The Jain prostrated himself in unavailing penitence before its flattened form, cast dust upon his shaven head, and vowed to accomplish various uncomfortable penances — but the spider would never spin a web again!
His congregation edged away from him with horror-stricken haste; of course similar mishaps had occurred to them all now and then, but for a priest to transgress twice in such close succession seemed to show that he was pursued by some evil destiny.
Ram Chunga, whose tenets did not go to quite such lengths, had been a spectator of the scene, which, as usual, he sought to adapt to his own ends.
“Are you still obdurate?” he said, “or do you recognise in this the hand of Siva?”
The Jains might have resisted the evidence of the fly, but, corroborated by the spider, it was irresisti
