In another moment all this crowd will be on us..."
"For goodness' sake!" exclaimed poor Sham Rao, "have some consideration
for my feelings. She is an old woman, she has some superstitions,
but she is my mother. You are educated people, learned people...
Advise me, show me a way out of all these difficulties. What should
you do in my place?"
"What should I do, sir?" exclaimed Mr. Y - -, completely put out
of temper by the utter ludicrousness of our awkward predicament.
"What should I do? Were I a man in your position and a believer
in all you are brought up to believe, I should take my revolver,
and in the first place, shoot all the vampire bats in the neighborhood,
if only to rid all your late relations from the abject bodies of
these creatures, and, in the second place, I should endeavor to
smash the head of the conceited fraud in the shape of a Brahman
who invented all this stupid story. That is what I should do, sir!"
But this advice did not content the miserable descendant of Rama.
No doubt he would have remained a long time undecided as to what
course of action to adopt, torn as he was between the sacred feelings
of hospitality, the innate fear of the Brahman-priest, and his own
superstitions, if our ingenious Babu had not come to our rescue.
Learning that we all felt more or less indignant at all this row,
and that we were preparing to leave the house as quickly as possible,
he persuaded us to stay, if only for an hour, saying that our
hasty departure would be a terrible outrage upon our host, whom,
in any case, we could not find fault with. As to the stupid old
woman, the Babu promised us to pacify her speedily enough: he
had his own plans and views. In the meantime, he said, we had
better go and examine the ruins of an old fortress close by.
We obeyed very reluctantly, feeling an acute interest in his "plans."
We proceeded slowly. Our gentlemen were visibly out of temper.
Miss X - - tried to calm herself by talking more than usual, and
Narayan, as phlegmatic as usual, indolently and good-naturedly
chaffed her about her beloved "spirits." Glancing back we saw
the Babu accompanied by the family priest. Judging by their
gestures they were engaged in some warm discussion. The shaven
head of the Brahman nodded right and left, his yellow garment
flapped in the wind, and his arms rose towards the sky, as if in an
appeal to the gods to come down and testify to the truth of his words.
"I'll bet you a thousand dollars, no plans of our Babu's will be
of any avail with this fanatic!" confidently remarked the colonel
as he lit his pipe.
But we had hardly walked a hundred steps after this remark when
we saw the Babu running after us and signaling us to stop.
