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Once the deep sonorous bugling note of a saurus, like the bass pipe of an organ, smote the stillness as the giant crane winged his way up the river that lay beyond, a mighty ribbon of silver in the moonlight. A jackal from the far side of the village, in the fields, raised a tremulous moan. Sookdee looked into the eyes of Hunsa and he understood.
Then when their voices had stilled Ajeet continued: "But Hunsa had ridden with the Pindari Chief and he knew that he was well guarded, and that it would be impossible to bring his head in a basket, so we refused to go on this mission. The Dewan was angry and would not give us food or pay.
Hunsa knew that this was no new thing; he had been engaged in many a decoity where men of authority had a share of the loot, and had effectually side-tracked investigation. In fact decoits always lived in the protection of some petty raja; they were an adjunct to the state, a source of revenue.
It was the tibao, the happiest augury of success, for it came over the right shoulder of the victim. Hunsa, feeling that the moment to strike had come, rose carelessly, saying: "Give me tobacco." That was a universal signal amongst thugs, the command to strike. Even as he uttered the words Hunsa had slipped behind the merchant and his towel was about the victim's neck.
"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."
When the yogi asked Hunsa about the ruby, the Akbar Lamp, Hunsa, who had determined to keep it himself, as, perhaps, a ransom for his life in that troublous time, declared that in the turmoil of the coming of the soldiers he had not found it. Indeed this seemed reasonable, for he, having fled down the road to the Gulab, had not been there when they had opened the box and looted it.
So then for the next few days Hunsa and Sookdee cautiously developed a spirit of desire for action amongst the decoits, and a feeling of resentment against Ajeet who was opposed to engaging in a punishable crime so far from their refuge.
As he came close Barlow saw Kassim in a group of officers, and Hunsa, a soldier on either side of him, was standing free and unshackled in front of the Commander. Save for the clanking of a bit, or the clang of a spear-haft against a stirrup, or the scuffle of a quick-turning horse's hoofs, a silence rested upon that vast throng.
The strong rank native liquor roused an enthusiasm for their approaching interview of the sacred one. Once Ajeet laid his hand upon the pitcher that Hunsa was holding to his coarse lips, and pressing it downward, admonished: "Hunsa, whilst Bhowanee does not prohibit, it is an offence to approach her except in devout silence."
Hunsa put the jewel back in his turban and commanded the two men, who stood waiting, "Make fast the bullocks to the cart quickly lest we be captured, because other soldiers are coming behind." The two Bagrees turned to where the slim pink-and-grey coated trotting bullocks were tethered by their short horns to a tree and leading them to the cart made fast the bamboo yoke across their necks.
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