Sita Ram kept peeping at him through the knot-hole, as a cook peers at a tit-bit in the oven, to judge whether it is properly cooked yet.

Jinendra’s priest had had time for reflection.  True to his kidney, he trusted nobody, unlike Yasmini who knew whom to trust, and when, and just how far.  It was all over the city that Gungadhura’s practises were hastening his ruin, so it was obviously wise not to espouse the maharajah’s cause, in addition to which he had become convinced in his own mind that Yasmini actually knew the whereabouts of the Sialpore treasure.  But he did not trust Yasmini either, nor did he relish her scornful promise of a mere percentage of the hoard when it should at last be found.  He wanted at least the half of it, bargains to the contrary notwithstanding; and he had that comfortable conscience that has soothed so many priests, that argues how the church must be above all bargains, all bonds, all promises.  Was there any circumstance, or man, or woman who could bind and circumscribe Jinendra’s high priest?  He laughed at the suggestion of it.  Samson was the man to see—­ Samson the man to be inveigled in the nets.  So he sent his verbal message by the mouth of Sita Ram—­a very pious devotee of Jinendra by Yasmini’s special orders; and, disguising his enormous bulk in a thin cloak, set forth long after dark in a covered cart drawn by two tiny bulls.

There were two doors to Sita Ram’s small office; two to Samson’s large one—­three doors in all, because they shared the connecting one (that was locked just now) in common.  At the first sound of the long-awaited heavy footsteps on the outer porch Sita Ram hurried to do the honors, and presently ushered into Samson’s presence the enormous bulk of the high priest, spreading a clean cloth for him on an easy chair because the priest’s caste put it out of the question for him to sit on leather defiled by European trousers.

Then, while the customary salaams were taking place, and the customary questions about health and other matters that neither cared a fig about, Sita Ram ostentatiously drew a curtain part-way over the connecting door, and retired by way of the other door and the passage to remove the knot from its hole.

It was part of Samson’s pride, and one of his stoutest rungs in the ladder of preferment, that be knew more Indian languages than any other man of his rank in the service, and knew them well.  There were asterisks and stars and twiggly marks against his name in the blue book that would have passed muster as a secret code, and every one of them betokened passed examinations in some Eastern tongue.  So he was fully able to meet the high priest on his own ground, as well as conscious of the advantage he held to begin with, in that the priest had come to him instead of his going to the priest.

“Well?” he demanded, cutting the pleasantries short abruptly as soon as Sita Ram had closed the door.