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And then he launched out with a string of eloquence that Brown called on the Beluchi to translate. "Who said there would be thirst, and the sound of water! Is there a thirst? Who spoke of an anthill and of hungry ants and raw red openings in the flesh for the little ants to run in and out more easily?" The Beluchi translated faithfully, and the men all listened.
I am a clean man. I listened to his conversation. The Beluchi held him." "Oh! Well, I like you well enough, Juggut Khan, but there are things about you that I don't like. You're too fond of doing things on your own responsibility, and you're much too fond of using oaths. Y our soul is none o' my business; you're a heathen anyhow, and no longer in the Service.
The Beluchi translated, and the fakir answered him, in a voice that sounded hard and distant and emotionless. "He says that he, too, is here to watch the crossroads, sahib! He says that he will curse you if you touch him!" "Tell him to curse away!" "He says not unless you touch him, sahib." "Prog him off his perch!" commanded Brown.
His last words were cut off short by the sound of rifle-fire. Each rifle in turn barked out, and three rifles answered from the night. "Let that fakir feel a bayonet-point, somebody!" The fakir cursed between his teeth, in proof of prompt obedience by one of the men who held him. "Tell him to order his crowd to cease fire!" The Beluchi translated, and the fakir howled again.
We'll get two bullock-carts down there, and we'll stick him in one of them, with Sidiki the interpreter tied to him. Sidiki won't like it, but he's only a Beluchi anyway! You get in the other, and get all the sleep you can. You and I'll take turns sleeping all the way to Jailpore, so's to be fresh, both of us, and fit for anything by the time that we get there!" "I am ready, sahib."
Brown swung the Beluchi out in front of him where he could hear the fakir better. "I'll hang you, remember, after I've hanged him, if anything goes wrong!" "He is saying, sahib, exactly what you said." "He'd better! Listen now! Listen carefully! Look out for tricks!" The fakir paused a second from his high-pitched monologue, and a murmur from the darkness answered him.
But tell him this: He's got the best chance he ever had to perform a miracle, and have the whole of this province believe in him forevermore." Again the fakir's eyes took on a keener than usual glare, as he listened to the Beluchi. He did not nod, though, and he made no other sign, beyond the involuntary evidence of understanding that his eyes betrayed.
Here, as in El Matra, you find Banyans from India, Beluchi from the Mekran coast, negroes from Zanzibar, Bedouin, Persians from the Gulf, and the town itself is even less Arab than Aden.
Then, with the trembling Beluchi walking on ahead with the lantern, and Brown and the sentry urging from behind, the fakir jumped and squirmed and wabbled on his all but useless feet toward the guardroom. When they reached the tree where the goat had bleated, the Punjabi skin-buyer rose up, took one long look at the fakir and ran. "Well, I'll be!" exclaimed the sentry.
"He says," explained the Beluchi, after a moment's conversation with the fakir, "that he is here to see what the gods have prophesied. He says that India will presently be whelmed in blood!" "Whose blood?" "Yours and that of others. He says, did you not see the sunset?" "What of the sunset?"
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