Chapter 9

So many look at the color,

So many study design,

Some of ’em squint through a microscope

To judge if the texture is fine.

A few give a thought to the price of the stuff,

Some feel of the heft in the hand,

But once in a while there is one who can smile

And—appraising the lot—understand.

Look out,

When the seemingly sold understand!

All’s planned,

For the cook of the stew to be canned

Out o’ hand,

When the due to be choused understand!

 

"It means, the toils are closing in on Gungadhura!"

Within the palace Tess was reveling in vaudeville In the first place,
Yasmini had no Western views on modesty. Whatever her mother
may have taught her in that respect had gone the way of all the other
handicaps she saw fit to throw into the discard, or to retain for use solely
when she saw there was advantage. The East uses dress for ornament,
and understands its use. The veil is for places where men might look
with too bold eyes and covet. Out of sight of privileged men prudery
has no place, and almost no advocates all the way from Peshawar to
Cape Comorin.

And Yasmini had loved dancing since the days when she tottered her
first steps for her mother’s and Bubru Singh’s delight. Long before
an American converted the Russian Royal Ballet, and the Russian Royal
Ballet in return took all the theatre-going West by storm—scandalizing,
then amazing, then educating bit by bit—Yasmini had developed her
own ideas and brought them by arduous practise to something near
perfection. To that her strength, agility and sinuous grace were largely
due; and she practised no deceptions on herself, but valued all three
qualities for their effect on other people, keeping no light under a bushel.

The consciousness of that night’s climactic quality raised her spirits
to the point where they were irrepressible, and she danced her garments
off one by one, using each in turn as a foil for her art until there was
nothing left with which to multiply rhythm and she danced before the
long French mirrors yet more gracefully with nothing on at all.

Getting Tess disrobed was a different matter. She did not own to much
prudery, but the maids’ eyes were over-curious. And, lacking, as she
knew she did, Yasmini’s ability to justify nakedness by poetry of motion,
she hid behind a curtain and was royally laughed at for her pains. But
she was satisfied to retain that intangible element that is best named
dignity, and let the laughter pass unchallenged. Yasmini, with her Eastern
heritage, could be dignified as well as beautiful as nature made her.
Not so Tess, or at any rate she thought not, and what one thinks is after
all the only gage acceptable.

Then came the gorgeous fun of putting on Tess’s clothes, each to be
danced in as its turn came, and made fun of, so that Tess herself began
to believe all Western clothes were awkward, idiotic things—until Yasmini
stood clothed complete at last, with her golden hair all coiled under
a Paris hat, and looked as lovely that way as any. The two women were
almost exactly the same size. Even the shoes fitted, and when Yasmini
walked the length of the room with Tess’s very stride and attitude Tess
got her first genuine glimpse of herself as another’s capably critical
eyes saw her—a priceless experience, and not so humiliating after all.

They dressed up Tess in man’s clothes—a young Rajput’s—a suit Yasmini
had worn on one of her wild excursions, and what with the coiled turban
of yellow silk and a little black mustache adjusted by cunning fingers
she felt as happy as a child in fancy dress. But she found it more difficult
to imitate the Rajput walk than Yasmini did to copy her tricks of carriage.
For a few minutes they played at walking together up and down the room
before the mirror, applauded by the giggling maids. But then suddenly
came anti-climax. There was a great hammering at the outer door, and
one of the maids ran down to investigate, while they waited in breathless silence.

The news the maid brought back was the worst imaginable. The look-out
at the northern corner of the wall (Yasmini kept watch on her captors
as rigorously as they spied on her) had run with the word to the gateman
that Gungadhura himself was coming with three eunuchs, all four on foot.

Almost as soon as the breathless girl could break that evil tidings there
came another hammering, and this time Hasamurti went down to answer.
Her news was worse. Gungadhura was at the outer gate demanding
admission, and threatening to order the guard to break the gate in if refused.

"What harm can he do?" demanded Tess. "He won’t dare try any violence
in front of me. Let us change clothes again."

Yasmini laughed at her.

"A prince on a horse may ride from harm," she answered. "When princes
walk, let other folk ’ware trouble! He comes to have his will on me.
Those eunuchs are the leash that always hunt with him by night. They
will manhandle you, too, if they once get in, and Gungadhura will take
his chance of trouble afterward. The guard dare not refuse him."

"What shall we do?" Tess wondered. "Can we hide?" Then, pulling
herself together for the sake of her race and her Western womanhood:
"If we make noise enough at the gate my husband will come. We’re all right."

"If there are any gods at all," said Yasmini piously, "they will consider
our plight. I think this is a vengeance on me because I said I will leave
my maids behind. I will not leave them! Hasamurti—you and the others
make ready for the street!"

That was a simple matter. In three minutes all five women were back
in the room, veiled from head to foot. But the hammering at the front
door was repeated, louder than before. Tess wondered whether to
hope that the risaldar of the guard had already reported to Gungadhura
the lady doctor’s visit, or to hope that he had not.

"We will all go down together now," Yasmini decided, and promptly
she started to lead the way alone. But Hasamurti sprang to her side,
and insisted with tears on disguising herself as her mistress and staying
behind to provide one slim chance for the rest to escape.

"In the dark you will pass for the memsahib," she urged. "The memsahib
will pass for a man. Wait by the gate until the maharajah enters, while
I stand at the door under the lamp as a decoy. I will run into the house,
and he will follow with the eunuchs, while the rest of you slip out through
the gate, and run before the guard can close it. Perhaps one, at least,
of the other maids had better stay with me."

A second maid volunteered, but Yasmini would have none of that plan.
First and last the great outstanding difference between her and the
ordinary run of conspirators, Western or Eastern, was unwillingness
to sacrifice faithful friends even in a pinch—although she could be
ruthlessness itself toward half-hearted ones. Both those habits grew
on her as she grew older.

By the time they reached the little curtained outer hall the maids were
on the verge of hysteria. Tess had herself well in control, and was praying
busily that her husband might only be near enough to hear the racket
at the gate. She was willing to be satisfied with that, and to ask no further
favors of Providence, unless that Dick should have Tom Tripe with him.
Outwardly calm enough, she could not for the life of her remember to
stride like a man. Yasmini turned more than once to rally her about it.

Yasmini herself looked unaccountably meek in the Western dress, but
her blue eyes blazed with fury and she walked with confidence, issuing
her orders in a level voice. The gateman had come to the door again
to announce that Gungadhura had issued a final warning. Two more
minutes and the outer gate should be burst in by his orders.

"Tell the maharajah sahib that I come in person to welcome him!" she
retorted, and the gateman hurried back into the dark toward his post.

There were no lights at the outer gate. One could only guess how the
stage was set—the maharajah hooded lest some enemy recognize him—
the eunuchs behind him with cords concealed under their loose outer
garments—and the guard at a respectful distance standing at attention.
There was not a maharajah’s sepoy in Sialpore who would have dared
remonstrate with Gungadhura in dark or daylight.

Only as they passed under the yellow light shed by the solitary lantern
on the iron bracket did Tess get an inkling of Yasmini’s plan. Light glinted
on the wrought hilt of a long Italian dagger, and her smile was cold-
uncompromising—shuddersome.

Tess objected instantly. "Didn’t you promise you’d kill nobody? If we’d
a pistol we could fire it in the air and my husband would come in a minute."

"How do we know that Gungadhura hasn’t killed your husband, or shut
him up somewhere?" Yasmini answered, and Tess had an attack of
cold chills that rendered her speechless for a moment. She threw it
off with a prodigious effort.

"But I’ve no weapon of any kind, and you can’t kill Gungadhura, three
eunuchs and the guard as well!" she argued presently.

"Wait and see what I will do!" was the only answer. "Gungadhura caused
my pistols to be stolen. But the darkness is our friend, and I think the
gods—if there are any gods—are going to assist us."

They walked to the gate in a little close-packed group, and found the
gateman stuttering through the small square hole provided for interviews
with strangers, telling the maharajah for the third or fourth time that the
princess herself was coming. Gungadhura’s voice was plainly audible,
growling threats from the outer darkness.

"Stand aside!" Yasmini ordered. "I will attend to the talking now."

She went close to the square hole, but was careful to keep her face in
shadow at the left-hand side of it.

"What can His Highness, Gungadhura Singh, want with his relative at
this strange hour?" she asked.

"Open the gate!" came the answer. He was very close to it—ready to
push with his shoulder the instant the bolt was drawn, for black passion
had him in hand. But in the darkness he was as invisible as she was.

"Nay, how shall I know it is Gungadhura Singh?"

"Ask the guard! Ho, there! Tell her who it is demands admission!"

"Nay, they might lie to me! The voice sounds strange. I would open
for Gungadhura Singh; but I must be sure it is he and no other."

"Look then!" he answered, and thrust his dark face close to the opening.

Even the utterly base have intuition. Nothing else warned him. In the
very nick of time he stepped back, and Yasmini’s long dagger that shot
forward like a stab of lightning only cut the cheek beneath the eye, and
slit it to the corner of his mouth.

The blood poured down into his beard and added fury to determination.

"Guards, break in the gate!" he shouted, and Yasmini stood back in the
darkest shadow, about as dangerous as a cobra guarding young ones.
With her left hand she signed to all six women to hide themselves;
but Tess came and stood beside her, minded in that minute to give
Gungadhura Western aftermath to reckon with as well as the combined
present courage of two women. Wondering desperately what she
could do to help against armed men she suddenly snatched one of
the long hat-pins that she herself had adjusted in her own hat on
Yasmini’s head.

Yasmini hugged her close and kissed her.

"Better than sister! Better than friend!" she whispered.

Gungadhura had not been idle while he waited for his message to reach
Yasmini, but had sent some of the guard to find a baulk of timber for
a battering-ram. The butts of rifles would have been useless against
that stout iron.

The gate shook now under the weight of the first assault, but the guards
were handling the timber clumsily, not using their strength together.
Gungadhura cursed them, and spent two valuable minutes trying to
show them how the trick should be worked, the blood that poured into
his beard, and made of his mouth a sputtering crimson mess, not helping
to make his raging orders any more intelligible.

Presently the second crash came, stronger and more elastic than the
first. The iron bent inward, and it was plainly only a matter of minutes
before the bolt would go. The gateman came creeping to Yasmini’s
side, and, with yellow fangs showing in a grin meant to be affectionate,
displayed an Afghan tulwar.

"Ismail!" she said. "I thought you were afraid and ran to hide!"

"Nay!" he answered. "My life is thine, Princess! Gungadhura took away
all weapons, but this I hid. I went to find it. See," he grinned, feeling
the edge with his thumb, "it is clean! It is keen! It will cut throats!"

"I will not forget!" Yasmini answered, but the words were lost in the din
of the third blow of wood on iron.

The odds began not to look so bad—two desperate women and a faithful
Northern fighting man armed with a weapon that he loved and understood,
against a wounded blackguard and three eunuchs. Perhaps the guard
might look on and not interfere. There was a chance to make a battle
royal of it, whose tumult would bring Dick Blaine and Tom Tripe to the
rescue. What was the dog doing? Tess wondered whether any animal
could be so intelligent after all as Tom pretended his was. Perhaps
the maharajah had seen the dog and killed him.

"Listen!" she urged. "Tell your maids to stampede for the street the
instant the door breaks in. That will give the guard their work to do to
hold them. Meanwhile—"

"Thump!" came the timber on the gate again, and even the hinges shook
in their stone setting.

"Listen!" said Yasmini.

There was another noise up-street—a rushing to and fro, and a trumpeting
that no one could mistake.

"I said that—"

"Thump!" came the baulk of timber—not so powerfully as before. There
was distraction affecting the team-work. The scream of an elephant
fighting mad, and the yelp of a dog, that pierces every other noise, rent
the darkness close at hand.

"I said that the gods—"

There came the thud of a very heavy body colliding with a wall, and
another blood-curdling scream of rage—then the thunder of what might
have been an avalanche as part of a near-by wall collapsed, and a brute
as big as Leviathan approached at top speed.

There was another thud, but this time caused by the hulk of timber falling
on the ground, as guard, eunuchs and Gungadhura all took to their heels.

"Allah! Il hamdul illah!" swore the gateman. (Thanks be to God!)

"I said that the gods would help tonight!" Yasmini cried exultantly.

"O Lord, what has happened to Dick?" groaned Tess between set teeth.

The thunder of pursuit drew nearer. Possessed by some instinct she
never offered to explain, Yasmini stepped to the gate, drew back the
bolt, and opened it a matter of inches. In shot Tom Tripe’s dog, with
his tongue hanging out and the fear of devils blazing in his eyes. Yasmini
slammed the gate again in the very face of a raging elephant, and shot
the bolt in the nick of time to take the shock of his impact.

It was only a charge in half-earnest or he would have brought the gate
down. An elephant is a very short-sighted beast, and it was pitch-dark.
He could not believe that a dog could disappear through a solid iron
gate, and after testing the obstruction for a moment or two, grumbling
to himself angrily, he stood to smell the air and listen. There was a
noise farther along the street of a stampede of some kind. That was
likely enough his quarry, probably frightening other undesirables along
in front of him. With a scream of mingled frenzy and delight he went
off at once full pelt.

"Oh, Trotters! Good dog, Trotters!" sobbed Tess, kneeling down to
make much of him, and giving way to the reaction that overcomes men
as well as women. "Where’s your master? Oh, if you could tell me
where my husband is!"

She did not have long to wait for the answer to that. It took the two men
a matter of seconds to get the horse on his feet, and no fire-engine
ever left the station house one fraction faster than Dick tooled that dog-cart.
The horse was all nerves and in no mood to wait on ceremony, which
accounted for a broken spoke and a fragment of the gate-post hanging
in the near wheel. They forgot to unlash the wheels before they started,
so the dog-cart came up-street on skids, as it were, screaming holy
murder on the granite flags—which in turn saved the near wheel from
destruction. It also made it possible to rein in the terrified horse exactly
in front of the palace gate; another proof that as Yasmini said, the gods
of India were in a mood to help that night. (Not that she ever believed
the gods are one bit more consequential than men.)

Yasmini drew the bolt, and the gate creaked open reluctantly; the shock
of the elephant’s shoulder had about ended its present stage of usefulness.
Tom Tripe, dismounting from his horse in a hurry and throwing the reins
over the dog-cart lamp, was first to step through.

"Where’s my dog?" he demanded. "Where’s that Trotters o’ mine?

Did Akbar get him?"

 

A cold nose thrust in his hand was the answer.

"Oh, so there you are, you rascal! There—lie down!"

That was all the ceremonial that passed between them, but the dog
seemed satisfied.

Tess was out through the gate almost sooner than Tom Tripe could
enter it. They brushed each other’s shoulders as they passed. Up in
the dog-cart she and her husband laughed in each other’s arms, each
at the other’s disguise, neither of them with the slightest notion what
would happen next, except that Dick knew the dog-cart wheels would
have to be unlashed.

"How many people will the carriage hold?" Yasmini called to them,
appearing suddenly in the lamp-light. And Dick Blaine began laughing
all over again, for except for the golden hair she looked so like the wife
who sat on his left hand, and his wife so like a Rajput that the humor
of the situation was its only obvious feature.

"I must not take my carriage, for they would trace it, and besides, there
is too little time. Can we all ride in your carriage? There are six of us."

"Probably. But where to?" Dick answered.

"I will direct. Ismail must come too, but he can run."

It was an awful crowd, for the dog-cart was built for four people at the
most, and in the end Tess insisted on riding behind Tom Tripe because
she was dressed like a man and could do it easily. Ismail was sent
back to close the gate from the inside and clamber out over the top
of it. There was just room for a lean and agile man to squeeze between
the iron and the stone arch.

"Let the watchmen who feared and hid themselves stay to give their
own account to Gungadhura!" Yasmini sneered scornfully. "They are
no longer men of mine!"

"Now, where away?" demanded Dick, giving the horse his head. "To
my house? You’ll be safe there for the present."

"No. They might trace us there."

Yasmini was up beside him, wedged tightly between him and Hasamurti,
so like his own wife, except for a vague Eastern scent she used, that
he could not for the life of him speak to her as a stranger.

"Listen!" she said excitedly. "I had horses here, there, everywhere in
case of need. But Gungadhura sent men and took them all. Now I
have only one horse—in your stable—I must get that tonight. First, then,
drive my women to a place that I will show you."

Away in the distance they could hear the trumpeting of Akbar, and the
shouts of men who had been turned out to attempt the hopeless task
of capturing the brute. At each scream the horse trembled in the shafts
and had to be managed skillfully, but the load was too heavy now for
him to run away with it.

"If that elephant will continue to be our friend and will only run the other
way for a distraction, so that we are not seen, one of these days I will
give him a golden howdah!" vowed Yasmini.

And Akbar did that very thing. Whoever was awake that night in Sialpore,
and was daring enough to venture in the dark streets, followed the line
of destruction and excitement, gloating over the broken property of
enemies or awakening friends to make them miserable with condolences.
The dog-cart threaded through the streets unseen, for even the scarce
night-watchmen left their posts to take part in the hunt.

Yasmini guided them to the outskirts of the town in a line as nearly straight
as the congenital deviousness of Sialpore’s ancient architects allowed.
There was not a street but turned a dozen times to the mile. At one
point she bade Dick stop, and begged Tess to let Tom Tripe take her
home, promising to see her again within the hour. But Tess had recovered
her nerve and was determined to see the adventure through, in spite
of the discomforts of a seat behind Tom’s military saddle.

They brought up at last in front of a low dark house at the very edge
of the city. It stood by itself in a compound, with fields behind it, and
looked prosperous enough to belong to one of the maharajah’s suite.

"The house of Mukhum Dass!" Yasmini announced.

"The money-lender?"

"Yes."

Dick made a wry face, for the man’s extortions were notorious. But
Yasmini never paused to cast up virtue when she needed assistants
in a hurry; rather she was adept at appraising character and bending
it to suit her ends. Ismail, hot and out of breath from running at the cart-tail,
was sent to pound the money-lender’s door, until that frightened individual
came down himself to inquire (with the door well held by a short chain)
what the matter was.

"I lend no money in the night!" was his form of greeting. He always
used it when gamblers came to him in the heat of the loser’s passion
at unearthly hours—and sometimes ended by making a loan at very
high interest on sound security. Otherwise he would have stayed in
bed, whatever the thunderous importunity.

Yasmini was down at the door by that time, and it was she who answered.

"Nay, but men win lawsuits by gathering evidence! Are title-deeds not
legal in the dark?"

"Who are you?" he demanded, reaching backward for a little lamp that
hung on the wall behind him and trying to see her face.

"I am the same who met you that morning on the hilltop and purchased
silence from you at a price."

He peered through the narrow opening, holding the lamp above his head.

"That was a man. You are a woman."

For answer to that she stood on tiptoe and blew the lamp out. He would
have slammed the door, but her foot was in the way.

"By dark or daylight, Mukhum Dass, your eyes read nothing but the
names on hundis (notes)! Now, what does the car say? Does the voice
tell nothing?"

"Aye, it is the same."

"You shall have that title-deed tomorrow at dawn—on certain terms."

"How do I know?’

"Because I say it—I, who said that Chamu would repay his son’s loan,—
I, who knew from the first all about the title-deed,—I, who know where
it is this minute,—I, who know the secrets of Jinendra’s priest,—I, whose
name stands written on the hundred-rupee note with which the butler
paid his son’s debt!"

"The princess! The Princess Yasmini! It was her name on the note!"

"Her name is mine!"

The money-lender stood irresolutely, shifting his balance from foot
to foot. It was his experience that when people with high-born names
came to him by night mysteriously there was always profit in it for himself.
And then, there was that title-deed. He had bought the house cheap,
but its present value was five times what he gave for it. Its loss would
mean more to him than the loss of a wife to some men—as Yasmini
knew, and counted on.

"Open the door and let me in, Mukhum Dass! The terms are these—"

"Nay, we can talk with the door between us."

"Very well, then, lose thy title-deed! Dhulap Singh, thine enemy, shall
have it within the hour!"

She took her foot out from the door and turned away briskly. Promptly
he opened the door wide, and called after her.

"Nay, come, we will discuss it."

"I discuss nothing!" she answered with a laugh. "I dictate terms!"

"Name them, then."

"I have here five women. They must stay in safety in your house until
an hour before dawn."

"God forbid!"

"Until an hour before dawn, you hear me? If any come to inquire for
them or me, you must deny any knowledge."

"That I would be sure enough to do! Shall I have it said that Mukhum

Dass keeps a dozen women in his dotage?"

 

"An hour before dawn I will come for them."

"None too soon!"

"Then I will write a letter to a certain man, who, on presentation of the
letter, will hand you the title-deed at once without payment."

"A likely tale!"

"Was it a likely tale that Chamu would repay his son’s debt?"

"Well—I will take the hazard. Bring them in. But I will not feed them.
And if you fail to come for them before dawn I will turn them out and
it shall be all over Sialpore that the Princess Yasmini—"

"One moment, Mukhum Dass! If one word of this escapes your lips
for a month to come, you shall go to jail for receiving stolen money in
payment of a debt! My name was on the money that Chamu paid you with.
You knew he stole it."

"I did not know!"

"Prove that in court, then!"

"Bring the women in!" he grumbled. "I am no cackler from the roofs!"

Yasmini did not wait for him to change his mind but shepherded her
scared dependents through the door, and called for Ismail.

"Did you see these women enter?" she demanded.

"Aye. I saw. Have I not eyes?"

"Stay thou here outside and watch. Afterward, remember, if I say nothing,
be thou dumb as Tom Tripe’s dog. But if I give the word, tell all Sialpore
that Mukhum Dass is a satyr who holds revels in his house by night.
Bring ten other men to swear to it with thee, until the very children of
the streets shout it after him when he rides his rounds! Hast thou
understood? Silence for silence! But talk for talk! Hast thou heard,
too, Mukhum Dass? Good! Shut thy door tight, but thy mouth yet tighter!
And try rather to take liberties with hornets than with those five women!"

Before he could answer she was gone, leaving Ismail lurking in the
shadows. Tess had dismounted from behind Tom Tripe and climbed
up beside her husband so that there were three on the front seat again.

"Now, Tom Tripe!" Yasmini ordered, speaking with the voice of command
that Tom himself would have used to a subordinate. "Do you as the
elephant did, and cause distraction. Draw Gungadhura off the scent!"

"Hell’s bells, deary me, Your Ladyship!" he answered. "All the drawing
I’ll do after this night’s work will be my last month’s pay, and lucky if I
see that! Lordy knows what the guard’ll tell the maharajah, nor what
his rage’ll add to it!"

"Nonsense! Gungadhura and the guard ran from the elephant like dust
before the wind. The guards are the better men, and will be back at
their post before this; but Gungadhura must find a discreet physician
to bind a slit face for him! Visit the guard now, and get their ear first.
Tell them Gungadhura wants no talk about tonight’s work. Then come
to Blaine sahib’s house and search the cellar by lamplight, letting Chalmu
the butler see you do it, but taking care not to let him see what you see.
What you do see, leave where it lies! Then see Gungadhura early in
the morning—"

"Lordy me, Your Ladyship, he’ll—"

"No, he won’t. He’ll want to know how much you know about his behavior
at the gate. Tell him you know everything, and that you’ve compelled
the guard to keep silence. That ought to reconcile the coward! But if
he threatens you, then threaten him! Threaten to go to Samson sahib
with the whole story. (But if you do dare really go to Samson sahib,
never look me in the face again!) Then tell Gungadhura that you searched
the cellar, and what you saw there under a stone, adding that Blaine
sahib was suspicious, and watched you, and afterward sealed the
cellar door. Have you understood me?"

"I understand there’s precious little sleep for me tonight, and hell in
the morning!"

"Pouf! Are you a soldier?"

"I’m your ladyship’s most thorough-paced admirer and obedient slave!"

Tom answered gallantly, his mutton-chop whiskers fairly bristling with a grin.

 

"Prove it, then, this night!"

"As if I hadn’t! Well—all’s well, Your Ladyship, I’m on the job! Crib,
crupper and breakfast-time, yours truly!"

"When you have finished interviewing Gungadhura, find for Blaine sahib
a new cook and a new butler, who can be trusted not to poison him!"

"If I can!"

"Of course you can find them! Tell Sita Ram, Samson sahib’s babu,
what is wanted. He will find men in one hour who have too much honor,
and too little brains, and too great fear to poison any one! Say that I
require it of him. Have your understood? Then go! Go swiftly to the
guard and stop their tongues!"

Tom whistled his dog and rode off at a canter. Dick gave the horse
his head and drove home as fast as the steepness of the hill permitted,
Yasmini talking to him nearly all the way.

"You must dismiss Chamu," she insisted. "He is Gungadhura’s man,
and the cook is under the heel of Chamu. Either man would poison his
own mother for a day’s pay! Send them both about their business the
first thing in the morning if you value your life! Before they go, let them
see you put a great lock on the cellar door, and nail it as well, and put
weights on it! If men come at any time to pry about the house, ask
Samson sahib for a special policeman to guard the place!"

"But what is all this leading to?" demanded Dick. "What does it mean?"

"It means," she said slowly, "that the toils are closing in on Gungadhura!"

"The way I figure it," he answered, "some one else had a pretty narrow
shave tonight!"

Yasmini knew better than to threaten Dick, or even to argue with him
vehemently, much less give him orders. But each man has a line of
least resistance.

"Your wife has told you what Gungadhura attempted?" she asked him.

"Yes, while you were at the money-lender’s—something of it."

"If the guard should tell Gungadhura that your wife was in the palace
with me and could give evidence against him, what do you suppose
Gungadhura would do?"

"Damn him!" Dick murmured.

"There are so many ways—snakes—poison—daggers in the dark—"

"What do you suggest?" he asked her. "Leave Sialpore?"

"Yes, but with me! I know a safe place. She should come with me."

"When?"

"Tonight! Before dawn."

"How?"

"By camel. I had horses and Gungadhura took them all, but his brain
was too sotted to think of camels, and I have camels waiting not many
miles from here! I shall take my horse from your stable and ride for
the camels, bringing them to the house of Mukhum Dass. Let your
wife meet me there one hour before dawn."

"Dick!" said Tess, with her arm around him. "I want to go! I know it
sounds crazy, and absurd, and desperate; but I’m sure it isn’t! I want
you to let me go with her."

They reached the house before he answered, he, turning it over and
over in his mind, taking into reckoning a thousand things.

"Well," he said at last, "once in a while there’s the strength of a man
about you, Tess. Maybe I’m a lunatic, but have it your own way, girl,
have it your own way!"