"It seems to me that your prophetess only foretells the past," said
Mr. Y - -, philosophically putting his hands in his pockets. "I
should say that she is hinting at you, my dear Sham Rao."
"Yes! and at us also," murmured the colonel, who was evidently
beginning to feel uneasy.
As to the unlucky Sham Rao, he broke out in a cold sweat, and tried
to assure us that we were mistaken, that we did not fully understand
her language.
"It is not about you, it is not about you! It is of me she speaks,
because I am in Government service. Oh, she is inexorable!"
"Rakshasas! Asuras!" thundered the voice. "How dare you appear
before us? how dare you to stand on this holy ground in boots made
of a cow's sacred skin? Be cursed for etern - -"
But her curse was not destined to be finished. In an instant the
Hercules-like Narayan had fallen on the Sivatherium, and upset the
whole pile, the skull, the horns and the demoniac Pythia included.
A second more, and we thought we saw the witch flying in the air
towards the portico. A confused vision of a stout, shaven Brahman,
suddenly emerging from under the Sivatherium and instantly
disappearing in the hollow beneath it, flashed before my dilated eyes.
But, alas! after the third second had passed, we all came to the
embarrassing conclusion that, judging from the loud clang of the
door of the cave, the representative of the Seven Sisters had
ignominiously fled.
