"Go inside, Gunga Dass," said I, "and fetch it out."
I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. Gunga Dass nearly
rolled off the platform and howled aloud.
"But I am Brahmin, Sahib--a high-caste Brahmin. By your soul, by
your father's soul, do not make me do this thing!"
"Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my soul and my father's soul, in you
go!" I said, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I crammed his head
into the mouth of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, and, sitting
down, covered my face with my hands.
At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak; then
Gunga Dass in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself;
then a soft thud--and I uncovered my eyes.
The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into a
yellow-brown mummy. I told Gunga Dass to stand off while I
examined it.
The body--clad in an olive-green hunting-suit much stained and
worn, with leather pads on the shoulders--was that of a man
between thirty and forty, above middle height, with light, sandy
hair, long mustache, and a rough unkempt beard.
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