CHAPTER XXVII.
BY THE ROADSIDE.
It is one of the worst days of the rainy season; not once had the sun appeared, only a continuous downpour of rain.

The well metalled road to Benares was a mass of slush.

But one traveller was to be seen, his dress was that of a _Brahmachari_ (an ascetic): yellow garments, a bead chaplet on his neck, the mark on the forehead, the bald crown surrounded by only a few white hairs, a palm leaf umbrella in one hand, in the other a brass drinking-vessel.

Thus the _Brahmachari_ travelled in the soaking rain through the dark day, followed by a night as black as though the earth were full of ink.

He could not distinguish between road and no road; nevertheless he continued his way, for he had renounced the world, he was a _Brahmachari_.