Just now the head of Deenah bent low over the open pack, the movement of his hand instantly drawing and filling the eye of the trader from Kabul; and then it was that the Sahiba's syce, who was a huge man, materialised a lakri from under his long cotton tunic—the lakri being a stick of olive-wood from High Himalaya and very hard. This he brought down with great force upon the hugest and ugliest head in all Central Provinces at that time.
Merely a beginning. Six other lakris were drawn from five other tunics—the extra one for Deenah.
The great body was dragged farther back toward the servants' quarters. Here Deenah officiated. With each blow he enunciated in caressing tones, some term of the agreement . . . until he heard the protest of the mother of his little son:
"Shall you, Deenah, who are only her man-servant, have all the privilege of defending the Sahiba—to whom I, Shanti, am as her own child?"
And Deenah, not missing a count, cried:
"Come and defend!"
So Deenah's wife and the other women came, bringing the smooth hand stones with which they ground the spices into curry powder. . . . And when the beating was over, they carefully tied up the pack of the Kabuli and sealed it without a single article missing. Then they carried the body out of the compound, across the main highway, beyond the parallel bridle-road, and let it slide softly down into the little khud beyond, deeper and deeper each year from erosion.
A little afterward, that same afternoon, Margaret Annesley and Carlin Deal were walking along the bridle-path. Hearing a moan they looked over into the khud, where the monster Kabuli was coming to. He managed to raise one hand, but the movement of the fingers somehow struck the pity from Carlin's heart. It was not a clean gesture of a chastened man. Even though his body was terribly bruised and broken, the face was that of Ravage in person. Carlin pulled her companion on. They hastened to the bungalow where the tied pack was in evidence and strange sounds reached them from the servants' compound.
It was the picture of a tranced group that they saw—Deenah sitting upon the ground, uttering frightful low curses securely coupled together—in the language of all languages for this ancient art. The others were around him, even two or three of the women.
"Deenah!" Miss Annesley called.