“But why should Gungadhura risk his throne by anything so foolish?”

“He thinks to save it.  He thinks to prove that the tribes began the dickering, and then to offer his army to the English—­Tom Tripe and all!  Patali put him up to it.  Perhaps she wants a necklace made of Hill-men’s teeth—­ who knows?  Gungadhura went deeply into debt with Mukhum Dass, to send money to the Mahsudis, who think more of gold than promises.  The fool imagines that the English will let him levy, extra taxes afterward to recoup himself.  Besides, there would be the daily expenses of his army, from which he could extract a lakh or two.  Patali yearns for diamonds in the fillings of her teeth!”

“Did you work out all this deep plot for yourself?” Tess asked.

“I and the gods!  The gods of India love intrigue.  My father left me as a sort of ward of Jinendra, although my mother tried to make a Christian of me, and I always mistrusted Jinendra’s priest.  But Jinendra has been good.  He shall have two new temples when I am maharanee.”

“And you have been looking for the treasure ever since your father died?”

“Ever since.  My father prophesied on his death-bed that I should have it in the end, but all he told to help me find it was a sort of conundrum.  ‘Whoever looks for flowers,’ be said, ’finds happiness.  Who looks for gold finds all the harness and the teeth of war!  A hundred guard the treasure day and night, changing with the full moon!’ So I have always looked for flowers, and I am often happy.  I have sent flowers every day to the temple of Jinendra.”

“Who or what can the hundred be, who guard the treasure day and night?” Tess wondered.

“That is what puzzled me.  At first, because I was very young, I thought they must be snakes.  So I made friends with the snakes, learning how to handle even cobras without fear of them.  Then, when I had learned that snakes could tell me nothing, but are only Widyadharas—­beautiful lost fairies dreadfully afraid of men, and very, very wishful to be comforted, I began to think the hundred must be priests.  So I made friends with the priests, and let them teach me all their knowledge.  But they know nothing!  They are parasites!  They teach only what will keep men in their power, and women in subjection, themselves not understanding what they teach!  I soon learned that if the priests were treasure-guards their charge would have been dissipated long ago!  Then I looked for a hundred trees, and found them!  A hundred pipal trees all in a place together!  But that was only like the first goal in the very first chukker of the game—­as you shall learn soon!”

“Then surely I know!” said Tess excitedly.  “In the grounds of the palace across the river, that you escaped from the night before you came to see me, there is quite a little forest of pipals.”

“Nine and sixty and the roots of four,” Yasmini answered, her eyes glowing as if there were fire behind them.  “The difficulty is, though, that they don’t change with the full moon!  Pipal trees grow on forever, never changing, except to grow bigger and bigger.  They outlive centuries of men.  Nevertheless, they gave me the clue, not only to the treasure but to the winning of it!”