"You say dat," said Hokar, stolidly.
"Yes, and I can prove it. The boy Tray—and I can lay my hands on him—saw you, also Bart Tawsey, the shopman. You left a handful of sugar, though why you did so instead of eating it, I can't understand."
Hokar's face lighted up, and he showed his teeth disdainfully. "Oh, you Sahibs know nozzin'!" said he, spreading out his lean brown hands. "Ze shops—ah, yis. I there, yis. But I use no roomal."
"Not then, but you did later."
Hokar shook his head. "I use no roomal. Zat Sahib one eye—bad, ver bad. Bhowanee, no have one eye. No Bhungees, no Bhats, no—"
"What are you talking about?" said Hurd, angrily. His reading had not told him that no maimed persons could be offered to the goddess of the Thugs. Bhungees meant sweepers, and Bhats bards, both of which classes were spared by the stranglers. "You killed that man. Now, who told you to kill him?"
"I know nozzin', I no kill. Bhowanee no take one-eye mans."
For want of an interpreter Hurd found it difficult to carry on the conversation. He rose and determined to postpone further examination till he would get someone who understood the Hindoo tongue. But in the meantime Hokar might run away, and Hurd rather regretted that he had been so precipitate. However, he nodded to the man and went off, pretty sure he would not fly at once.
Then Hurd went to the village police-office, and told a bucolic constable to keep his eye on Miss Junk's "fureiner," as he learned Hokar was called. The policeman, a smooth-faced individual, promised to do so, after Hurd produced his credentials, and sauntered towards "The Red Pig," at some distance from the detective's heels. A timely question about the curry revealed, by the mouth of Miss Junk, that Hokar was still in the kitchen. "But he do seem alarmed-like," said Matilda, laying the cloth.
"Let's hope he won't spoil the curry," remarked Hurd. Then, knowing Hokar was safe, he went into the bar to make the acquaintance of his other victim.