This man had learned how to say “Am, Im, Um, Em, Aim, Om, Aum, Tam, Tham, Dam, Nam, Pam, Pham, Bam, Mam, Jam, Ram, Lam, Vam, Sam, Ham, Ksham,” over and over again, each of them in a special tone and way, and that proved to everyone who heard him there that he was a very marvellous man who could do miracles. His name was Mantra Shastri. When he came to the house where little Yogina was lying in her fever, he bade the other women of the house clean out the court, and make a pattern on the wet floor with fine white powder. When this was done, little Yogina was dragged into the court, and set down opposite the white markings on the damp floor. Yogina could not sit up. She was too weak, but Mantra Shastri would do nothing for her if she lay on the ground. So the other women of the house gathered round her and held her up. Then the devil-doctor began his work. He went out and walked round the house several times, and sprinkled evil-smelling water as he went. Yogina cried out louder, for the effort of sitting up made her fever more burning, but all round the house the harsh sounds of tom-toms rose and the child’s screams could not be heard. Then Mantra Shastri came into the inner court again, and the women walked in a circle carrying trays of fruit and flowers and leaves and rice. The tom-toms still beat on, and their noise only made the sick girl wilder. She did not know anything of what was going on around her, but she fought blindly with those who tried to hold her up. The priest took little heaps of rice from the trays the women carried, and set them down in front of Yogina amongst the white marks on the floor. One heap was of white rice, one of yellow, and one of black, and when he had laid them there he spoke to the demon in the sick girl and said:-- “Oh Spirit of Evil, where do you come from? What do you want?” The women who were round Yogina were so eager to hear what she would say, that they forgot to hold her up, and she fell forward on the rice. Even when they raised her she had no answer for the priests’ question. At last he seized a cane, and beat her to make her speak, and as the blows fell on Yogina’s back she started up and ran twice round the court. Then she fell. A shout rose from everyone there, for they believed that the evil spirit had left her at last. But it was life that had left her, and the little child, who might so easily have been nursed back to health, had been killed. That is one story of one little girl, but it is not unlike many, many others that might be told, not only of girls, but of boys and men and women, who die because there is no one who knows how to nurse them, or to help them to get well. And many who do not die are ill all their lives afterwards, because of the way in which they have been treated. CHAPTER VIII BOYS AND GIRLS