The roof of the guardhouse was blazing fiercely,
and now they had fired the other roofs. The fakir, the tree and the
little bunch of men who held him prisoner were as plainly visible
as though it had been daytime. A bullet pinged past Brown's ear,
and buried itself in the tree-trunk with a thud.
"Let him feel that bayonet again!" said Brown.
A rifleman obeyed, and the fakir howled aloud. An answering howl
from somewhere beyond the dancing shadows told that the fakir had
been understood.
"And now," said Brown, paraphrasing the well-remembered wording of
the drill-book, in another effort to get his men to laughing again,
"when hanging a fakir by numbers--at the word one, place the noose
smartly round the fakir's neck. At the word two, the right-hand
man takes the bight of the rope in the hollow of his left hand, and
climbs the tree, waiting on the first branch suitable for the last
sound of the word three. At the last sound of the word three, he
slips the rope smartly over the bough of the tree and descends smartly
to the ground, landing on the balls of his feet and coming to attention.
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