“What do you know?”
“I know what I know, and that is enough.”
The priest regarded Siddha with anger, not unmingled with disquietude. What was the meaning of this tone, and what could he really know? Still for the moment the wisest course seemed to be to break off the conversation.
“Enough, then,” said Gorakh, “both for you and for me; but bethink yourself, my young friend—though you are so little desirous of my friendship, and I will not force it on you,—think that the mighty goddess, to whose service all my feeble strength is devoted, not only protects but destroys also, and that there is no hope of mercy or chance of salvation for him whom, through her priests, she has chosen out for her service and who has turned from it.” So saying, he disappeared down a side aisle, without waiting for any answer to his mysterious menace. Siddha looked after him with an involuntary feeling of anxiety; and though in reality the Durga priest was alone, yet he almost fancied he could see him followed by a long train of naked bronze figures, with white cords round their necks, just as he had seen him in the dimness of night passing along the wall of Allahabad fortress and vanishing in the jungle. And that night, as he went to rest, he thought it would be as well to question his faithful servant who awaited his orders.
“Vatsa,” he said, “at Allahabad you assured me that neither you nor Kulluka’s servant had spoken to any priest or penitent; but can you not remember some other unknown person to whom you might have talked of our journey through the mountains, and recounted to him some of its incidents?”
“I should never have thought of it again, Sir, if you had not brought it to my mind,” replied Vatsa; “but now I remember that near the stable a half-naked, bronze-coloured man once talked with us, and told us much about the town and fortress, and then asked us about our journey.”
“And you told him of my adventure with Gurupada’s tiger?”
“I believe we did.”
“And did you say anything of the hermit and his appearance?”
“Certainly,” answered Vatsa. “His venerable and princely bearing had so struck us that we were full of it, and not thinking there was any harm in speaking of it we made no secret of our meeting with him to the stranger.”