The Charmed Life | Page 9

himself to me almost immediately--with an exceedingly rude and, considering his age, muscular push which shoved me to one side and the girl to the other.
There he stood between us, like an exageratingly hideous Hindu idol of revenge and hatred and lust and half a dozen other assorted beastly qualities, the lamp trembling in his clawlike hand. He pointed at me, addressing the girl in a mad, jerky, helter-skelter flood of Hindustani--I didn't understand it--which caused the girl to pale and to shake her head vigorously. It was evidence that he was accusing her of something or other, and that she was denying the accusation indignantly. And then he commenced abusing her in English, doubtless for my benefit.
I was stuffing his mouth at once with my fist, but the girl signaled to me, frantically, imploringly, "No, no"--I saw her lips shaping the words and so, temporarily I kept me peace while the old Hindu proceeded to prove that he could translate Hindu abuse into very fair English.
"Ho!" he shouted at her. "Ho! thou daughter of unthinkable begatting! Thou spawn of much filth. Thou especially illegitimate and shameless hyena! Thou this and that and once more this! By Shiva and Shiva--I shall wench thy wicked hide with the touchstone of pain and affliction! I shall--"
"Look here" I interrupted "you are getting entirely too fresh. Stow your line of talk, or--" and I made a significant gesture with my fist-- would have hit him, too, if the girl had not signaled to me again--this time, and I don't know what she wanted by it, pointing at her forehead and then back at the building which terraced toward the center of the block.
The Hindu man was too angry to notice the by-play. "O Calamity!" he went on. "O crimson shame! May Doorgha, the great goddess, cut out thy heart and feed it to a mangy pig! What shameless doing are these--O thou bazaar woman--to send word to thy lover--to have him come here, to this house, and at night? Didst thou think that I would be asleep? Thy lover--" he spat out, "and he a man of the accused foreign race, an infidel, an eater of unclean food, a cannibal of the holy cow, a swinish derider of the many gods! He--thy lover! Ah! by the Mother of the Elephant's Trunk--thy portion shall be the pain which passeth understanding!" Suddenly he turned and addressed himself to me, "and as for thee--for thee--" He was so choked with fury that the words were gurgled and died in his throat. He positively did not know whom to insult or bully first, the girl or me. Like Balaam's Ass, he stood there, undecided, and finally he made up his mind to attend first to the girl.
"Thou--" came an unmentionable epithet, unmentionable even among Hindus, and you know how extravagant their abuse is inclined to be, then he turned on her. His right hand still held the trembling lamp. He struck out with his left. She tried to evade him--slipped--I was too late to come to her rescue--only a glancing blow, but she fell, bumping her head smartly against the stone pillar.
She gave a pitiful little moan--and was unconscious.
Then I got mad.
I rushed up to him, lunged, and missed. You see, the old beggar danced away from me with a certain sharp, twisting agility which I wouldn't have believed possibly in that aged, obese body of his. Also, I had to be careful--on that confounded roof-top. No use tumbling over the balustrade and breaking my neck. That wouldn't have helped the girl any. The only chance I had was to get him against the wall on the side opposite the gully--a torn-down wall occasionally connecting the rooftop with the next layer on that maze of buildings.
Finally I managed to drive him toward the wall. I had him cornered. He stood there--the lamp still flickering in his right, its ray sharply silhouetting him against the spectral white stucco. I was quite fascinated for a moment, looking at him. The idea flushed into my brain that I was looking into the visage of something monstrous, impossible. The beastly bald skull, the caste mark, the fat, wide-humped shoulders, suggested that which was scarcely human and, struck by a sudden burst of horror, I stared into that dark, inscrutable countenance.
Then he opened his mouth--he said something, in a low voice of what was going to happen to me. It had something to do with one of his beastly, many-armed gods--I didn't understand the allusion at the time. At all events, he pointed at the caste mark on his forehead and--
You see, I am a slow, careful sort of fighter. I hate to waste a blow. Furthermore, up to then we had all been comparatively quiet. I didn't care to make too