Meanwhile, the púsári was hurrying along in the direction of his village, cursing and raving. The injury done him by his enemy, and the refusal of the headman to give him justice, had angered him to the verge of madness. As he strode furiously along swinging his heavy stick, and grasping at the air with his other hand, as if he was in imagination tearing his enemy to pieces, he was quite oblivious of all surroundings, and only conscious of his wrongs and desire for vengeance. Blind with rage, he hurried on, heedless of where he was going.
By this time, the sun had sunk and night was rapidly coming on. Gradually the path grew less and less distinct, and the surrounding forest more gloomy and fearful. Suddenly, the púsári stopped and looked about him. Being unable to see his way, he had at last come to his senses. All that was visible of the path now was a dim white streak before him. For a few moments he stood looking round. Even in that faint light the path seemed strange to him, and he peered about in vain for some familiar object by which he could ascertain his position. He soon satisfied himself he was not in the well-known path between the two villages, but was following some game-track; however, he felt sure he was going in the right direction, so went on, instead of turning back to look for the lost path. Every now and then he stopped to listen, hoping to hear the distant barking of dogs or lowing of cattle at Pandiyán; but he only heard the sharp barking cry of deer in the jungle and the dismal hooting of a pair of owls. It grew darker and darker, and the path worse and worse. Soon it was so dark that he could not see his hand before his face. He tried to feel his way with his stick, but nevertheless stumbled against the trees and over roots and stones. More than once he stopped and shouted long and loudly; but no answer came but the mocking hooting of the owls. The púsári was a brave man; but the dense darkness, the loneliness and silence of the jungle, were beginning to shake his nerves.
Suddenly, just as he was about to give up in despair the attempt to find his way, a brilliant light appeared in the jungle ahead of him. Uttering an ejaculation of surprise, pleasure, and relief, the púsári pressed towards it. A few moments later he was standing, with open eyes and startled expression, gazing at a scene such as he had never before looked on. Before him stretched a long narrow bazaar of houses, shops, and sheds, huddled irregularly together. Close behind them, and overhanging them, rose the jungle like a wall of ebony, densely dark. Above, stretched a sky of inky blackness, starless and cloudless. The whole bazaar was ablaze with light from numerous fires, torches, and lamps. It was crowded with people, men, women, and children, all apparently busily engaged in buying and selling and other occupations. But they were people such as the púsári had never before seen—black, lean, ungainly, with thin evil faces, and long black hair flowing wildly over their necks and shoulders. He noticed, too, that their feet and hands resembled more the claws of wild beasts than human appendages. But the strangest thing of all was that, though the bazaar appeared to his eyes to be full of bustle and noise, and all the people to be talking, wrangling, singing, and laughing, he could not hear a sound! Could he have shut his eyes, he might have fancied himself alone in the jungle again.
For some moments the púsári stood staring before him, bewildered at the sight. To come suddenly upon a large village that he had never heard of, close to his own, filled him with speechless amazement He rubbed his eyes and felt his ears, thinking his senses must be playing him false. Suddenly his heart stood still, and he gasped with horror. He had realised where he was—it was an enchanted or magic village of pisásis or demons that he had intruded on! As the full horror of his situation, alone among demons in the depths of the jungle at midnight, burst upon him, the púsári turned to flee. To his intense surprise and terror, on turning, he found behind him, not the jungle, as he expected, but another part of the bazaar! Rows of huts and shops, crowded so closely together that there was no way through them into the forest beyond, barred his way. After a moment’s hesitation, he plucked up courage, and muttering prayers and charms, started off to walk through the bazaar. Grasping his stick firmly, he walked boldly on, showing no outward sign of fear, but with deadly terror at his heart.
The bazaar seemed to lengthen before him as he went. He walked on and on, but it seemed to have no end. He turned aside into several by-lanes, but they only led into others. He looked in vain for any gap between the huts by which he could escape into the jungle. As he went, he passed through crowds of demon-folk. They took no notice of him, but he felt they were all watching him with their gleaming red eyes. To the púsári, everything around him seemed to be alive. The boughs of the trees waved above him threateningly like weird skinny hands and arms; hideous faces peered out at him from all sorts of strange, unlikely places. Even the rice mortars and pots lying about, and the articles being hawked about or lying exposed on the stalls, seemed to assume grotesquely human faces and figures and to watch him stealthily. Numbers of strange, vicious-looking cattle, and gaunt, evil-faced dogs wandered about, and the púsári noticed them leering at him and each other with a human sort of expression which showed him what they were. Rows of fowls of queer shape were perched on the roofs of the huts, and watched him as he passed with heads knowingly on one side.
Many a strange sight did the púsári see as he walked along. The shops were full of curious and extraordinary things such as he had never seen exposed for sale. He passed at one place a party of pisásis engaged in beating drums of strange shape with drumsticks of bones. Soon after, he came to a part of the bazaar where a furious quarrel appeared to be raging. In a dark corner he caught sight of a large party of she-pisásis, who appeared to be engaged in some horrible rite. More than once he thought he saw the mock-animals wandering about the bazaar talking to the keepers of the shops and to each other. It seemed to the púsári that he had been walking for hours, yet the bazaar appeared to be as interminable as ever. He walked on as in a dream, for, in spite of the apparent bustle and excitement around him, he could hear nothing. Stupefied by his fearful position, he walked on mechanically, having now lost the sense of fear, and feeling only a sort of vague wonder.
And now a raging thirst seized on the púsári. He had been on foot all day in the sun, and all the afternoon his mouth had been hot and bitter with curses. He had drunk nothing for many hours. As he walked along, the craving for water grew stronger and stronger, till he could bear it no longer. He realised vaguely the peril he ran in accepting anything from the hand of a pisási, nevertheless he stopped and looked about, in the hope of finding something to drink. Near at hand was a small shop presided over by a hideous old she-pisási. Undeterred by the horrible aspect of the red-eyed, wrinkled, old hag, the púsári approached her with the intention of asking for a drink of water. As he did so, he felt conscious that all the pisásis had suddenly stood still and were watching him. The she-pisási’s shop contained some strange things. On one side lay a huge rock python cut into lengths, each of which was wriggling about as if full of life. On the other side lay a young crocodile apparently dead; but as the púsári approached, it turned its head and looked slily at him with its cold yellow eye. Over the old hag’s head hung a crate full of live snakes, that writhed about and thrust their heads through the withes. Strings of dead bats, and baskets full of loathsome reptiles and creeping creatures, filled the shop. In front of her stood a hollow gourd full of water.
‘Mother! I am thirsty,’ said the púsári as he pointed to the water. But though he said the words, he did not hear his own voice. The old hag looked fixedly at him for a moment, and then raising the gourd, gave it to him. He raised it to his lips, and drank long and eagerly. As he put the empty vessel down, he felt everything reel and swim about him. Gazing wildly round, he grasped at the air two or three times for some support, and then fell to the ground motionless and senseless.
AN EVERY-DAY OCCURRENCE.
There are in all our lives episodes which we should be glad to forget; of which we are so much ashamed, that we scarcely dare to think of them, and when we do, find ourselves hurriedly muttering the words we imagine we ought to have said, or making audible apologies for our conduct to the air; and yet these are not always episodes which necessarily involve a tangible sense of wrong done either to ourselves or to others. Some such episode in a commonplace life, such as must have fallen to the lot of many men, we would here reveal.