In shape it is a tiny, square box of
silver, studded outside with eight small balas-rubies. Inside the box, which
opens with a spring, is a little eyeless fish, carved from some sort of dark,
shiny nut and wrapped in a shred of faded gold-cloth. That is the Bisara of
Pooree, and it were better for a man to take a king cobra in his hand than to
touch the Bisara of Pooree.
All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with except in India where
nothing changes in spite of the shiny, toy-scum stuff that people call
"civilization." Any man who knows about the Bisara of Pooree will tell you what
its powers are--always supposing that it has been honestly stolen. It is the
only regularly working, trustworthy love-charm in the country, with one
exception.
[The other charm is in the hands of a trooper of the Nizam's Horse, at a place
called Tuprani, due north of Hyderabad.] This can be depended upon for a fact.
Some one else may explain it.
If the Bisara be not stolen, but given or bought or found, it turns against its
owner in three years, and leads to ruin or death. This is another fact which
you may explain when you have time.
Meanwhile, you can laugh at it. At present, the Bisara is safe on an ekka-
pony's neck, inside the blue bead-necklace that keeps off the Evil-eye.
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