“Halt, then,” commanded Brown. “Order arms. Tell him to hurry up!”
The Beluchi translated, and the fakir answered him, in a voice that sounded hard and distant and emotionless.
“He says that he, too, is here to watch the crossroads, sahib! He says that he will curse you if you touch him!”
“Tell him to curse away!”
“He says not unless you touch him, sahib.”
“Prog him off his perch!” commanded Brown.
The rifle leaped up at the word, and its butt landed neatly on the fakir's ribs, sending him reeling backward off his balance, but not upsetting him completely. He recovered his poise with quite astonishing activity, and shuffled himself back again to the center of the dais. His eyes blazed with hate and indignation, and his breath came now in sharp gasps that sounded like escaping steam. He needed no further invitation to commence his cursing. It burst out with a rush, and paused for better effect, and burst out again in a torrent. The Beluchi hid his face between his hands.
“Now translate that!” commanded Brown, when the fakir stopped for lack of breath.
“Sahib, I dare not! Sahib—”
Brown took a threatening step toward him, and the Beluchi changed his mind. Brown's disciplining methods were a too recently encountered fact to be outdone by a fakir's promise of any kind of not-yet-met damnation.