," he remarked, "by staying where you are. And I
only wish everyone would follow your example."

"What ground have you for saying so, I wonder?" remonstrated Sham Rao,
and a slight note of disappointment rang in his voice, when he saw that
the excursion, proposed and organized by himself, threatened to come to
nothing. "What harm could be done by it? I won't insist any more that
the 'incarnation of gods' is a rare sight, and that the Europeans hardly
ever have an opportunity of witnessing it; but, besides, the Kangalim
in question is no ordinary woman. She leads a holy life; she is a
prophetess, and her blessing could not prove harmful to any one. I
insisted on this excursion out of pure patriotism."

"Sahib, if your patriotism consists in displaying before foreigners the
worst of our plagues, then why did you not order all the lepers of your
district to assemble and parade before the eyes of our guests? You are a
patel, you have the power to do it."

How bitterly Narayan's voice sounded to our unaccustomed ears. Usually
he was so even-tempered, so indifferent to everything belonging to the
exterior world.

Fearing a quarrel between the Hindus, the colonel remarked, in a
conciliatory tone, that it was too late for us to reconsider our
expedition. Besides, without being a believer in the "incarnation of
gods," he was personally firmly convinced that demoniacs existed even in
the West. He was eager to study every psychological phenomenon, wherever
he met with it, and whatever shape it might assume.

It would have been a striking sight for our European and American
friends if they had beheld our procession on that dark night. Our way
lay along a narrow winding path up the mountain. Not more than
two people could walk together--and we were thirty, including the
torch-bearers. Surely some reminiscence of night sallies against the
confederate Southerners had revived in the colonel's breast, judging
by the readiness with which he took upon himself the leadership of our
small expedition. He ordered all the rifles and revolvers to be loaded,
despatched three torch-bearers to march ahead of us, and arranged us
in pairs. Under such a skilled chieftain we had nothing to fear from
tigers; and so our procession started, and slowly crawled up the winding
path.

It cannot be said that the inquisitive travelers, who appeared later on,
in the den of the prophetess of Mandu, shone through the freshness and
elegance of their costume