“What foul deed is this?” he demanded hoarsely. “Where am I?”
“Thou art within the most holy temple of Gola-Gokeranath,” answered the priest, impressively. “We have appealed to man for justice—and in vain. Therefore, we now approach the gods! Is it not so, my brothers?”
The reply was a prolonged murmur of hoarse assent from the quiet, fierce-eyed crowd.
“Behold the image of Mahadeo, the destroyer!” continued the priest, pointing to a conical stone in the middle of the temple, on which the holy Ganges water dripped without ceasing. “Here is the mark of Hanuman’s thumb, where he rested on his way to Ceylon to war against the great giant Ravan.”
A venerable Mahant, or high-priest of the Gosains, now advanced, and said, in a voice tremulous with age—
“Lay thy hand upon this spot, O Durga Pershad, and swear as I shall speak.”
Durga Pershad held back instinctively, but the pressure of fifty arms constrained him, and he yielded.
“If I have had part or lot in the death of Soonder, the son of Golab Rai Sing——”
There was an expressive pause for a full moment, and no sound was audible save the slow, monotonous dripping of the sacred stream.
Durga Pershad shuddered, but repeated the sentence somewhat unsteadily.