She did not have long to wait for the answer to that.  It took the two men a matter of seconds to get the horse on his feet, and no fire-engine ever left the station house one fraction faster than Dick tooled that dog-cart.  The horse was all nerves and in no mood to wait on ceremony, which accounted for a broken spoke and a fragment of the gate-post hanging in the near wheel.  They forgot to unlash the wheels before they started, so the dog-cart came up-street on skids, as it were, screaming holy murder on the granite flags—­which in turn saved the near wheel from destruction.  It also made it possible to rein in the terrified horse exactly in front of the palace gate; another proof that as Yasmini said, the gods of India were in a mood to help that night. (Not that she ever believed the gods are one bit more consequential than men.)

Yasmini drew the bolt, and the gate creaked open reluctantly; the shock of the elephant’s shoulder had about ended its present stage of usefulness.  Tom Tripe, dismounting from his horse in a hurry and throwing the reins over the dog-cart lamp, was first to step through.

“Where’s my dog?” he demanded.  “Where’s that Trotters o’ mine?  Did Akbar get him?”

A cold nose thrust in his hand was the answer.

“Oh, so there you are, you rascal!  There—­lie down!”

That was all the ceremonial that passed between them, but the dog seemed satisfied.

Tess was out through the gate almost sooner than Tom Tripe could enter it.  They brushed each other’s shoulders as they passed.  Up in the dog-cart she and her husband laughed in each other’s arms, each at the other’s disguise, neither of them with the slightest notion what would happen next, except that Dick knew the dog-cart wheels would have to be unlashed.

“How many people will the carriage hold?” Yasmini called to them, appearing suddenly in the lamp-light.  And Dick Blaine began laughing all over again, for except for the golden hair she looked so like the wife who sat on his left hand, and his wife so like a Rajput that the humor of the situation was its only obvious feature.

“I must not take my carriage, for they would trace it, and besides, there is too little time.  Can we all ride in your carriage?  There are six of us.”

“Probably.  But where to?” Dick answered.

“I will direct.  Ismail must come too, but he can run.”

It was an awful crowd, for the dog-cart was built for four people at the most, and in the end Tess insisted on riding behind Tom Tripe because she was dressed like a man and could do it easily.  Ismail was sent back to close the gate from the inside and clamber out over the top of it.  There was just room for a lean and agile man to squeeze between the iron and the stone arch.

“Let the watchmen who feared and hid themselves stay to give their own account to Gungadhura!” Yasmini sneered scornfully.  “They are no longer men of mine!”