"
"I am truly sorry, I am truly sorry," the babu was murmuring at our
elbows.
"What does this mean?" we demanded of him.
He produced a thick book.
"It is in here--the law," he explained. "You must not flog men on the
station platform. It was my duty to report."
"How did we know that? Why didn't you tell us?"
"If you had gone there"--he pointed ten feet away to a spot exactly like
all other spots--"it would have been off the platform. Then I had
nothing to say."
We tried to become angry.
"But why in blazes couldn't you have told us of that quietly and
decently? We'd have moved."
"It is the law" He tapped his thick book.
"But we cannot be supposed to know by heart every law in that book. Why
didn't you warn us before reporting?" we insisted.
"I am truly sorry," he repeated. "I hope and trust it will not prove
serious. But it is in the book."
We continued in the same purposeless fashion for a moment or so longer.
Then the babu ended the discussion thus,--
"It was my duty. I am truly sorry. Suppose I had not reported and should
die to-day, and should go to heaven, and God should ask me, 'Have you
done your duty to-day?' what should I say to Him?"
We gave it up; we were up against Revealed Religion.
So that night we took a freight train southward to Voi, leaving the babu
and his prayer-bell, and his green battle-axe and his conscience alone
in the wilderness.
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