It was Ajeet who answered the Dewan: "Dewan Sahib, we be men who undertake all things in the favour of Bhowanee, and we make prayer to that goddess. If the Dewan will give fifty rupees for our pooja, to-morrow we will make sacrifice to her, for without the feast and the sacrifice the signs that she would vouchsafe would be false. Then we will take the signs and the men will go at once."
"You shall have the money," the Dewan declared: "but do not delay."
That evening the Bagrees made their way to a mango grove for the feast, carrying cocoanuts, raw sugar, flour, butter, and a fragrant gum, goojul. A large hole was dug in the ground and filled with dry cow-dung chips which were set on fire. Sweet cakes were baked on the fire and then broken into small pieces, a portion of the fire raked to one side, and their priest sprinkled upon it the fragrant gum, calling in a loud voice: "Maha Kali, assist and guide us in our expedition. Keep calamity from us who worship Thee, and have made this feast in Thy honour. Give us the sign, that we may know if it is agreeable to Thee that we destroy the enemy of Maharaja Sindhia."
When the Bagrees had eaten much cooked rice and meat-balls, which were served on plantain leaves, they drank robustly of mhowa spirit, first spilling some of this liquor upon the ground in the name of the goddess.
The strong rank native liquor roused an enthusiasm for their approaching interview of the sacred one. Once Ajeet laid his hand upon the pitcher that Hunsa was holding to his coarse lips, and pressing it downward, admonished:
"Hunsa, whilst Bhowanee does not prohibit, it is an offence to approach her except in devout silence."
The surly one flared up at this; his ungovernable rage drew his hand to a knife in his belt, and his eyes blazed with the ferocity of a wounded tiger.
"Ajeet," he snarled, "you are now Chief, but you are not Raja to command slaves."
With a swift twist of his wrist Ajeet snatched the pitcher from the hand of Hunsa, saying: "Jamadar, it is the liquor that is in you, therefore you have had enough."
But Hunsa sprang to his feet and his knife gleamed like the spitting of fire in the slanting rays of the setting sun, as he drove viciously at the heart of his Chief. There was a crash as the blade struck and pierced the matka which Ajeet still held by its long neck.