With her own hands she put opals around Tess’s neck that glowed as if they were alive, and then bracelets on her right arm of heavy, graven gold; then kissed her.

“You look lovely!  I shall need you tonight!  No other human guesses how I need you!  You and Hasamurti are to stand close to me until the end.  The other maids will take their place behind us.  Now we are ready.  Come.”

Outside in the dark there were torches flaring, and low gruff voices announced the presence of about fifty men.  Once or twice a stallion neighed; and there was another footfall, padded and heavy, in among the stamping of held horses.

The night was hot, and full of that musty mesmeric quality that changes everything into a waking dream.  The maids threw dark veils over them to save their clothing from the dust kicked up by a crowd, and perhaps, too, as a concession to the none-so-ancient, but compelling custom that bids women be covered in the streets.

Yasmini took Tess by the hand and walked out with her, followed closely by Hasamurti and the other women, between the pomegranates to the gate in the garden wall.  From that moment, though, she stood alone and never touched hand, or sought as much as the supporting glances of her women until they came back at midnight.

A watchman opened the gate and, Yasmini leading, they passed through a double line of Rajput noblemen, who drew their sabers at some one’s hoarse command and made a steel arch overhead that flashed and shimmered in the torchlight.  Beyond that one order to draw sabers none spoke a word.  Tess looked straight in front of her, afraid to meet the warrior eyes on either hand, lest some one should object to a foreigner in their midst on such a night of nights.

In the road were three great elephants standing in line with ladders leaning against them.  The one in front was a tusker with golden caps and chains on his glistening ivory, and a howdah on his back like a miniature pagoda—­a great gray monster, old in the service of three Rajput generations, and more conscious of his dignity than years.  Yasmini mounted him, followed by Tess and Hasamurti, who took their place behind her in the howdah, one on either side, Hasamurti pushing Tess into her proper place, after which her duty was to keep a royal fan of ostrich plumes gently moving in the air above Yasmini’s head.

The other women climbed on to the elephant behind, and the third one was mounted by one man, who looked like a prince, to judge by the jewels glittering in his turban.

“His brother!” Hasamurti whispered.

Then again a hoarse command broke on the stillness.  Horses wheeled out from the shadow of the wall, led by saises, and the Rajput gentry mounted.  Ten of them in line abreast led the procession, while some formed a single line on either hand, and ten brought up the rear.  Men with torches walked outside the lines.  But no one shouted.  No one spoke.