VENGEANCE OF JHAPOO THE GOND 271 



rock-and-jungle fiends. Demonology is the aborigine's 

 strong point. I might, therefore, expect something really 

 high-class in the apotheosis of one who had so long com- 

 manded the services of infernal agency on earth. 



At any rate, I could now cherish hopes of setting old 

 Mulligatawny's mind finally at rest and ridding myself of 

 this absurd incubus of a magic box at one and the same 

 moment. Jhapoo and his carapace, charged as they were 

 with Eastern essences, must be highly inflammable. Should 

 his Gond devils fail to play up properly, why, a match 

 to the dry grass in his vicinity, and ! 



Circumstances lent themselves to my plans. I should 

 simply have to tell my orderly a new man to fetch me 

 a certain wooden crate, warning him to exercise that care 

 in its transport which let me see ah, yes photographic 

 material demanded. 



And so it came about that on the afternoon of the third 

 day Jhapoo arrived. 



I had been out for an evening canter over the plain, and 

 it was in the warm red gloaming that I climbed the steep 

 stone-paved ascent back to my quarters in the old fort. 

 The chest had, by my orders, been removed from its pack- 

 ing-case and set down near the entrance to the ancient 

 building in which I had taken up my temporary abode. 



On reaching camp I called for a whisky-and-soda, and 

 was about to drop into a comfortable chair when a slight 

 movement in the shadow of the carved archway caught my 

 eye. Peering forward, I made out the slight figure of an 

 old woman crouching in the obscurity at my feet; and 

 as I uttered an exclamation of surprise, the movement 

 was repeated. A withered hand went slowly up in a trem- 

 bling salaam, and a vacant pair of lack-lustre eyes fixed 

 themselves on my face. 



"Who is this?" I inquired of my servant who had 

 arrived, and was pouring out my " peg." " And what does 

 she want here ? Give her a couple of annas, and see that 



