e! "I
pursued after the bandy, and I saw it in the distance; but swiftly went
their bullocks, and I could not overtake it. At last they stopped to
rest, and I came to where they were. But they smiled at me and said:
'Did you ever hear of such a thing as you ask in foolishness? Is it the
custom to give up a child, once it is ours?'" Sometimes a new story is
invented on the spot. "Did you not know it was my sister's child; and I,
her only sister, having no child of my own, have adopted this one as my
own? Would you ask me to give up my own child, the apple of my eye?"
Oftener, however, the clue fails, and all Devai knows is that the little
one is nowhere to be found. Once she traced it straight to a Temple
house, won her way in, and pleaded with tears, offering all compensation
for expenses incurred (travelling and other) if only the Temple woman
would let her take the child. But no: "If it dies, that matters little;
but disgrace is not to be contemplated." When all else fails, we
earnestly ask that the little one in danger may be taken quickly out of
that polluted atmosphere up into purer air; and it is startling to note
how solemnly the answer to that prayer has come in very many instances.

The clue for which we are always on the watch is often like a fine silk
thread leading down into dark places where we cannot see it, can hardly
feel it; it is so thin a thread. Sometimes, when we thought we held it
securely, we have lost it in the dark.

Sometimes it seems as if the Evil One, whose interest in these little
ones may be greater than we know, lays a false clue across our path, and
bewilders us by causing us to spend time and strength in what appears to
be a wholly useless fashion. Once old Devai was lured far out of our own
district in search of two children who did not even exist. She had taken
all precautions to verify the information given, but a false address had
baffled her; and we can only conclude that, for some reason unknown to
us, but well known to those whom we oppose, they were permitted on that
occasion to gain an advantage over us. We made it a rule, after that
will-of-the-wisp experience, that any address out of our own district
must be verified; and that the nearest missionary thereto, or
responsible Indian Christian, must be approached, before further steps
are taken. This rule has saved many a fruitless journey; but also we
cannot help knowing it has sometimes occasioned delays which have had
sad res