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Annada Didi heel, crying, "Come, let us both die together!" and then flung himself on the ground with the snake stretched out beside him. There they both lay dead at my feet.' With the tenderest care she lifted the cloth that covered Shahji's face, and, touching his lips, already blue, with hers, she said with deep emotion, 'It is well, Indranath! I do not lay the slightest blame on God.'

We two stood speechless. No one who felt the heart-rending anguish, the baffled longing and prayer, that were expressed in that voice, could forget it again.

'You are only children,' she said after a pause, 'but I have no one except you two. So I ask you to do what you can for him before you go.'

She pointed to the jungle to the south of the hut. 'There is a small space, Indranath, over there. I have often thought that, if I were to die here, I should like to lie in that place. In the morning you will lay him there: he has suffered many sorrows in his life; now he will be at rest and find peace.'

'Didi, ought we to bury Shahji?' asked Indra.

'Of course, my dear,' she answered; 'he was a Musalman, you know.'

Indra put another question, 'Didi, are you too a Musalman?'

'Yes,' she said, 'of course I am a Musalman.'

I could see that the reply hurt Indra a little. He had not expected it. He had really loved Didi and had harboured a secret hope in his heart that she was one of ourselves, a Hindu. But I could not believe her: even