do as he pleases and nobody asks why; and the fact that Dewan
Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., had resigned position, palace, and
power, and taken up the begging-bowl and ochre-coloured dress of
a Sunnyasi, or holy man, was considered nothing extraordinary.
He had been, as the Old Law recommends, twenty years a youth,
twenty years a fighter,--though he had never carried a weapon in
his life,--and twenty years head of a household. He had used his
wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth; he had
taken honour when it came his way; he had seen men and cities
far and near, and men and cities had stood up and honoured him.
Now he would let those things go, as a man drops the cloak he no
longer needs.

Behind him, as he walked through the city gates, an antelope
skin and brass-handled crutch under his arm, and a begging-bowl
of polished brown coco-de-mer in his hand, barefoot, alone, with
eyes cast on the ground--behind him they were firing salutes
from the bastions in honour of his happy successor. Purun Dass
nodded. All that life was ended; and he bore it no more ill-will
or good-will than a man bears to a colourless dream of the
night. He was a Sunnyasi--a houseless, wandering mendicant,
depending on his neighbours for his daily bread; and so long as
there is a morsel to divide in India, neither priest nor beggar
starves. He had never in his life tasted meat, and very seldom
eaten even fish. A five-pound note would have covered his
personal expenses for food through any one of the many years in
which he had been absolute master of millions of money. Even
when he was being lionised in London he had held before him his
dream of peace and quiet--the long, white, dusty Indian road,
printed all over with bare feet, the incessant, slow-moving