Chapter Eight

An Elephant Interlude

Watch your step where the elephants sway
Each at a chain at the end of a day,
Hurrumdi-didddlidi-um-di-ay!
Nothing to do but rock and swing,
Clanking an iron picket ring,
Plucking the dust to flirt and fling;
Keep et ceteras out of range,
Anything out of the way or strange
Suits us elephant folk for change -
Various odds and ends appeal
To liven the round of work and meal.
Curious trunks can reach and steal!
Fool with Two-tails if you dare;
Help yourself. But fool, beware!
Whatever results is your affair!
We are the easiest beasts that be,
Gentle and good and affectionate we,
You are the monarchs; we bow the knee,
Big and obese and obedient—um!
Just as long as it suits us—um!
Hurrumti-tiddli-di-um-ti-um!

(Unfortunately at this point Akbar's attention was diverted to another matter, so the rest of his picket-song goes unrecorded.)

"They're elephants and I'm a soldier. The trouble with you is nerves, my boy!"

There was brandy in the place that Tom Tripe knew of—brandy and tobacco and a smell of elephants. Dick Blaine, who scarcely ever touched strong liquor, having had intimate acquaintance with abuse of it in Western mining camps, had to sit and endure the spectacle of Tom's chief weakness, glass after glass of the fiery stuff descending into a stomach long since rendered insatiable by soldiering on peppery food in a climate that is no man's friend. He protested a dozen times.

"We may need our wits tonight, Tom. Suppose we both keep sober."

"Man alive, I've been doing this for years. Brandy and brains are the same in my case. Keep me without it, and by bedtime I'm an invalid. Give me all I want of it, and I'm a crafty soldier-man."

Dick Blaine refilled his pipe and watched for an opportunity. He had heard that kind of argument before, and had conquered flood and fire with the aid of the very men who used it, that being the gift (or whatever you like to call it) that had made him independent while the others drew monthly pay in envelopes.

It was a low oblong shed they sat in, with a wide door opening on a side street within four hundred yards of Yasmini's palace gate. It was furnished with a table, two chairs and a cot for Tom Tripe's special use whenever the maharajah's business should happen to keep him on night duty, his own proper quarters being nearly a mile away. Alongside the shed was a very rough stable that would accommodate a horse or two, and the back wall was a mere partition of mud brick, behind which, under a thatched roof, were tethered some of the maharajah's elephants. There were two windows in the wall, through which one could see dimly the great brutes' rumps as they swayed at their pickets restlessly. The smell came through a broken pane, and every once in a while the Blaines' horse, standing ready in the shafts outside with a blanket over him, squealed at it indignantly.

Tom's horse dozed in the rough shed, being used to elephants.

Dick got up once or twice to peer through the window at the brutes.

"Are they tethered fore and aft?" he wondered.

"No," Tom answered. "One hind foot only."

"What's to stop them from turning round and breaking down this rotten wall?"

"Nothing—except that they're elephants. They could break their picket chains if they were minded to, same as I could break Gungadhura's head and lose my job. But I won't do it, and nor will they. They're elephants, and I'm a soldier. The trouble with you is nerves, my boy. Have some brandy. You're worried about your wife, but I tell you she's right as a trivet. I'd trust my last chance with that little princess. I've done it often. Brandy's the stuff to keep your hair on. Have some."

The bottle had only been three parts full. Tom poured out the last of it and set a stone jorum of rum in readiness on the table over against the wall.

"Wish we had hot water handy," he grumbled.

"Which of the elephants are tethered here?" asked Dick. "That big one that killed a tiger in the arena the other day?"

"Yes. Did you see that? Akbar was scarcely scratched. Quickest thing ever I saw—squealed with rage the minute they turned 'stripes' loose—chased him to the wall—downed him with a forefoot and crushed him into tiger jelly before you could say British Constitution!"

"I guess that tiger had been kept in a cage too long," said Dick.

"Don't you believe it. He was fighting fit. But they'd given old Akbar a skinfull of rum, and that turns him into a holy terror. He's quite quiet other times."

Dick looked at his watch. Tess had been in the palace about three hours, and he was confident she would come away as soon as possible, if for no other reason than to put an end to his anxiety. She was likely to appear at the gate at any minute. At any minute Tom Tripe was likely to attack the jorum, and if present symptoms went for anything, it would not take much of it to make him worse than useless. At present he was growing reminiscent.

"Once old Akbar had a belly-ache and they gave him arrak. They didn't catch him for two days! He pulled up his picket-stake and lit out for the horizon, chasing dogs and hens and monkeys and anything else be could find that annoyed him. Screamed like a locomotive. Horrid sight!"

"Where does this road outside lead to?" asked Dick.

"Don't lead anywhere. Blind alley. Why?"

"Oh, nothing."

Dick was examining the wall between the shed they sat in and the stable-place next door. It was much stronger than the mud affair between them and the elephants. Tom Tripe had nearly finished his tumbler-full, and there was madness in the air that night that made a man take awfully long chances.

"Do you suppose a man could lose his way in the dark between here and the palace gate?"

"Not even if he was as drunk as Noah. All he'd have to do 'ud be hold on to the wall and walk forward. The road turns a corner, but the walls are all blind and there's no other way but past the palace. You sit here, though, my boy. No need to try that. Your wife's all right."

"Well, maybe I'd better stay here."

"Sure."

"Do you suppose I could back the dog-cart into the shed where your horse is? I hardly like to leave my horse standing any longer in the open, yet he's better in the shafts in case we want him in a hurry."

"Yes, the door's wide enough."

"Then I'll do it."

"Suit yourself. But take some of that rum before you go outside. The night air's bad for your lungs. Help yourself and pass the bottle, as the Queen said to the Archbishop of Canterbury."

"All right, I will."

Dick poured a little on his handkerchief, thrust the handkerchief through the broken pane and waved it violently to spread the smell. It was cheap, immodest stuff, blatant with its own advertisement. Then he set the jorum down on the end of the table farthest from the wall, to the best of his judgment out of reach from the window.

"Come along, Tom," he said then. "Help me with the horse."

"What's your hurry? Take a drink first."

"No, let's take one together afterward."

He took Tom by the shoulder and pushed him to his feet.

"The horse might break away. Come on, man, hurry!"

Over his shoulder Dick could see a long trunk nosing its way gingerly through the broken pane and searching out the source of the alluring smell. He pushed Tripe along in front of him, and together they backed the dog-cart into the stable-place, making a very clumsy business of it for three reasons: Tom Tripe was none too sober: the horse was nearly crazy with fear of the uncanny brutes just beyond the wall; and Dick was in too much hurry for reasons of his own. However, they got horse and cart in backward, and the door shut before the crash came.

The crash was of a falling mud-brick wall, pushed outward by the shoulders of a pachyderm that wanted alcohol. The beast had had it out of all sorts of containers and knew the trick of emptying the last drop. The jorum was about his usual dose.

About two minutes later, while Dick and Tom Tripe between them held a horse in intolerable durance between the shafts, and Tom's horse out of sympathy kicked out at random into every shadow he could reach, the door and part of the wall of Tom's shed fell outward into the pitch dark street as Akbar, eleven feet four inches at the shoulder, strode forward conjecturing what worlds were yet to conquer. The other elephants stood motionless at their pickets. A terrified mahout emerged through the debris like a devil from bell's bunkers, calling to his elephant all the endearing epithets he knew, and cursing him alternately. The horses grew calmer and submitted to caresses, like children and all creatures that have intimate contact with strong men; and presently the night grew still.

"D'you suppose that brute swiped my liquor?" wondered Tom Tripe.
        "You mind the horses while I look."

But suddenly there was a savage noise of trumpeting up-street, followed by a bark and a yelp of canine terror.

"God!" swore Tom. "That's Trotters coming to fetch us! Akbar's chasing him back this way! Hang on to the horse like ten men! I'll go see!"

He was outside before Dick could remonstrate. Between them they had lashed the dog-cart wheels during the first panic, but even so Dick had his hands full, as the trumpeting drew nearer and the horse went into agonies of senseless fear. It was a fight, nothing less, between thinking man and mere instinctive beast, and eventually Dick threw him with a trick of the reins about his legs, and knelt on his head to keep him down. By the grace of the powers of unexpectedness neither shafts nor harness broke.

Outside in the darkness Tom Tripe peered through brandied eyes at a great shadow that hunted to and fro a hundred yards away, chasing something that was quite invisible, and making enough noise about it to awake the dead.

"Trotters!" he yelled. "Trotters!"

A moment later a smaller shadow came into view at top speed, panting, chased hotly by the bigger one.

"Trotters! Get back where you came from! Back, d'ye hear me! Back!"

Within ten yards of his master the dog stopped to do his thinking, and the elephant screamed with a sort of hunter's ecstasy as he closed on him with a rush. But thought is swift, and obedience good judgment. The dog doubled of a sudden between Akbar's legs and the elephant slid on his rump in the futile effort to turn after him—then crashed into the wall opposite Tripe's dismantled shed—cannoned off it with a grunt of sheer disgust—and set off up-street, once more in hot pursuit.

"That brute got my good rum, damn him!" said Tom, opening the stable door. "Hello! Horse down? Any harm done? Right-oh! We'll soon have him up again. Better hurry now—Trotters came for us."

Chapter Nine

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!"