By the time the brother had got with his god
to Adhartal, three miles from Jubbulpore, on the road to Benares, he
heard of the death of his nephew; but he seemed not to feel this
slight blow in his terror of the dreadful but undefined calamity
which he felt to be impending over him and the whole family, and he
trotted on his road. Soon after, an infant son of their uncle died of
the same disease; and the whole town became at once divided into two
parties--those who held that the children had been killed by Devi as
a punishment for Ram Kishan's presuming to leave Jubbulpore before
they recovered; and those who held that they were killed by the god
Vishnu himself, for having been so rudely deprived of one of his
arms. Khushhal Chand's wife sickened on the road, and died on
reaching Mirzapore, of fever; and, as Devi was supposed to have
nothing to do with fevers, this event greatly augmented the advocates
of Vishnu. It is a rule with the Hindoos to bury, and not to burn,
the bodies of those who die of the small-pox; 'for', say they, 'the
small-pox is not only caused by the goddess Devi, but is, in fact,
_Devi herself_', and to burn the body of the person affected with
this disease is, in reality, neither more nor less than _to burn the
goddess_'.
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