those
hatefully clever sahibs who know enough to pretend they do not know!
The abuse and vile innuendo changed to more obsequious, less obviously
filthy references to other things than Cunningham's religion, likes,
and pedigree, and the little crowd of men who had tacitly encouraged him
before got ready now to stand at a distance and take sides against him
should the white man turn out to have understood.

But Cunningham happened to catch sight of a cloud of paroquets that
swept in a screaming ellipse for a better branch to nest in and added
the one touch of gorgeous color needed to make the whole scene utterly
unearthly and unlike anything he had ever dreamed of, or had seen in
pictures, or had had described to him. He stood at gaze--forgetful of
the stone that had attracted him and of the fakir--spellbound by the
wonder-blend of hues branch-backed, and framed in gloom as the birds'
scream was framed in silence.

And, seeing him at gaze, the fakir recovered confidence and jeered new
ribaldry, until some one suddenly shot out from behind Cunningham, and
before he had recovered from his surprise he saw the fakir sprawling on
his back, howling for mercy, while Mahommed Gunga beat the blood out of
him with a whalebone riding-whip.

The sun went down with Indian suddenness and shut off the scene
of upraised lash and squirming, naked, ash-smeared devil, as a
magic-lantern picture; disappears. Only the creature's screams
reverberated through the jungle, like a belated echo to the restless
paroquets.

"He will sleep less easily for a week or two!" hazarded Mahommed Gunga,
stepping back toward Cunningham. In the sudden darkness the white
breeches showed and the whites of his eyes, but little else; his voice
growled like a rumble from the underworld.

"Why did you do it, risaldar? What did he say?"

"It was enough, bahadur, that he sat on that stone; for that alone
he had been beaten! What he said was but the babbling of priests. All
priests are alike. They have a common jargon--a common disrespect for
what they dare not openly defy. These temple rats of fakirs mimic them.
That is all, sahib. A whipping meets the case."

"But the stone? Why shouldn't he sit on it?"

"Wait one minute, sahib, and then see." He formed his hands into a
trumpet and bellowed through them in a high-pitched, nasal, ululating
order to somebody behind:

"Oh-h-h--Battee-lao!"

The black, dark roadside echoed it and a dot of light leapt up as a