"But a caste is a caste," Ajeet objected, "and the manner of the caste. We are decoits, and we only slay when there is no other way."
Hunsa tipped his gorilla body forward from where it rested on his heels as he sat, and his lowering eyes were sullen with impatience:
"Chief Ajeet," he snarled, "think you that we can rob the _seth_ of his treasure without an outcry--and if there is an outcry, that he will not go back to those of his caste in Poona, and when trouble is made, think you that the Dewan will thank us for the bungling of this? And as to the matter of a thug or a decoit, half our men have been taught the art of the strangler. With these,"--and extending his massive arms he closed his coarse hands in a gnarled grip,--"with these I would, with one sharp in-turn on the _roomal_, crack the neck of the merchant and he would be dead in the taking of a breath. And, Ajeet, if this that is the manner of men causes you fear--"
"Hunsa," and Ajeet's voice was constrained in its deadliness, "that ass's voice of yours will yet bring you to grief."
"Let us not quarrel," he said. "Ajeet no doubt has in his mind Bootea as I have Meena. And it would be well if the two were sent on the road in the cart, and when our work is completed we will follow. Indeed they may know nothing but that there is some jewel, such as women love, to be given them."
"Look you," cried Hunsa thrusting his coarse hand out toward the road, "even Bhowanee is in favour. See you not the jackal?"
Turning their eyes in the direction Hunsa indicated, a jackal was seen slinking across the road from right to left.
"Indeed it is an omen," Sookdee corroborated; "if on our journeys to commit a decoity that is always a good omen."
"And there is the voice!" Hunsa exclaimed, as the tremulous lowing of a cow issued from the village.
He waved a beckoning hand to Guru Lal, for they had brought with them their tribal priest as an interpreter of omens chiefly. "Is not the voice of the cow heard at sunset a good omen, Guru?" he demanded.
"Indeed it is," the priest affirmed. "If the voice of a cow is heard issuing at twilight from a village at which decoits are to profit, it is surely a promise from Bhowanee that a large store of silver will be obtained."