The language had come to Bedient marvellously. Literally it flowed into
his mind, as in the rains a rising river finds its old bed of an
earlier season.

"This is your home, Wanderer," Gobind told him. "Long have you
travelled to and fro and long still must you wander, but you will come
back again to the cool shadows, and to these--" Gobind lifted his hand
to point to the roof of the world. The yellow cloth fell away from his
arm, which looked like a dead bough blackened from many rains. "For
these are your mountains and you love these long shadows. All Asia and
the Islands you have searched for these shadows, and here you are
content, for your soul is Brahman.... But you are not ready for Home.
You are not yet tired. Long still must you wander. Some sin of a former
birth caused you to sink into the womb of a woman of the younger
peoples. You have yet to return to them--as one coming down from the
mountains, after the long summer, brings a song and a story for the
heat-sick people of the plains to hear at evening----"

This was the substance of many talks. It was always the same when
Gobind shut his eyes.

"You say I shall come back here, good Gobind?" Bedient asked.

"Yes, you will come back here to abandon the body----"

"Alone?"

"Yes."

Bedient was filled with grave questions. One can always put a mystic