Yasmini seemed able to read her thoughts, or at all events to guess them.

“When I am maharanee,” she said, “there will be an end of Gungadhura’s swinishness.  Moreover, promises will all be kept, unwritten ones as well as written.  Gungadhura’s contracts will be carried out.  Do you believe me?”

“Yes, I think I believe that.”

“Let Tom Tripe find that silver tube in your cellar then.  But listen!  When Gungadhura comes to your husband and insists on digging elsewhere, let your husband bargain like a huckster!  Let him at first refuse.  It may be that Gungadhura will let him continue where he digs, and will himself send men to start digging in the other place.  In that case, well and good.”

“I would prefer that, said Tess.  “My husband is a mining engineer.  I think he would hate to abandon a true lead for a whim of some one’s else.”

Yasmini’s bright eyes gleamed intelligence.  She was only learning in those days to bend people to her own imperious will and to use others’ virtues for own ends as readily as their vices.  She recognized the necessity of yielding to Tess’s compunctions, more than suspecting that Dick Blaine would color his own views pretty much to suit his wife’s in any case.  And with a lightning ability peculiar to her she saw how to improve her own plan by yielding.

“That is settled, then,” she said lazily.  “Your husband shall continue to dig near the fort, if he so wishes.  But let him show Samson sahib some specimens of the gold—­how little it is—­how feeble—­how uncertain.  Be sure he does that, please.  That will be the end of Gungadhura.  And now it is time to escape from here, and for you to help me.”

Tess resigned herself to the inevitable.  Whatever the consequences, she was not willing to leave Yasmini to starve or be poisoned.

“I’m ready!” she said.  “What’s the plan?”

“I shall leave all the maids behind.  They have food enough for the morning.  In the morning, after it is known that I have escaped, word shall be sent to Samson sahib that the women in this palace have nothing but poisoned food to eat.  He must beard Gungadhura about that or lose his own standing with the English.”

“But how will you escape?”

“Nay, that is not the difficulty.  Your husband and Tom Tripe are waiting with the carriage.  My part is easy.  This is the problem:  how will you follow me?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I must wear your clothes.  In the dark I shall get past the guard, making believe that I am you.”

“Then how shall I manage?”

“You must do as I say.  I can contrive it.  Come, the maids and I will make a true Rajputni of you.  Only I must study how to walk as you do; please walk along in front of me—­that way—­follow Hasamurti through that door into my room.  I will study how you move your feet and shoulders.”

Looking back as she followed Hasamurti, Tess witnessed a caricature of herself that made her laugh until the tears came.