I felt utterly bewildered and not a little aggrieved at his everyday appearance. "But, but," I began, "how the mischief did you make the bird?----"
His hand went up to his throat as if in explanation. "'Tis the trick of their cry, Huzoor; besides birds are afraid of the holy snake; and even the Huzoor doubted his own eyes. It is good bait. If Buniah-man sahib will consent to use it, he will have luck."
"Of course he will use it," I replied angrily; and then a sudden doubt seized me. "I don't know, though. I don't seem to understand. I can't see----"
"The Huzoor has two eyes," he interrupted, with another of his slow smiles. "Does he want a third, like mine?"
A third! Then I noticed a central spot on his forehead set in an oval of white. In good sooth it was not unlike a third eye placed upright between the others. I had seen similar ones painted on the images of Siva.
"'Tis but a caste sign, Huzoor," he explained; "I wear it sometimes." He stooped as he spoke, gathered some dust in his fingers and rubbed out the mark. "Lo! it grows late. Midnight is past. If the Huzoor rises with the sun 'tis time he slept."
True enough; but as I strolled homewards to the tent my eyes fell by chance on the shade beneath the great banyan tree where the idol stood. The plinth was empty! It lay reflected in the water vacant, bare! Scarcely knowing what I did, or why I did it, I ran back to where I had left Sambo, calling him by all his names in turn. But there was no answer, and when in hopeless bewilderment I retraced my steps it was only to find myself mistaken. The eight-armed image stood in its accustomed place, reflected in the still water.
I was glad when the dawn came; one of those lemon-coloured dawns when the sky grows light at once.
"Had the jolliest dreams," said Bannerman, coming out of his tent. "Dreamt I was Krishna among the milkmaids. Wish I could find one in this fish-forsaken place, I'd---- Hullo, what the mischief is that on my line?"
It was Sambo's land crab neatly impaled on a Stuart tackle. I began an explanation only to stop short at the--to me--absolutely incomprehensible intensity of both the faces before me. Dimly I seemed to recognise the situation and then it escaped me again.