One of the spectators, near whom I was standing, saw me start. In a
whisper, he explained to me the apparition of the three figures on the
platform of rock.
They were Brahmins (he said) who had forfeited their caste in the
service of the god. The god had commanded that their purification should
be the purification by pilgrimage. On that night, the three men were to
part. In three separate directions, they were to set forth as pilgrims
to the shrines of India. Never more were they to look on each other's
faces. Never more were they to rest on their wanderings, from the day
which witnessed their separation, to the day which witnessed their
death.
As those words were whispered to me, the plaintive music ceased. The
three men prostrated themselves on the rock, before the curtain which
hid the shrine. They rose--they looked on one another--they embraced.
Then they descended separately among the people. The people made way
for them in dead silence. In three different directions I saw the crowd
part, at one and the same moment. Slowly the grand white mass of the
people closed together again. The track of the doomed men through the
ranks of their fellow mortals was obliterated.
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