The white hunter had not returned to his camp yet, but the sly Ahmed was there.  The perpetual gloom on the face of the latter was reassuring to Umballa.  Ahmed’s master had not found her.  To wring the white man’s heart was something.  He dared not put him out of the way; too many knew.

And the council was beginning to grow uneasy.  How long could he hold them in leash?

What a woman!  As magnificent as the daughter of Firoz, shah of Delhi.  Fear she knew not.  At one moment he loved her with his whole soul, at another he hated her, longed to get her into his hands again, to wreak his vengeance upon her for the humiliation she had by wit and courage heaped upon him.  “I am ready!” He could hear it yet.  When they had led her away to the ordeals—­“I am ready!” A woman, and not afraid to die!

Money!  How to get it!  He could not plunge his hand into the treasury; there were too many about, too many tongues.  But Colonel Hare knew where the silver basket lay hidden, heaped with gold and precious stones; and torture could not wring the hiding-place from him.  May he be damned to the nethermost hell!  Let him, Durga Ram, but bury his lean hands in that treasure, and Daraka swallow Allaha and all its kings!  Rubies and pearls and emeralds, and a far country to idle in, to be feted in, to be fawned upon for his riches!

And Ramabai and his wife, Pundita, let them beware; let them remain wisely in their house and meddle not with affairs of state.

“A thousand rupees!”

Umballa looked up with a start.  Unconsciously he had wandered into the slave mart.  He shrugged and would have passed on but for the strange, unusual figure standing on the platform.  A golden haired woman with neck and arms like Chinese bronze and dressed in a skirt of grass!  He paused.

“Two thousand rupees!”

“What!” jeered the professional seller.  “For an houri from paradise?  O ye of weak hearts, what is this I hear?  Two thousand rupees?—­for an houri fit to dwell in the zenana of heaven!”

A keen-eyed Mohammedan edged closer to the platform.  He stared and sucked in his breath.  He found himself pulled two ways.  He had no money, but he had knowledge.

“Who sells this maiden?” he asked.

“Mohammed Ghori.”

“Which is he?”

“He squats there.”

The Mohammedan stopped and touched the old mahout on the shoulder.

“Call off this sale, and my master will make you rich.”

The old sinner gingerly felt of the speaker’s cotton garb.  “Ah!  ’My master’ must be rich to dress thee in cotton.  Where is your gold?  Bid,” satirically.

“Two thousand rupees!” shouted the professional seller.

“I have no gold, but my master will give 10,000 rupees for yonder maid.  Quick!  Old fool, be quick!”

“Begone, thou beggar!”

And the old man spat.