And something else caught the light redly. The chaplet of human skulls, the dread Mother's necklace, which the _jogi_ swung from one hand to the other as he called for blood--for blood to appease Her--the Mother of all--the Eternal Womanhood! Since without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. The tenet of all religions echoed into the ear of the crowd, the strange demoniacal figure, in its lurid setting, held its eye. What chance was there for a single voice? None. Yet something must be done. For the dawn was nigh. Every instant the light grew. Any moment might bring that inrush of evil from the gaol which would breed violence among these still peaceful folk; the ignorant, helpless folk who were being held captive by words against the coming of that inrush. Suddenly, for a second, the attention of the crowd wavered. A tall man in the white dress of a Europeanized native had been hoisted to the shoulders of some others, not far from the _jogi_, and so, from this coign of vantage, prepared to harangue the people. "'Tis Ramanund," said someone close to where Father Ninian stood in the shadow of the door. "He is Brahmin, and a scholar above scholars. Mayhap he will tell us what to do these times, when all seems wrong. There is no harm in listening." Nor good either. For the first words of that appeal of culture to ignorance were drowned in a fiendish laugh, a frenzied rattling of the dread chaplet, a loud defiance. "Hold thy peace, _Baboo-jee!_ What is blood to thee, who hath no God to whom thou canst give it? But we have, brethren. These be Her drinking-cups, the skulls of men like ourselves. Let us give Her pleasure, brothers, and have blessing from Her hands; not cursing, as thou hast had, Ramanund, whose head should still be shaven, whose touch unclean from the loss of a woman." The allusion to the death of Ramanund's wife roused an instant murmur of assent from those who were of the city, and they passing the tale on to others, the murmur swelled to a roar which effectively drowned the rest of Ramanund's advice. But Father Ninian, still at the door, still uncertain, could hear a man who had been buckling on his pilgrim's sandals as if for a start, say, as he stood up and thrust them back to his waistcloth:-- "Well! I, for one, go no further without remission, or the blood which brings it. As _jogi-jee_ saith, no man should risk the woman's cursing. No man can hold his own against that." "He hath a young wife in his house, see you, and all know what that means," sniggered a neighbour. But a third voice broke in gravely, "Young or old, what matter? Women sit ever on the knees of the Gods, as we men have sat on theirs, seeing they are the mothers of us all. So, mother or wife, we cannot escape them."