The Khwaja Sahib’s body was bathed. The bier was placed in the courtyard of the mosque for the last prayer. Then it was taken out in procession round Ghiaspur. Qawwals sang as they went along. The party closest to the bier sang one which began with the following words:

People crave to see thy face

Why hast thou turned thy back on the world?

Whither art thou bound, O Fair One

Beloved of God! Whom hast thou gone to meet?

Someone shouted that the Khwaja Sahib had put his hand out of the shroud. The bier was placed on the ground and the mob surged towards it. It took a while to restore order. The pall-bearers insisted that they had heard the Khwaja Sahib’s voice replying to the questions in the song. Hazrat Roshan Chiragh cupped his mouth and spoke loudly into the ears of the Khwaja Sahib. ‘Beloved of God! Does thy dervish have to remind thee that speaking after death is against the ordinance of Allah? Go in peace to thy tryst.’ He put the Khwaja Sahib’s hand back into the shroud and the procession proceeded on its way.

The Khwaja Sahib’s sainted dust was interred in the centre of the mosque courtyard. Some people placed oil-lamps on the grave; others lit joss-sticks in the fresh earth. People put their ears to the grave to catch sounds that might come out of it.

Khusrau has returned from Lakhnauti. A huge mob has collected to see how he will conduct himself and whether the Khwaja Sahib will rise from his grave to embrace him. Khusrau has come to the hospice wailing and beating his breast like a woman who has lost her husband. Hazrat Roshan Chiragh holds him in a tight embrace. After he has wept his heart out the dervish tells him that the Khwaja Sahib had forbidden him from going to the graveside. Khusrau stops by a kewra bush a few yards away from the grave and fixes his eyes on the spot where his departed friend sleeps. Tears run down his eyes into his beard; he sobs like a child crying for its mother. In a wailing voice he recites:

On her couch sleeps my fair one

Her black hair is scattered over her face.

O Khusrau! ‘tis time thou too the homeward path did tread,

The shades of twilight over the earth are spread.

Khusrau shaved his head just as Hindus do on the death of their parents. He gave away his property. He began to wear a coarse cloak of black wool prescribed for the Sufis. As he had prophesied for himself, a few weeks later he took the homeward path. We buried him beside the kewra bush.

I come to the last chapter of the book of my life. I hasten to write these lines before my right eye, which has also developed cataract, loses its light and I am no longer able to put pen to paper.