"That vile man yet, if even by wickedness, Had wrought some service to these kindly folk Which they would not without requital pass?" "Still from the mark," said Sergius, "thy surmise. That evil man no end of evil deed Instead had plotted and led on in guile Against these gentle people to their woe. Last, and but late, during this selfsame voyage Of theirs from Syria to Rome, on board That other vessel whence they came to us, He sought, with midnight bribe and treachery, To compass violent death for Paul, a man, As thou hast seen, beyond belief beloved, And for good cause, of all. That failing, he With perjury and well-supported fraud Of adamantine front and impudence, Charged upon Paul attempt to murder _him_." So Sergius Paulus, with some generous heat, And horror of the heinous things he told. He said no more and Krishna naught replied. After much vexing controversy vain With winds that varying ever blew adverse, They had made the roadstead of The Havens Fair. Here they dropped anchor, glad of peace and rest And leisure to consider of their way, Whether they still would forward stem despite The threats of winter, or there wait for spring. Krishna fell silent when those things he heard From Sergius Paulus; silent Krishna fell, But in his bosom shut deep musings up Whereof the first he, in due season brought To speech with Paul while they at anchor rode, Propounded with preamble soft and suave In words like these: "Much merit hast thou hope Doubtless, yea, and most justly, to have earned, Thou, and thy Hebrew fellow-voyagers, With all that ill-deservéd kindness shown Him, thy base countryman, whom, thunderstruck, Fate hurried lately hence to other doom. A millstone burden bound about the neck Is karma such as his to weigh one down-- 'Karma,' we say; but otherwise perhaps Thou speakest; merit or demerit, what Accrues to one inseparable from himself, In part his earning, heritage in part, The harvest reapt of virtue or of vice-- Aye, karma such as his was weighs one down In dying, to new life more dire than death. Hard-won a karma like thine own, but worth The winning though ten thousand times more hard!" Paul felt the Indian's gentleness and loved Him with great pity answering him: "I know Thy meaning, and I take the courtesy, While yet the praise I cannot, of thy words. My karma is not mine as won by me With either easy sleight or hard assay-- The karma thou hast seemed in me to find: That was bestowed, and is from hour to hour With ever fresh bestowal still renewed. I had a karma once indeed my own, Much valued, wage it was of labor sore, But it grew hateful in my opened eyes And I despised it underneath my feet To be as dross rejected and abjured."