Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/78

58 operated upon, it was by the specialist. I had helped to secure protection for a child who had enemies, I was naturally therefore hated of these same. When back from her Estate, in the comparative civilization of my own little home, I got a much-thumbed message which had been thoughtfully left in my post-box.

“Twenty Priests learned in magic,” so it ran, “are sending a devil into you.” It was true. On the remote scene of thwarted vengeance, they were “making magic”—cursing a clay image made in my likeness, walking over every square inch of ground I had trod at the Palace, or in the Gardens, and—breathing curses.

My answer was a message, “To the Chief Priest among the twenty Priests most learned in magic, who sit in the Grove of Mangoes, at the Monkey Temple, in N. …, ‘keep the Devil, till I come.’”

This was treated as a ribald tempting of the demon, and a man was sent to sit at my gate and curse me so that the flesh should wither from my bones, and my house be desolate. … But my household and my dear yellow “Chow,” and my little gray mare, and my