A little company of pilgrims were trudging along the hot, dusty road. Where a large tree offered a resting place, there for a few minutes, squatting in the shade, the little company would stop while the mother, taking her naked baby from her hip, astride of which he had been carried during the journey, would let him stand beside her, and the father would take a fresh chew of pan, spitting out the red juice upon the roadside. But the young girl of the party would sit apparently unwearied, with bright, eager eyes fixed upon the road and with caressing fingers fondling the bracelets which adorned her arms.

It was an unusual thing for Shama Sahai to be clad in a gay sari, to have necklaces of beads about her neck, a glass-set stud in her nose, pretty, brass rings in her ears, bracelets upon her arms, metal circlets upon her fingers, large anklets upon her feet, and rings even on her toes. But most unusual was it for her to be leaving her village home of mud huts and with her parents-in-law and baby brother to be taking a journey; for from early childhood Shama Sahai had been but a despised and neglected widow in the home of her dead Hindu husband. She knew that they were going to some place afar off to worship the god Krishna and that some special blessing was coming to them for making this journey. She knew that her father and mother and she herself had worked hard in the fields that they might earn the money needed to pay the visit to the sacred city. She knew, too, that a large portion of this money had been spent upon her own adornment. So she felt very proud and very happy, but most of all very eager to reach the wonderful place to which they were going. Shama Sahai was young and strong, accustomed for many of her sixteen years to the heat of the noonday sun in the fields. To make greater haste she would offer to carry the baby and settling more comfortably the bundle which she carried upon her head, she would take the baby astride upon her hip and start off at an energetic pace.

For several days they journeyed thus, at night sleeping by the roadside, each wrapped in an extra covering which Shama carried in the bundle on her head during the day. Often they met other pilgrims, or sacred fakirs who, each with a pair of tongs in his hand, would be measuring their length along the road with naked, ash-smeared bodies, seeking by such self-torture to win rest for their souls. Sometimes they would meet ox-carts loaded with produce for the city market; at other times, bands of coolies carrying sugar-cane or bundles of fuel cakes upon their heads. It was all of interest to Shama Sahai, who, pulling her sari down over her face, would peep out between its folds and eagerly watch every passer-by. Sometimes, however, she would be frightened as a "chug-chug" would sound upon the air and a great motor car would whiz by and all she could see would be a cloud of dust whirling along before her.

On the long journey before they could reach Kamadabad Shama was afraid that her pretty finery would be spoilt, because her sari soon began to get wrinkled and one of the stones in her prettiest finger ring fell out. Therefore, every evening, when just at sundown they stopped in front of a little wayside temple, the names of whose gods she did not know, and lost an hour of travelling before dark while they put flowers upon the necks of the idols, poured a little oil upon their bodies, and lighted tiny lamps before them, she begrudged the time. She was not interested either in the terrible din, the beating upon gongs and the ringing of bells with which the Hindu priests awakened their gods for worship. Her thoughts were of Kamadabad and the wonders that awaited her there.

At last on a bright morning they reached the city with its narrow, black streets lined with dirty-white, plastered houses and tiny shops. As the streets were full of people crowding this way and that, Shama Sahai kept as close to her parents as she could. At once the little company hurried to the great temple which was by far the most wonderful building that Shama had ever seen. It was enclosed by high walls and above the gate was a tower tapering upward many stories, on each story of which stood figures of gods, many of whom the girl knew and feared, but others whom she had never seen before. Passing under this tower they entered a court and from there went under another tower to another court and on until, entering a covered building in the centre, they found the god, a great black figure, reeking with oil and garlanded with flowers. All around were young girls, no older than Shama herself, who, with faces shamelessly uncovered, stood there alone, without their parents. Priests, almost naked, were going through ceremonies before the idol. So dark and weird did it all seem and so many strange looking people were passing back and forth that Shama Sahai was half frightened.

After the little company had presented its offerings to the gods and the father had spoken aside to a big fat priest who kept looking at Shama Sahai, the mother announced that they must bathe in the sacred pool. So they returned to the outer court of the temple where was a tank about two hundred feet square containing foul and slimy, but none the less exceedingly sacred, water. Into this tank they stepped and with prayers and the reciting of charms bathed with the throng of worshippers. Carefully they washed out their mouths with the filthy water and then drank of it. During all this time the fat priest kept close to them and it seemed to Shama that his eyes were always upon her. His were not attractive eyes nor was his face pleasing and the girl was thoroughly frightened when, after the cleansing ceremony, he bade them good-bye with a caressing hand upon her shoulder while a bestial smile distorted his face.

That night Shama Sahai was not happy although she had reached the place where she had so longed to be. The memory of the priest's face haunted her and she could not keep from thinking of those girls in the temple. Towards morning her mother was taken ill. And the groans of the woman kept her awake. She stole out upon the door-step, but the sounds of the city were so strange that, little country girl that she was, she drew back and preferred to lie down again beside her moaning mother.

The mother was no better in the morning. Then the man of whom they rented the lodging suggested that Shama Sahai should go up to the house of a white memsahib who could make people well and ask for help. The memsahib could do wonderful things, the man said, and without doubt would cure the sick woman. Although very timid, Shama could not refuse to go for her mother's sake. So, taking her baby brother on her hip and guided by the landlord's child, she took her way along the narrow streets until she came to a high brick wall with a large open gateway. Within she saw a number of people standing before a long, low building. The boy, her guide, having pointed to that building and by so doing having done his whole duty, set himself to the pleasant task of chasing some chickens which were running at large in the compound. Shama Sahai had to approach the building alone. As she came nearer the little knot of people, she noticed that every one of them looked ill and almost every one carried a little bottle in his hand. Through the open door of the building she could see a white memsahib in a blue striped dress, sitting at a little table, writing slips of paper and handing them out to the sick people. Occasionally the lady would touch one of the patients and he would run out his tongue. It was all very queer but interesting to Shama and even the baby watched quietly. When Shama's turn came to enter, she was so embarrassed that she could hardly speak, but, encouraged by the memsahib's speaking kindly to her in her own tongue, she finally stammered out a brief but none too lucid account of her mother's illness. But the lady seemed to understand. After writing in a book and speaking to a native woman who stood behind a sort of table near by, with more kind words she put a small bottle of medicine into the girl's hands. Assured that her mother would soon be well and with orders to come the next day and report the condition of the patient, Shama Sahai went home very much pleased.

But the mother did not get well at once and for several days the girl paid a daily visit to the dispensary, each time losing a little of her timidity and each time being more attracted by the white lady who was so kind to her and called her by name and who, one day when there had been but a few patients and Shama Sahai had lingered behind, had told her beautiful stories about a new god that was not an ugly black image.

However, after a while the mother did get so much better that she could go to the temple again and Shama Sahai's visits to the dispensary ceased. She hoped that they would soon go home. By this time so frightened had the girl become in the great city that she was almost as anxious to leave Kamadabad as she had been to reach there.

One night as she lay, apparently asleep, in her corner of the room near the outside door, she heard her father and mother talking as they came up on the door-step. She opened her eyes and listened.

"We'll go home to-morrow. I made final arrangements with the priest to-day. My, but he's a hard one to drive a bargain with! We will settle the money part in the morning so that we can get a good start before night," said her father.

Shama Sahai gave a sigh of relief at the prospects of an early start for home and was about to close her eyes so that she might sleep and be rested for the journey, when she heard her mother say: "Where are we to leave her?"

"The priest said to take her to the inner court of the red temple with the offerings. He will perform the necessary ceremonies in a short time and we can leave her there," answered the man. "I wanted it done to-day so that we could get off on the road in the cool of the morning, but he would not have it so."

"Have you bought our food yet? We won't need so much rice without Shama, you know," said the mother.

"I haven't forgotten that when that's just what we are getting rid of her for, you may be sure. Yes, I bought it this afternoon. We'll miss the girl in carrying the load, I suppose, but you can carry it and the baby too just as well as not. How much better it is to get rid of a widow in this way and have one less to feed than to have the cursed creature always around in the way. We'll not go hungry now. A good business we've done here at Kamadabad, old woman, although you did waste a lot of time and money by being sick, for of course we had to pay extra for the longer stay. That old rupee-snatcher of a landlord wouldn't give in an anna because you had been sick. He said that he really ought to have charged more, for when people are sick they lie down longer and so wear out his floor more quickly. You were a fine one, you were, to get sick!" the man snarled.

"Yes, but you wouldn't have been here at all or have thought of bringing the girl, if I hadn't suggested it," snapped the old woman in her turn.

Shama Sahai lay perfectly quiet as the couple, still mumbling unkind remarks at each other, came in and lay down on the floor. She scarcely breathed for fear that they should find out that she was awake. But when she knew that they were asleep, she crept out-of-doors and darting around a corner sank down upon some steps. She knew from what she had overheard that her parents-in-law were planning to go home in the morning without her and that the priest was to have her. As she remembered the evil, swollen face of the man who had watched her that first day at the temple, she shuddered and, drawing her sari more closely about her, crept farther back into the doorway.

Only one thought would come—she must run away where the priest could not get her and she must go at once. Peeping out from the doorway, she looked up and down the street. No one was astir; only a quiet form here and there on the little porches could be seen in the dim light of the street lamps. She would go to the white memsahib. The memsahib and the new god would surely save her.

Like a spirit the girl took her flight through the streets, the lightness of her footfall awaking not the most restless of the sleepers.

When she reached the familiar compound, she did not hesitate, but, running up to the veranda, shook the sleeping chokidar.

"Where is the memsahib? Quick, tell me, quick!"

The watchman, ashamed at having been caught asleep and thinking it nothing strange that a girl should call the doctor in the night, hastened to show Shama Sahai the stairs leading to the roof of the bungalow.

"You'll find her up there. She always sleeps on the roof in the hot weather."

The girl was soon beside the doctor's cot and with frightened sobs was telling her story. "I've come to you and you must save me," were her final words.

Events happen quickly sometimes, especially when an energetic woman is helping them along. As the earliest morning train pulled out from Kamadabad for Mattera, a native Christian woman with a Hindu girl, disguised in the slightly different garb of a Christian, was on board, and the white doctor-memsahib was taking her chota hazri with fear in her heart.

What would be the fate of the poor young girl who had fled to her for refuge? That was the question which was troubling the doctor that morning. Although she was used to witnessing crises in people's lives with real, professional calm, this morning her outward calmness was assumed, for this was a case which her degree of M. D. had, perhaps, not qualified her to handle.

Throughout the long day the doctor waited expecting searchers for the girl, but no one came to make any inquiries of her. As she was leaving her compound gate towards evening for her daily exercise, she met a man and a woman, the latter carrying on her hip a baby whom the doctor recognized. The man was saying in Hindustani to the woman:

"The priest stole her. I know he stole her! Well, it's much the same after all, I suppose, for we're rid of her anyway. Of course he pretended he had not seen her and was angry because I had not brought her. Well, well; it's hard to deal with the priests."

"Whoever has her, may bad luck go with her!" exclaimed the woman.

But the woman's malediction did not bring fear to the doctor who, stopping short in her walk, could scarcely restrain a shout of joy. For this man and woman were Shama Sahai's parents-in-law going home without her, believing that the priest had stolen the girl. Instead of going on to the river for her usual evening constitutional, the doctor-memsahib hastened to the station where she caught the last afternoon train for Mattera that she might tell Shama Sahai that she was safe.