“Shoulder-umms!  Order-umms!  Dismiss!” The men filed back into the hut again, disconsolately, without swearing and without mirth.  They had put the sun to bed with proper military decency.  They would have seen humor—­perhaps—­or an excuse for blasphemy in the omission of such a detail, but it was much too hot to swear at the execution of it.

Besides, Brown was a strange individual who detested swearing, and it was a very useful thing, and wise, to humor him.  He had a way of his own, and usually got it.

Brown posted a sentry at the hut-door, and another at the crossroads which he was to guard, then went round behind the but to bargain with the goatskin-merchant.  But he stopped before he reached the tree.

“Boy!” he called, and a low-caste native servant came toward him at a run.

“Is that fakir there still?”

“Ha, sahib!”

“Ha?  Can’t you learn to say `yes,’ like a human being?”

“Yes, sahib!”

“All right.  I’m going to have a talk with him.  Kill the goat, and tell the Punjabi to wait, if he wants to buy the skin.”

“Ha, sahib!”

Brown spun round on his heel, and the servant wilted.

“Yes, sahib!” he corrected.

Brown left him then, with a nod that conveyed remission of cardinal sin, and a warning not to repeat the offence.  As the native ran off to get the butcher-knife and sharpen it, it was noticeable that he wore a chastened look.

“Send Sidiki after me!” Brown shouted after him, and a minute later a nearly naked Beluchi struck a match and emerged from the darkness, with the light of a lantern gleaming on his skin.  He followed like a snake, and only Brown’s sharp, authority-conveying footfalls could be heard as he trudged sturdily—­straight-backed, eyes straight in front of him—­to where an age-old baobab loomed like a phantom in the night.  He marched like a man in armor.  Not even the terrific heat of a Central-Indian night could take the stiffening out of him.

The Beluchi ran ahead, just before they reached the tree.  He stopped and held the lantern up to let its light fall on some object that was close against the tree-trunk.  At a good ten-pace distance from the object Brown stopped and stared.  The lamplight fell on two little dots that gleamed.  Brown stepped two paces nearer.  Two deadly, malicious human eyes blinked once, and then stared back at him.

“Does he never sleep?” asked Brown.

The Beluchi said something or other in a language that was full of harsh hard gutturals, and the owner of the eyes chuckled.  His voice seemed to be coming from the tree itself, and there was nothing of him visible except the cruel keen eyes that had not blinked once since Brown drew nearer.

“Well?”

“Sahib, he does not answer.”

“Tell him I’m tired of his not answering.  Tell him that if he can’t learn to give a civil answer to a civilly put question I’ll exercise my authority on him!”