departure, at the very moment that Krishna with a final shriek plunges into
the sea. They follow him, carry him out of danger, and lay him, stark and
speechless, upon the margin of the waves.

Thence, after a pause and a final prayer, they bear him homeward, as men
bear a corpse, nor leave him until he has regained consciousness and his
very self. For with that last shrill cry the ghost of Chandrabai fled
across the waste waters to meet the pale ancestral dead and dwell with them
for evermore: and the house of Vishnu the fisherman was freed from the
curse of her vagrant and unpropitiated spirit. "She has never troubled me
since that day," says Vishnu; "but at times when I am out in my
fishing-boat and the wind blows softly from the west, I hear her voice
calling to me across the waters. And one day, if the gods are kind, I
shall sail westward to meet her!"




* * * * *




II.

BOMBAY SCENES.

MORNING.