, to be shunned for
all time by his fellow men.

"And there and then I made up my mind to flee secretly to another
country, sending later for my surviving wife and children, abandoning
all my other possessions in the shape of land and cattle and accumulated
stores, but clinging to the blue diamonds which would yet bring me
riches out of all proportion to those of which fate was robbing me at
the present time.

"For the third and final warning had passed, although no one but myself
had thought of my wife's death otherwise than as a case of
grief-demented suicide.

"But, as she had lain on her bier, I had looked secretly, and had found
the brand of the bull on her shoulder blade, just as she had found it on
that of her murdered boy. Allah alone knows how this last crime was
wrought--how access to the women's quarters had been gained, and how the
fatal seal of Siva had been impressed upon her flesh before she had been
flung into the well.

"To me has this ever remained a mystery of mysteries.

"So the three warnings had been delivered--the burning of my crops, the
slaying of my child, the drowning of my wife. Unless by the morrow I
made signs of submission by taking the road to Ferishtapur, there to
surrender the Ganapati, it would assuredly be upon myself that the sword
of fate would next descend.

"That very night of the funeral, after securely barricading the outer
gates of the house, I locked myself in the treasure chamber. Not a
servant had remained in the home upon which the curse of God had
descended; even the two women slaves had fled in the dusk of the
evening, gone, I knew not whither, and now I little cared. My surviving
wife and children, tiny infants, a girl and a boy, were asleep in an
inner room; I had glanced at their slumbering forms when passing to the
corridor that led to the secret doorway.

"I lost no time in beginning my preparations for departure. First of all
I unlocked my strong box, and drew therefrom a small sack of gold
mohurs, and another of gold pagodas, also sundry family jewels, armlets
and necklets of gold, gemmed rings, and other trinkets of price. All
these I tied tightly in a cotton cloth, forming a package that I could
conveniently and without undue attention carry at my saddle-bow or in my
hand. The bags of silver money, likewise the store of silver bangles, I
would leave behind; they were cumbersome, and moreover they would serve
to meet the necessities of my wife and childre