“How do you know these things?”

“Maybe the god Jinendra told!  Which would be better, Mukhum Dass—­ to keep great silence, and be certain to receive the paper in time to defend the lawsuit,—­or to talk freely, and so set others talking?”

Who knows that it might not reach the ears of Jengal Singh that the title-deed is truly lost?”

“He who tells secrets to a priest,” swore the money-lender, “would better have screamed them from the housetop.

“Nay—­the god heard.  The priest told the god, and the god told a certain one to whom the finder brought the paper, asking a reward.  That person holds the paper now as security for silence!”

“It is against the law to keep my paper!”

“The law catches whom it can, Mukhum Dass, letting all others go, like a python after monkeys in the tree-tops!”

“From whom am I to get my paper for the lawsuit at the proper time?”

“From Jinendra’s priest perhaps.”

“He has it now?  The dog’s stray offspring!  I will—­”

“Nay, he has it not!  Be kind and courteous to Jinendra’s priest, or perhaps the god will send the paper after all to Dhulap Singh!”

“As to what shall I keep silence?”

“Two matters.  Firstly Chamu the butler will presently pay his son’s debt.  Give Chamu a receipt with the number of the bank-note written on it, saying nothing.”

“Second?”

“Preserve the bank-note carefully for thirty days and keep silence.”

“I will do that.  Now tell me thy name?”

Yasmini laughed.  “Do thy victims repay in advance the rupees not yet lent?  Nay, the price is silence!  First, pay the price; then learn my name.  Go—­get thy money from Chamu the butler.  Breathe as much as a hint to any one, and thy title-deed shall go to Dhulap Singh!”

Eying her like a hawk, but with more mixed emotions than that bird can likely compass, the money-lender sat his mule and watched her stride round the corner out of sight.  Then, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the man’s parasite was not watching her at his master’s orders, she ran along the shoulder of the hill to where, in the shelter of a clump of trees, a carriage waited.

It was one of those lumbering, four-wheeled affairs with four horses, and a platform for two standing attendants behind and wooden lattice-work over the windows, in which the women-folk of princes take the air.  But there were no attendants—­only a coachman, and a woman who came running out to meet her; for Yasmini, like her cousin the maharajah, did not trust too many people all at once.

“Quick, Hasamurti!”

Fussing and giggling over her (the very name means Laughter), the maid bustled her into the carriage, and without a word of instruction the coachman tooled his team down-hill at a leisurely gait, as if told in advance to take his time about it; the team was capable of speed.