Utirupa said never a word.

“It’s not a question of driving a bargain,” Samson went on.  “We don’t know what the palace may be worth, or what is in it.  If there is any valuable furniture you’d like removed, we’ll waive that point; but on the terms of the contract we exchange the fort, with the guns and whatever else is there except the actual harness and supplies of the garrison, against the land and palace and whatever it contains except furniture.”

Utirupa smiled—­perhaps because the guns in that fort were known to date from before the Mutiny.

“Will you agree?”

“I will sign,” said Utirupa.  And he signed the contract there and then, in presence of all those witnesses.  Ten minutes later, as he left the office, the waiting batteries fired him a fourteen-gun salute, that the world might know how a new maharajah occupied the throne of Sialpore.

Meanwhile, up at the house on the hill Tess and Dick found Yasmini already there ahead of them, lying at her ease, dressed as a woman of women, and smoking a cigarette in the window-seat of the bedroom Tess had surrendered to her.

“What was it you said to him after the third chukker?” was the first question Tess asked.

“You recognized me?”

“Sure.  So did my husband.  What did you say to him?”

“Oh, I just said that if he hoped to win he must play the game of the English, and play it better, that was all.  He won, didn’t he?  I didn’t stay to the end.  I knew he would win.”

Almost as they spoke the fourteen-gun salute boomed out from across the river, and echoed from the hills.

“Ah!” said Yasmini.  “Listen!  The guns of the gods!  He is maharajah now.”

“But what of the treasure?” Tess asked her.  “Dick told me this morning that the English have a guard all round the River Palace, and expect to dig the treasure up themselves.”

“Perhaps the English need it more than he and I do,” Yasmini answered.

That evening Tom Tripe turned up, and Yasmini came down-stairs to talk with him, Trotters remaining outside the window with his ash-colored hair on end and a succession of volcanic growls rumbling between flashed teeth.

“What’s the matter with the dog, that he won’t come in?” asked Tess.

“Nothing, ma’arm He’s just encouraging himself.  He stays here tonight.”

“Trotters does?  Why?”

“It’s known all over Sialpore that her ladyship’s staying here, and Gungadhura’s at large somewhere.

You’re well guarded; that’s been seen to, but Trotters stays for double inner-guard.  One or two men might go to sleep.  Gungadhura might pass them a poisoned drink, or physic their rations in some way.  And then, they’re what you might call fixed point men here, one there, with instructions they’ll be skinned alive and burned if they leave their exact position.  Trotters has a roving commission, to nose and snarl whenever