Then again, Sita Ram had not yet sent new servants to replace the potential poisoners; and Chamu had put up a piteous bleating, using every argument, from his being an orphan and the father of a son, down to the less appealing one that Gungadhura would be angry.  In vain Dick reassured him that he and cook and maharajah might all go to hell together with his, Dick Blaine’s, express permission.  In vain he advised him to put the son to work, and be supported for a while in idleness.  Chamu lamented noisily.  Finally Dick compromised by letting both servants remain for one more day, reflecting that they could not very well tamper with boiled eggs; lunch and dinner he would get at the English club across the river; for breakfast on Monday he would content himself again with boiled eggs, and biscuits out of an imported tin, after which he would cash a check and send both the rascals packing.

So the toast that Chamu brought him he broke up and threw into the garden, where the crows devoured it without apparent ill-effect; he went without tea, and spent an hour or so after breakfast with a good cigar and a copy of a month-old Nevada newspaper.  That religious rite performed, he shaved twice over, it being Sunday, and strolled out to look at the horses and potter about the garden that was beginning to shrivel up already at the commencement of the hot weather.

“If I knew who would be maharajah of this state from one week to the next,” he told himself, “I’d get a contract from him to pipe water all over the place from the hills behind.”

He was sitting in the shade, chewing an unlit cigar, day-dreaming about water-pressure and dams and gallons-per-hour, when Gungadhura’s note came and he ordered the dog-cart at once, rather glad of something to keep him occupied.  As he drove away he did not see Mukhum Dass lurking near the small gate, as it was not intended that he should.  Mukhum Dass, for his part, did not see Pinga, the one-eyed beggar with his vertical smile, who watched him from behind a rock, for that was not intended either.  Pinga himself was noticed closely by another man.

The minute Dick was out of sight Mukhum Dass entered the small gate in the wall, and called out for Chamu brazenly.  Chamu received him at the bottom of the house-steps, but Mukhum Dass walked up them uninvited.

“The cellar,” he said.  “I have come to see the cellar.  There is a complaint regarding the foundations.  I must see.”

“But, sahib, the door is locked.”

“Unlock it.”

“I have no key.”

“Then break the lock!”

“The cellar door is nailed down!”

“Draw the nails!”

“I dare not!  I don’t know how!  By what right should I do this thing?”

“It is my house.  I order it!”

“But, sahib, only yesterday Blaine sahib dismissed me in great anger because I permitted another one as much as to look into the cellar!”