Sheosahai made reply: “My son, I was at the _mela_ (fair) yesterday, and there was a man preaching;[48] and I stood to listen, and his words have troubled my soul. He said that thousands of years ago the mighty God came down upon a mountain in fire and smoke, and that from the midst of the fire and smoke a terrible voice gave this command,—_Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them._ I would fain have cast dust at the speaker; and yet his words clung to my soul, for he spake as one who knows that he speaks the truth.”