Page:Oriental Stories v01 n01 (1930-10).djvu/115

 one. Flecks of foam dripped from his lips onto his heaving chest.

"Have done, beggar," the older sahib admonished Janki at last. "Pick up your rupees and begone?"

Janki swung about and glared at him; his curses stuck in his throat. He drew a deep breath.

"Beggar!" he snorted. "You dare to call me beggar—to think that a few miserable annas can right the wrong the accursed foreign devil"

The sahib raised his riding-crop in a threatening manner.

"Peace, you!" he shouted.

His companion placed a restraining hand on his arm. The older man shook it impatiently aside as Janki darted between them, face contorted, a shaking accusing finger pointed at the choleric white.

"You, too!" he shouted. "You, too, I curse! Hear me, gods! Smite this impious one. Lay his proud form in agony before me. Teach him the folly of insulting your resistless might! As for chat other, I call upon the wild beasts of the jungle to tear the life from his white throat. When he feels their claws rending his flesh, their hoc breath in his face, may his dying thoughts be of the holy ones he has offended!"

About them the natives drew slowly back in superstitious awe as the shaking yogi seemed to swell and dwarf them into insignificance. Janki turned slowly away. Contemptuously leaving the silver coins lying in the road, he strode up the hill as the youngest sahib rejoined his fellows.

"Rubbish!" snorted the choleric sahib.

"Damn him! What is India coming to? That dirty beggar dared to threaten me—and you, too, Sawyer!"

He turned to the youngster.

"The beggar had the impudence to threaten us because your mare bowled him over when she bolted. Damn his filthy hide?"

The youngster chuckled.

"That's rich! What was it, unk? The usual bunk? Hell-fire and brimstone, like the old rector at home?"

"It's no laughing-matter, Sawyer," Kensington interposed. "That was a yogi—a mahatma! When you've been here as long as I have"

"You've been here too long, Kensington; that's the trouble!" The choleric major cut him short. "Listening every day to these superstitious beggars, living among them, has made you into an old woman afraid of the dark!"

Kensington subsided once more. Major Ellison turned to his nephew:

"That filthy beggar called on the wild animals of the jungle to claw you up, to tear open your throat"

Sawyer Ellison chuckled.

"That's a ripping long shot, unk! How he knew of my passion for big game hunting beats me, unless he got it from some of Ken's native servants. Elephants in Africa—lions—bear in the Kodiak Island region, that tiger in Nepal—he almost got me—remember? Maybe one of them will get me yet, though I doubt it. Well, it's all in the game. It's a chance I take without thinking. What did he promise you, unde?" Sawyer's eyes were merry.

The major turned to Kensington disgustedly.

"What was it, Ken?" he growled. "Something about stretching me out in agony, wasn't it?"

Kensington nodded soberly.

"Just the same, I wish you fellows would call that leopard hunt off for tonight, old chap." His eyes were gloomy.

"What! Call it off just because a balmy beggar goes musty when I upset his apple cart in the little old road? Nothing doing, O. S.—8