The child made a good recovery, and from that time Isa Dás had almost as many patients as before his baptism. The most prejudiced Hindu, when seriously ill, preferred to be cured by one who had broken caste, to dying in an orthodox way. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. THE BALLOON. ISA DÁS conversed much with those who came to him for advice, ever keeping in mind their spiritual profit. Sometimes he spoke directly on the subject of religion, sometimes on occurrences of the day, which he read out of a native newspaper lent to him by a friend. What the doctor's drugs were to his patient's bodies, so were his words to their souls. One day Isa Dás told a bunniah (shopkeeper) and some others who were seated on the grass before him, smoking their hookahs, of a strange event which had occurred in Calcutta. * * The narrative is but too true; the particulars have been taken from the newspaper account. "Notice had been given," said he, "that a bold colonel sahib was to mount up in a balloon." "A balloon, what may that be?" inquired a zemindar (husbandman) who had never been twenty miles from his native village. "A balloon is a huge ball made of cloth or silk, large as a house, and filled with light gas, which causes it to rise into the clouds. A car hangs from the balloon, and in this car men have room to sit, and thus be borne aloft in the air. Many people of Calcutta gathered to see the tamasha (show), and looked with wonder at the big ball which was to carry the bold colonel into the sky." "Wah! Wah!" cried the zemindar. "I should like to have been there to see the tamasha!" "The colonel came with a cheerful face when all was ready," continued the doctor. "But not every one looked equally cheerful when noticing the state of the balloon. "'There are cracks in the cloth,' observed a friend, gazing upwards at the great ball, which, inflated with gas, was kept down by ropes, till the colonel should get into the car.' "'No matter!' cried the colonel. 'That is nothing! I have mounted in a balloon with holes in it as big as my head.' "Bright and bold, he stepped into the car and sat down. At a given signal the men who held the ropes let go their hold. Up shot the balloon like a bird! It rises one—two—three hundred feet above the heads of the people, who gaze with eager upturned eyes. But soon, ah, too soon, the shouts of joy which had burst from the crowd, suddenly change to the silence of horror. The balloon bursts in the air; down, down it comes as fast as it rose, straight into a piece of water below! Like a huge sheet, the torn cloth lies on the tank, the unfortunate colonel beneath it!