The Stone Was
Round, Flattish, With Rather An Uneven Surface.
When laid on the
ground it shook at the least touch.
"Now, you see that this pedestal is far from being steady. And
also you have seen that, under the weight of the fakir, it is as
immovable as if it were planted in the ground."
When the fakir was put back on the stone, he and it at once resumed
their appearance, as of one single body, solidly joined to the ground,
and not a line of the fakir's body had changed. By all appearance,
his bending body and his head thrown backward sought to bring him
down; but for this fakir there was evidently no such thing as the
law of gravity.
What I have described is a fact, but I do not take upon myself to
explain it. At the gates of the pagoda we found our shoes, which
we had been told to take off before going in. We put them on again,
and left this "holy of holies" of the secular mysteries, with our
minds still more perplexed than before. In the Fakirs' Avenue we
found Narayan, Mulji and the Babu, who were waiting for us. The
chief Brahman would not hear of their entering the pagoda. All
the three had long before released themselves from the iron claws
of caste; they openly ate and drank with us, and for this offence
they were regarded as excommunicated, and despised by their
compatriots much more than the Europeans themselves.
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