surprise there was no sign of him among the crowd.

"But he is a queer fellow, your Indian; you never know how you have him. All his life he may have been your best friend, capable of acts of extraordinary devotion, yet one fine day some one works upon his feelings and he tries to out your throat. Hysteria, that's what it is. Why, there was a stout banker there in the forefront of the mob. Now, in the ordinary way, he was the sort of fellow to be content to make his 60 per cent all his days and to end up a Rai Bahadur1; but to-night he was a madman. And I could see that, for the moment, all that he longed for in life was to sink his nails into my flesh.

"The height of the rock that I was on had prevented the first wave from swamping me; and as the pack caught sight of me they bunohed together, and their music ceased for a moment. That gave me my one chance. I talked, and I believe I might have held them even then.

"Then that damned fool Ismal went and spoilt the show. For all of a sudden his old matchlock went off with a roar in the background, and some one yelped and fell. That was the end of that. With a bellow of rage the orowd swept forward and lapped over my rock. I got that fat banker one on the point of the chin, and then went down-but not till I

had caught a glimpse of poor old Jock as he jumped for the throat of a naked ruffian, only to be spitted on an iron trident.

"I don't know much about the immediate subsequent happenings; an Indian orowd doesn't handle one nicely. But one memory will ever lingerof the fetid stench of sweating humanity; that bouquet peculiar to the Indian, combined of garlic and hot black-lead. There were too many of them on top of me at once-that was the only thing that saved me. And, just as I felt that life was being squeezed out of me, suddenly the pressure lightened, and I realised in a dazed sort of way that the Aghori was beating off my most intimate assailants with his chain. It worked like a charm that chain; soon I found myself lying in a battered heap below the rock, while the Aghori harangued the frantic pack, leaping and baying round us in a circle.

"I suppose I'd had a knock on the head. Anyway, all this time a queer kink of memory kept some verses buzzing through my brain. Unpleasantly appropriate verses they were, too. Do you remember your 'Ingoldsby Legends'?"They have pulled you down flat on

your back!

Bloudie Jacke,

And they smack and they thwack,
Till your funny-bones crack,
Good lack! What a savage attack !'

"Bloudie Jacke had never before had his proper meed of sympathy from me.

Bloudie Jacke;

In your tower there's a pretty to-do.
All the people of Shrewsbury
Playing old gooseberry
With your choice bits of taste and
vertu.'

"Gradually, as my senses came back to me, I began to grasp what the Aghori was saying. And then I got a nasty shook. For he wasn't urging the mob to mercy, but merely to utilise my vile body according to his views. The goddess apparently was hungry for human sacrifice-long de nied her; and he pleasantly suggested that I filled the role to perfection. His motion was carried unanimously. With shouts of 'Chandragup! Chandragup! Throw him in, and the Terrible One will answer,' they hustled me to my feet, and bundled me down the gorge towards the shore.

"It was seven miles to Chandragup. More dead than alive, I was half-dragged half-carried in the centre of the mob. And every now and then some one would catch me a buffet to speed me on my way, or spit into my face at point-blank range. But by this time I was past worrying much about what

VOL. CCVIII.-NO. MCCLVII.

happened, and all hope was pretty nearly gone.

"Then suddenly, in the sea of faces round me, I picked out one I knew. It was the Speechless Mystic's. He had looked more dead than alive when I had seen him at the shrine, but now he was legging it like a two-year-old. In fact, he was one of my most energetic persecutors, and it was his persistent proddings with his pilgrim's staff that now drew my attention to him.

"Then a most unexpected thing happened. For, as he bent right over me as though to give me a particularly vicious poke, to my utter amazement I caught a hasty whisper in English, 'Watoh me and try to keep your head; I am a friend.' Next moment, it's true, he had begun again to belabour me with the best of them. Still, his blows, I noticed, hadn't much weight behind them. So I began to have just one faint ray of hope.

"We reached Chandragup at last, standing cold, white, and silent in the moonlight. The pack had tailed out a bit, but the check up the slope closed them up again, and we reached the top fairly well together. And there on the slippery brink they threw me down. The Aghori still dominated the proceedings. With his chain he beat the others down the slope, and he and I were left alone beside the crater.

"Then began a weird dance of death. For round and round the narrow slippery path the

D

Aghori capered in the moonlight; while the orewd swayed back and forward on the slope below and bayed in unison. Leaping high in the air, he would swing his chain repeatedly between his naked thighs-mercilessly belabouring his own back and loins in his eotasy; while the orowd called on Kali by her hundred names to hearken to them and to vouchsafe a sign: 'Oh Bloody Toothed One! Answer us. Oh Horrible One! Hearken unto us.' Naked and ashsmeared, his antics called to mind the leper's dance in about the best short story Kipling ever wrote. For you remember how the Silver Man danced naked with his shadow, while Strickland was heating the gun-barrels ?1

"And all this time, by my side, within a few inches of me, lay the cruel black surface of the mud, momentarily at rest. How long would it be before I went down for ever in its choking embrace?

"Then came a point where I have never been quite clear what happened. I suppose the olimax had been reached and the time for my star turn had arrived. For there was a sudden forward rush of the orowd. But, at at the same moment, I heard shriek even above the din, and next moment the mud was heaving sluggishly. The Aghori had disappeared beneath its surface. I had a vague impression that some one had pushed him from behind. But he may have

slipped-I can't be certain. Anyway, in his place, the Speechless Mystic was now standing by my side.

"And that Aghori fairly stirred up Chandragup, for he had been quiet enough up till then; but now he gave us one of your 'paroxysmal eruptions' with & vengeance. First there was a heaving and gulping, as if he had swallowed something that simply wouldn't agree with him, and then all at once his whole orater was aflame-for all the world like a colossal Christmas pudding.

"The pilgrims had got their answer. And they didn't seem to like it. Back they went to the bottom of the hill; while the Speechless Mystic hauled me after them-to a safe distance. But he wasn't speechless any longer. He talked to them like a father-pointing out to them the error of their ways, and the punishment that had befallen the Aghori. It W&S a very very chastened audience, with most of the religion frightened out of it. And, a few minutes later, as the last flames were flickering out, we two found ourselves alone.

"Then, as soon as the strain was over, I realised how absolutely done I was, and there and then on the side of the volcano I fell asleep. But my sleep seemed scarcely to have lasted a moment before I found myself being shaken back to consciousness; and I woke to find the Speechless Mystie

bending over me. Ismal, too, had reappeared from somewhere, and was standing at the bottom of the slope holding a camel. Dawn was just breaking, and it was bitterly cold; I was chilled to the bone and so stiff that to move was torture. However, despite my protests, I was promptly bundled on to the camel. Then Ismal set off towards the shore with the nose-rope in his hand. "I was much too miserable to question his movements. That ride was a nightmare. A baggage-camel with a pack saddle is bad enough at the best of times; in my then state, the tortures of the Inquisition were as nothing to it. At last, more dead than alive, I rolled off at the door of one of the very huts that I had seen on first landing, the huts of the Iohthyophagoi.

"And in that hut I lived for five days-slowly recovering, while I waited for a boat to take me back to Karachi. My host was a great strapping fisherman called Billoo, and no one could have looked after me better. In fact, I ran some risk of being killed by kindness; for I was plied with delicious soles of Billoo's catching and with succulent Makran dates from Mrs Billoo's storeoupboard, and cosseted with broth of mountain-sheep fallen to Ismal's jezail; while the Speechless Mystio massaged my battered limbs as only an Indian can.

"And, lying on the hot dry sand in the shadow of the blanket - awning, while the

breeze blew cool through the screens of tamarisk, I first learnt the inward history of that hectie night.

"For I had many talks with the Speechless Mystio. His is a profession in which it is always war-time, and he has been risking his life for the last dozen years in as many different countries. In San Francisce and in London, in Geneva and in Japan, he has carried his life in his hand to watch the innermost circles of the Indian anarchists. For he is perhaps the leading Indian agent of the C.I.D.1

"The War he spent in Berlin. But no sooner did he get back. to India for some well-earned leave than he found himself recalled to headquarters in connection with the new Bolshevik menace from Central Asia. Well, as he figured it out to me, in dealing with Bolshevik propaganda have two main main objects in view-to stop as many agents as possible from getting into India, and to catch the rest after they get there.

you

"As regards the first of these objects, the northern passes of India are fairly easy to watch, and 80 are the regular seaports. But just look at the map and you will see that Makran is a weak point. For any ruffian can board a coasting dhow, say in the Persian Gulf, and land unquestioned somewhere in Makran. And, from there, it is a matter of no great diffioulty to filter through over the border into Sind, for the ad