rils of the baobab, investigated with his
bayonet-point, and managed to transfix a twelve-foot python. After that
there was, not so much desire for sleep. The fakir either slept with his
eyes open or else dispensed with sleep. No one seemed able to determine
which.

When the day grew hotter, and the utterly remorseless Indian sun
bore down on them, and on the aching desolation of the plain and the
burnt-out guardhouse, the fakir still sat unblinking, gazing straight
out in front of him, with eyes that hated but did nothing else. He
seemed to have no time nor thought nor care for anything but hate and
the expression of it.

At noon, three little children came to him, and brought him water in a
small brass bowl, and cooked-up vegetables wrapped in some kind of leaf.
Brown let him have theirs, and bribed the frightened children to go and
bring water for the men and himself. He gave them the unheard-of wealth
of one rupee between them, and they went off with it--and did not come
back.

Meanwhile the fakir had drunk his water, and had poured out what was
left. He had also eaten what the children had brought him, and suddenly,
from vacant, implacable hatred, he woke up and began to be amused.

"Ha-ha!" he laughed at them. "Ho-ho!" 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.

"Tell him to hold his tongue!" growled Brown at last.

"Ha-ha! Ho-ho-ho!" laughed the fakir. "The heat grows great, and the
tongues grow dry, and none bring water! Ho-ho! But I told them that I
needed these for a deadlier death than any they devised! Ho-ho-ho-ho!
Look at the little crows, how they wait in the branches! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
See how the kites come! Where are the vultures? Wait! What speck sails
in the sky there? Even the vultures come! Ho-ho-ho-ho!"

"I hear a horse, sir!" said one of the men who watched.

"I heard it more than a minute ago," said Brown.

The fakir stopped his mockery, and even he listened.

"Ask him," said Brown, "where are the men who set fire to the
guardroom?"

"He says they are in the village, waiting till he sends for them!" said
the Beluchi.

"Keep an eye lifting, you men," ordered Brown. "T