They were still in the window, Yasmini kneeling on the cushions with her face in shadow and Tess with her back to the light.

“Ah!  Hasamurti comes!” said Yasmini suddenly.  “She is my cheti.”  (Hand-maiden.)

Tess turned swiftly, but all she saw was one of the three beggars down by the little gate twisting himself a garland out of stolen flowers.

“Now there will be a carriage waiting, and I must leave my horse in your stable.”

The beggar held the twisted flowers up to the sun-light to admire his work.

“I must go at once.  I shall go to the temple of Jinendra, where the priest, who is no man’s friend, imagines I am a friend of his.  He will promise me anything if I will tell him what to say to Gungadhura; and I shall tell him, without believing the promises.  One of these days perhaps he will plot with Gungadhura to have me poisoned, being in agreement with the commissioner sahib who said to you just now that it is not good to know too much!  But neither is it good to be too late!  Lend me a covering, my sister—­see, this is the very thing.  I shall leave by the little gate.  Send the gardener on an errand.  Are the other servants at the back of the house?  Of course yes, they will be spying to see me leave by the way I came.”

Tess sent the gardener running for a basket to put flowers in, and when she turned her head again Yasmini had stepped out through the window shrouded from head to heels in a camel-hair robe such as the Bikanir Desert men wear at night.  The lower part of her face was hooded in it.

Provided you wear a turban you can wear anything else you like in India without looking incongruous.  It is the turban that turns the trick.  Even the spurs on the heels of riding-boots did not look out of place.

“You’ll sweat,” laughed Tess.  “That camel-hair is hot stuff.”

“Does the panther sweat under his pelt?  I am stronger than a panther.  Now swiftly!  I must go, but I will come soon.  You are my friend.”

She was gone like a shadow without another word, with long swift strides, not noticing the beggars and not noticed by them as far as any one could tell.  Tess sat down to smoke a cigarette and think the experience over.

She had not done thinking when Dick Blaine returned unexpectedly for early lunch and showed her a bag-full of coarsely powdered quartz.

“There’s color there,” he said jubilantly.  “Rather more than merely color!  It’s not time to talk yet, but I think I’ve found a vein that may lead somewhere.  Then won’t Gungadhura gloat?”

She told him at great length about Yasmini’s visit, dwelling on every detail of it, he listening like a man at a play, for Tess had the gift of clear description.

“Go a journey with her, if you feel like it, Tess,” he advised.  “You have a rotten time here alone all day, and I can’t do much to ’liven it.  Take sensible precautions but have a good time anyway you can.”