Am-ma, meanwhile, having seen nothing when he came up wondering what the sound was which had filtered to his ears through the water, had gone on his way unwitting, found the stream, cut the corpse adrift himself, and gone back to his fishing. It was not until he also went into the bazaar with his basket, that he found it ringing with the direful portent; yet for all that going its way buying and selling, squabbling over the uttermost part of a farthing; since portents are ever with an Indian bazaar. At first, when called upon to verify Gu-gu's story, Am-ma, remembering his promise of secrecy, gave it stout denial; but when the real truth of what had occurred dawned on his slow brain, the opportunity for piling agony on to his rival was too strong for him, and he burst into details, all of which made Gu-gu's chance of escape still more remote. The corpse had shot after him with a speed only equal to the fire-boats in which the _Huzoors_ came across the black water; it had sat up, and beckoned, and called "_Gu-gu! Gu-gu!_" "But if thou hast seen all this, thou, too, must die!" remarked the syrup-seller round whose shop the talk was loudest. Am-ma laughed vaingloriously. "Not I! The devils are afraid of me. See you, I have taken the _Huzoors_ for my God; I am on the strong side." "Hark to him!" jeered another of his own tribe who was also selling fish. "He cannot balance his basket on his head, he holds it so high since the wood-_sahib_ up the river hath bidden him guide their big raft,--as if he was a whit better than the rest of us!" Am-ma smiled peacefully. "That is true, brother. I go for the raft this very day. But I leave a son in my house, if the luck goes against me. That is the _Huzoors'_ doing. They have the _Dee-puk-râg_. They are the Light-bringers, the Birth-bringers!" A tall man, in curiously crumpled clothing, who had just joined the group, gave a hollow laugh. "Birth-bringers!" he echoed. "Ay! and Death-bringers, too. They took seven in the gaol last night. I have it from a sure hand." That might well be, seeing that he was none other than the _gosain_ Gopi, who, scarcely an hour agone, had been given his ticket-of-leave and the clothes in which he had been convicted two years before. They had since then been rolled up, and ticketed with his name and number; hence the creases. "The doctor cuts a hole in their heads," he went on calmly, "takes out their brains, and puts the bit back. Then 'tis cholera. That is why they burn them in their clothing and their _caps_, so that none may see. But they _say_, 'tis for the safety of the living; as if that did not lie with the Gods!" "Hark to him!" said approving voices. "Yea! hark to him, the pious one!"