"Who are you? What ails you?" he asked. The distraught mother,unconscious of the flight of time, thinking him the heartless dacoitreturned to kill her boy, fell at his feet in an agony of supplication:"Spare my son. Take my life instead."

"I am a chowkidar (watchman). What is up?" But so dulled were herears with fear and grief that he was twice obliged to repeat hiswords. When the joyful intelligence reached her mind she burst intotears. "0! save my son." Then the consciousness that the dangerwas past reminded her of her own plight, and she sobbed: "Give mesomething to wear."