“Yes, so Naida informed me.  To my great surprise she spoke almost perfect English, and that sort of understanding sprang up between us immediately which, in the case of a man and a beautiful woman thrown together as we were, can only terminate in one way.

“She was some sort of priestess of the temple which I had seen from the top of the cliff.  What else she was I very shortly learned.

“In accordance with one of the many strange customs of the City of Fire, her personal servants, or rather slaves, were blind mutes!  Gentlemen, I warned you that my story was tough.  Doubtless you are beginning to appreciate the fact that I spoke no more than the truth.

“Naida, for such was her name, told me that the Brahmin, Vadi, who had acted as my guide, was one of the followers of the Prophet of Fire, to whom had been given the duty of intercepting me.  His failure to report within a certain time had resulted in two of the priests of this strange cult being sent out to obtain information.  That these were the yellow-robed mendicants who had passed me in the mountains, I did not doubt.

“Their reports, so Naida informed me, had led to a belief that Vadi had perished with me; but as an extra measure of precaution, that very night—­indeed, shortly after I had passed that way—­a guard had been set upon the secret entrance.  Therefore, even if my strength had permitted, I should have been unable to return by the way I had come.

“But indeed I was as weak as a child, and only to the presence of much foliage upon the acclivity down which I had rolled, and to the fact that I had fallen upon soft soil in a bed of flowers, can I ascribe my having failed to break my neck.

“In this way, gentlemen, I entered upon a brief period of my life at once more sweet and more bitter than any I had known.  Next to that strange, invisible prophet whose name was Fire-Tongue, Naida held unquestioned sway in this secret city.  Her house was separated from the others, and she travelled to and from the temple in a covered litter.  To look upon her, as upon Fire-Tongue himself, was death.  Women, I learned, were eligible for admission to this order, and these were initiated by Naida.

“As the days of my strange but delightful captivity wore on, I learned more and more of the weird people who, unseen, surrounded me.  There were lodges of the Cult of Fire all over the East, all having power to make initiates and some to pass disciples into the higher grades.  Those who aspired to the highest rank in the order, however, were compelled to visit this secret city in the Indian hills.

“Then at last I learned a secret which Naida had for long kept back from me.  These followers of the new Zoroaster were polygamists, and she was the first or chief wife of the mysterious personage known as Fire-Tongue.  I gathered that others had superseded her, and her lord and master rarely visited this marble house set amid its extensive gardens.