Part 21 (1/2)
The priest took his place in front of the jamadars, sitting with his back to them, and placed upon the ground, first a white cloth of cotton, and then the velvet bag, upon which rested a silver pickaxe.
When Ajeet saw the pickaxe he said angrily: ”That is the emblem of thugs; we be decoits, not stranglers, Guru.”
”They are equal in honour with Bhowanee,” the Guru replied: ”they slay for profit, even as you do, and among you are those who are thugs, for I minister to both.”
Then the Guru buried his shrivelled skull in his thin hands and drooped forward in silent listening. Ajeet objected no more, and in the new silence they could hear the shrill rasping of cicadae in the foliage of a gigantic elephant-creeper, that, like a huge python, crawled its way from branch to branch, sprawling across a dozen stately trees. From somewhere beyond was a steady ”tonk! tonk! tonk!”--like the beat of wood against a hollow pipe--of the little green-plumaged coppersmith bird. A honey-badger came timorously creeping, his feet shuffling the fallen leaves, peered at the strange figures of the men, and, at the move of an arm, fled scurrying through the stillness with the noise of some great creature.
Suddenly the jungle was stilled, even from the voice of the rasping cicadae; the leaves had ceased to whisper, for the wind had hushed.
The devotees could hear the beating of their hearts in the strain of waiting for a manifestation from the dread G.o.ddess. The white-robed figure of the Guru was like a shrivelled statue of alabaster where the faint moon picked it out in blotches as the light filtered through leaves above.
Sookdee gasped in terror as just above them a tiny tree owl called, ”Whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo!” as if he jeered. But Ajeet knew that that, in their belief, was a sign of encouragement, meaning not overmuch, but not an evil omen. From far off floated up on the dead night air the belling note of a startled cheetal, and almost at once the harsh, grating, angry roar of a leopard, as though he had struck for the throat of the stag and missed. These were but jungle voices, not in the curriculum of their pantheistic belief, so the Guru and the Bagrees sat in silence, and no one spoke.
Then, the night carried the faint trembling moan of a jackal, as the Guru knew, a _female_ jackal, coming from a distance on the left.
”Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo! Aye-aye! yi-yi-yi-yi!” the jackal wailed, the note rising to a fiendish crescendo; and then suddenly it hushed and there was only a ghastly silence in the jungle depths.
The white-clothed, ghost-like priest sprang to his feet, and with his lean left arm stretched high in suppliance, said: ”Bhowanee, thou hast vouchsafed to thy devotees the _pilsao_. We will strew thy shrine with flowers and sweetmeats.”
He turned to the jamadars who had risen, saying, ”Bhowanee is pleased; the suspicies are favourable; had the call of the jackal been from the right it would have been the _tibao_ and we should have had to wait until the sweet G.o.ddess gave us another sign. Now we may go back, and perhaps she will confirm this omen as we go.”
Hunsa, always possessed of a mean disposition, and still sulky over the encounter with Ajeet, was in an evil mood as they trudged through the jungle to their camp. When Ajeet spoke of the priest's success in his appeal, he snarled: ”The hangman always advises the one who is to have his neck stretched that he is better off dead.”
”What do you mean by that?” Ajeet queried.
”Just that you are not going on this mission, Ajeet;” then he laughed disagreeably.
”If you are afraid to go Sookdee will be well without you,” Ajeet retorted.
Before more could be said in this way, and as they approached the camp, the lowing of a cow was heard.
”Dost hear that, Guru?” Hunsa queried. ”In a decoity is not the lowing of a cow in a village held to be an evil omen?”
”Not so, Hunsa,” the Priest declared. ”It is an evil omen if the decoity is to be made on the village in which the cow raises her voice, but we are going to our own camp in peace, and it is a voice of approval.”
”As to that,” Ajeet commented, ”if Hunsa is right, it is written in our code of omens that hearing a cow call thus simply means that one of the party making the decoity will be killed; perhaps as he was the one to notice it, the evil will fall upon him.”
”You'd like that,” Hunsa growled.
”Not being given to lies, it would not displease me, for, as the hangman said, you would be better dead.”
But they were now at their camp, and the jamadars, standing together for a little, settled it that the omens being favourable, and the wrath of the Dewan feared, they would take the way to the Pindari camp next day.
CHAPTER XIX
Dewan Sewlal had warned Hunsa and Sookdee against their natural proclivities for making a decoity while travelling to the Pindari camp, as the mission was more important than loot--an enterprise that might cause them to be killed or arrested. Indeed the Gulab had made this a condition of her going with them. She was practically put in command.
Both Nana Sahib and the Dewan were pleased over what they deemed her sensible acquiescence in the scheme. As has been said, the Dewan, recognising the debased ferocity of Hunsa, had promised him the torture when he returned if Bootea had any cause of complaint.
The decoit, believing that Bootea was designed for Nana Sahib's harem, knew that as one favoured in the Prince's eyes, he would surely be put to death if he offended her.