“Take the yogi, Hunsa,” Ajeet said, “and the men that have the fire-powder and throw it upon the thatched roof of a hut in the way of a visitation from the gods, because this ape will not leave us in peace for our mission until he is subdued.”

In obedience as Hunsa and the yogi moved toward the village, the patil cried.  “Where go you?”

“We go with a message from the gods to you who offer insult to a holy one.”

The villagers armed with sticks, retreated slowly before the yogi, dreading to offer harm to the sainted one.  Muttering his curses, his iron tongs clanking at every step, the yogi strode to the first mud-wall huts, and there raising his voice cried aloud:  “Maha Kalil consume the houses of these men of an evil heart who would deny the offering to Thee.”

Then at a wave of his skeleton arm the two men threw upon the thatched roof of a hut a grey preparation of gunpowder which was but a pyrotechnical trick, and immediately the thatch burst into flames.

“There, accursed ones—­unbelievers!  Kali has spoken!” the yogi declared solemnly, and turning on his heels went back to the camp.

The headman and his men, with howls of dismay, rushed back to stop the conflagration.  And just then the jewel merchant arrived in his cart.  The curtains of the canopy were thrown back and the fat Hindu sat blinking his owl eyes in consternation.  At sight of Ajeet he descended, salaamed, and asked: 

“Has there been a decoity in the village—­is it war and bloodshed?”

Ajeet assumed the haughty condescending manner of a Rajput prince, and explained, with a fair scope of imagination that the patil was a man of ungovernable temper who gave protection to thieves and outlaws, that the village itself was a nest for them.  That two of his servants, having gone into the village to purchase food, had been set upon, beaten and robbed; that the conflagration had been caused by the fire from a gun that one of the debased villagers had poked through a hole in the roof to shoot his servants.

“As my name is Ragganath, it is a visitation upon these scoundrels,” the merchant declared.

“It is indeed, Sethjee.”

Ajeet had diplomatically used the “Sethjee,” which was a friendly rendering of the name “Seth,” meaning “a merchant,” and the wily Hindu, not to be outdone in courtesy, promoted Ajeet.

“Such an outrage, Maharaja, on the part of these low-caste people in the presence of the sainted one, and the pilgrims upon such a sacred mission to Mother Gunga, has brought upon them the wrath of the gods.  May the village be destroyed; and the patil when he dies come back to earth a snake, to crawl upon his belly.”

“The headman even refused to give the holy one the gift of silver—­tendering instead threats,” Ajeet added.

The merchant spat his contempt:  “Wretches!” he declared; “debased associates of skinners of dead animals, and scrapers of skulls; Bah!” and he spat again.  “And to think but for the Presence having arrived here first I most assuredly would have gone into the village, and perhaps have been slain for my—­”