The strange gateman—­he had a little kennel of a place to sleep in just inside the entrance—­snatched the hamper from Tess and led her almost at a run across an ancient courtyard whose outlines were nearly invisible except where the yellow light of one ancient oil lantern on an iron bracket showed a part of the palace wall and a steep flight of stone steps, worn down the middle by centuries of sandals.  Everything else was in gloom and shadow, and only one chink of light betrayed the whereabouts of a curtained window.  The Afridi led her up the stone steps, and paused at the top to hammer on a carved door with his clenched fist; but the door moved while his fist was in mid-air, and the merry-eyed maid who opened it mocked him for a lunatic.  Dumb, apparently, in the presence of woman, he slunk down the steps again, leaving Tess wondering whether it were not good manners to remove her shoes before entering.  Natives of the country always removed their shoes before entering her house, and she supposed it would be only decent to reciprocate.

However, the maid took her by the hand and pulled her inside without further ceremony, not letting go of the hand even to close the door, but patting it and making much of her, smiling the welcome that they had no words in common to express.  The little outer hall in which they stood was shut off by curtains six yards high, all smothered in a needlework of peacocks that generations of patient fingers must have toiled at.  Pulling these apart the maid led her into an inner hall fifty or sixty feet long, the first sight of which banished all diffidence about her shoes; for never had she seen such medley of East and West, such toning down of Oriental mysticism with the sheer utility of European importations; and that without incongruity.

The lamps, of which there were dozens, were mostly Russian.  Some of the furniture was Buhl, some French.  There were hangings that looked like loot from the Pekin Summer Palace, and tapestry from Gobelin.  In a place of honor on a side wall was an ikon, framed in gold, and facing that an image of the Buddha done in greenish bronze, flanked by a Dutch picture of the Twelve Apostles with laughably Dutch faces receiving instruction on a mountain from a Christ whose other name was surely Hans.

Down the center of the hall, leading to a gallery, was a magnificent stairway of marble and lapis lazuli, carpeted with long Bokhara strips so well joined end to end that the whole looked like one piece.  And at the top of those stairs Yasmini stood waiting, her golden hair illuminated by glass lamps on either marble column at the stairhead.  She was as different from the Gunga Singh of riding boots and turban as the morning is from night—­the loveliest, bewitchingest girl in silken gossamer that Tess had ever set eyes on.

“I knew you would come!” she shouted gleefully.  “I knew you would get in!  I knew you are my friend!  Oh, I’m glad!  I’m glad!”