With funds—ample extravagant supplies of ready cash, he felt he could even negotiate the awkward circumstance that he himself was deeply in debt to Mukhum Dass at the time of the murder. Money and brains combined can accomplish practically anything. Delhi and Bombay and Calcutta were full of clever lawyers. The point was, he must hurry. And he did not dare trust any one with knowledge of his secret, except Patali, who had wormed out some and guessed the rest, because of the obvious risk of Samson getting wind of it through spies and so forestalling him. He felt he had Samson's character estimated nicely.

Arguing with himself—distracted between fear on one hand, and Patali's importunity on the other, he reached the conclusion that Dick Blaine was his only safe reliance. The American seemed to have an obsession for written contracts, and for enforcing the last letter of them. Well and good, he would make another contract with Dick Blaine, and told Patali so, she agreeing that the American was the safest tool to use. She saw herself already with her arms up to the shoulders in the treasure of Sialpore.

"The American has few friends," she said. "He smokes a pipe, and thinks, and now that they say his wife has gone away there is less chance than ever of his talking."

"He will need to be paid," said Gungadhura.

"There will be plenty to pay him with!" she answered, her eyes gleaming.

So Gungadhura, with his face still heavily bandaged, drove in a lumbering closed carriage up the rough track to the tunnel Dick had blasted in the hill-side. The carriage could not go close to the tunnel-mouth, because the track was only wide enough just there for the dump-carts to come and go. So he got out and walked into the tunnel unattended. Dick was used to seeing him about the works in any case and never objected to explaining things, several times over on occasion.

He found Dick superintending the careful erection of a wall of rock and cement, and he thought for an instant that the American looked annoyed to see him there. But Dick assumed his poker expression the moment afterward, and you couldn't have guessed whether he was glad or sorry.

"You block the tunnel?" the maharajah asked.

"The vein's disappeared," said Dick. "The rock's all faulty here this and that way. I'm shoring up the end to keep the roof from falling down on us, and next I'm going to turn sharp at right angles and try to find the end of the vein where it broke off."

"You are too near the fort in any case," said the maharajah. "No use driving under the fort."

"What do you propose I should do?" Dick answered a trifle testily.

"Dig elsewhere."

"What, and scrap this outlay?"

"Yes. I have a reason. A particular—eh—reason."

Dick nodded, poker face set solid.

The maharajah paused. His advantage was that his face was all smothered in the bandages, and the dim light in the tunnel was another good ally. His back, too, was toward the entrance, so that the American's chance of reading between the words was remarkably slight. Dick's back was against the uncompleted masonry.

"Could I—eh—count on you for—eh—very absolute silence?"

"I talk like that parrot in the story," Dick answered.

"You—eh—know a little now of Sialpore, Mr. Blaine. You—eh—understand how easily—eh—rumors get about. A little—eh—foundation and—eh— up-side-down pyramids of fancy—eh? You comprehend me?"

"Sure, I get you."

"Eh—you have a good working party."

"Fine!" said Dick. "Just about broke in. Got the gang working pretty well to rights at last."

"Would you—eh—it would take a long time to get such another party of laborers—eh—trained to work well and swiftly?"

"Months!" said Dick. "Unless you've got tame wizards up your sleeve."

"Eh—I was wondering—eh—whether you would be content to—eh—take your working party and—eh—do a little work for me elsewhere?"

"I'm right set on puzzling out this fault in the reef," Dick answered promptly. "My contract reads—"

"For compensation, of course," said Gungadhura. "You would be adequately—eh—there could be a contract drawn."

"I wouldn't cancel this one—not for hard cash," Dick retorted.

"No, no. I do not ask that. It would—eh—not be necessary."

"Well, then, what's the proposal?"

Dick settled himself back against the masonry crossed his feet, and knocked out ashes from his pipe. The maharajah walked twice, ten yards toward the entrance and back again.

"How long would it take you—eh—to—eh—what was it you said?—to puzzle out this fault?"

"No knowing."

"A short—eh—additional delay will hardly matter?"

"Not if I kept the gang in harness. 'Twouldn't pay to let the team-work slide. Costs too much in time and trouble to break 'em in again."

"Then—eh—will you go and dig for me elsewhere?"

"On what terms?"

"The same terms."

"You pay all expenses and—what am I to dig for?"

"Gold!"

"Do I get my percentage of the gross of all gold won?"

"Yes. But because this is a certainty and—eh—I pay all expenses—eh— of course, in—eh—return for secrecy you—eh—should be well paid, but— eh—a certain stated sum should be sufficient, or a much smaller percentage."

"Suppose we get down to figures?" Dick suggested.

"Fifty thousand rupees, or one per cent."

"At my option?"

Gungadhura nodded. Dick whistled.

"There'd have to be a time limit. I can't stay and dig forever for a matter of fifty thousand dibs."

Gungadhura grew emphatic at that point, using both clenched fists to beat the air.

"Time limit? There must be no time lost at all! Have you promised to be silent? Have you promised not to breathe one little word to anybody?— Not to your own wife? Not to Samson?—Above all not to Samson? Then I will tell you."

Gungadhura glanced about him like a stage conspirator.

"Go on," said Dick. "There's nobody here knows English except you and me."

"You are to dig for the treasure of Sialpore! The treasure of my ancestors!"

"Fifty thousand dibs—or one per cent. at my option, eh? Make it two per cent., and draw your contract!"

"Two per cent. is too much!"

"Get another man to dig, then!"

"Very well, I make it two per cent. But you must hurry!"

"Draw your contract. Time limit how long?"

"Two weeks—three weeks—not more than a month at the very utmost! You draw the contract in English, and I will sign it this afternoon. You must begin to dig tomorrow at dawn!"

"Where?"

"In the grounds of the River Palace—across the river—beginning close to the great pipal trees."

"They're all outside the palace wall. How in thunder can I keep secret about that?"

"You must begin inside the palace wall, and tunnel underground."

"Dirt's all soft down there," said Dick. "We'll need to prop up as we go. Lots of lumber. Cost like blazes. Where's the lumber coming from?"

"Cut down the pipal trees!"

"Man—we'd need a mill!"

"There is no lumber—not in such a hurry."

"What'll we do then? Can't have accidents."

"Pah! The lives of a few coolies, Mr. Blaine—"

"Nothing doing, Maharajah sahib! Murder's not my long suit."

"Then pull the palace down and use the beams!"

"You'd have to put that in writing."

"Include it in the contract then! Now, have we agreed?"

"I guess so. If I think of anything else I'll talk it over with you when I bring the contract round this afternoon."

"Good. Then I will give you the map."

"Better give it me now, so I can study it."

"The—eh—risk of that is too great, Mr. Blaine!"

"Seems to me your risk is pretty heavy as it is," Dick retorted. "If I was going to spill your secret, I could do it now, map or no map!"

Three times again Gungadhura paced the tunnel, torn between mistrust, impatience and anxiety. At last he thrust his bandaged face very close to Dick's and spoke in a level hard voice, smiling thinly.

"Very well, Mr. Blaine. I will entrust the map to you. But let me first tell you certain things—certain quite true things. Every attempt to steal that treasure has ended in ill-luck! There have been many. All the conspirators have died—by poison—by dagger—by the sword—by snake-bite—by bullets— they have all died—always! Do you understand?"

Dick shuddered in spite of himself.

"Then take the map!"

Gungadhura turned his back and fumbled in the folds of his semi-European clothing. He produced the silver tube after a minute, removed the cap from one end, and shook out a piece of parchment. There was a dull crimson stain on it.

"The blood of a man who tried to betray the secret!" said Gungadhura. "See-the knife of an assassin pierced the tube, and blood entered through the hole. It happened long ago."

But he did not pass the tube to Dick that he might examine the knife mark.

"These notes on the edge of the map are probably in the hand of Jengal Singh, who stole it. He died of snake-bite more than a year ago. They are in Persian; he notes that four of the trees are dead and only their roots remain; therefore that measurements must allow for that. You must find the roots of the last tree, Mr. Blaine, and measure carefully from both ends, digging afterward in a straight line from inside the palace wall by compass. Is it clear?"

"I guess so. Leave it with me and I'll study it."

The maharajah kept the tube and left the parchment in Dick's hands.

"This afternoon, then?"

"This afternoon," said Dick.

When he had gone, Dick resumed the very careful building of the masonry, placing the last stones with his own hands. Then he went out into the sunlight, to sit on a rock and examine the parchment with a little pocket magnifying-glass that he always carried for business purposes. He studied it for ten minutes.

"It's clever," he said at last. "Dashed clever. It 'ud fool the Prince of Wales!" (Dick had astonishing delusions as to the supposed omniscience of the heir to the throne of England.) "The ink looks old, and it's not metallic ink. The parchment's as old as Methuselah—I'll take my oath on that. There's even different ink been used for the map and the margin notes. But that's new blood or my name's Mike! That blood's not a week old! Phew! I bet it's that poor devil Mukhum Dass! Now— let's figure on this: Mukhum Dass burgled my house, and was murdered about an hour afterward. I think—I can't swear, because he didn't let me hold it, but I think that tube in Gungadhura's hand was the very identical one that I hid under the cellar floor—that Mukhum Dass stole—and that the maharajah now carries in his pocket. This map has blood on it. What's the inference?"

He filled his pipe and smoked reflectively.

"The inference is, that I'm accessory after the fact to the money-lender's murder, unless" -

He finished the pipe, and knocked the ashes out.

"—unless I break my promise, and hand this piece of evidence over to Norwood. I guess he's arch-high-policeman here."

As if the guardian angel of Dick's conscience was at work that very minute to torment him, there came the sound of an approaching horse, and Samson turned the corner into view.

"Oh, hullo, Blaine! How's the gold developing?"

"So-so. Have they found the murderer of Mukhum Dass yet?"

Samson dropped his reins to light a cigar, and took his time about it.

"Not exactly."

"Hum! You either exactly find the murderer, or you don't!"

"We've our suspicions."

"Leading anywhere?"

"Too soon to say."

"If I was to offer to put you next to a piece of pretty evidence, how'd that suit you?"

Samson had to relight the cigar, in order to get opportunity to read Dick's face before he answered.

"I don't think so, Blaine, thank you—at least not at present. If you've direct evidence of an eye-witness, of course—"

"Nothing like that," said Dick.

"Well, I'll be candid with you, Blaine. We know quite well who the murderer is. At the right moment we shall land on him hammer and tongs. But you see—we need to choose the right moment, for political reasons. Now—technically speaking—all evidence in criminal cases ought to go to the police, and the police might act too hastily—you understand me?"

"If you know who the man is, of course," said Dick, "there's nothing more I need do."

"Except to be discreet, Blaine! Please be discreet! We shall get the man. Don't doubt it! You and your wife have set us all an example here of minding nobody's business except your own. I'd be awfully obliged if you'd keep yourself as far as possible out of this mess. Should we need any further evidence than we've got already, I'd ask you for it, of course."

"Suits me all right," said Dick. "I'm mum."

"Thanks awfully, Blaine. Can I offer you a cigar? I'm on my way to take a look at the fort. Seems like an anachronism, doesn't it, for us to keep an old-fashioned fort like this so near our own border in native territory. Care to come with me? Well, so long then—see you at the club again, I suppose?"

Samson rode on.

"A narrow squeak that!" said Dick to himself, stowing away the map that he had held the whole time in his right hand in full view of the commissioner.



Chapter Nineteen



The East to Columbia

Sister Columbia, wonderful sister, Weariless wings on aerial way! Tell us the lore of thy loftiness, sister, We of the dark are astir for the day! Give us the gift of thy marvelous wings, Spell us the charm that Columbia sings!

Oversea sister, affluent sister, Queen inexclusive, though out of our reach! How is thy genius ever unruffled? What is the talisman altitudes teach? Measureless meed of ability thine, What is the goal of thy heart's design?

How shall we learn of it? How shall we follow? Heavy the burden of earth where we lie! Only a glimpse of thy miracle stirs us, Stay in our wallow and teach us to fly! How shall we spring to Columbia's call? Oh, that thy wings could unweary us all!

"I am as simple as the sunlight!"

Tess was in something very near to paradise, if paradise is constant assuaging of the curiosity amid surroundings that conduce to idleness. There were men on that country-side in plenty who would not have dared admit a Western woman into their homes; but even those could hardly prevent wives and daughters from visiting Yasmini in the perfectly correct establishment she kept. And there were other men, more fearless of convention, who were willing that Tess, if veiled, should cross their private thresholds.

So there followed a round of visits and return calls, of other marvelous rides by elephant at night, because the daytime was too hot for comfort, and oftener, long drives in latticed carriages, with footmen up behind and an escort to ride before and swear at the lethargic bullock-men—carriages that bumped along the country roads on strange, old-fashioned springs.

Yasmini was welcome everywhere, and, in the cautious, tenfold guarded Eastern way, kept open house. The women reveled in her free ideas and in the wit with which she heaped scorn on the priest-made fashions that have kept all India in chains for centuries, mocking the priests, as some thought, at the risk of blasphemy.

Almost as much as in Yasmini's daring they took ingenuous delight in Tess, persuading Yasmini to interpret questions and reply or, very rarely, bringing with them some duenna who had a smattering of English.

All imprisoned folk, and especially women in the shuttered zenanas of the East, develop a news-sense of their own that passes the comprehension of free-ranging mortals. They were astonishingly well informed about the outer world—even the far-flung outer world, yet asked the most childish questions; and only a few of them could have written their own names,—they who were titled ladies of a land of ancient chivalry.

"Wait until I am maharanee!" Yasmini said. "The women have always ruled India. Women rule the English, though the English hate the thought of it and make believe otherwise. With the aid of women I will change the face of India,—the women and the gods!"

But she was careful of her promises, holding out no prospects that would stir premature activity among the ranks she counted on.

"Promise the gods too much," she said, "and the gods overwhelm you. They like to serve, which is their business, not to have you squandering on them. Tell the women they are rulers, and they will start to destroy their empire by making public what is secret! If you tell the men that the women rule them, what will the men do?"

"Shut them up all the closer, I suppose," suggested Tess.

"Is that what they ever did? No. They will choose for them certain offices they can not fill because of inexperience, and put the noisiest women in them, and make mock of them, and laugh! Not for a long time yet must India know who rules her!"

"Child, where did you learn all your philosophy?" Tess asked her, one night when they were watching the stars from the bedroom window-seat.

"Oh, men taught me this and that thing, and I have always reversed it and believed the opposite. Why do men teach? To make you free, or to bind you to their own wheel? The English teach that English ways are good for the world. I answer that the world has been good to England and the English would like to keep it so! The pundits say we should study the philosophies. They made me study, hours and hours when I was little. Why? To bind me to the wheel of their philosophy, and keep me subject to them! I say philosophy is good for pundits, as a pond is good for frogs; but shall I be a frog, too, and croak about the beauties of the mud? The priests say we should obey them, and pray, and make offerings, and keep the religious law. I say, that religion is good for priests, which is why they cherish it, and add to it, and persuade foolish women to believe it! As for the gods, if they are anything they are our servants!"

"Your husband is going to have an interesting time," laughed Tess.

Yasmini's blue eyes suddenly turned soft and serious.

"Do you think I can not be a wife "' she asked. "Do you suppose there is no mother-love in me? Do you think I do not understand how a man needs cherishing? Do you think I will preach to my husband, or oppose his plans? No! I will do as the gods do when the priests are asleep! I will let him go his own way, and will go with him, never holding back; and little by little he will learn that I have understanding. Little by little he will grow into knowledge of the things I know—and he will be a very great man!"

There were no visits whatever from Utirupa, for the country-side would have been scandalized. Only, flowers came every day in enormous quantities; and there was a wealth of horses, carriages, jewels and armed men at his bride's disposal that proved he had not forgotten her existence or her needs. She had claimed marriage to him by Gandharva rite, and he had tacitly consented, but she was not ready yet to try conclusions with the secret, octopus influence of the priests; and there was another reason.

"If it should get to Samson's cars that he and I are married, that would be the end of his chance of the throne of Sialpore. Samson is English of the English. He would oppose to the end the nomination of a maha-rajah, whose wife has notions of her own—as I am known to have! They like him— my husband—because he plays good polo, and will bet with them, and can play cricket; and because he seems to follow no special line of politics. But if it were known he had a clever wife—me for wife—they would have none of him! I shall be a surprise for them when the die is cast!"

Tess was in almost daily communication with Dick, for, what with Tom Tripe and Sita Ram and about a dozen other sworn accomplices, Yasmini had messages coming and going all the time. Camels used to arrive long after dark, and letters were brought in, smelly with the sweat of loyal riders who had hidden them from too inquisitive police. Most of them carried back a scribbled word for Dick. But he said nothing about the treasure in his curt, anonymous, unsigned replies, being nervous about sending messages at all.

Only, when in one letter he mentioned digging in another place, and Tess read the sentence aloud, Yasmini squealed with delight. The next day her own advices confirmed the hint, Sita Ram sending a long account of new developments and adding that "Samson sahib is much exercised in mind about it."

"All goes well!" Yasmini belled in her golden voice. "Samson has seen the hidden meaning of my letter! If I had told him bluntly where the treasure is, he would have laughed and forgotten it! But because he thinks he reads the secret of my mind, he flatters himself and falls into the trap! Now we have Samson caught, and all is well!"

"It would be a very canny person who could read the secret of your mind, I should say!" laughed Tess.

"I am as simple as the sunlight!" Yasmini answered honestly. "It is Samson who is dark, not I."

Yasmini began making ready for departure, giving a thousand orders to dependents she could trust.

"At the polo game," she asked Tess, "when the English ask questions as to where you have been, and what you saw, what will you tell them?"

"Why not the truth? Samson expressly asked me to cultivate your acquaintance."

"Splendid! Tell them you traveled on camel-back by night across the desert with me! By the time they have believed that we will think of more to add to it! We return by elephant to Sialpore together, timing our arrival for the polo game. There we separate. You watch the game together with your husband. I shall be in a closed carriage—part of the time. I shall be there all the time, but I don't think you will see me."

"But you say they have rifled your palace. Where will you sleep?" Tess asked.

"At your house on the hill!"

"But that is in Gungadhura's territory. Aren't you afraid of him?"

"Of Gungadhura? I? I never was! But now whoever fears him would run from a broken snake. I have word that the fool has murdered Mukhum Dass the money-lender. You may trust the English to draw his teeth nicely for him after that! Gungadhura is like a tiger in a net he can not break!"

"He might send men to break into the house," Tess argued.

"There will be sharper eyes than any of his watching!"

But Tess was alarmed at the prospect. She did not mind in the least what the English might have to say about it afterward; but to have her little house the center of nocturnal feuds, with her husband using his six-shooters, and heaven only knew what bloodshed resulting, was more of a prospect than she looked forward to.

"Sister," said Yasmini, taking her by both hands. "I must use your house. There is no other place."

No one could refuse her when her deep blue eyes grew soft and pleading, let alone Tess, who had lived with her and loved her for a week.

"Very well," she answered; and Yasmini's eyes softened and brightened even more.

"I shall not forget!"

Getting ready was no child's play. It was to be a leisurely procession in the olden style, with tents, servants, and all the host of paraphernalia and hangers-on that that entails; not across the desert this time, but around the edge of it, the way the polo ponies went, and out of Gungadhura's reach. For, however truly Yasmini might declare that she was not afraid of Gungadhura (and she vowed she never boasted), she was running no unnecessary risks; it takes a long time for the last rats to desert a sinking ship, (the obstinate go down with it), and just as long for the last assassins to change politics. She was eager to run all the risks when that was the surest strategy, but cautious otherwise.

The secret of her safety lay in the inviolable privacy surrounding woman's life in all that part of India—privacy that the English have respected partly because of their own inherent sense of personal retirement, partly because it was the easiest way and saved trouble; but mainly because India's women have no ostensible political power, and there is politics enough without bringing new millions more potential agitators into light. So word of her life among the women did not travel swiftly to official ears, as that of a male intriguer would certainly have done. Utirupa was busy all day long with polo, and the Powers that Be were sure of it, and pleased. What Gungadhura knew, or guessed, was another matter; but Gungadhura had his own hands full just then.

So they formed part of a procession that straggled along the miles, of elephants, camels and groups of ponies, carts loaded with tents, chattering servants, parties of Rajput gentlemen, beggars, hangers-on, retainers armed with ancient swords, mountebanks, several carriage-loads of women, who could sing and dance and were as particular about their veiling as if Lalun were not their ancestress, the inevitable faquirs, camel-loads of entertainers, water-carriers, sheep, asses, and bullock-drawn, squeaking two-wheeled carts aburst with all that men and animals could eat. Three days and nights of circus life, as Tess described it afterward to Dick.

Yasmini and Tess rode part of the way on an elephant, lying full-length in the hooded howdah with a view of all the country-side, starting before dawn and resting through the long heat of the day. But monotony formed no part of Yasmini's scheme of life, and daring was the very breath she breathed. Most of the time they rode horseback together, disguised as men and taking to the fields whenever other parties drew too close. But sometimes Yasmini left Tess on the elephant, and mingled freely with the crowd, her own resourcefulness and intimate knowledge of the language and the customs enough protection.

Nights were the amazing time. A great camp spread out under ancient trees—bonfires glowing everywhere, and native followers squatted around them,—long, whinnying horse-lines—elephants, great gurgling shadows, swaying at their pickets—shouting, laughter, music,—and, over all, soft purple darkness and the stars.

For it was something more than a mere polo tournament that they were traveling to. It had grown out of a custom abolished by the government, of traveling once a year to Sialpore to air and consider grievances— a custom dating from long before the British occupation, when the princes of the different states were all in rival camps and that was about the only opportunity to meet on reasonably friendly terms. In later years it had looked like developing into a focus of political solidity; so some ingenious commissioner had introduced the polo element, eliminating, item after item, all the rest. Then the date had been changed to the early hot weather, in order to reduce attendance; but the only effect that had was to keep away the English from outlying provinces. It was the one chance that part of Rajputana had to get together, and the Rajputs swarmed to the tournament—along the main trunk road that the English had reconstructed in early days for the swifter movement of their guns. (It did not follow any particular trade route, although trade had found its way afterward along it.)

Yasmini saw Utirupa every night, she apparently as much a man as he in turban and the comfortable Rajput costume—shorter by a bead, but as straight-standing and as agile. Tess and Hasamurti used to watch them under the trees, ready to give the alarm in case of interruption, sometimes near enough to catch the murmured flow of confidence uniting them in secrecy of sacred, unconforming interviews. It was common knowledge that Yasmini was in the camp, but she was always supposed to be tented safely on the outskirts, with her women and a guard of watchful servants all about her. There was no risk of an affront to her in any case; it was known that Utirupa would attend to that.

Each night between the bonfires there was entertainment—men who walked tight-ropes, wrestlers, a performing horse, ballad-singers and, dearest delight of all, the tellers of Eastern tales, who sat with silent rings of men about them and reeled off the old, loved, impossible adventures of the days when the gods walked with men on earth—stories of miracles and love and derring-do, with heroes who could fight a hundred men unscathed, and heroines to set the heart on fire.

Then off again before sunrise in the cool amid the shouting and confusion of a breaking camp, with truant ponies to be hunted, and everybody yelling for his right of road, and the elephants sauntering urbanely through it all with trunks alert for pickings from the hay-carts. They were nights and days superbly gorgeous, all-entertaining, affluent of humor.

Then on the third day, nearing Sialpore toward evening they filed past two batteries of Royal Horse Artillery, drawn up on a level place beside the road to let them by—an act of courtesy not unconnected with its own reward. It is never a bad plan to let the possibly rebellious take a long look at the engines of enforcement.

"Ah!" laughed Yasmini, up in the howdah now beside Tess on the elephant, "the guns of the gods! I said the gods were helping us!"

"Look like English guns to me," Tess answered.

"So think the English, too. So thinks Samson who sent for them. So, too, perhaps Gungadhura will think when he knows the guns are coming! But I know better. I never promise the gods too much, but let them make me promises, and look on while they perform them. I tell you, those are the guns of the gods!"



Chapter Twenty



A bad man ruined by the run of luck May shed the slime—they've done it, Times and again they've done it. That turn to aspiration out of muck Is quick if heart's begun it, If heart's desire's begun it. But 'ware revenge if greater craft it is That jockeyed him to recognize defeat, Or greater force that overmastered his— Efficiency more potent than deceit That craved his crown and won it! Safer the she-bear with her suckling young, Kinder the hooked shark from a yardarm hung, More rational a tiger by the hornets stung Than perfidy outcozened. Shun it!

"Millions! Think of it! Lakhs and crores!"

The business of getting a maharajah off the throne, even in a country where the overlords are nervous, and there is precedent, is not entirely simple, especially when the commissioner who recommends it has a name for indiscretion and ambition. The government of conquered countries depends almost as much on keeping clever administrators in their place as on fostering subdivision among the conquered.

So, very much against his will, Samson was obliged to go to see a high commissioner, who is a very important person indeed, and ram home his arguments between four walls by word of mouth. He did not take Sita Ram with him, so there is a gap in the story at that point, partly bridged by Samson's own sketchy account of the interview to Colonel Willoughby de Wing, overheard by Carlos de Sousa Braganza the Goanese club butler, and reported to Yasmini at third hand.

There were no aeroplanes or official motor-cars at that time to take officials at outrageous speed on urgent business. But Samson's favorite study in his spare time was Julius Caesar, who usually traveled long distances at the rate of more than a hundred miles a day, and was probably short-winded from debauch into the bargain. What the great Julius could do, Samson could do as well; but in spite of whip and spur and post, ruthless robbery of other people's reserved accommodation, and a train caught by good luck on the last stage, it took him altogether seven valuable days and nights. For there was delay, too, while the high commissioner wired to Simla in code for definite permission to be drastic.

The telegram from the secretary of state pointed out, as Samson had predicted that it would, the desirability of avoiding impeachment and trial if that were possible, in view of the state of public unrest in India and the notorious eagerness of Parliament at home to interfere in Indian affairs.

"Get him to abdicate!" was the meat of the long message.

"Can you do it?" asked the high commissioner.

"Leave that to me!" boasted Samson. "And now this other matter. These 'islands' as they're called. It's absurd and expensive to continue keeping up a fort inside the maharajah's territory. There's no military advantage to us in having it so near our border. And there are totally unnecessary problems of administration that are entailed by the maharajah administering a small piece of territory on our side of the river. I've had a contract drawn for your approval—Sir Hookum Bannerjee drew it, he's a very able lawyer—stipulating with Utirupa, in consideration of our recognition of himself and his heirs as rulers of the State of Sialpore, that he shall agree to exchange his palace and land on our side of the river against our fort on his side. What do you think of it?"

"It isn't a good bargain. He ought to give us more than that in the circumstances, against a fort and—and all that kind of thing."

"It's a supremely magnificent bargain!" retorted Samson. "Altogether overlooking what we'll save in money by not having to garrison that absurd fort, it's the best financial bargain this province ever had the chance of!"

"How d'ye mean?"

Samson whispered. Even those four solid walls were not discreet enough.

"The treasure of Sialpore is buried in the River Palace grounds! Millions! Think of it—Millions! Lakhs and crores!"

The high commissioner whistled.

"That 'ud mean something to the province, wouldn't it! Show me your proofs."

How Samson got around the fact that he had no actually definite proofs, he never told. But he convinced the high commissioner, who never told either, unless to somebody at Simla, who buried the secret among the State Department files.

"I'll wire Simla," said the high commissioner presently, "for permission to authorize you to set your signature to that contract on behalf of government. The minute I get it I'll wire you to Sialpore and confirm by letter. Now you'd better get back to your post in a hurry. And don't forget, it would be difficult in a case like this to err on the side of silence, Samson. Who'll have to be told?"

"Nobody but Willoughby de Wing. I'll have to ask him for troops to guard the River Palace grounds. There's a confounded American digging this minute in the River Palace grounds by arrangement with Gungadhura. He'll have to be stopped, and I'll have to make some sort of explanation."

"What's an American doing in Sialpore?"

"Prospecting. Has a contract with Gungadhura."

"Um-m-m! We'll have Standard Oil in next! Better point out to Utirupa that contracts with foreigner's aren't regarded cordially."

"That's easily done," said Samson. "Utirupa is nothing if not anxious to please."

"Yes, Utirupa is a very fine young fellow—and a good sportsman, too, I'm told."

"There is no reason why Utirupa should recognize the contract between Gungadhura and the American. It was a private contract—no official sanction. If Gungadhura isn't in position to continue it—"

"Exactly. Well—good-by. I'll look forward to a good report from you."

By train and horse and tonga Samson contrived to reach Sialpore on the morning before the day set for the polo tournament. He barely allowed himself time to shave before going to see Dick Blaine, and found him, as he expected, at the end of the tunnel nearly a hundred yards long that started from inside the palace wall and passed out under it. The guards at the gate did not dare refuse the commissioner admission. So far, Dick had not begun demolition of the palace, but had dragged together enough lumber by pulling down sheds and outhouses. He was not a destructive-minded man.

"Will you come outside and talk with me?" Samson shouted, amid the din of pick and shovel work.

"Sure."

Dick's poker face was in perfect working order by the time they reached the light. But he stood with his back to the sun and let Samson have the worst of the position.

"You're wasting time and money, Blaine. I've come to tell you so."

"Now—that's good of you."

"Your contract with Gungadhura is not worth the paper it's written on."

"How so?"

"He will not be maharajah after noon today!"

"You don't mean it!"

"That information is confidential, but the news will be out by tomorrow. The British Administration intends to take over all the land on this side of the river. That's confidential too. Between you and me, our government would never recognize a contract between you and Gungadhura. I warned you once, and your wife a second time."

"Sure, she told me."

"Well. You and I have been friends, Blaine. I'd like you to regard this as not personal. But—"

"Oh, I get you. I'm to call the men off? That it?"

"You've only until tomorrow in any case."

"And Gungadhura, broke, to look to for the pay-roll! Well—as you say, what's the use?"

"I'd pay your men off altogether, if I were you."

"They're a good gang."

"No doubt. We've all admired your ability to make men work. But there'll be a new maharajah in a day or two, and, strictly between you and me, as one friend to another, there'll be a very slight chance indeed of your getting a contract from the incoming man to carry on your mining in the hills. I'd like to save you trouble and expense."

"Real good of you."

"Er—found anything down there?" Samson nodded over his shoulder toward the tunnel mouth.

"Not yet."

"Any signs of anything?"

"Not yet."

Samson looked relieved.

"By the way. You mentioned the other day something about evidence relating to the murder of Mukhum Dass."

"I did."

"Was it anything important?"

"Maybe. Looked so to me."

"Would you mind giving me an outline of it?"

"You said that day you knew who murdered Mukhum Dass?"

"Yes. When I got in this morning there was a note on my desk from Norwood, the superintendent of police, to say that they've arrested your butler and cook, and the murderer of Mukhum Dass all hiding together near a railway station. The murderer has squealed, as you Americans say. They often do when they're caught. He has told who put him up to it."

"Guess I'll give you this, then. It's the map out of the silver tube that Mukhum Dass burgled from my cellar. Gungadhura gave it to me with instructions to dig here. You'll note there's blood on it."

Samson's eyes looked hardly interested as he took it. Then he looked, and they blazed. He put it in his inner pocket hurriedly.

"Too bad, Blaine!" he laughed. "So you even had a map of the treasure, eh? Another day or two and you'd have forestalled us! I suppose you'd a contract with Gungadhura for a share of it?"

"You bet!"

"Well—it wasn't registered. I doubt if you could have enforced it. Gungadhura is an awful rascal."

"Gee!" lied Dick. "I never thought of that! I had my other contract registered all right—in your office—you remember?"

"Yes. I warned you at the time about Gungadhura."

"You did. I remember now. You did. Well, I suppose the wife and I'll be heading for the U. S. A. soon, richer by the experience. Still—I reckon I'll wait around and see the new maharajah in the saddle, and watch what comes of it."

"You've no chance, Blaine, believe me!"

"All right, I'll think it over. Meanwhile, I'll whistle off these men."

The next man Samson interviewed was Willoughby de Wing.

"Let me have a commissioner's escort, please," he demanded. "I'm going to see Gungadhura now! You'd better follow up with a troop to r eplace the maharajah's guards around his palace. We can't put him under arrest without impeaching him; but—make it pretty plain to the guard they're there to protect a man who has abdicated; that no one's to be allowed in, and nobody out unless he can explain his business. Then, can you spare some guards for another job? I want about twenty men on the River Palace at once. Caution them carefully. Nobody's to go inside the grounds. Order the maharajah's guards away! It's a little previous. His officers will try to make trouble of course. But an apology at the proper time will cover that."

"What's the new excitement?" asked the colonel. "More murders? More princesses out at night?"

"This is between you and me. Not a word to a living soul, De Wing!" Samson paused, then whispered: "The treasure of Sialpore!"

"What—in the palace?"

"In the grounds! There's a tunnel already half-dug, leading toward it from inside the palace wall. I've proof of the location in my pocket!"

"Gad's teeth!" barked Willoughby de Wing. "All right, I'll have your escort in a jiffy. Have a whisky and soda, my boy, to stiffen you before the talk with Gungadhura!"

A little less than half an hour later Samson drove across the bridge in the official landau, followed by an officer, a jemadar, a naik and eight troopers of De Wing's Sikh cavalry. Willoughby de Wing drove in the carriage with him as a witness. They entered the palace together, and were kept waiting so long that Samson sent the major-domo to the maharajah a second time with a veiled threat to repeat, said slowly:

"Say the business is urgent and that I shall not be held responsible for consequences if he doesn't see me at once!"

"Gad!" swore De Wing, screwing in his monocle. "I'd like a second whisky and soda! I suppose there's none here. I hate to see a man broke—even a blackguard!"

Gungadhura received them at last, seated, in the official durbar room. The bandages were gone from his face, but a strip of flesh-colored court-plaster from eye to lip gave him an almost comical look of dejection, and he lolled in the throne-chair with his back curved and head hung forward, scowling as a man does not who looks forward to the interview.

Samson cleared his throat, and read what be had to say, holding the paper straight in front of him.

"I have a disagreeable task of informing Your Highness that your correspondence with the Mahsudi tribe is known to His Majesty's Government."

Gungadhura scowled more deeply, but made no answer.

"Amounting as it does to treason, at a time when His Majesty's Government are embarrassed by internal unrest, your act can not be overlooked."

Gungadhura made a motion as if to interrupt, but thought better of it.

"In the circumstances I have the honor to advise Your Highness that the wisest course, and the only course that will avoid impeachment, is abdication."

Gungadhura shook his head violently.

"I can explain," he said. "I have proofs."

Samson turned the paper over—paused a moment—and began to read the second sheet.

"It is known who murdered Mukhum Dass. The assassin has been caught, and has confessed."

Gungadhura's eyes that had been dull, and almost listless hitherto, began to glare like an animal's.

"I have here—" Samson reached in his pocket, "a certain piece of parchment— a map in fact—that was stolen from the body of Mukhum Dass. Perhaps Your Highness will recognize it. Look!"

Gungadhura looked, and started like a man stung. Samson returned the map to his pocket, for the maharajah almost looked like trying to snatch it; but instead he collapsed in his chair again.

"If I abdicate?" he asked, as if his throat and lips could hardly form the words.

"That would be sufficient. The assassin would then be allowed to plead guilty to another charge there is against him, and the matter would be dropped."

"I abdicate!"

"On behalf of His Majesty's Government I accept the abdication. Sign this, please."

Samson laid a formal written act of abdication on the table by the throne. Gungadhura signed it. Willoughby de Wing wrote his signature as witness. Samson took it back and folded it away.

"Arrangements will be made for Your Highness to leave Sialpore tomorrow morning, with a sufficient escort for your protection. Provision will be made in due course for your private residence elsewhere. Be good enough to hold yourself and your family in readiness tomorrow morning."

"But my son!" exclaimed Gungadhura. "I abdicate in favor of my son!"

"In case of abdication by a reigning prince, or deposition of a reigning prince," said Samson, "the Government of India reserves the right to appoint his successor, from among eligible members of his family if there be any, but to appoint his successor in any case. There is ample precedent."

"And my son?"

"Will certainly not be considered."

Gungadhura glanced about him like a frenzied man, and then lay back in a state of near-collapse. Samson and De Wing both bowed, and left the room.

"Poor devil!" said De Wing, "I'm sorry for him."

"Would you be a good fellow," said Samson, "and send off this wire for me? There—I've added the exact time of the abdication. I've got to go now and summon a durbar of Gungadhura's state officers, and tell them in confidence what's happened. I shall hint pretty broadly that Utirupa is our man, and then ask them which prince they'd like to have succeed."

"Good!" said De Wing. "Nothing like tact! Why not meet me at the club for a whisky and soda afterward?"

Inside the durbar hall Gungadhura sat alone for just so long as it took the sound of the closing door to die away. Then another door, close behind the throne chair opened, and Patali entered. She looked at him with pity on her face, and curiosity.

"That American sold you," she said after a minute.

"Eh?"

"I say, that American sold you! He sold you, and the map, and the treasure to the English!"

"I know it! I know it!"

"If I were a man—"

She waited, but he gave no sign of manhood.

"If I were a man I know what I would do!"

"Peace, Patali! I am a ruined man. They will all desert me as soon as the news is out. They are deserting now; I feel it in my bones. I have none to send."

"Send? It is only maharajahs who must send. Men do their own work! I know what I would do to an American or any other man, who sold me!"



Chapter Twenty-One



The king sent his army and said, "Lo, I did it. Consider my prowess and my strategy!" But the gods laughed. —Eastern proverb

"The guns of the gods!"

Very shortly after dawn on the morning of the polo game Yasmini left the Blaines' house on business of her own. The news of Gungadhura's abdication was abroad already, many times multiplied by each mouth until two batteries of guns had become an army corps. But what caused the greatest excitement was the news, first of all whispered, then confirmed, that Gungadhura himself was missing.

That disturbing knowledge was the factor that prevented Yasmini from returning to her own rifled palace and making the best of it; for it would take time to hedge the place about properly with guards. There was simply no knowing what Gungadhura might be up to. She judged it probable that he had seen through her whole plot in the drear light of revelation that so often comes to stricken men, and in that case her own life was likely in danger every second he was still at liberty. But she sent word to Utirupa, too, to be on the alert. And she saw him herself that morning, in her favorite disguise of a rangar zemindari, which is a Rajput landowner turned Muhammadan. The disguise precluded any Hindu interference, and Muhammadans on that country-side, who might have questioned her, were scarce.

The polo did not take place until late afternoon, because of the heat, but the grounds were crowded long before the time by a multi-colored swarm in gala mood, whom the artillerymen, pressed into service as line-keepers, had hard work to keep back of the line. There was a rope around three sides of the field, but it broke repeatedly, and in the end the gunners had to be stationed a few feet apart all down the side opposite the grand-stand to keep the crowd from breaking through.

There were carriages in swarms, ranging from the spider-wheel gig of a British subaltern to the four-in-hand of Rajput nobility—kept pretty carefully apart, though. The conquerors of India don't mix with the conquered, as a rule, except officially. And there were half a dozen shuttered carriages that might have contained ladies, and might not; none knew.

It was a crowd that knew polo from the inside outward, and when the ponies were brought at last and stood in line below the grand-stand, each in charge of his sais, there grew a great murmur of critical approval; for the points of a horse in Rajputana are as the lines of a yacht at Marblehead, and the marks of a dog in Yorkshire; the very urchins know them. The Bombay side of India had been scoured pretty thoroughly for mounts for that event. The Rajputs had on the whole the weight of money, and perhaps the showiest ponies, but the English team, nearly all darker in color as it happened, except for one pie-bald, looked trained up to the last notch and bore the air of knowing just what to expect, that is as unmistakable in horses as in men.

Tom Tripe was there with his dog. Trotters had the self-imposed and wholly agreeable task of chasing all unattached dogs off the premises. But Tom Tripe himself was keeping rather in the background, because technically, as a servant of Gungadhura, he was in a delicate position. A voice that he could swear he almost recognized whispered to him in the crowd that the English were going to forbid the next maharajah to have any but employees of his own race. And a laugh that he could pick out of a million greeted his change of countenance. But though he turned very swiftly, and had had no brandy since morning to becloud his vision, he failed to see his tormentor.

Tess and Dick drove down in ample time, as they had imagined, and found hard work to squeeze the dog-cart in between the phalanxes of wheels already massed on the ground. When they went to the grand-stand it was to find not a seat left in the rows reserved for ordinary folk; so Samson, who arrived late too, magnificent in brand-new riding-boots, invited them to sit next him in front.

The ground was in perfect condition—a trifle hard, because of the season, but flat as a billiard table and as fast as even Rajputs could desire. A committee of them had been going over it daily for a week past, recommending touches here, suggesting something there, neglecting not an inch, because the finer stick-work of the Rajput team would be lost on uneven ground; and the English had been sportsmen enough to accommodate them without a murmur.

When a little bell rang and the teams turned out for the first chukker in deathly-silence, it was evident at once what the Rajput strategy would be. They had brought out their fastest ponies to begin with, determined to take the lead at the start and hold it.

One could hear the crowd breathe when the whistle blew; for in India polo is a game to watch, not an opportunity for small talk. Instantly the ball went clipping toward the English goal, to be checked by Topham at full-back, who sent it out rattling to the right wing. But the Rajput left-wing man, a young cousin of Utirupa, cut in like an arrow. The ball crossed over to the right wing, where Utirupa took it, galloping down the line on a chestnut mare that had the speed of wind. Topham, racing to intercept the ball, missed badly; a second later the Rajput center thundered past both men and scored the goal, amid a roar from the spectators, less than a minute from the start.

"Dick!" Tess exclaimed. "You ought to be ashamed of me! I'm rooting for the Rajputs against my own color!"

"So'm I!" he answered. "I wish to glory there was some one here to bet with!"

Samson overheard.

"Which way do you want to bet?" he asked.

"A thousand on the Rajputs."

"Thousand what?"

"Dollars. Three thousand rupees."

"Confound it, you Americans are all too rich! Never mind, I'll take you."

"A bet!" Dick answered, and both men wrote it down.

About nine words were said by the captain of the English team as they rode back to the center of the field, and when the ball was in play again there was no more of the scattering open play that suited the other side, but a close, short-hitting, chop-and-follow method that tried ponies' tempers, and a scrimmage every ten yards that made all unavailing the Rajputs' speed and dash. Whenever a stroke of lightning wrist-work sent the ball clipping down-field Topham returned it to the center and the scrimmage began all over again. The first chukker ended in mid-field, with the score 1—0.

Both sides brought out fresh ponies for the second, and the Rajputs tried again to score with their favorite tactics of long-hitting and tremendous speed. But the English were playing dogged-does-it, and Topham on the pie-bald at full back was invincible. Nothing passed him. Nor were the English slow. Three times they seized opportunity in mid-field and rode with a burst of fiery hitting toward the Rajput goal. Three times the gunners down the line began to yell. The English team were getting together, and the Rajputs a little wild. But the chukker ended with the same score, 1—0.

"How d'you feel about it now?" asked Samson, looking as calm as the English habitually do whenever their pulse beats furiously.

"I'd like to bet too!" Tess laughed, leaning across.

"What—the same sized bet?"

"No, a hundred."

"Dollars ?"

"Rupees!" she laughed. "I'm not so rich as my husband."

"Can't refuse a lady!" Samson answered, noting the bet down. "I shall be a rich man tonight. They play a brilliant game, those fellows, but we always beat them in the end."

"How do you account for that?" Dick asked, suspecting what was coming.

"Oh, in a number of ways, but chiefly because they lack team-loyalty among themselves. They're all jealous of one another, whereas our fellows play as a unit."

As if in confirmation of Samson's words the Rajput team seemed rather to go to pieces in the third chukker. There was the same brilliant individual hitting, and as much speed as ever, but the genius was not there. In vain Utirupa took the ball out of a scrimmage twice and rode away with it. He was not backed up in the nick of time, and before the end of the third minute the English scored.

"You'd better go and hedge those bets," laughed Samson when the chukker ended. "There are plenty of the native gentry over yonder who'd be delighted to gamble a fortune with you yet!"

Dick scarcely heard. He was watching Utirupa, who stood by the pony-line where a sais was doing something to a saddle girth. A rangar came up to the prince and spoke to him—a slim, young-looking man, a head the shorter of the two, with a turban rather low over his eyes, and the loose end of it, for some reason, across the lower half of his face. Dick nudged Tess, and she nodded. After that Utirupa appeared to speak in low tones to each member of his own team.

"I beg your pardon. What was that you said?" asked Dick.

"I say you'd better hedge those bets."

"I'll double with you, if you like!"

"Good heavens, man! I've wagered a month's pay already! Go and bet with Willoughby de Wing or one of the gunner officers."

The rangar disappeared into the crowd before the teams rode out for the fourth encounter, and Tess, who had made up her mind to watch the shuttered carriages that stood in line together in a roped enclosure of their own, became too busy with the game. Something had happened to the Rajputs. They no longer played with the gallery-appealing smash-and-gallop fury that won them the first goal, although their speed held good and the stick-work was marvelous. But they seemed more willing now to mix it in the middle of the field, and to ride off an opponent instead of racing for the chance to shine individually. It became the English turn to drive to the wings and try to clear the ball for a hurricane race down-field; and they were not quite so good at those tactics as the other side were.

All the rest of that game until the eighth, chukker after chukker, the Rajputs managed to reverse the usual procedure, obliging the English team to wear itself out in terrific efforts to break away, tiring men and ponies in a tight scramble in which neither side could score.

"It looks like a draw after all," said Samson. "Bets off in that case, I suppose? Disappointing game in my opinion."

"'Tisn't over yet," said Dick.

The Rajputs were coming out for the last chukker with their first and fastest ponies that had rested through the game; and they were smiling. Utirupa had said something that was either a good joke or else vastly reassuring. As a matter of fact he had turned them loose at last to play their old familiar game again, and from the second that the ball went into play the crowd was on tiptoe, swaying this and that way with excitement.

In vain the English sought to return to the scrimmage play; it was too late. The Rajputs had them rattled. Topham at full-back on the pie-bald was a stone wall, swift, hard-hitting and resourceful, but in vain. Swooping down the wings, and passing with the dextrous wrist-work and amazing body-bends that they alone seem able to accomplish, they put the English team on the defensive and kept them there. Once, at about half-time, by a dash all together the English did succeed in carrying t he ball down-field, but that was their last chance, and they missed it. In the last two minutes the Rajputs scored two goals, the last one driven home by Utirupa himself, racing ahead of the field with whirling stick and the thunder of a neck-and-neck stampede behind him.

"That'll be your month's pay!" laughed Dick. "I hope you won't starve for thirty days!"

The crowd went mad with delight, and swarmed on to the ground, shouting and singing. Samson got up, looking as if he rather enjoyed to lose three thousand rupees in an afternoon.

"If you'll excuse me," he said, I'll go and shake hands with Utirupa. He deserves congratulation. It was head-work won that game."

"I wonder what she said to him at the end of the third chukker," Tess whispered to Dick.

Samson found Utirupa giving orders to the saises, and shook hands with him.

"Good game, Utirupa! Congratulate you. By the way: there's going to be a meeting on important business in my office half an hour from now. When you've had a tub and a change, I wish you'd come and join us. We want a word with you."

"Where are the gunners going to?" asked Tess. "The men who kept the line—look! They're all trooping off the ground in the same direction."

"Dunno," said her husband. "Let's make for the dog-cart and drive home. If we hang around Samson'll think we're waiting for that money!"

Half an hour after that, Utirupa presented himself at Samson's office in the usual neat Rajput dress that showed off his lithe figure and the straightness of his stature. There was quite a party there to meet him— Samson, Willoughby de Wing, Norwood, Sir Hookum Bannerjee, Topham (still looking warm and rather weary after the game)—and outside on the open ground beyond the compound wall two batteries of horse-guns were drawn up at attention. But if Utirupa felt surprise he did not show it.

"To make a short story of a long one, Prince Utirupa," Samson began at once, "as you know, Gungadhura abdicated yesterday. The throne of Sialpore is vacant, and you are invited to accept it. I have here the required authority from Simla."

Utirupa rose from his chair, and bowed.

"I am willing to accep," he answered quietly. His face showed no emotion.

"There is one stipulation, though," said Samson. "We are tired of these foolish 'islands'—our territory in yours and yours in ours. There's a contract here. As your first official act—there's no time like the present—we want you to exchange the River Palace, on this side of the river, for out fort on your side."

Utirupa said never a word.

"It's not a question of driving a bargain," Samson went on. "We don't know what the palace may be worth, or what is in it. If there is any valuable furniture you'd like removed, we'll waive that point; but on the terms of the contract we exchange the fort, with the guns and whatever else is there except the actual harness and supplies of the garrison, against the land and palace and whatever it contains except furniture."

Utirupa smiled—perhaps because the guns in that fort were known to date from before the Mutiny.

"Will you agree?"

"I will sign," said Utirupa. And he signed the contract there and then, in presence of all those witnesses. Ten minutes later, as he left the office, the waiting batteries fired him a fourteen-gun salute, that the world might know how a new maharajah occupied the throne of Sialpore.

Meanwhile, up at the house on the hill Tess and Dick found Yasmini already there ahead of them, lying at her ease, dressed as a woman of women, and smoking a cigarette in the window-seat of the bedroom Tess had surrendered to her.

"What was it you said to him after the third chukker?" was the first question Tess asked.

"You recognized me?"

"Sure. So did my husband. What did you say to him?"

"Oh, I just said that if he hoped to win he must play the game of the English, and play it better, that was all. He won, didn't he? I didn't stay to the end. I knew he would win."

Almost as they spoke the fourteen-gun salute boomed out from across the river, and echoed from the hills.

"Ah!" said Yasmini. "Listen! The guns of the gods! He is maharajah now."

"But what of the treasure?" Tess asked her. "Dick told me this morning that the English have a guard all round the River Palace, and expect to dig the treasure up themselves."

"Perhaps the English need it more than he and I do," Yasmini answered.

That evening Tom Tripe turned up, and Yasmini came down-stairs to talk with him, Trotters remaining outside the window with his ash-colored hair on end and a succession of volcanic growls rumbling between flashed teeth.

"What's the matter with the dog, that he won't come in?" asked Tess.

"Nothing, ma'arm He's just encouraging himself. He stays here tonight."

"Trotters does? Why?"

"It's known all over Sialpore that her ladyship's staying here, and Gungadhura's at large somewhere.

You're well guarded; that's been seen to, but Trotters stays for double inner-guard. One or two men might go to sleep. Gungadhura might pass them a poisoned drink, or physic their rations in some way. And then, they're what you might call fixed point men here, one there, with instructions they'll be skinned alive and burned if they leave their exact position. Trotters has a roving commission, to nose and snarl whenever he's minded. You can't poison him, for he won't eat from strangers. You can't see to knife him in the dark, because he's ash-colored and moves too swift. And if Gungadhura comes an' shoots at where Trotters' eyes gleam—well—Mr. Dick Blaine is liable to wake up an' show his highness how Buffalo Billy imitates a Gatling gun! The house is safe, but I thought I'd come and mention it."

"When will my palace be ready?" Yasmini asked.

"Tomorrow or the next day, Your Ladyship. There wasn't so much taken out after all, though a certain amount was stolen. The first orders the new maharajah gave were to have your palace attended to; and some of the stolen stuff is coming in already; word went out that if stuff was returned there'd be nothing said, but if it weren't returned there'd be something brand-new in the line of trouble for all concerned. The priests have been told to pass the word along. 'No obedience from priests, no priests at the coronation ceremony!—It's my belief from about two hours' observation that we've got a maharajah now with guts, if you'll excuse my bad French, please, ma'am."

"What does it matter to you, Tom, whether he is good or not?" Yasmini asked mischievously. Isn't there a rumor that the English won't allow any but the native-born instructors after this?"

"Ah, naughty, naughty!" he laughed, shaking a gnarled forefinger. "I thought it was your voice in the crowd. Your Ladyship 'ud like to have me all nervous, wouldn't you? Well—if Tom Tripe was out of a job tomorrow, the very first person he'd apply to for a new one would be the Princess Yasmini; and she'd give it him!"

"What have you in your hand?" Yasmini asked.

"Gungadhura's turban that he wore the night when Akbar chased him down the street."

Yasmini nodded, understanding instantly.

Five minutes later, after a rousing stiff night-cap, Tom took his leave. They heard his voice outside the window:

"Trotters!"

The dog's tail beat three times on the veranda.

"Take a smell o' this!"

There was silence, followed by a growl.

"If he comes,—kill him! D'ye understand? Kill him! There—there's the turban for you to lie on an' memorize the smell! Kill him! Ye understand?"

A deep growl was the answer, and Tom Tripe marched off toward the stables for his horse, whistling Annie Rooney, lest some too enthusiastic watcher knife him out of a shadow.

"When I am maharanee," said Yasmini, "Tom Tripe shall have the title of sirdar, whether the English approve of it or not!"



Chapter Twenty-Two



The Creator caused flowers to bloom in the desert and buried jewels in the bosom of the earth. That is lest men should grow idle, wallowing in delights they have, instead of acquiring merit in the search for beauty that is out of reach. —Eastern Proverb

"Making one hundred exactly."

Technically, Yasmini was as much maharanee of Sialpore as she would ever be, the moment that the fourteen-gun salute boomed out across the river. For the English do not recognize a maharanee, except as courtesy title. The reigning prince is maharajah, and, being Hindu, can have one wife or as many as he pleases. Utirupa and Yasmini claimed to have married themselves by Gandharva rite, and, had she chosen, she could have gone to live with him that minute.

But that would not have paid her in the long run. The priests, for instance, whom she despised with all her character, would have been outraged into life-long enmity; and she knew their power.

"It is one thing," she told Tess, "to determine to be rid of cobras; but another to spurn them with your hand and foot. They bite!"

Then again, it would not have suited her to slip quietly into Utirupa's palace and assume the reins of hidden influence without the English knowing it. She proposed taking uttermost advantage of the purdah custom that protects women in India from observation and makes contact between them and the English almost impossible. But she intended, too, to force the Indian Government into some form of recognition of her.

"If they acknowledge me, they lock swords with every woman in the country. Let them deny me afterward, and all those swords will quiver at their throats! A woman's sword is subtler than a man's."

(That was the secret of her true strength in all the years that followed. It was never possible to bring her quite to bay, because the women pulled hidden strings for her in the sphere that is above and below the reach of governments.) So she moved back into her own palace, where she received only Tess of all the Anglo-Saxon women in India.

"Why don't you keep open house to English women, and start something?" Tess asked her. But Yasmini laughed.

"My power would be gone. Do you fight a tiger by going down on all-fours with him and using teeth and claws? Or do you keep your distance, and use a gun?"

"But the English women are not tigresses."

"If they were, I would laugh at them. Trapping tigers is a task the jungle coolies can attend to well! But if I admit the English women into my palace, they will come out of curiosity. And out of pity, or compassion or some such odious emotion they will invite me to their homes, making an exhibition of me to their friends. Should I be one of them? Never! Would they admit other Indian women with me? Certainly; any one I cared to recommend. They would encourage us to try to become their social equals, as they would call it, always backing away in front of us and beckoning, we striving, and they flattered. No! I will reverse that. I will have the English women striving to enter our society! They shall wake up one day to discover there is something worth having that is out of reach. Then see the commotion! Watch the alteration then! Today they say, when they trouble to think of us at all, 'Come and visit us; our ways are good; we will not hurt you; come along,' as the children call to a kitten in the street. Then they will say, 'We have this and that to offer. We desire your good society. Will you admit us if we bring our gifts?' That will be another story, but it will take time."

"More than time," Tess answered. "Genius."

"I have genius. That is why I know too much to declare war on the priests. I shall have a proper wedding, and priests shall officiate, I despising them and they aware of it. That will be their first defeat. They shall come to my marriage as dogs come to their mistress when she calls— and be whipped away again if they fawn too eagerly! They will not dare refuse to come, because then war would be joined, and I might prove to people how unnecessary priests are. But they are more difficult to deal with than the English. A fat hypocrite like Jinendra's high priest is like a carp to be caught with a worm, or an ass to be beaten with a stick; but there are others—true ascetics—lusting for influence more than a bellyful, caring nothing for the outside of the power if they hold the nut— nothing for the petals, if they hold the seed. Those men are not easy. For the present I shall seem to play into their hands, but they know that I despise them!"

So great preparations were made for a royal wedding. And when Samson heard that Yasmini was to be Utirupa's bride he was sufficiently disgusted, even to satisfy Yasmini, who was no admirer of his. Sita Ram's account of Samson's rage, as he explained the circumstance to Willoughby de Wing, was almost epic.

"Damn the woman! And damn him! She's known for a trouble-maker. Simla will be asking me why on earth I permitted it. They'll want to know why I didn't caution Utirupa and warn him against that princess in particular. She's going to parade through the streets under my very nose and in flat defiance of our government, just at the very time when I've gone on record as sponsor for Utirupa. I've assured them he wouldn't do an ill-advised thing, and I specifically undertook to see that he married wisely. But it was too early yet to speak to him about it. And here he springs this offense on me! It's too bad—too bad!"

"You'll be all right with Simla," said Willoughby de Wing. "Dig up the treasure and they'll recommend you for the K. C. B., with the pick of all the jobs going!"

"They don't give K. C. B.'s to men in my trade," Samson answered rather gloomily. "They reserve them for you professional butchers."

He was feeling jumpy about the treasure, and dreaming of it all night long in a way that did not make the waking fears more comfortable. A whole company of sappers bad been sent for; and because of the need of secrecy for the present, a special appropriation had had to be made to cover the cost of lumber for the tunnel that Dick began, and that the sappers finished. They had dug right up to the pipal trees, and half-killed them by tunneling under their roots along one side; but without discovering anything so far, except a few old coins. (The very ancient golden mohur in the glass case marked "Sialpore" in the Allahabad Museum is one of them.) Now they were going to tunnel down the other side and kill the ancient trees completely.

Being a man of a certain courage, Samson had it in mind—perhaps— to send the map to an expert for an opinion on it. Only, he hated experts; they were so bent always on establishing their own pet theory. And it was late—a little late for expert opinions on the map. The wisest way was to keep silent and continue digging, even if the operation did kill ancient landmarks that one could see—from across the river, for instance.

And, of course, he could not refuse to recognize the wedding officially and put on record the name, ancestry and title of the maharajah's legal first wife. Nor could he keep away, because, with amazingly shrewd judgment, Yasmini had contrived the novelty of welding wedding and coronation ceremony and festival in one. Instead of two successive outbursts of squandering, there would be only one. It was economic progress. One could not withhold approval of it. He must go in person, smile, give a valuable present (paid for by the government, of course), and say the proper thing.

One modicum of consolation did ooze out of the rind of Samson's situation. It would have been no easier, be reflected, to say the right thing at the right time at the coronation ceremony, especially to the right people, if that treasure should already have been dug up and reposing in the coffers of the Indian Government. After a certain sort of bargain, one's tongue feels unpleasant in one's cheek.

Sialpore, however, was much more taken up with preparations for the colossal coronation-wedding feast than with Samson's digging. Yasmini went on her palace roof each day to see how the trees leaned this and that way, as the earth was mined from under them. And Tom Tripe, standing guard on the bastion of the fort to oversee the removal of certain stores and fittings before the English should march out finally and the maharajah's men march in, could see the destruction of the pipal trees too. So, for that matter, could Dick Blaine, on the day when he took some of the gang and blocked up the mouth of the mine on the hill with cemented masonry—to prevent theft; and cursed himself afterward for being such a fool as to brick up his luncheon basket inside the tunnel, to say nothing of all the men's water bottles and some of their food and tools. But nobody else in Sialpore took very much notice of Samson's excavation, and nobody cared about Dick's mine.

Every maharajah always tries to make his wedding and coronation ceremonies grander, and more extravagant and memorable than anybody's else have been since history began; and there are plenty whose interest it is to encourage him, and to help him do it; money-lenders, for instance. But Utirupa not only had two magnificent ceremonies to unite in one, but Yasmini to supply the genius. The preparations made the very priests gasp (and they were used to orgies of extravagance— taught and preached and profited by them in fact.)

Once or twice Tess remonstrated, but Yasmini turned a scornfully deaf ear.

"What would you have us do instead? Invest all the money at eight per cent., so that the rich traders may have more capital, and found an asylum where Bimbu, Umra and Pinga may live in idleness and be rebuked for mirth?"

"Bimbu, Umra and Pinga might be put to work," said Tess. "As for mirth, they laugh at such unseemly things. They could be taught what proper humor is."

"Have they not worked?" Yasmini asked. "Has one man got into your house, without you, or the guard set to watch you, knowing it? Could any one have done it better? Did it not have to be done? As for humor— have they not enjoyed the task? Has it not been a sweeter tale in their ears than the story-teller's at the corner, because they have told it to themselves and acted a part in it?"

"Well," said Tess, "you can't convince me! There are institutions that could be founded with all that money you and your husband are going to spend on ceremony, that would do good."

"Institutions?" Yasmini's eyes grew ablaze with blue indignant fire. "There were institutions in this land before the English came, which need attention before we worry ourselves over new ones. Play was one of them, and I will revive it first! The people used to dance under the trees by moonlight. Do they do it now? It is true they used to die of famine in the bad years, growing much too fat in good ones, and the English have changed that. But I will give them back the gladness, if I can, that has been squeezed out by too many 'institutions!' "

"You would rather see Bimbu, Umra and Pinga happy, than prosperous and well-clothed?"

"Which would you rather?" Yasmini asked her. "You shall see them well clothed in a little while. Just wait."

There were almost endless altercations with the priests. Utirupa himself was known to have profound Sikh tendencies—a form of liberalism in religion that produced almost as much persecution at one time as Protestantism did in Europe. To marry a woman openly who had no true claim to caste at all, as Yasmini, being the daughter of a foreigner, had not, was in the eyes of the priests almost as great an offense as Yasmini's father's, who crossed the kali pani (ocean) and married abroad in defiance of them. So the priests demanded the most elaborate ritual of purification that ingenuity could devise, together with staggering sums of money. Utirupa's eventual threat to lead a reform movement in Rajputana brought them to see reason, however, and they eventually compromised, with a stipulation that the public should not be told how much had been omitted.

There was feasting in the streets for a week before the great inauguration ceremony. Tables were set in every side-street, where whoever cared to might eat his fill of fabulous free rations. Each night the streets were illuminated with colored lights, and fireworks blazed and roared against the velvet sky at intervals, dowering the ancient trees and temple-tops with momentary splendor.

All day long there were performances by acrobats, and songs, and story-telling whenever there was room for a crowd to gather. Faquirs as gruesome and fantastic as the side-shows at a Western fair flocked in to pose and be gaped at, receiving, besides free rations and tribute of small coin, gratification to their vanity in return for the edifying spectacle.

There were little processions, too, of princes arriving from a distance to be present on the great day, their elephants of state loaded with extravagant gifts and their retainers vying with peacocks in efforts to look splendid, and be arrogant, and claim importance for their masters. Never a day but three or four or half-a-dozen noble guests arrived; and nobody worked except those who had to make things easy for the rest; and they worked overtime.

One accustomed spectacle, however, was omitted. Utirupa would have none of the fights between wild animals in the arena that had formed such a large part of Gungadhura's public amusement. But there was ram-fighting, and wrestling between men such as Sialpore had never seen, all the best wrestlers from distant parts being there to strive for prizes. Hired dancers added to the gaiety at night, and each incoming nobleman brought nautch girls, or acrobats, or trained animals, or all three to add to the revelry. And there was cock-fighting, and quail-fighting, of course, all day long and every day, with gambling in proportion.

When the day of days at last arrived the city seemed full of elephants. Every compound and available walled space had been requisitioned to accommodate the brutes, and there were sufficient argumentative mahouts, all insisting that their elephants had not enough to eat, and all selling at least half of the pr-vided ration, to have formed a good-sized regiment. The elephants' daily bath in the river was a sight worth crossing India to see. There was always the chance, besides, that somebody's horses would take fright and add excitement to the spectacle.

Up in the great palace Utirupa feasted and entertained his equals all day long, and most of the night. There was horse-racing that brought the crowd out in its thousands, and a certain amount of tent-pegging and polo, but most of the royal gala-making was hidden from public view. (Patali, for instance, reckless of Gungadhura's fall and looking for new fields to conquer, provided a nautch by herself and her own trained galaxy of girls that would not have done at all in public.)

Yasmini kept close in her own palace. She, too, had her hands full with entertaining, for there were about a dozen of the wives of distant princes who had made the journey in state to attend the ceremony and watch it from behind the durbar grille—to say nothing of the wives of local magnates. But she herself kept within doors, until the night before the night of full moon, the day before the ceremony.

That night she dressed as a rangar once more, and rode in company with Tess and Dick, with Ismail the Afridi running like a dog in the shadows behind them, to the fort on the hill that the English had promised to evacuate that night. They never changed the garrison in any case except by night, because of the heat and the long march for the men; and as near the full moon as possible was the customary date.

As they neared the fort they could see Tom Tripe, with his huge dog silhouetted on the bastion beside him, standing like Napoleon on the seashore keeping vigil. From that height he could oversee the blocked-up mouth of Dick's mine, and in the bright moonlight it would have been difficult for any one to approach either mine or fort without detection; for there was only one road, and Dick's track making a detour from it— both in full view.

He caught sight of them, and Dick whistled, the dog answering with a cavernous howl of recognition. Tom disappeared from the bastion, and after about ten minutes turned up in the shadow where they waited.

"Come to watch the old march out and the new march in?" he asked. "I'll stand here with you, if I may. They're due."

"Is everything ready?" asked Yasmini.

"Yes, Your Ladyship. They've been ready for an hour, and fretful. There's a story gone the rounds that the fort is haunted, and if ever a garrison was glad to quit it's this one! Let's hope the incoming garrison don't get wind of it. A Sepoy with the creeps ain't dependable. Hullo, here they come!"

There came a sound of steady tramping up-hill, and a bugle somewhere up in the darkness announced that the out-going garrison had heard it and were standing to arms. Presently Utirupa rode into view accompanied by half a dozen of his guests, and followed by a company from his own army, officered by Rajputs. If he knew that Yasmini was watching from the shadow he made no sign, but rode straight on up-hill. The heavy breathing of his men sounded through the darkness like the whispering of giants, and their steady tramp was like a giant's footfall; for Tom Tripe had drilled them thoroughly, even if their weapons were nearly as old-fashioned as the fort to which they marched.

After an interminable interval there came another bugle-blast above them, and the departing garrison tramped within ear-shot.

"Now count them!" Yasmini whispered, and Tess wondered why.

They were marching down-hill as fast as they could swing—a detachment of Punjabi infantry under the command of a native subahdar, with two ammunition mules and a cartful of their kits and personal belongings— all talking and laughing as if regret were the last thing in their minds.

"Ninety-seven," said Tess, when the last had passed down-hill.

"Did you count the man beside the driver on the cart?"

"Yes."

"There was one sick man in a dhoolie. Did you count him?"

"NO."

"Ninety-eight, them Tom!"

"Your Ladyship?"

"Weren't there some English officers?"

"Two. A captain and a subaltern. They left late this afternoon."

"Making?" said Yasmini.

"Exactly a hundred," answered Tess.

"Let us go now," said Yasmini. "We must be up at dawn for the great day. I shall expect you very early, remember. Tom! You may ride back with us. His highness will mount the guard in person. You're to come to my palace. I've a present waiting for you."



Chapter Twenty-Three



It is better to celebrate the occasion than to annoy the gods with pretended virtue and too many promises. —Eastern Proverb

Three amber moons in a purple sky.

The day of the great inauguration ceremony dawned inauspiciously for somebody. For one thing, the blasting powder laid ready by the sappers under the pipal trees for explosion the day following, blew up prematurely. Some idiot had left a kerosene lamp burning in the dug-out, probably, and a rat upset it; or some other of the million possibilities took place. Nobody was killed, but a dozen pipal trees were blown to smithereens, and the ghastly fact laid bare for all to see that in the irregular chasm that remained there was not a symptom of the treasure—as Samson was immediately notified.

So Samson had to attend the ceremony with that disconcerting knowledge up his sleeve. But that was not all. The night signaler, going off duty, had brought him a telegram from the high commissioner to say that all available military bands were to be lent for the day to the maharajah, and that as many British officers as possible, of all ranks, were to take part in the procession to grace it with official sanctity.

That was especially aggravating because it had reached his ears that the Princess Yasmini intended to ride veiled in the procession, and to sit beside her husband in the durbar hall unveiled. He was therefore going to be obliged to recognize her more or less officially as consort of the reigning prince. Simla did not realize that, of course; but it was too late to wire for different instructions. He had a grim foreboding that he himself would catch it later on when the facts leaked out, as they were bound to do.

(It was babu Sita Ram who "caught it" first, though. Within two days Samson discovered that Sita Ram had been sending official telegrams in code on his own account, very cleverly designed to cause the high commissioner to give those last minute instructions. It was obvious that a keener wit than the babu's had inspired him; but, though he was brow-beaten for an hour he did not implicate Yasmini. And after he had been dismissed from the service with ignominy she engaged him as a sort of secretary, at the same pay.)

But that was not all, either. The murderer of Mukhum Dass was refusing stolidly to plead guilty to another charge, and Blaine's butler had come out with the whole story of the burglary. Parliament would get to hear about it next, and then there would be the very deuce to pay. The police were offering the murderer what they called "inducements and persuasion"; but he held out for "money down," and did not seem to find too unendurable whatever it was that happened to him at intervals in the dark cell. There are limits even to what an Indian policeman can do, without making marks on a man or compelling the attention of European officers.

On top of all that, Samson had to hand Dick Blaine a check amounting to a month's pay, look pleasant while he did it, and—above all—look pleasant at the coming durbar.

On the other hand, there were people who enjoyed themselves. Sialpore, across the river, was a dinning riot of excitement—flags, triumphal arches, gala clothes and laughter everywhere. Dick Blaine, driving Tess toward Yasmini's palace in the very early dawn, had to drive slowly to avoid accident, for the streets were already crowded. His own place in the procession was to be on horseback pretty nearly anywhere he chose to insert himself behind the royal cortege, and, not being troubled on the score of precedence, he had Tom Tripe in mind as a good man to ride with. Tom could tell him things.

But he waited there for more than an hour until the royal elephants arrived, magnificent in silver howdahs and bright paint, and watched Tess emerge with Yasmini and the other women. Tess wore borrowed jewels, and a veil that you could see her face through; but Yasmini was draped from head to foot as if the eyes of masculinity had never rested on her, and never might. Things were not going quite so smoothly as they ought, although Tom Tripe was galloping everywhere red-necked with energy, and it was nearly half an hour more before the escort of maharajah's troops came in brand-new scarlet uniforms, to march in front, and behind, and on each side of the elephants. So Dick got quite a chance to "josh" Tess, and made the most of it.

But things got under way at last. Dick's sais found him with the horse he was to ride, and the procession gathered first on the great maidan (open ground) between the city and the river, with bands in full blast, drums thundering to split the ears, masters of ceremony shouting, and the elephants enjoying themselves most of all, as they always do when they have a stately part to play in company.

Utirupa led the way in a golden howdah on Akbar, the biggest elephant in captivity and the very archetype of sobriety ever since his escapade with Tom Tripe's rum. Akbar was painted all over with vermilion and blue decorations, and looked as if butter would not melt in his mouth.

Next after Utirupa the princes rode in proper order of rank and precedence, each with two attendants up behind him waving fans of ostrich plumes. Then came a band. Then Samson, and a score of British officers in carriages whose teams were nearly frantic from the din and the smell of elephants and had to have runners to hold their heads—all of which added exquisite amusement. Then another band, and a column of the maharajah's troops. Then more elephants, loaded with the lesser notables; and after them, a column nearly a mile long of Rajput gentry on the most magnificent horses they could discover and go in debt for.

After the Rajput gentry came a third band, followed by more maharajah's troops, and then Yasmini on her elephant, followed by twenty princesses and Tess, each with a great beast to herself and at least two maids to wave the jeweled fans. Then more troops, followed by Dick and Tom Tripe together on horseback leading the rank and file. Trotters jogged along between Tom and Dick, pausing at intervals to struggle with both forefeet to remove a collar bossed with solid gold that he regarded as an outrage to his dogly dignity.

And the rank and file were well worth looking at, for whoever could find a decent suit of clothes was marching, shouting, laughing, sweating, kicking up the dust, and having a good time generally. The water-sellers were garnering a harvest; fruit- and sweetmeat-peddlers were dreaming of open-fronted shops and how to defeat the tax-collector. The police swaggered and yelled and ordered everybody this and that way; and nobody took the slightest notice; and the policemen did not dare do anything about it because the crowd was too unanimously bent on having its own way, and therefore dangerous to bully but harmless if not hit.

Half-way down the thronging stream of men on foot came another elephant— a little one, alone, carrying three gentlemen in fine white raiment—Bimbu and Pinga and Umra to wit, who, it is regrettable to chronicle, were very drunk indeed and laughed exceedingly at most unseemly jokes, exchanging jests with the crowd that would have made Tess's hair stand on end, if she could have heard and understood them. From windows, and roofs that overhung the street, people threw flowers at Bimbu, Pinga and Umra, because all Hindustan knows there is merit in treating beggars as if they were noblemen; and Bimbu wove himself a garland out of the buds to wear on his turban, which made him look more bacchanalian than ever.

In and out and around and through the ancient city the procession filed, passing now and then through streets so narrow that people could have struck Utirupa through the upper story windows; but all they threw at him was flowers, calling him "Bahadur" and king of elephants, and great prince, and dozens of other names that never hurt anybody with a sense of pageantry and humor. He acted the part for them just as they wanted him to, sitting bolt upright in the howdah like a prince in a fairy story, with jeweled aigrette in his turban and more enormous diamonds flashing on his silken clothes than a courtesan would wear at Monte Carlo. And all the other princes were likewise in degree, only that they rode rather smaller elephants, Akbar having no peer when he was sober and behaved himself.