Page:True Tales of Indian Life - Dwijendra Nath Neogi.pdf/19

Rh having tenderly embraced his son in a last farewell, the father drew his dagger and stabbed himself through the heart, crying the while in a deep low voice, "Guruji ka fateh!" (victory to the guru).

Such is the tale of devotion and sacrifice which has been handed down to us.

when the late Mahammad-ul-Nabi of Pandua was a deputy magistrate at Arrah, a fakeer wandered to his residence, and receiving a warm welcome stayed in his house for a considerable time. One day in course of conversation the Maulvi asked the holy man, "Where, in all your wanderings, have you, fakeer shàheb, met with the largest number of godly men?" The fakeer readily answered, "At Hardwar, one of the places of Hindu pilgrimage." This answer did not seem to please the orthodox Maulvi, who said impatiently, "Fakeer shàheb, I did not expect this answer from you, a Mussalman holy man. When I said godly men, I never meant Hindus, but Mussalmans." The fakeer smiled as he answered, "My son, take a more lofty view of things and you will see that the differences, great as they seem to you, between Hindus and Mussalmans will disappear. When a man, gazing from the top of a high mountain, looks down upon the country spread below him he perceives nothing of the heights and hollows, the hills and valleys which are there. All have vanished, and in their place appears a surface apparently flat and