She kissed him.  “The third is that you’re going to seem to be fooled by him, for the present at all events.  Let’s know what’s at the bottom of all this, and help the princess and Tom Tripe if it’s possible.  Are you tired?”

“Yes.  Why?”

“If you weren’t tired I was going to ask you to put a turban on as soon as it’s dark, and dress up like a sais and drive me to Yasmini’s palace, with a revolver in each pocket in case of accidents, and eyes and ears skinned until I come out again.”

“Oh, I’m not too tired for that.”

“Come along then.  I’ll put up a hamper with my own hands.  You get wine from the cellar, and make sure the corks have not been pulled and replaced.  Then get the dog-cart to the door.  I’ll keep it waiting there while you run up-stairs and change.  Hurry, Dick, hurry—­it’s growing dark!  I’ll put some sandwiches under the seat for you to eat while you’re waiting in the dark for me.”

Chapter Six

An Audit by the Gods

(2)

Loud laughed the gods (and their irony was pestilence;
Pain was in their mockery, affliction in their scorn. 
The ryotwari cried
On a stricken countryside,
For the scab fell on the sheepfold and the mildew on the corn).

“Write, Chitragupta!* Enter up your reckoning! 
Yum** awaits in anger the assessment of the dead! 
We left a law of kindness,
But they bowed themselves in blindness
To a cruelty consummate and a mystery instead!

“’Write, Chitragupta!  Once we sang and danced with them. 
Now in gloomy temples they lay foreheads in the dust! 
To us they looked for pleasure
And we never spared the measure
Till they set their priests between us and we left them in disgust.

“Fun and mirth we made for them (write it, Chitragupta! 
Set it down in symbols for the awful eye of Yum!)
But they traded fun for fashion
And their innocence for passion,
Till they murmur in their wallow now the consequences come!

“Look!  Look and wonder how the simple folk are out of it! 
Empirics are the teachers and the liars leading men! 
We were generous and free —
Aye, a social lot were we,
But they took to priests instead of us, and trouble started then!”

[* In Hindu mythology Yum is the judge of the dead and Chitragupta writes the record for him.]

“Peace, Maharajah sahib!  Out of anger came no wise counsel yet!”

Tom Tripp had done exactly what Yasmini ordered him.  Like his dog Trotters, whom he had schooled to perfection, and as he would have liked to have the maharajah’s guards behave, he always fell back on sheer obedience whenever facts bewildered him or circumstances seemed too strong.