"'Tis Pidar Narâyan and his God!" said those of the city who knew, as they fell back instinctively from the raised path. And those who did not know followed suit in awed bewilderment, till the way was clear, and the little procession passed on slowly above the jammed mass of humanity, above the sea of upturned expectant faces.
"'Tis Pidar Narâyan, who went with my father," said one here and there. "Mayhap he goes now--let us see."
"Yea! let us see!" answered others.
That slantwise limb of the union-jack of raised paths which crossed from one corner to the other of the courtyard--from the door in the palace to the wide archway through which the pilgrims always passed on their way to the "Cradle of the Gods"--cleared itself by common consent, edged itself with a thicker throng of curious faces. Only in the middle it was barred by the big old gun, by the "Teacher of Religion" as its legend boasted, and by the man who claimed to be its mouthpiece.
For jogi Gorakh-nâth, recognizing his adversary, recognizing the danger of his influence, had slipped from his post above, and now stood before the gun, full in the path, defending it with frenzied wavings of his chaplet of skulls.
"Listen not, brothers!" he yelled. "Jai Kali Ma! Blood! Blood! Without blood is no remission of sins."
And now a new curiosity, a new interest, came to that crowd of mere men. What would happen? What would these two, mere men like themselves, do? Which was backed by divine authority? That both claimed that authority was clear. It held its breath, partly from the desire for a sign from God, partly because of the desire which humanity always has for a sign of the best man. Let the two try which was the better.
So it waited, ready to approve either, till those two, the Eastern and the Western sacerdotalisms, met face to face, within two yards of each other, in the centre of the courtyard, on the platform before the "Teacher of Religion."
Then, not till then, Pidar Narâyan ceased his chant, shifted the pyx to his left hand, and with his right drew the rapier hidden till then by his long robes.
"Aha, A-ha-a," sighed the crowd approvingly. There would be a bodily as well as a spiritual fight, for jogi-jee's chaplet of skulls swirled dangerously for both attack and defence; since a swinging blow from it would kill a man, and its circling sweep keep him beyond sword-point reach.