It was another member of the sweeper caste, lurking in the darkness of an inner courtyard, who pointed out the bronze-barred door to her through which the treasure guardians had chanted on their way; it was he, too, who told her that Rosemary McClean and her father had been rushed into the palace through the main entrance.  Also, he informed her that there was no way—­positively no way practicable even for a monkey or a bird—­of following further.  He was a sweeper-intimate acquaintance of creeper ladders, trap-doors, gutters drains, and byways; she realized at once that there would be no wisdom in attempting to find within an hour what he had not discovered in a lifetime.

So Joanna, her beady eyes glittering between the wrinkled folds of skin, slunk deeper in a shadow and began to think.  She, the looker-on, had seen the whole play from its first beginning and could judge at least that part of it which had its bearing on her missionary masters.  First, she knew what Jaimihr’s ambition was—­every man in Howrah knew how he planned to seize Miss McClean when the moment should be propitious—­and her Eastern wisdom warned her that Jaimihr, foiled, would stop at nothing to contrive vengeance.  If he could not seize Miss McClean, he would be likely to use every means within his power to bring about her death and prevent another from making off with his prize.  Jaimihr, then, was the most pressing danger.

Second, as a Hindoo, she knew well how fiendishly the priests loathed the Christian missionaries; and it was common knowledge that the Maharajah was cross-hobbled by the priests.  The Maharajah was a fearful man, and, unless the priests and Jaimihr threatened him with a show of combination, there was a slight chance that he might dread British vengeance too much to dare permit violence to the McCleans.  Possibly he might hold out against the priests alone; but before an open alliance between Jaimihr and the priests he would surrender for his own throne’s sake.

So far Joanna could reason readily enough, for there was a vast fund of wisdom stored beneath her wrinkled ugliness.  But her Eastern limitation stopped her there.  She could not hold loyalty to more than one cause, or to more than one offshoot of that cause, in the same shrewd head at once.  She decided that at all costs Jaimihr must be out of the way so that the Maharaja might be left to argue with the priests alone.  For the moment no other thought occurred to her.

The means seemed ready to her hand.  A peculiarity of the East, which is democratic in most ways under the veneer of swaggering autocracy, that servants of the very lowest caste may speak, and argue on occasion, with men who would shudder at the prospect of defilement from their touch.  There was nothing in the least outrageous in the proposition that the sweeper, waiting in a corner for the procession to emerge again so that he might curl on his mat and sleep undisturbed when it had gone, should dare to approach Jaimihr and address him.  He would run no small risk of being beaten by the guards; but, on the other hand, should he catch jaimihr’s ear and interest him, he would be safe.