When he closed his office at last, and we came inside to sit with him, he loosed his tongue and would have told us everything he knew if King had not steered the flow of information between channels.
"Aye, _sahib_, and this Mahatma, they say, is a very holy fellow, who works miracles.

Sometimes he sits under a tree by the burning ghat, but at night he goes to the temple of the Tirthankers, where none dare follow him, although they sit in crowds outside to watch him enter and leave.

The common rumor is that at night he leaves his body lifeless in a crypt in that Tirthanker temple and flies to heaven, where he fortifies himself with fresh magic.

But I know where he goes by night.
There comes to me with boils a one-legged sweeper who cleans a black panther's cage.

The panther took his other leg.