"'To the temple of Gannesha!' shouted the sahib, roused to frenzy, and there was that in his face that forbade speech.
"When we reached the city, the main street was already packed with a menacing crowd,—for word of our coming had gone before us, and the thoroughfare resounded from end to end with lowings as of a thousand bulls. The weight of the great beast that bore us alone took us through the crowd.
"When we reached the gate of the temple of Gannesha, behold! the priests formed a lane through the court-yard, and the crowd fell back at their bidding. We alighted from the elephant, and walked through the priests till we came to the inner door of the temple, where stood a venerable jogi naked, save for a loin-cloth, and covered with wood-ashes from his head to his heels.
"'Welcome, brother,' he said, as Clements Sahib approached him; 'but thy rosary will not admit thee farther than this, and 'tis not fitting that thou shouldst enter the presence of Gannesha without thy teeka of purification;' and, with an agility that was surprising in such an old man, he sprang towards the sahib and touched him on the forehead, at the same time snatching at the necklace. But the sahib swept him aside, and the next moment we entered the temple, the door of which closed with a threatening crash as the last of the priests followed us in.
"When they saw the sahib advance with set purpose towards the great god Gannesha, they raised a shout and ran upon him; and I, being unarmed and a man of peace, and, moreover, a Brahmin, slipped behind a pillar and watched the beginning of a great combat, wherein one man fought with twenty, and they with staves in their hands.
"And the sahib waited not for his foes, but, firing his gun at their legs, he whirled it aloft and hurled it into the crowd that advanced upon him; wherefore three priests lay on the ground and were as dead men. And, ere they could recover from their confusion, the sahib ran in upon them with clinched hands, and his face was terrible to look upon.
"So thick were they that many of them fell from their brothers' blows; and whenever the sahib struck, a man fell to the ground and remained there. Toba! toba! never saw I such fighting.
"When there were but three or four of them able to stand, they broke and fled to an inner shrine, whence they besought the sahib to depart and molest them no more. But he said, 'Nay, not till ye have delivered up to me him to whom this rosary belongs.'
"'It is mine, Faringi dog,' screamed the old jogi, darting upon the sahib from behind a pillar, a long knife in his hand. The sahib had scarce time to turn, when the knife passed through the fleshy part of his arm. The next instant the sahib wrenched his weapon from the old jogi, and, putting the necklace round him, he bore him to a window and threw him into the river which flowed below, saying, 'Gunga will doubtless succor a follower of Gannesha.'
"After I had tied his handkerchief round his arm to stay the bleeding he took up his gun, and, opening the door of the temple, he went forth. And the people marvelled to see him come out again.