Ajeet laughed, saying: "Let Hunsa have the iron; he, too, will know
of its heat."

"Put it again in the fire," declared Sookdee, "for it is an ordeal in
which only the guilty is punished; but the ball must be of the same
heat."

And once more the shot was returned to the charcoal.

Gulab Begum pushed her way rapidly to where the jamadars stood; but
Sookdee objected, saying: "When men appeal to Bhowanee it is not proper
that women should be of the ceremony; it will indeed anger our mother
goddess."

"Thou art a fool, Sookdee," Bootea declared. "The hand of your chief
is in pain though he shows it not in his face. Shall a brave man
suffer because you are without feeling!"

She turned to the Chief. "Here I have cocoanut oil and a bandage of
soft muslin. Hold to me your hand, Ajeet."

"It is not needed, Gulab, star-flower," the Chief declared proudly.

The Gulab had poured from a ram's horn cool soothing cocoanut oil upon
the burns, and then she wrapped about the hand a bandage of shimmering
muslin, bound in a wide strip of silk-like plantain leaf, saying: "This
will keep the oil cool to your wound, Chief; it will not let it dry out
to increase the heat."

There was another band of muslin passed around the leaf, and as the
Gulab turned away, she said: "Think you, Sookdee, that Bhowanee will be
offended because of mercy. Some day, Jamadar, fire will be put upon
your face, when the head has been lopped from your body, to hide the
features of a decoit that it may not bear witness against the tribe."

"You have delayed the ordeal," Sookdee answered surlily, "and because
of that Bhowanee will have anger."

The blacksmith, though pumping with both hands at his pair of bellows,
had felt the impress of the two silver coins in his loin cloth, and,
true to the bribe from Hunsa, had adroitly doctored his fire by dusting
sand here and there so that the shot had lost, instead of gained heat.
Now he cried out: "This kabob of the cannon is cooked, and my arms are
tired whilst you have talked."

Rising he seized his tongs asking, "Who now will have it placed upon
his palm?"

"Put it here," Sookdee said, as he laid a pipal leaf of twice the
thickness he had given Ajeet upon the palm of Hunsa.

Then Hunsa, having repeated the appeal to Bhowanee, strode toward the
goal, and reaching it, cast the iron shot to the ground, holding up his
hand in triumph. His was the hand of a gorilla, thick skinned, rough
and hard like th