316 IN THE VISION OF GOD
night the ravages of the cyclonic blasts and the officious
attentions of innumerable flies.
At daybreak he prosecuted his journey. The foot was
nearly healed. The old skin was dropping off and the new
skin was getting hardened. At midday he came to the
bank of a large tank surrounded by trees near a village
mostly peopled by Mahammeclans. He took his seat beneath
one of the huge trees. A little later he went about the
houses for bhiksha. Ho approached first a small thatched
house, where he saw the mother of the house at the front
door.
"Will you kindly feed your child with u roti, 0 mother?"
Ramdas begged in Hindi.
"0 sadhuji, I am a Muslim by religion while you are a
Hindu sadhu. How can you eat food at my hands?" she
asked.
"Ramdas knows no difference between a Hindu and a
Muslim. You are his mother and he knows only this
relation and nothing else," Ramdas answered.
She at once fetched from her house one roti on which
was some chutnee, made of green mahgocs* Ramdas,
sitting down in the open yard, ate the food and, drinking
some water from the hollow of his hands, went up to
another house in the neighourhood. Here also the same
story was repeated, because the house he visited happened
to be again of a Mussalman. When he told the mothers that
he had no objection to eat their food, they gladly served
him with a roti and some curry* He had his fill. Now he
started to leave the place. The sun was hot. Very -often he
had travelled in the heat of the midday sun without caving
for rest.
When he was pasding out of the village a brahman
spotted him, and taking him by the arm escorted him to
kis house and placed before him a full meaL He had no
appetite», but the br&hinan would not let him go without
accepting some bbikaha. So, he ha<i to eat another roti