“You are an idiot!” Gungadhura broke out at last.  “You have missed a golden opportunity!  But if you will hold your tongue—­absolutely—­you shall draw your pension in a month or two from now, with ten thousand rupees in gold into the bargain!”

“Yes, Your Highness.” (A native of the country would have begun to try to bargain there and then.  But there are more differences than one between the ranks of East and West; more degrees than one of dissimulation.  Tom gravely doubted Gungadhura’s prospect of being in position to grant him a pension, or any other favor, a month or two from then.  A native of the country would have bargained nevertheless.

“Keep that guard confined for the present.  You have my leave to go.”

Tom saluted and withdrew.  He was minded to spit on the palace steps, but refrained because the guard would surely have reported what he did to Gungadhura, who would have understood the act in its exact significance.

As he left the palace yard he passed a curtained two-wheeled cart drawn by small humped bulls, and turned his head in time to see the high priest of Jinendra heave his bulk out from behind the curtains and wheezily ascend the palace steps.

“A little ghostly consolation for the maharajah’s sins!” he muttered, as he headed toward his own quarters for another stiff glass of brandy and some sleep.  He felt he needed both—­or all three!

“If it’s true there’s no hell, then I’m on velvet!” he muttered.  “But I’m a liar!  A liar by imputation—­by suggestion—­by allegation—­by collusion—­ and in fact!  Now, if I was one o’ them Hindus I could hire a priest to sing a hymn and start me clean again from the beginning.  Trouble is, I’m a complacent liar!  I’ll do it again, and I know it!  Brandy’s the right oracle for me!”

But there was no consolation, ghostly or otherwise, being brought to Gungadhura.  Jinendra’s fat high priest, short-winded from his effort on the stairs, with aching hams and knees that trembled from exertion, was ushered into a chamber some way removed from that in which Tom Tripe had had his interview.  The maharajah lay now with his head on the lap of Patali, his favorite dancing girl, in a room all scent and cushions and contrivances. (That was how Yasmini learned about it afterward.)

It was against all the canons of caste and decency to accord an interview to any one in that flagrant state of impropriety—­to a high priest especially.  But it amused Gungadhura to outrage the priest’s alleged asceticism, and to show him discourtesy (without in the least affecting his own superstitious scruples in the matter of religion.) Besides, his head ached, and he liked to have Patali’s resourcefulness and wit to reenforce his own tired intuition.

The priest sat for several minutes recovering breath and equipoise.  Then, when the pain had left his thighs and he felt comfortable, he began with a bomb.