Chapter Ten

In odor of sweet sanctity I bloom,
With surplus of beatitude I bless,
I'm the confidant of Destiny and Doom,
I'm the apogee of knowledge more or less.
If I lie, it is to temporize with lying
Lest obliquity should suffer in the light.
If I prey upon the widow and the dying,
They withheld; and I compel them to do right.
I am justified in all that I endeavor,
If I fail it is because the rest are fools.
I'm serene and unimpeachable forever,
The upheld, ordained interpreter of rules.

"Discretion is better part of secrecy!"

Some of what follows presently was told to Yasmini afterward by Sita Ram,
some of it by Tom Tripe, and a little by Dick Blaine, who had it from
Samson himself. The rest she pieced together from admissions by
Jinendra's fat priest and the gossip of some dancing girls.

Sir Roland Samson, K. C. S. I., as told already, was a very demon for swift office work, routine pouring off him into the hands of the right subordinates like water into the runnels of a roof, leaving him free to bask in the sunshine of self-complacency. But there is work that can not be tackled, or even touched by subordinates; and, the fixed belief of envious inferiors to the contrary notwithstanding, there are hours unpaid for, unincluded in the office schedule, and wholly unadvertised that hold such people as commissioners in durance vile.

On the night of Yasmini's escape Samson sat sweating in his private room, with moths of a hundred species irritating him by noisy self- immolation against the oil lamp-whose smoke made matters worse by being sucked up at odd moments by the punkah, pulled jerkily by a new man. Most aggravating circumstance of all, perhaps, was that the movement of the punkah flickered his papers away whenever he removed a weight. Yet he could not study them unless he spread them all in front of him; and without the punkah he felt he would die of apoplexy. He had to reach a decision before midnight.

Babu Sita Ram was supposed to be sitting tinder a punkah in the next room, with a locked door between him and his master. He was staying late, by special request and as a special favor, to copy certain very important but not too secret documents in time for the courier next day. There were just as many insects to annoy him, and the punkah flapped his papers too; but fat though he was, and sweat though he did, his smile was the smile of a hunter. From time to time he paused from copying, stole silently to the door between the offices, gingerly removed a loose knot from a panel, and clapped to the hole first one, and then the other avidious brown eye.

Samson wished to goodness there was some one he dared consult with. There were other Englishmen, of course, but they were all ambitious like himself. He felt that his prospects were at stake. News had reached the State Department (by channels Sita Ram could have uncovered for him) that Gungadhura was intriguing with tribes beyond the northwest frontier.

The tribes were too far away to come in actual touch with Sialpore, although they were probably too wild and childish to appreciate that fact. The point was that Gungadhura was said to be promising them armed assistance from the British rear—assistance that he never would possibly be able to render them; and his almost certain intention was, when the rising should materialize, to offer his small forces to the British as an inexpensive means of quelling the disturbance, thus restoring his own lost credit and double-crossing all concerned. A subtle motive, subtly suspected.

It was no new thing in the annals of Indian state affairs, nor anything to get afraid about; but what the State Department desired to know was, why Sir Roland Samson, K. C. S. I., was not keeping a closer eye on Gungadhura, what did he propose as the least troublesome and quietest solution, and would he kindly answer by return.

All that was bad enough, because a "beau ideal commissioner" rather naturally feels distressed when information of that sort goes over his head or under his feet to official superiors. But he could have got around it. It should not have been very difficult to write a report that would clear himself and give him time to turn around.

But that very evening no less an individual than the high priest of Jinendra had sent word by Sita Ram that he craved the favor of an interview.

"And," had added Sita Ram with malicious delight, "it is about the treasure of Sialpore and certain claims to it that I think he wants to see you."

"Why should he come by night?" demanded Samson.

"Because his errand is a secret one," announced the babu, with a hand on his stomach as if he had swallowed something exquisite.

So Samson was in a quandary, going over secret records getting ready for an issue with the priest. His report had to be ready by morning, yet he hardly dared begin it without knowing what the priest might have in mind; and on his own intricate knowledge of the situation might depend whether or not he could extract, from a man more subtle than himself, information on which to base sound proposals to his government. His reputation was decidedly at stake; and dangerous intrigue was in the air, or else the priest would never be coming to visit him.

Sita Ram kept peeping at him through the knot-hole, as a cook peers at a tit-bit in the oven, to judge whether it is properly cooked yet.

Jinendra's priest had had time for reflection. True to his kidney, he trusted nobody, unlike Yasmini who knew whom to trust, and when, and just how far. It was all over the city that Gungadhura's practises were hastening his ruin, so it was obviously wise not to espouse the maharajah's cause, in addition to which he had become convinced in his own mind that Yasmini actually knew the whereabouts of the Sialpore treasure. But he did not trust Yasmini either, nor did he relish her scornful promise of a mere percentage of the hoard when it should at last be found. He wanted at least the half of it, bargains to the contrary notwithstanding; and he had that comfortable conscience that has soothed so many priests, that argues how the church must be above all bargains, all bonds, all promises. Was there any circumstance, or man, or woman who could bind and circumscribe Jinendra's high priest? He laughed at the suggestion of it. Samson was the man to see— Samson the man to be inveigled in the nets. So he sent his verbal message by the mouth of Sita Ram—a very pious devotee of Jinendra by Yasmini's special orders; and, disguising his enormous bulk in a thin cloak, set forth long after dark in a covered cart drawn by two tiny bulls.

There were two doors to Sita Ram's small office; two to Samson's large one—three doors in all, because they shared the connecting one (that was locked just now) in common. At the first sound of the long- awaited heavy footsteps on the outer porch Sita Ram hurried to do the honors, and presently ushered into Samson's presence the enormous bulk of the high priest, spreading a clean cloth for him on an easy chair because the priest's caste put it out of the question for him to sit on leather defiled by European trousers.

Then, while the customary salaams were taking place, and the customary questions about health and other matters that neither cared a fig about, Sita Ram ostentatiously drew a curtain part-way over the connecting door, and retired by way of the other door and the passage to remove the knot from its hole.

It was part of Samson's pride, and one of his stoutest rungs in the ladder of preferment, that be knew more Indian languages than any other man of his rank in the service, and knew them well. There were asterisks and stars and twiggly marks against his name in the blue book that would have passed muster as a secret code, and every one of them betokened passed examinations in some Eastern tongue. So he was fully able to meet the high priest on his own ground, as well as conscious of the advantage he held to begin with, in that the priest had come to him instead of his going to the priest.

"Well?" he demanded, cutting the pleasantries short abruptly as soon as Sita Ram had closed the door.

"I came to speak of politics."

"I listen."

Samson leaned back and scrutinized his visitor with deliberate rudeness.
Having the upper hand he proposed to hold it.

But Jinendra's high priest was no beginner either in the game of Beggar-my-neighbor. He understood the value of a big trump to begin with, provided there is other ammunition in reserve.

"The whereabouts of the treasure of Sialpore is known!"

"The deuce it is!" said Samson, in good plain English. "Who knows it?" he demanded.

The high priest smiled.

Samson, as was natural, felt that tingling up and down the spine and quickening of the heart-beats that announces crisis in one's personal affairs, but concealed it admirably. It was the high priest's turn to speak. He waited.

"Half of that treasure belongs to the priesthood of Jinendra," said the priest at last.

"Since when?"

"Since the beginning."

"Why?"

"We were keepers of the treasure once years ago, before the English came. There came a time when the reigning rajah deceived us by a trick, including murder; and ever since the English took control the priests have had less and less authority. There has been no chance to— to bring any—to put pressure—to reestablish our rights. Nevertheless, our rights in the matter were never surrendered."

"What do you mean by that exactly?"

"The English are now the real rulers of Sialpore."

Samson nodded. That was a significant admission, coming from a
Brahman priest.

"They should claim the treasure. But they can not claim it without knowing where it is. The priests of Jinendra are entitled to their half."

"You mean you are willing that my government should take half the treasure, provided the priests of Jinendra get the other half of it?"

The priest moved his head and his lips in a way that might be taken to mean anything.

"If you know where the treasure is, dig it up," said Samson, "and you shall have your answer!"

Yasmini in the heat of excitement had called Samson an idiot, but he was far from being that, as she knew as well as any one. He judged in that moment that if Jinendra's priest knew really where the treasure was, he would never have come to drive a bargain for the half of it, but would have taken all and said nothing. On the other hand, it well might be that Gungadhura's searchers had stumbled on it. In that case, there was that secret letter from headquarters hurriedly placed in his top drawer when the priest came in, that would give good excuse for putting screws on Gungadhura. A coup d'etat was not beyond the pale of possibility. As a champion of indiscretion and a judge of circumstances, he would dare. The gleam in his eyes betrayed that he would dare, and the priest grew uneasy.

"It is not I who know where the treasure is. I know who knows."

"You mean Gungadhura knows!"

The priest smiled again. The commissioner was not such a dangerous antagonist after all. Samson's eyes betrayed disappointment, and the priest took heart of grace.

"For one-half of the treasure I will tell you who it is that knows. You can take possession of the of the person. Then—"

"Illegal. By what right could I arrest a person simply because some one else asserts without proof that that person knows where the treasure is?"

"Not arrest, perhaps. But you might protect."

"From whom? From what?"

"Gungadhura suspects. He might use poison—torture—might carry the person off into hiding—"

He paused, for Samson's eyes were again a signal of excitement.
He had it! He knew as much as the priest himself did in that instant!
There was one particular individual in Sialpore who fitted that bill.

"Nonsense!" he answered. "Gungadhura would be answerable to me for any outrages."

The priest showed a slight trace of dejection, but went forward bravely to defeat.

"There is danger," he said. "If Gungadhura should lay hands on all that money, there would be no peace in Rajputana. I should not bargain away what belongs to the priesthood, but discretion is permitted me; if you will agree with me tonight, I will accept a little less than half of it."

Samson wanted time to think, and he was through with the priest—finished with the interview,—not even anxious to appear polite.

"If you bring me definite information," he said slowly, "and on the strength of that my government should come in possession of the Sialpore treasure, I will promise you in writing five per cent. of it for the funds of the priesthood of Jinendra, the money to be held in trust and administered subject to accounting."

Jinendra's high priest hove his bulk out of the leather chair and went through the form of taking leave, contenting himself, too, with the veriest shell of courtesy—scorn for such an offer scowling from his fat face. Samson showed him to the door and closed it after him, leaving Babu Sita Ram to do the honors outside in the passage.

"I kiss feet!" said the babu. "You must bless me, father. I kiss feet!"

The priest blessed him perfunctorily.

"Is there anything I can do, holy one? Anything a babu such as I can do to earn merit?"

Rolling on his ponderous way toward the waiting bull-cart, the priest paused a moment—eyed Sita Ram as a python eyes a meal—and answered him.

"Tell that woman from me that if she has a plan at all she must unfold it swiftly. Tell her that this Samson sahib is after the treasure for himself; that he invited me to help him and to share it with him. Let her have word with me swiftly."

"What treasure?" asked Sita Ram ingenuously. Having had his ear to the knot-hole throughout the interview, it suited him to establish innocence. The priest could have struck himself for the mistake, and Sita Ram, too, for the impudence.

"Never mind!" he answered. "Tell her what I say. Those who obey and ask no unwise questions oftentimes receive rewards."

Inside the office Samson sat elated, wiping his forehead and setting blotter over writing-paper lest sweat from his wrists make the ink run. It was a bender of a night, but he saw his way to a brilliant stroke of statecraft that would land him on the heights of official approval forever. Heat did not matter. The man at the punkah had fallen asleep, but he did not bother to waken him. Back at the knot-hole, babu Sita Ram watched him scribble half a dozen letters, tearing each up in turn until the last one pleased him. Finally he sealed a letter, and directed it by simply writing two small letters—r. s.—in the bottom left-hand corner.

"Sita Ram!" he shouted then.

The babu let him call three times, for evidence of how hard it was to hear through that thick door. When he came it was round by the other way in a hurry.

"You called, sir?"

"You need not copy any more of those documents tonight, Sita Ram. I shall send a telegram in the morning and keep my report in hand for a day or two. But there's one more little favor I would like to ask of you."

"Anything, sahib! Anything! Am only desirous to please your excellency."

"Do you know a man named Tripe—Tom Tripe—drill-instructor to the
Maharajah's Guard?"

"Yes, sahib."

"Could you find him, do you think?"

"Tonight, sahib?"

"Yes, tonight."

"Sahib, he is usually drunk at night, and very rough! Nevertheless, I could find him."

"Please do. And give him this letter. Say it is from me. He will know what to do with it. Oh, and Sita Ram—"

"Yes, sahib."

"You will receive two days' extra pay from me, over and above your salary, for tonight's extra work."

"Thank you, sahib. You are most kind—always most generous."

"And—ah—Sita Ram—"

"Sahib?"

"Say nothing, will you? By nothing I mean nothing! Hold your tongue, eh?"

"Certainly, sahib. Aware of the honor of my confidential position, I am always most discreet!"

"What are you doing with that waste-basket?"

"Taking it outside, sahib."

"The sweeper will do that in the morning."

"Am always discreet, sahib. Discretion is better part of secrecy! Better to burn all torn-up paper before daylight always!"

"Very good. You're quite right. Thank you, Sita Ram. Yes, burn the torn paper, please."

So Sita Ram, piecing together little bits of paper got a very good idea of what was in the letter that he carried. The bonfire in the road looked beautiful and gladdened his esthetic soul, but the secret information thrilled him, which was better. He crossed the river, and very late that night he found Tom Tripe, as sober as a judge, what with riding back and forth to the Blaines' house and searching in a cellar and what-not. He gave him the letter, and received a rupee because Tom's dog frightened him nearly out of his wits. Tom swore at the letter fervently, but that was Tom's affair, who could not guess the contents.

Almost exactly at dawn Sita Ram, as sleepy as a homing owl, reached his own small quarters in the densest part of town. He had his hand on the door when another hand restrained him from behind.

"You know me?" said a voice he did not know. A moment later his terrified eyes informed him.

"Mukhum Dass? I owe you nothing!"

"Liar! You have my title-deed! Hand it over before I bring the constabeel!"

"I? Your title-deed? I know nothing of it. What title-deed?"

Mukhum Dass cut expostulation short, and denied himself the pleasure of further threatening.

"See. Here is a letter. Read it, and then hand me over my title-deed!"

"Ah! That is different?" said Sita Ram, pocketing Yasmini's letter, for precaution's sake. "Wait here while I bring it!"

Two minutes later he returned with a parchment in a tin tube.

"Do I receive no recompense?" he asked. "Did I not find the title-deed and keep it safe? Where is the reward?"

"Recompense?" growled Mukhum Dass. "To be out of jail is recompense! The next time you find property of mine, bring it to me, or the constabeel shall have work to do!"

"Dog!" snarled the babu after him. "Dog of a usurer! Wait and see!"

Chapter Eleven

To cover a trail is less than half the work, for any dog with a nose can smell it out. You should make a false trail afterward to deceive the clever folk. -Eastern Proverb

"Say: that little girl you're wanting to run off with is my wife!"

The other side to the intrigue developed furiously up at the Baines' house on the hillside. Yasmini gave directions from Tess's bedroom, where Tess hid her from prying servants, she electing to change clothes once more—this time into her hostess' riding breeches, boots and helmet. But she insisted on Tess retaining the Rajput costume, only allowing a hand-bag to be packed with woman's things, skirt, blouse and so on.

"If I am seen there must be no mistake about me. They must swear that I am you! It doesn't matter who they believe that you are. Above all, Chamu the butler must not see me. When he is dismissed in the morning he will tell tales for very spite, and take his chance of my accusing him of theft; so be sure that he sees Tom Tripe search the cellar. Then he will confirm to the maharajah afterward that Tripe did search— and did see something—and that Blaine sahib did lock the cellar door afterward in anger, and put weights on it. That is the important thing. Blaine sahib must drive the carriage again to the house of Mukhum Dass; and be sure that I am not kept waiting there—we must start before the dawn breaks! Now give me paper and a pen to write the chit (letter) for Mukhum Dass."

There was no ink in the bedroom; Dick took her into the place he called his study, and locked the door, glad of the excuse. He was minded to know more of the intrigue before letting his wife go off again that night on any wild adventure, second thoughts having stirred his caution. He began by offering to lend her money, suspecting that a fugitive princess would need that more than anything. But she replied by drawing out from her bosom a packet containing thousands of rupees in Bank of India notes, and gave him money instead—not much, but she forced it on him.

"For the three beggars. Ten rupees each. Pay it them in silver in the morning. They have been very useful often, and may be so again."

He watched her write the letter and seal the envelope. Then:

"Say," he said, "don't you think you'd be doing right by telling me more of this? I'll say nothing to a soul, but that little girl you're wanting to run off with is my wife, and I'll admit I'm kind o' concerned on her account."

Yasmini met his iron-gray eyes, judged him and found him good.

"I never trusted man yet, not even the husband I shall marry, with all
I shall tell you," she answered. "Will you give me silence in return for it?"

"Mum as the grave," he answered. And Dick Blaine kept his word, not even hinting to Tess on the long drive afterward that there had been as much as a question asked or confidence exchanged. And Tess respected the silence, not deceived for a minute by it. He and Yasmini had been longer in that room together than any one-page letter needed, and she was sure there was only one subject they discussed.

Dick brought Yasmini's horse to the gate, not to the door, and she mounted outside in the road for additional precaution. Instantly, then, without a word of farewell she was off like the wind down-hill.

"It'll be all over town tomorrow that I'm dead or dying, if anybody sees her!" Dick told his wife. "They'll swear that was you, Tess, riding full pelt for the doctor!"

Soon after that Tom Tripe came, and made Chamu hold a light for him while he searched the cellar.

"Hold the candle and your tongue too, confound you!" he told the grumbling butler, indignant at being brought from bed.

Dick had already put the silver tube in place. Tom Tripe raised the stone and saw it—uttered a tremendous oath—and dropped the heavy stone back over the hole.

"What are you doing?" Dick demanded from the ladder-head, appearing with a lantern from behind the raised trap.

"Looking for rum!" Tom answered. Then he turned on Chamu. "Did you see what I saw? Speak a word of it, you devil, and I'll tear your throat out! Silence, d'you understand?"

"Come out of there!" Dick ordered angrily. "I'll have to lock this cellar door! I can't have people prospecting down there! I've got reasons of my own for keeping that cellar undisturbed! I'm surprised at you, Tom Tripe, taking advantage of me when my back's turned!"

The minute they were up he put a padlock on the trap, and nailed it down to the beams as well. Then, summoning Tom's aid, he levered and shoved into place on top of it the heavy iron safe in which he kept his specimens and money.

"That'll do for you, Chamu!" he said finally. "I don't care to keep a butler who takes guests into the cellar at this hour of night! You may go. I'll give you your time in the morning."

Chamu showed his teeth, by no means for the first time. It was a favorite method of his for covering up bad service to fall back on his reference.

"Maharajah sahib who is recommending me will not be pleased at my dismissal!"

"You and your maharajah go to hell together!" Dick retorted. "Tell him from me that I won't have inquisitive people in my cellar! Now go; there's nothing more to talk about. Fire the cook, too, as soon as he wakes! Tell him I don't like ground glass in my omelette! Not been any in it? Well, what do I care? I don't want any in it—that's enough! I'm taking no chances. Tell him he's fired, and you two pull your freight together in the morning first thing!"

Ten minutes alone with Yasmini had worked wonders with Dick Blaine. Given to making up his mind and seeing resolution through to stern conclusions, he was her stout ally from the moment when he unlocked the study door again until the end—a good silent ally too busy, apparently, about his own affairs to be suspected. Certainly Samson never suspected his real share in the intrigue—Samson, the judge of circumstances, indiscretions, men and opportunity.

He sent Tom Tripe packing, with a flea in his ear for Chamu's benefit, and a whispered word of friendship. Later he drove Tess down-hill in the dog-cart, first changing his own disguise for American clothes because the saises might be up and about when he returned at dawn, and for them to see him in the costume of a sais would only have added to the risk of putting Gungadhura's men on the scent of Yasmini. Saises are almost the most prolific source of rumor, but he had a means of stilling their tongues.

There was little to say during the dark drive. They were affectionate, those two, without too many words when it came to leave-taking, each knowing the other's undivided love. Tess had money—a revolver— cartridges—some food—sufficient change of clothing for a week— sun-spectacles; he reassured himself twice on all those points.

"If you're camel-sick, fetch it up and carry, on," he advised, "it'll soon pass. Then a hot bath, if you can get it, before you stiffen. Failing that, oil."

The camels, with Yasmini and her women already mounted, were kneeling in the darkness outside the house of Mukhum Dass.

"Come!" called Yasmini. "Hurry!"

Dick kissed his wife—waved his hand to Yasmini—helped Tess on to the last camel in the kneeling line—and they were off, the camel-men not needing to shout to make those Bikaniri racers rise and start. They were gone like ghosts into the darkness, making absolutely no noise, before Dick could steady his nervous horse.

Then Ismail wanted to tie Yasmini's abandoned horse to the tail of the dog-cart, but Dick sent him off to stable it somewhere at the other side of town to help throw trackers off the scent. He himself drove home by a very wide circuit indeed, threading his cautious way among the hills toward the gold-diggings, where he drove back and forward several times around the edges of the dump, in order that the saises might see the red dirt on the wheels afterward and believe, and tell where he had been.

There was some risk that a panther, or even a tiger might try for the horse in the dark, but that was not the kind of danger that disturbed Dick Blaine much. A pistol at point-blank range is as good as a rifle most nights of the week. He arrived home after daylight with a very weary horse, and ordered the saises to wash the wheels at once, in order that the color of the dirt might be impressed on them thoroughly. They were quite sure he had been at the mine all night. Then he paid off Chamu and the cook and sent them packing.

He was looking for the beggars, to pay them, when Tom Tripe's dog arrived and began hunting high and low for Tess. Trotters had something in his mouth, wrapped in cloth and then again in leather. He refused to give it to Dick, defying threats and persuasion both. Dick offered him food, but the dog had apparently eaten—water, but he would not drink.

Then the three beggars came, and watched Dick's efforts with the interest of spectators at a play.

"Messenge!" said Bimbu finally, nodding at the dog. That much was pretty obvious.

"Princess!" he added, seeing Dick was still puzzled. It flashed across Dick's mind that on the dresser in the bedroom was Tess's hat that Yasmini had worn. Doubtless to a dog's keen nose it smelt of both of them. He ran to fetch it, the dog followed him, eager to get into the house. He offered the hat to the dog, who sniffed it and yelped eagerly.

"Bang goes fifty dollars, then!" he laughed.

He took the hat to Bimbu.

"Can you ride a camel?" he demanded.

The man nodded. "Another would drive it."

"Do you know where to get one?"

Bimbu nodded again.

"Take this hat, so that the dog will follow you, and ride by camel to the home of Utirupa Singh. Here is money for the camel. If you overtake the princess there will be a fabulous reward. If you get there soon after she does there will be a good reward. If you take too long on the way there will be nothing for you but a beating! Go—hurry—get a move on! And don't you lose the dog!"

Chapter Twelve

There are they who yet remember, when the depot's forty jaws
Through iron teeth that chatter to the tramping of a throng
Spew out the crushed commuter in obedience to laws
That all accord observance and that all agree are wrong;
When rush and din and hubbub stir the too responsive vein
Till head and heart are conquered by the hustle roaring by
And the sign looks good that glitters on the temple gate of Gain, -
"There are spaces just as luring where the leagues untrodden lie!"

There are they who yet remember 'mid the fever of exchange,
When the hot excitement throttles and the millions make or break,
How a camel's silent footfall on the ashen desert range
Swings cushioned into distances where thoughts unfettered wake,
And the memory unbidden plucks an unconverted heart
Till the glamour goes from houses and emotion from the street,
And the truth glares good and gainly in the face of 'change and mart:
"There are deserts more intensive. There are silences as sweet!"

"Ready for anything! If I weaken, tie me on the camel!"

There are camels and camels—more kinds than there are of horses. The Bishareen of the Sudan is not a bad beast, but compared to the Bikaniri there are no other desert mounts worth a moment's consideration. Fleet as the wind, silent as its own shadow, enduring as the long hot- season of its home, the trained Bikaniri swings into sandy distances with a gait that is a gallop really—the only saddle-beast of all that lifts his four feet from the ground at once, seeming to spurn the very laws of gravity.

They are favored folk who come by first-class Bikaniri camels, for the better sort are rare, hard held to, and only to be bought up patiently by twos and ones. Fourteen of them in one string, each fit that instant for a distance-race with death itself, was perhaps the best proof possible of Yasmini's influence on the country-side. They were gathered for her and held in readiness by men who loved her and detested Gungadhura.

Normally the drivers would have taken a passenger apiece, and seven of the animals would have been ample; but this was a night and a dawn when speed was nine-tenths of the problem, and Yasmini had spared nothing—no man, no shred of pains or influence,—and proposed to spare no beast.

They rode in single file, each man with a led camel ridden by a woman, except that Yasmini directed her own mount and for the most part showed the way, her desert-reared guide being hard put to keep his own animal abreast of her. There is a gift—a trick of riding camels, very seldom learned by the city-born; and he, or she, who knows the way of it enjoys the ungrudged esteem of desert men all the way from China to Damascus, from Peshawar to Morocco. The camels detect a skilled hand even more swiftly than a horse does and, like the horse, do their best work for the rider who understands. So the only sound, except for a gurgle now and then, and velvet-silent footfalls on the level sand, was the grunts of admiration of the men behind. They had muffled all the camel-bells.

When they started the night was deepest purple, set densely with a mass of colored jewels; even the whitest of the stars stole color from the rest. But gradually, as they raced toward the sky-line and the stars paled, the sky changed into mauve. Then without warning a belt of pale gold shone in the west behind them, and with the false dawn came the cool wind like a legacy from the kindly night-gods to encourage humans to endure the day. A little later than the wind the true dawn came, fiery with hot promise, and Tess on the last camel soon learned the meaning of the cloak Yasmini had made her wear. Worn properly it covers all the face except the eyes, leaving no surface for the hot wind to torture, and saving the lips and lungs from being scorched.

In after years, when Yasmini was intriguing for an empire that in her imagination should control the world, she had the telegraph and telephone at times to aid her, as well as the organized, intricate system of British Government to manipulate from behind the scenes; but now she was racing against the wires, and in no mood to appeal for help to a government that she did not quite understand as yet, but intended to foot royally in any case.

The easiest thing Gungadhura could do, and surest thing he would attempt once word should reach him that she had vanished from Sialpore would be to draw around her a network of his own men. Watchers from the hills and lurkers in the sand-dunes could pass word along of the direction she had taken; and the sequel, if Gungadhura was only quick enough, would depend simply on the loneliness or otherwise of the spot where she could be brought to bay. If there were no witnesses his problem would be simple. But if murder seemed too dangerous, there was the Nesting-place of Seven Swans up in the mountains, as well as other places even lonelier, to which she and Tess could be abducted. Tess might be left, perhaps, to make her own way back and give her own explanation of flight with a maharajah's daughter; but for Yasmini abduction to the hills could only mean one of two things: unthinkable surrender, or sure death by any of a hundred secret means.

So the way they took was wild and lonely, frequented only by the little jackals that eat they alone know what, and watched by unenthusiastic kites that always seemed to be wheeling in air just one last time before flying to more profitable feeding ground. Yet within a thousand paces of the line they took lay a trodden track, well marked by the sun-dried bones of camels (for the camel dies whenever he feels like it, without explanation or regret, and lies down for the purpose in the first uncomfortable place to hand).

Yasmini and the guide between them, first one, then the other assuming the direction, led the way around low hills and behind the long, blown folds of sand netted scantly down by tufted, dry grass, always avoiding open spaces where they might be seen, or hollows too nearly shut in on both sides, where there might be ambush.

Twice they were seen before the sun was two hours high, the first time by a caravan of merchants headed toward Sialpore, who breasted a high dune half a mile away and took no notice; but that would not prevent the whole caravansary in the city's midst from knowing what they had seen, and just how long ago, and headed which way, within ten minutes after they arrived—as, in fact, exactly happened.

The second party to catch sight of them consisted of four men on camels, whose rifles, worn military fashion with a sling, betrayed them as Gungadhura's men. "Desert police" he called them. "Takers of tenths" was the popular, and much more accurate description. The four gave chase, for a caravan in a hurry is always likely to pay well for exemption from delay; and coming nearly at right angles they had all the advantage. It was crime to refuse to halt for them, for they were semi-military, uniformed police. Yet their invariable habit of prying into everything and questioning each member of a caravan would be certain to lead to discovery. They had a signal station on the hill two miles behind them, to keep them in touch with other parties, north, south, east and west. It looked like Yasmini's undoing, for they were gaining two for one along the shorter course. Tess fingered the pistol her husband had made her bring, wondering whether Yasmini would dare show fight (not guessing yet the limitless abundance of her daring), and wondering whether she herself would dare reply to the fire of authorized policemen. She did not relish the thought of being an outlaw with a genuine excuse for her arrest.

But the four police were oversure, and Yasmini too quick-witted for them. They took a short cut down into a sandy hollow, letting their quarry get out of sight, plainly intending to wait on rising ground about a thousand yards ahead, where they could foil attempts to circumvent them and, for the present, take matters easy.

Instantly Yasmini changed direction, swinging her camel to the right, down a deep nullah, and leading full pelt at right angles to her real course. It was ten minutes before the men caught sight of them again, and by that time they had nearly drawn abreast, well beyond reasonable rifle range, and were heading back toward their old direction, so that the police had lost advantage, and a stern chase on slower camels was their only hope but one. They fired half a dozen shots by way of calling attention to themselves—then wheeled and raced away toward the signal station on the hill.

Yasmini held her course for an hour after that, until a spur of the hillside
and another long fold of the desert shut them off from the signaler's view.
There she called a halt, unexpectedly, for the camels did not need it.
She was worried about Tess—the one untested link in her chain of fugitives.

"Can you keep on through all the hot day?" she asked. "These other women are as lithe as leopards, for I make them dance. They are better able to endure than cheetahs. But you? Shall I put two women on one camel, and send you back to Sialpore with two men?"

Tess's back ached and she was dizzy, but her own powers had been tested many a time; this was not more than double the strain she had withstood before, and she was aware of strength in reserve, to say nothing of conviction that what Yasmini's maids could do she herself would rather perish than fall short of. There is an element of sheer, pugnacious, unchristian human pride that is said to damn, while it saves the best of us at times.

"Certainly not! I can carry on all day!" she answered.

Yasmini emitted her golden bell-like laugh that expressed such immeasurable understanding and delight in all she understands. (It has overtones that tell of vision beyond the ken of folk who build on mud.)

"The maids shall knead your muscles for you at the other end," she answered. "Courage is good! You are my sister! You shall see things that the West knows nothing of! If those thrice-misbegotten Takers of Tenths had not seen us, we would have reached our goal a little after midday. As it is, they have certainly signaled to another party of Gungadhura's spawn somewhere ahead of us, who will be coming this way with eyes open and a lesson in mind for those who disregard their comrades' challenge to halt and be looted! When I am maharanee there shall be a new system of protecting desert roads! But I dare not try conclusions now. We must take a wide circuit and not reach our destination until night falls. Are you willing?"

"Ready for anything!" said Tess. "If I weaken, tie me on the camel!"

"Good! So speaks a woman! One woman of spirit is the master of a dozen men—always.

They all drank sparingly of tepid water, ate a little of the food each had, and were off again without letting the camels kneel—heading now away from the hills toward a dazzling waste of silver sand, across which the eyes lost all sense of perspective, and all power to separate three objects in a row; a land of mirage and monotony, glittering in places with the aching white of salt deposits.

The heat increased, but the speed never slackened for an instant. Flies emerged from everywhere to fasten on to unprotected skin, and the only relief from them was under the hot cloaks that burned them with the heat absorbed from sun and wind. But even in that ghastly wilderness there were other living things. Now and then a lean leopard stole away from in front of them; and once they saw a man, naked and thinner than a rake, striding along a ridge on heaven knew what errand. There were scorpions everywhere.

Hour after hour, guided by desert-instinct that needs no compass, and ever alert for sky-line watchers, Yasmini and the headman took turns in giving direction, he yielding to her whenever their judgment differed. And whether she was right or not in every instance, she brought them at last to a little desert oasis, where there was brackish water deep down in a sand-hole, and a great rock offered shadow to rest in.

There they lay until the sun declined far enough to lose a little of his power to scorch, and the camels bubbled to one another, thirstless, unwearied, dissatisfied, as the universal way of camels is, kneeling in a circle, rumps outward, each one resentful of the other's neighborhood and, above all, disgruntled at man's tyranny.

"By now," laughed Yasmini, smoking one of Tess's cigarettes in the shadow of the rock, "Gungadhura knows surely that my palace is empty and the bird has flown. Ten dozen different people will have carried to him as many accounts of it, and each will have offered different explanation and advice! I wonder what Jinendra's fat priest has to say about it! Gungadhura will have sent for him. He would hardly ride to the priest through the streets, even in a carriage, with that love-token still raw and smarting with which I marked his face! Two reliable reports will have reached him already as to which direction I have taken. Yet the telegraph will have told him that I have not been seen to cross the border, and he will be wondering—wondering. May he wonder until his brains whirl round and sicken him!"

"What can he do?" suggested Tess.

"Do? He can be spiteful. He will enter my palace and remove the furniture, taking my mother's legacies to his own lair—where I shall recover them all within three weeks—and his own beside! I will be maharanee within the month!"

"Aren't you a wee bit previous?" suggested Tess.

"Not I! I never boast. My mother taught me that. Or when I do boast it is to put men off the scent. I boasted once to Samson sahib when be offered to have me sent to college, telling him I was in the same school as himself and would learn the quicker. He has wondered ever since then what I meant. "Krishna!" she laughed impiously. "I wonder what Samson sahib would not give to have me in his clutches at this minute! Have I told you that Gungadhura plots with the Northwest tribes, and that the English know it? No? Didn't I tell you? Samson sahib would give me almost anything I asked, if he knew that it was I who told his government of Gungadhura's plots; he would know then that with my knowledge to guide him he would be more than a match for Gungadhura, instead of a ball kicked this and that way between Gungadhura and the English! Sometimes I almost think he would consent to try to make me maharanee!"

"Why not give him the chance then?"

"For two reasons. The English too often desert their commissioners. My sure way is better than his blundering attempts! The other reason is an even better one, and you shall know it soon. I think—I do not know— I think, and I hope that the fat high priest of Jinendra is playing me false, and has gone to Samson sahib to make a bargain with him. Samson sahib will consent to no bargains with that fat fool, if I am any judge of hucksters; but he will have his ears on end and his eyes sore with over- watchfulness from now forward! Oh, I hope Jinendra's priest has gone to him! I tried to stir treachery in his mind by brow-beating him about the bargain that be tried to force from me!"

"But what are you and the priest and Samson all bargaining about?" demanded Tess.

"The treasure of Sialpore! But I make no bargains! I, who know where the treasure is! Why should I offer to share what is mine? I will have a marriage contract drawn, and you shall be a witness. That treasure is my dowry. Listen! Bubru Singh my father died without a son—the first of all that long line who left no son to follow him. The custom was that he should tell his son, and none else, the secret of the treasure. He hated Gungadhura; and, not knowing which the English would choose for his successor, Gungadhura or another man, he told no one, making only hints to my mother on his death-bed and saying that if I, his daughter, ever developed brains enough to learn the secret of the treasure, then I might also have wit enough to win the throne and all would be well."

"And you discovered it? How did you discover it?"

"Not I."

"Who then?"

"Your husband did!"

"My husband? Dick Blaine? But that can't be true; he never told me; he tells me everything."

"Perhaps he would have told if he had understood. He hardly understands yet. Only in part—a little."

"Then how in the world—?"

Yasmini's golden laugh cut short the question as she rose to her feet with a glance at the westering sun.

"Let us go. Two hours from now we shall cross the border into another state. Two hours after night-fall our journey is ended. Then the last game begins—the last chukker—and I win!"

Tess wished then that they had never halted! The rest had given her muscles time to stiffen, and her nerves the opportunity to learn how tired they were. As the camels rose jerkily and followed their leader in line at the same fast pace as before she grew sick with the agony of aching bones and the utter weariness of motion repeated again and again without varying or ceasing. Every ligament in her body craved only stillness, but the camel's unaccustomed thrust and sway continued, repeated to infinity, until her nerves grew numb and she was hardly conscious of time, distance, or direction.

Once again there was pursuit, but Tess was hardly conscious of it— hardly realized that shots were fired—clinging to the saddle in the misery of a sickness more weakening and deathly than the sort small boats provide at sea. The sun went down and left her cooler, but not recovered. She knew nothing of boundaries, or of the changing nature of the country- side. It meant nothing to her that they were passing great trees now, and that once they crossed a stream by a wide stone bridge. The only thought that kept drumming in her mind was that Dick, the ever dependable, had misinformed her. She had "fetched it up"—a dozen times. True to his instruction, she had "carried on." But it did not pass! She felt more sick, more agonized, more weary every minute.

But at last, because there is an end even to the motion of a camel, in this world of example instances, about two hours after nightfall the caravan halted in the shadow of great trees beside a stone house with a wall about it. Her camel knelt with a motion like a landslide, and Tess fell off forward on the ground and fainted, only snatched away by strong hands in the nick of time to save her from the camel's teeth. Uncertain, unforgiving brutes are camels—ungrateful for the toil men put them to. For an hour after that she was only dimly conscious of being laid on something soft, and of supple, tireless women's hands that kneaded her, and kneaded her, taking the weary muscles one by one and coaxing them back to painlessness.

So she did not see the dog arrive—Trotters, the Rampore-Great Dane, cousin to half the mongrel stock of Hindustan, slobbering on a package that his set jaws hardly could release; Yasmini, scornful of the laws of caste and ever responsive to a true friend, pried it loose with strong fingers. It was she, too, who saw to the dog's needs—fed him and gave him drink—removed a thorn from his forefoot and made much of him. She even gave Bimbu food, with her own hands, and saw that his driver and camel had a place to rest in, before she undid the string that bound the leather jacket of the package.

Bimbu on the camel had led the dog by the short route and, having nothing to be robbed of, had had small trouble with policemen on the way.

The first thing Tess was really conscious of when she regained her senses was a great dog that slumbered restlessly beside her own finger-marked, disheveled, dusty, fifty-dollar hat on the floor near by, awaking at intervals to sniff her hand and reassure himself—then returning to the hat to sleep, and gallop in his sleep; a rangy, gray, enormous beast with cavernous jaws that she presently recognized as Trotters.

Then came the maids again, afraid for their very lives of the dog, but still more mindful of Yasmini's orders. They resumed their kneading of stiff muscles, rubbing in oil that smelt of jasmine, singing incantations while they worked. They lifted the bed away from the wall, and one of the women danced around and around it rhythmically, surrounding Tess with what the West translates as "influence"—the spell that all the East knows keeps away evil interference.

Last of all by candlelight, Yasmini came, scented and fresh and smiling as the flower from which she has her name, dressed now in the soft-hued silken garments of a lady of the land.

"Where did you get them?" Tess asked her.

"These clothes? Oh, I have friends here. Have no fear now—there are friends on every side of us."

She showed Tess a letter, pierced in four places by a dog's eye-teeth.

"This is from Samson sahib. Do you remember how I prayed that Jinendra's priest might think to play me false? I think he has. Some one has been to Samson sahib. Hear this:

        "'The Princess Yasmini Omanoff Singh,
        "'Your Highness,
                "'Word has reached me frequently of late of pressure brought
        to bear on you from certain quarters, and hints have been dropped
        in my hearing that the object of the pressure is to induce you to
        disclose a secret you possess. Let me assure you that my official
        protection from all illegal restraint and improper treatment is at your
        service. Further, that in case your secret is such as concerns vitally
        the political relations, present or future, of Sialpore the proper
        person to whom to confide it is myself. Should you see your way to
        take that only safe course, you may rest assured that your own
        interests will be cared for in every way possible.
                "'I have the honor to be,
                "'Your Highness' obedient servant,
                "'Roland Samson, K. C. S. I.'"

"That looks fair enough," said Tess. "I dislike Samson for reasons of my own, but—"

"Hah!" laughed Yasmini. "He makes love to you! Is it not so? He would make love to me if I gave him opportunity! What a jest for the gods if I should play that game with him and make him marry me! I could! I could make of Samson a power in India! But the man would weary me with his conceit and his 'orders from higher up' within a week. I can have power without his help! What a royal jest, though, to marry Samson and intrigue with all the jealous English wives who think they pull the strings of government!"

"You'd get the worst of it," laughed Tess.

"Maybe. I shall never try it. I am more of the East than the West. But I will answer Samson. Bimbu shall remain here lest he talk too much, but the dog shall take a letter to Tom Tripe at dawn. Samson knew hours ago that I have flown the nest. He will wonder how Tom Tripe holds communication with me, and so swiftly, and will have greater respect for him—which may serve us later."

"Let me add a letter to my husband then, to tell him I'm safe."

"Surely. But now eat. Eat and be strong. Can you stand? Can you walk?
Have the maids put new life in you?"

Tess was astonished at her swift recovery. She was a little stiff—a little weak—a little tired; but she could walk up and down the room with her natural gait and Yasmini clapped her hands.

"I will order food brought. Listen! Tonight I am Abhisharika. Do you know what that is—Abhisharika?"

Tess shook her head.

"I go to my lover of my own accord!"

"That sounds more like West than East!"

"You think so? You shall come with me and see! You shall play the part of cheti (the indispensable hand-maiden)—you and Hasamurti. You must dress like her. Simply be still and watch, and you shall see!"