With what a light, happy heart the convert retraced his steps to the town, with eleven rupees in his kamarband! With what special pleasure he wrapt himself in the blanket bordered with red, which he could now buy with an easy conscience! "This will always serve to remind me of the day when the performance of a simple duty led to such happy results!" thought the Christian. "It will often bring to my mind the command—'Owe no man anything but to love one another.'" It is not always that such results follow so simple an action, but there is truth in the proverb that "Honesty is the best policy." He who is known to be trustworthy is the one likely to be put into positions of trust. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. A LITTLE LAMP. ISA DÁS, as has been related, had been much despised and abused after becoming a Christian; and even after the first excitement after his baptism had passed away, when prevailing sickness made even enemies avail themselves of his medical skill, it was not forgotten that he was one who had broken caste. Hindus took his medicines as if they feared pollution, and if they gave in return cowries or pice, they dropped them into the Christian's hand, avoiding oven the touch of one whom they deemed unclean. But when the rumour spread through the town that Isa Dás was going to quit it, that he was now the confidential Munshi of a grand Government Sahib, in whose service he was sure to make heaps of rupees, a great change came over his neighbours. "Trust my word for it, Isa Dás will make his fortune at last!" cried the woman who had been the first to bring to him her almost expiring child. "This morning I saw him walk through the bazaar, looking like a fakir, with clothes that would hardly hold together. This evening he is wearing a good turban, and a blanket with a border of red, and looks like a sardar. We did not value him enough while we had him, and now he is going away!" "Hae! Hae!" sighed her neighbour, who had once been vociferous in abuse of the newly-made Christian. "Who will now come to us in our need? Who will ease our pain, and give back health to the sick, and watch by the dying? Alas! That Isa Dás should leave us!" Is it not written that "When a man's ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him"? (Prov. xvi. 7). Isa Dás had a good many farewell visits to pay, but his time for preparation was so short that he could only go to a few. Amongst these few was Gopal, the kahar. "We are never likely to meet again in this world; would that I had any sure hope of a meeting in the next!" said Isa Dás. "I have talked with that man, I have prayed for him, I have tried to lead him to Christ; but I sometimes fear that the seed of the Word has been with him like that sown by the wayside, which the birds of the air carried away."