They had been walking through a forest a long time, and it was very quiet.
What a dreadful, empty place, said Bhai Mardana Ji. There is not one living soul here.
An empty place is not empty if somebody there is remembering the Lord, said Guru Nanak Dev Ji. And a town full of people is dreadful if nobody in it is. Wherever one person has sat down and sung, that ground is lucky ever after.
Then the forest ended, and there were a few fields, and a village.
It was a village of robbers. Nearly everybody in it did the same work: they stopped travellers on the road, took what they had, and made sure nobody ever heard about it afterwards.
We will stay the night here, said Guru Ji cheerfully.
Bhai Mardana Ji said nothing at all.
They had hardly reached the first house when the man of the house came out beaming. Come in, he said. The house is yours. Eat, rest, sleep, and go on in the morning.
Guru Ji sat down smiling. Bhai Mardana Ji sat down too, but not smiling.
And then the whole village fell asleep.
Every one of them. The man of the house, who had meant to go through his guests' clothes, and the neighbours who were to help him, so deeply that not one woke until the sun was well over the fields.
By which time Guru Ji had listened to a song, slept, risen, bathed at the well, and walked out of the village with Bhai Mardana Ji beside him.
How did they sleep like that, asked Bhai Mardana Ji, once the houses were behind them.
That is the sleep the Lord sends, said Guru Ji, and it settles over people who mean harm. He gives waking to those who are longing for Him. And He gives them sweet sleep too.
But the robbers woke up eventually, and quarrelled, and then went looking, and a group of the strongest of them ran and caught up with the two travellers on the road.
Stop, they shouted. Where do you think you are going.
Guru Ji turned round and stopped.
Bhai Mardana Ji looked at the men coming and said quickly: they are robbers. We have nothing. There is only the rabab, and that is no use to them, and if they want it they can have it, and perhaps these wasps will fly away.
And Guru Ji smiled and said: watch, Bhai Mardana Ji. We shall see whether they rob us, or whether they are the ones who lose something. Whoever sent these men is on His way here too.
The robbers came up shouting. But the closer they got, the less shouting there was, and by the time they were standing in front of him they had no strength left in them at all. They spread out into a ring and stood there.
And Guru Ji said, quite pleasantly: who are you.
We kill first, said one of them, and take afterwards. That is our sort. You slept in our village and slipped away at dawn. So now we shall kill you and take what you have.
Very well, said Guru Ji. Kill us, by all means. But do one thing for me afterwards. Do not just leave us lying here. There is plenty of wood in this forest. Burn our bodies properly. It is better for you that way. There will be nothing left to find.
The circle went quiet.
Who is going to do all that work, said one.
But another man had gone pale. In all these years, he said, nobody has ever said that to us. Everybody begs. Everybody fights. Every single person we have ever stopped has been trying not to die. This one is asking us gladly. I want to hear what he says next.
So they sent men to fetch fire.
What those men saw on their errand they could never afterwards explain, and it turned them round and sent them running back down the road to fall at Guru Ji's feet.
And by the end of that morning the whole band of them was asking him to come back to the village and stay a while, and teach them how to live differently.
Goodnight. They set out that morning to rob two travellers, and it was the robbers who came away with something.