“He's not the only one that needs a drink!” said Brown. “We're all dry as brick-dust here, except the fakir!”
“He must wait a while before he drinks. Show me the fakir. Why, Brown sahib, know you what you have there?”
“The father of all the smells, and all the dirt and all the evil eyes and evil tongues in Asia!” Brown hazarded.
“More than that, sahib! That is the nameless fakir—him whom they know as HE! Has there been no attempt made to rescue him?”
“They rescued him once, and murdered three of my men to get him. When they tried again, I put a halter round his neck and he and I arranged a sort of temporary compromise.”
“And the terms of it?”
“Oh, he's supposed to have performed a miracle. He made us unslip the halter, and fall down flat, and he's supposed to be keeping us by him, by a sort of spell, so's to give us something extra-special in the line of ghastly deaths at his own convenience. That way, I was able to wait for news from Bholat—see?”
“You could have captured no more important prisoner than that, sahib, let me tell you! They believe him to be almost a god; so nearly one that the gods themselves obey his orders now and then! It was he, and no other, that told the men of Jailpore that he would make them impervious to bullets. If we have him, sahib, we have the key to Jailpore!”
“We, have certainly got him,” said Brown. “You can see him, and you can smell him. I'll order one of the men to prick him with a bayonet, if you want to hear him, too! I wouldn't feel him, if I were you!”
“He must come, too, to Jailpore!”