“Mukhum Dass the money-lender has been to me to give thanks, and to make a meager offering for the recovery of his lost title-deed!  He has it back!”

Gungadhura swore so savagely that Patali screamed.

“How did he find it?  Where?”

Mukhum Dass had told the exact truth, as it happened, but the priest had drawn his own conclusions from the fact that it was Samson’s babu who returned the document.  He was less than ever sure of Gungadhura’s prospects, suspecting, especially since his own night-interview with the commissioner, that some new dark plot was being hatched on the English side of the river.  Having no least objection to see Gungadhura in the toils, he did not propose to tell him more than would frighten and worry him.

“He said that a hand gave him the paper in the dark.  It was the work of Jinendra doubtless.”

“Pah!  Thy god functions without thee, then!  That is a wondrous bellyful of brains of thine!  Do you know that the princess has fled the palace?”

Jinendra’s priest feigned surprise.

“Is it not as clear as the stupidity on thy fat face that the ten-times casteless hussy is behind this?  Bag of wind and widows’ tenths!  Now I must buy the house on the hill from Mukhum Dass and pay the brute his price for it!”

“Borrowing the money from him first?” the priest suggested with a fat smirk.  None guessed better than he how low debauch had brought the maharajah’s private treasury.

“Go and pray!” growled Gungadhura.  “Are thy temple offices of no more use than to bring thee here twitting me with poverty?  Go and lay that belly on the flags, and beat thy stupid brains out on the altar step!  Jinendra will be glad to see thy dark soul on its way to Yum (the judge of the dead) and maybe will reward me afterward!  Go!  Get out here!  Leave me alone to think!”

The priest went through the form of blessing him, taking more than the usual time about the ceremony for sake of the annoyance that it gave.  Gungadhura was too superstitious to dare interrupt him.

“Better tell that Mukhum Dass to sell me the house cheap,” said the maharajah as a sort of afterthought.  Patali had been whispering to him.  “Tell him the gods would take it as an act of merit.”

“Cheap?” said the priest over his shoulder as he reached the door.  “I proposed it to him.” (That was not exactly true.  He had proposed that Mukhum Dass should give the title to the temple as an act of grace.) “He answered that what the gods have returned to him must be doubly precious and certainly entrusted to his keeping; therefore he would count it a deadly sin to part with the title now on any terms!”

“Go!” growled Gungadhura.  “Get out of here!”