Supping With Panthers Read Free Page A

next day, and the next after that, we toiled up the mountainside. The path grew ever more precipitous and narrow, zig-zagging up an almost sheer wall of rock, while above the abyss burned a pitiless sun. I began to understand why the inhabitants of a place such as Kalikshutra, if indeed they existed at all, should be called demons, for I found it hard to believe that any human dwellings could lie ahead of us. Certainly, my own enthusiasm for mountains began to pall somewhat! But at last, as the second day began to dim into dusk, the path we were taking started to level out and we saw traces of green amongst the rocks ahead As the sun’s dying rays disappeared behind the cliff, we rounded an outcrop of rock and saw ahead of us a vast expanse of trees stretching upwards into purple cloud, while still higher, just visible, gleamed the ghostly white of the mountain peaks. I stood for a moment to admire this splendid view; and then I heard a cry from one of my men who had continued down the path. I began to run myself, of course, and as I did so I heard the buzzing of flies.
    I joined my man past a further crag of rock. He was pointing at a statue. Beyond it the jungle began, so that the statue seemed to stand like a sentinel guarding the approach into the undergrowth and trees. My soldier turned back to me, an expression of disgust on his honest face. I hurried up to join him, and as I inspected the idol I saw something slung around its neck -something alive. The stench was frightful. It reminded me of rotting meat and then I realised, as I watched the thing slung around the idol’s neck, that I was staring at the swarming of maggots and flies, countless thousands of them, so that they seemed to form a living skin feeding on whatever it was that lay there underneath. I prodded the thing with my pistol butt; the flies rose in a buzzing cloud of black and there, maggot-ridden, hung a pile of guts. I cut them down and they fell with a soft thud on to the ground. As they did so, I saw to my surprise the gleam of gold. I smeared away the blood, and saw around the idol’s neck an expensive-looking ornament Even I, who have no eye for woman’s things, could see at once that it was of a fair old workmanship. I inspected the necklace more closely; it was formed of a thousand tiny drops of gold, all strung together in a kind of a mesh, and must have been worth a pretty packet in anyone’s book. I reached up to try to remove it. At that very same moment, a shot rang out.
    The bullet whistled over my shoulder and pinged into a rock. I looked up and picked out our assailant immediately; he was standing alone on the crest of the ravine. He aimed his rifle a second time, but before he could fire I had the great good fortune to bag him in the leg. The man tumbled down the slope and I thought he might be done for, but not a bit of it, for he picked himself up and, using his rifle as a crutch, began to drag himself across to the road where we stood. All this time he was jabbering away, waving at the statue; I couldn’t make out a word he was saying, of course, but I could guess his meaning well enough. I stood back from the statue, my hands raised to show I had no interest in his idol’s gold. The man stared back at me, and for the first time I got a good look at him. He was old, with tattered pink robes and streaks of the most foul-smelling substance daubed across his face and arms, so that he stank to the very height of heaven. In short, he had brahmin written all over him. He looked pale, and his eyes were filling with tears. I glanced down at his leg. It was bleeding pretty bad, and I bent down to try and tend the wound, but as I did so the brahmin flinched away from me and started to let rip with his tongue again. This time, I fancied I caught the word ‘Kali’. ‘Kali,’ I repeated and the man bobbed his head. ‘Han, han, Kali!’ he screamed, then burst out into tears.
    Well, the conversation was shaping up nicely and I was not a