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"Ask him, you! Ask him how he came here." The Beluchi found his tongue, and stammered out a question. The fakir chuckled, and following his chuckle let a guttural remark escape him. "He says, sahib, that he flew!" "Ask him, could he fly with nine fixed bayonets in him!" There was a little laughter from the men at that sally.
The fakir waited, and a minute later a hundred howls were raised again, this time from an even greater distance. Then he spoke. "He says that they are gone," translated the Beluchi. "He says he will go back to his dais again." "'Tshun!" ordered Brown. "Now, men, just because we've saved our skins so far is no reason why we should neglect precautions.
But the Rajput smiled as he said it, and thought of a certain lance-shaft which had been broken in the streets of Jailpore. "Lead on! Fall in behind me, men! Walk quietly, now, and remember. Hold your tongues! Each man keep his eye on me, and a finger on the trigger!" The Beluchi and the fakir and Juggut Khan moved in the van, with two men to hold the fakir.
He wanted the audience, whom he could not see, but who he knew were all around him in the shadows, to get a full view of what was happening. They might not have seen so clearly, had he allowed one-half of the men to be lookers-on. "Steady!" he repeated. "Be sure and let him breathe, until I give the word." Then he seized the cowering Beluchi by the neck, and dragged him up close beside the fakir.
Most of these are Beluchi from the Mekran coast, and Africans from the neighbourhood of Zanzibar. The general appearance of these villages is highly picturesque, but squalid.
It was the Beluchi who saw it first the one who was most afraid of things in general and the least afraid of Sergeant Brown. A little flame had started in the thatch. "Halt!" ordered Brown. "Two of you hold the fakir! The remainder volley-firing kneeling point-blank-range. Ready as you were independent firing ready! Now, wait till you see 'em in the firelight, then blaze away all you like!"
The Beluchi made haste to translate, trembling as he spoke, and wilting visibly when the baleful eyes of the fakir rested on him for a second. The fakir answered something in a guttural undertone. "What does he say?" "That he will curse you, sahib!" "Sentry!" shouted Brown. "Sir!" came the ready answer, and the sling-swivels of a rifle clicked as the man on guard at the crossroads shouldered it.
Brown moved the lamp, and its beams fell on a rifleman who stood close beside him at attention like a jinnee formed suddenly from empty blackness. "Arrest this fakir. Cram him in the clink." "Very good, sir!" The sentry took one step forward, with his fixed bayonet at the "charge," and the fakir sat still and eyed him. "Oh, have a care, sahib!" wailed the Beluchi. "This is very holy man!"
I'll assume, then, until I'm contradicted, that you're all brave men. Into the guardroom with you!" "Sahib! Sahib!" said a voice beside him. "Well? What?" It was the Beluchi interpreter who had carried the lamp for him that evening when he arrested the fakir. "Run, sahib! It is time to run away!" "Go on, then! Why don't you run?" "I am afraid, sahib." "Of what?" "Of the men who slew the soldiers.
Brown stepped up closer yet, and peered into the blackness, looking straight into the eyes that glared at him, and from them down at the body of the owner of them. The Beluchi shrank away. "Have a care, sahib! It is dangerous! This very holy most holy most religious man!" "Bring that lantern back." "He will curse you, sahib!" "Do you hear me?" The Beluchi came nearer again, trembling with fright.
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