The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales

Shri Ramanuja was doing the tweedle-tweeing. He was attired as Krishna, engaged in a loose-kneed, bowlegged dance, and breathing hard. One of the excessive number of arms with which he appeared to be equipped was occupied in tweedling. On the floor before him, Pauline Edge sat cross-legged with her arms up. Back of her sat the other three girls in a similar posture. They were all singing a hymn that was not less beautiful for the fact that it was completely inaudible.

Bennett dashed across the room and pointed at Shri Ramanuja. "— —!"

The Tantrist reeled from the attack, but came back with one of his own: "— — —!"

""— — —!" retorted Bennett.

"— !"

"— — — —!"

" —!"

Shri Ramanuja abandoned the duel of mantras and tried another form of hostilities. Before Bennett's eyes he grew and changed into a towering black figure with ten arms. Each arm bore a lethal weapon. He advanced on Bennett.

But when the Tantrist changed form, the four girls at once came out of their trances. They looked at each other and then at the thing that Shri Ramanuja had become. One of them scrambled to her feet and ran out the door; one sat where she was and shrieked; one tried to bury her face in the floor boards.

Pauline Edge showed a better grasp of the situation. She picked up one of the empty chairs, climbed on another chair, and with the first chair she hit the ten-armed nightmare over its fanged, goggle-eyed head.

The chair splintered and the thing staggered. Bennett, who had with what he thought was his last breath been damning the Tashi Lama for not foreseeing this, jumped forward and wrenched a spear from one of the ten black hands. He reversed the weapon and jabbed; felt the point go in.

Then he was chasing the thing downstairs and out into Fifty-Ninth Street. It was very late, and few people were abroad. The nearest person was a citizen named Pascarella, whose trade was the robbery by force of arms of financial institutions. Mr. Pascarella, seeing ten feet of ten-armed Hindu demon bearing down on him, drew a pistol, fired once, and dropped dead of heart failure.

The thing also fell, kicked a little, and changed back into Shri Ramanuja Bhamkh. While the crowd brought out by the shot gathered around the corpes of the bank robber and the man in the beard and turban, Bennett and Pauline Edge slipped away. They found a doorway in which they stood and simply shivered for a few minutes.

When they found their voices, Bennett said: "I suppose we ought to go back to Bhulojna's and tell him what happened."

Pauline nodded.