yes. I am here. I followed my Fate.

"One day I remembered the strength of my sword-arm, and I strangled the jailer, and I took ship, and so I am here.

"What was I to do? In killing the jailer I but followed my Karma, and in gurgling out his last breath under the clutch of my hands, he but followed his. There is neither right nor wrong. All is Karma.

"I am Dajee, the Mahratta, and a high-caste. The peacock is sacred to my clan. But I work for the beef-eating foreigner in this cold land.

"In this incarnation Fate stole my caste, so what is it to me where and how I live?

"When I walk through the streets in the evening I think of the many ways of release which I tried and found to be vain, and of what will be the end, and what will be my next life.

"It comforts me to think that as in this life I do not remember the incidents of my last, so in the next one this life will be forgotten.

"For memory is of the body, and not of the soul.

"Once I spoke to the Englishman for whom I