The document was placed in a silver tube and scaled.  Within the space of half an hour a horseman was kicking up the desert dust, riding as though he carried news of life-and-death importance, and with another man and a led horse galloping behind him.  Five minutes after the man had started, in a cell below the temple, of Siva, the court official who had taken down the letter was repeating it word for word to a congeries of priests.  And one hour later still, in a room up near the roof of Jaimihr’s palace, one of the priests—­panting from having come so fast—­was asking the Rajah’s brother what he thought about it.

“Did he say nothing—­,” asked Jaimihr.

“Nothing, sahib.”

The priest watched him eagerly; he would have to bear back to the other priests an exact account of the Prince’s every word, and movement, and expression.

“Then I, too, say nothing!” answered Jaimihr.

“But to the priests of Siva, who are waiting, sahib?”

“Tell them I said nothing.”

CHAPTER XVI

Eyes in the dark, awake and keen,
See and may not themselves be seen;
But—­and this is the tale I tell—­
What if the dark have eyes as well?

Beside the reeking bear’s cage in which Ali Partab stood and swore was a dark, low corner space in which at one time and another sacks and useless impedimenta had been tossed, to become rat-eaten and decayed.  In among all the rubbish, cross-legged like the idol of the underworld, a nearly naked Hindoo sat, prick-eared.  He was quite invisible long before the sun went down, for that was the dingiest corner of the yard; when twilight came, he could not have been seen from a dozen feet away.

Joanna, sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, in the courtyard, with her back very nearly always turned toward the cage, appeared to take no notice of the falling darkness; unlike the other menials, who hurried to their rest and evening meal, she went on working, accomplishing very little but seeming to be very much in earnest about it all.  Very, very gradually she drew nearer to the cage.  When night fell, she was within ten feet of it.  A few lamps were lit then, here and there over doorways, but nobody appeared to linger in the courtyard; no footfalls resounded; nothing but the neigh of stabled horses and the chatter around the big, flat supper pans broke on the evening quiet.

Joanna drew nearer.  Ali Partab came forward to the cage bars, but said nothing; it was very dark inside the cage, and even the sharp-eyed old woman could not possibly have seen his gestures; when he stood, tight-pressed, against the bars she might have made out his dark shape dimly, but unless he chose to speak no signal could possibly have passed from him to her.  He said nothing, though, and she-still sweeping, with her back toward him—­passed by the cage, and stooped to scratch at some hard-caked dirt or other close to the rubbish hole where the Hindoo waited.  Still scratching, still working with her twig broom, still with her back toward the rubbish hole, she approached until the darkest shadow swallowed her.