"What of the sunset?"

Brown looked about him and, save where the lantern cast a fitful light
on the fakir and the sentry and the native servant, and threw into
faint relief the shadowy, snake-like tendrils of the baobab, his eyes
failed to pierce the gloom. The sunset was a memory. In that heavy,
death-darkness silence it seemed almost as though there had never
been a sun.

"`A blot of blood,' he says. He says the order has been given. He
says that half of India shall run blood within a day, and the whole
of it within a week!"

"Who gave the order?"

"He answers `Hookum hai!'--which means `It is an order!' Nothing
more does the holy fakir say."

"To the clink with him!" commanded Brown. "I'm tired of these Old
Mother Shipton babblings. That's the third useless Hindu fanatic
within a week who has talked about India being drenched in blood.
Let him go in to the depot under guard, and do his prophesying there!
Bring him along."

The sentry's rifle-butt rose again and threatened business. The
Beluchi gave a warning cry, and the fakir tumbled off his dais.
Then, with the trembling Beluchi walking on ahead with the lantern,
and Brown and the sentry urging from behind, the fakir jumped and
squirmed and wabbled on his all but useless feet toward the guardroom.
When they reached the tree where the goat had bleated, the Punjabi