"But die for the gleam of the pelf," echoed the priest sonorously.
"Mah Se hath the grace of an angel,
Mah Kit she is crooked and old."
Crack! went the sharp report of a police carbine, and a bullet whistled harmlessly over the singer's head.
"May hell burn those fools!" shouted Serferez. "Come on!" and almost before the words had left him he was on the dacoits. The Boh sprang straight at him, and aimed a terrible cut at Serferez. He parried this, but it shivered his sword to splinters, and would have killed him on the spot but for the folds of his turban. It bore him on his knees, however, and had Bah Hmoay been allowed a moment's more time Serferez would have slept in paradise. But the opportunity was not to be lost; without a second's hesitation the dacoit chief sprang off, and, cutting down another man with a back-handed sweep of his long dah, dashed into the jungle and was lost. Not so Moung Sen. The minstrel was overpowered at the outset, and was now sitting like a trussed fowl securely bound with the long coils of a couple of turbans. Serferez had regained his feet, and shouted out, "Who fired that shot?" One of the men explained that his rifle had gone off by accident--caught in a twig.
"You are a liar, Bullen, son of Bishen!" said the inspector; "and that shot of yours has cost us a thousand rupees. Still, one remains in the net.--Ho, Moung Sen! Red Diamond! Do you remember me? I have come to pay back the debt I owe you."
Moung Sen made no answer, but strained at the bandages that bound him until the muscles of his arms swelled out like knotted ropes.
"He will be very heavy to carry to the boat, will he not, my children?" said Serferez. "And the law is uncertain--he may not hang."
"And nine men from the Doab died that day at Yeo," said one.
"We get no more for his head than for the rest of him," added another.