The courtyard was crowded with the country people, their dirty garments looking white in the moonlight, all shouting and gesticulating. Round the centre of the court revolved a grisly crew. Every fanatic of the country side was there, naked fakirs smeared with dust, wild creatures in salmon-coloured rags, torch-bearers in white, all howling their invoca- tion to Kali, while in the centre of all on the great sacrificial stone stood a man, stripped to the waist, splashed with blood, grasping in his right hand a heavy knife, and holding aloft in his left hand some- thing that gleamed white. A blaze of fire came before the policeman's eyes, and then he was amongst the surging mass, striking right and left with the heavy crop, while the frightened mare plunged and bit and struck at the human mass. A second more and the mare was down, hamstrung, and Watson was struggling on foot towards the stone, hardly feeling the blows which were raining on him. Then with a crash something struck him full on the head, and darkness came. When, in an agony of pain, he came back to consciousness, he found the sub-inspector and a dozen constables standing gazing at him as he lay, and he wondered where he was. From the blackened vault of heaven above, a great, warm drop of water fell on his face, another, and another.
