Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/168

So the poor peasant gave rice and ghee and sweetmeats and oil and onions and sugar and tamarinds to the three holy vampires who had never done a stroke of honest work in their lives. They did not have to. For they were of a most thorough and most astounding dirtiness and ditto holiness. They lived thus on the superstitions of the land of Hind; and they lived exceedingly well. They also gave thanks to Shiva, the great god and to the just laws of the English.

For look you:

During the lawless old Moghul days, the days when the Moslem dogs ruled to the South of the Passes, a sharp sword would have quickly removed the heads of the three fakirs. But then the British Raj has established the just laws of Europe in this land of oppression; the laws which preach tolerance and equal rights for all religions and sects. And so these religious parasites had gripped their fangs in the bowels of the land's prosperity, even as in England and in America.

The holy men asked the news of the village, carefully scanning the scraps of bazaar talk; and they learned about Harar Lal, the babu, and they evinced great interest.

The next morning the three were gone. But they had left ample payment for their entertainment. For in the shade of a great babul tree stood a brand-new idol, a Mahadeo which was so exceedingly ugly and bestial and obscene that it was certain to bring prosperity to the village, especially to the peasant who had been the host of the three so dirty, the three so holy men.

Soon its fame spread. Little chaplets of flowers were offered to the holy emblem of creation, and thin-