"But to my wife only I paid heed. 'Can this be?' I murmured, surprised and deeply moved.
"'She is our very own, our little girl.' And back into my arms she placed the child, whose tresses I straightway fell to fondling, as her sweet, trustful eyes looked up into mine, beaming with love as if she had indeed long before divined in her heart that I was her father and her natural protector.
"'And, oh, my dear lord,' continued my wife, her eyes brimming with tears, 'thou knowest now it was to save thee that, in the mysterious workings of fate, this little child was saved.'"
The Rajput paused in his story, bending his head to hide the emotion that caused his lips to tremble. "A month later," he went on, softly, "a little sister was born to Brenda, and only last year a third daughter came to our home. And all, as I have said, are well beloved."
The speaker's face was now upraised. The soldierly sternness had gone out of it: it shone only with paternal pride and love as he added:
"To-day Brenda, our first-born, is the light of my home, and a year hence she will be married to the Rajah of Jodhpur, to make the heart of that great and noble prince of the Rajputs happy for ever-more."
There was silence for a time, broken at last by the voice of the ash-besprinkled devotee:
"Allahu akbar! God is great! Over many things he gives his servants power."
"Every man's fate is fore-ordained," said the tax-collector, reflectively stroking his beard. "Although we may not understand it at the moment each particular event that happens is simply a means prepared for some destined end that may be many years remote in time. Vishnu the Preserver saved the life of the little maid of Jhalnagor so that her father's life might later on be saved. But none can read the future, so that we are all blindly doing the things of to-day without knowing their real bearing on the things of a far-away to-morrow. And one man can make or mar the happiness of another man, even though their lives be separated by hundreds of leagues in space or hundreds of years in time."
"In your mind doubtless is some tale to illustrate the truth of what you teach," remarked the astrologer, with a shrewd uplifting of his eyebrows. "The stars can help us to read the future, as I can prove to you by a story of actual experience. But before I proceed to my narrative, pray, friend, let us hear from you."