"Keep awake, men!" cautioned Brown.
"Aye, aye, sir! All awake, sir!"
"Listen, now! And if he says one word except what I told him he
might say, tip me the wink at once "
Brown swung the Beluchi out in front of him where he could hear the
fakir better.
"I'll hang you, remember, after I've hanged him, if anything goes
wrong!"
"He is saying, sahib, exactly what you said."
"He'd better! Listen now! Listen carefully! Look out for tricks!"
The fakir paused a second from his high-pitched monologue, and a murmur
from the darkness answered him.
"Stand by to haul tight, you men!"
"All ready, sir!"
The rope tightened just a little--just sufficiently to keep the fakir
cognizant of its position. The fakir howled out a sort of singsong
dirge, which plainly had imperatives in every line of it. At each
short pause for breath he added something in an undertone that made
the Beluchi strain his ears.
"He says, sahib, that they understand. He says, `Now is the time!'
He says now he will order `Hookum hai!' He says, `Are you ready?'
He says, sahib,--he says it, sahib,--not I--he says, 'Thou art a
fool to stare thus! Thou and thy men are fools! Stare, instead,
as men who are bewitched!'"
"Try to look like boiled owls, to oblige his Highness, men!" said
Brown.
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