“Does he want me to hold him answerable for those men's lives?”
“He says he cares not, sahib! He says that he has promised what shall befall you, sahib, before a day is past—you and one other!”
“Ask him, where is the Punjabi skin-buyer?”
The fakir chuckled at that question, and let out suddenly a long, low, hollow-sounding howl, like a she-wolf's just at sundown. He was answered by another howl from near the guardroom, and every soldier faced about as though a wasp had stung him.
“Front!” commanded Brown. “Now, one of you, about turn! Keep watch that way! Is that the Punjabi?—ask him.”
“He says 'Yes!' sahib. He and others!”
“Very well. Now tell him that unless he obeys my orders on the jump, word for word as I give them, I'll hang him as high as Haman by that withered arm of his, and have him beaten on the toenails with a cleaning-rod before I fill him so full of bayonet-holes that the vultures'll take him for a sponge! Say I'm a man of my word, and don't exaggerate.”
The Beluchi translated.
“He says you dare not, sahib!”
“Advise him to talk sense.”