The men, with the women and children, threw themselves on the ground around his horse and pleaded with him for mercy, but the more they begged the more angry he grew, and then, when he became tired out with his stream of fearful words, he gave orders to his men with the long sticks to search every house, and in they went with a rush. The old charpoys, the tattered rags of blankets, here and there a brass cup or an iron dish, everything was brought and laid in the center of the court, a mass of rubbish the most of which should have gone out by the back door and been thrown into the gully. A cart was brought in and everything placed upon it and off it went. Just as the zemindar was going out of the gate, a man living in one of the huts came in. He had been out from very early morning going for miles to a pond where he caught a few small fish, not one over an inch in length. These he was bringing for his poor old decrepit mother who was really starving. As soon as the big man saw this handful of fish he ordered one of his men to take them. The poor man seeing that he was about to lose his little treasure threw himself upon the ground, and in tones heart-rending, begged the fish for his old mother who was dying for want of food; but he might as well have talked to the gate post. The fish were gone and the big man departed on his high-stepping horse. Had the big zemindar put us all in some room, closed the door and suffocated us, it would have been an act of mercy compared with what he did. What is the little pain of a sudden death, in comparison with a life of hardship, starvation, suffering, misery, and after all, death sure to come? Better half should go and give the other half a chance, than to prolong the wretchedness of all. Death cannot be escaped by waiting. Much of philanthropy is to prolong misery. The real philanthropist should seek to shorten and end it. Men die for their country, for glory, the latter always a paltry thing. Why not die to relieve themselves from wretchedness and to benefit others by their absence? This would be the real sacrifice—a dying to save others. Words fail me to describe what took place after the robbery of our little court. In every hut there was wailing for their little losses, but all they had. There was not a tattered rag or dish left. There was no food of any kind, no work for anybody. They could gather nothing from the fields, for the country for miles was barren even of a blade of grass.