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When Kali was only a few yards off, Piang screamed: "Boia! boia!" It was a race with death, and what a miserable death for Piang, their idol! The boy grew cold and sick as he waited. Suddenly the raft paused, held in check by Kali's pole. Piang almost fainted. What was his chief doing? In a moment he realized that the quick action had saved his life.

"May one ask what is Mai Kali's special taste in sacrifices?" The Sikh gave him an odd look. "The blood of white goats meaning Sahibs, Hazúr." Roy's 'click' was Oriental to a nicety. "'A white goat for Kali' is an old Bengali catchword. Hark how their tongues wag.

"Him big chief! Him Kali Pandapatan," hastily corrected Piang. "Excuse me, sor; no hard feelings, I hope. Had a rough trip over, I hear; how did you leave the missus?" When the remark had been interpreted, a murmur rippled through Kali's ranks, and hands flew to hips. No Moro permits his women to be spoken of. "What's all the fuss, kid?" asked the sergeant, innocently.

Even in populated India a man cannot a day sit still before the wild things run over him as though he were a rock; and in that wilderness very soon the wild things, who knew Kali's Shrine well, came back to look at the intruder.

Just as Kali was preparing to retreat, driven back by the fierce storm of arrows, he gave the signal that had been agreed upon. Three loud calls in imitation of the mina-bird went wailing through the night. What was Kali's surprise to hear the answer a few yards in front of him! And what was that dark shape bobbing up and down on the boom?

The raft swerved, bumped against the crocodile, and came between it and Piang. The next moment Piang was in Kali's arms. In the light of the gray dawn, Sicto watched these two as they gazed into each other's eyes; they swept triumphantly by, heedless of flying arrows. The radiant fire-tree blooms still clustered around Piang's head, and his sacred charm gleamed in the early light.

But no doubt he has been hanging round Amber, making what mischief he can. He must have heard your party was coming, and got sneaking round for a chance to score off you. Young Ramanund, priest of Kali's shrine, is one of those he has made his tool, the way he made me. If he is in Amber, I shall find him. You can take your oath on that."

Possibly human victims were immolated in his honour, as they were in Kâlî's until recently, for in the Mahabharata it is related how Kṛishṇa expostulated with Jarâsandha who proposed to offer to Śiva a sacrifice of captive kings. In the Vishṇu-Purâṇa, Kṛishṇa fights with Śiva and burns Benares. But by the time that the Mahabharata was put together these quarrels were not in an acute stage.

A knowing smile flitted across Kali's face as he caught the irrelevant reply: "Papita is she safe?" There had been a great drought. Plague was sure to follow such weather, and the Moros were already dying of starvation. "Rice, rice!" was the cry, but everywhere the crop had failed, and the natives were desperate.

Through three good months the valley was wrapped in cloud and soaking mist steady, unrelenting downfall, breaking off into thunder-shower after thunder-shower. Kali's Shrine stood above the clouds, for the most part, and there was a whole month in which the Bhagat never caught a glimpse of his village.