Darna Singh drew close, whispering: "The tiger is dead, so do not make a
light. How did the sahib get here--has he keys for the door?"

Finnerty told how the princess had sent him Darna's ring of keys.

Darna Singh explained: "I was cast in here by Ananda to be killed by the
tiger who has been let down from his cage. Perhaps they do not know that
you are here."

"Have they heard the gun?" the major asked.

"The doors are very heavy, and through the rock they would not have
heard. If they have, the key will not open the door if they wish."

Then Darna Singh told what lay beyond the door. The magazine was all
prepared for blowing up should Ananda's plan fail and there be danger of
discovery of his imported guns. Wires ran from the magazine to a room in
the palace, where a switch could bury everything in a second. The
passages were lighted by electricity, and the dynamo might have gone
wrong, causing the darkness, or it might be an entrapping scheme. There
would not be more than one or two German guards at the magazine, where
the guns were, and if the sahibs could fall upon these in the dark,
Darna Singh could win over the native guards, for they did not love
Ananda.

The door opened to a key, showing beyond no glint of light. They passed
through; this time Finnerty, finding a fragment of rock, fixed it so
that the door could not be closed behind them. Hope suggested that the
shot had not been heard, for no storm of attack broke upon them.

After a time Darna Singh checked, and, putting his lips close to
Finnerty's ear, whispered: "We are close to the gun and ammunition room.
I will go a little in advance and speak in Hindustani to the sentry; he
will think it one of their natives, and as we talk you must overpower
him."

Keeping within striking distance, Finnerty and Swinton followed. As they
crept forward, with blinding suddenness an electric glare smote their
eyes, and from beneath the reflected light a machine gun stuck forth its
ugly nose. Behind a steel shield a German-flavoured voice commanded:
"Drop your guns!"

Both men hesitated. To surrender was almost worse than death.

"Obey, or get shot!" the ugly voice called.

"We'll put them down, major," Swinton said; "dead men are no help to the
government."

As they laid down their guns two Prussians slipped into the light and
picked them up. From behind the steel shield two others appeared, and
following them loomed the gorilla form of Doctor Boelke, his face
wreathed in a leer of triumph.

At a command in German, one of the men swung open an iron-barred door,
disclosing, as he touched a button, a cell ten feet square. Boelke
turned to Finnerty: "Major, you haf intruded without der ceremony of an
invitation; I now invite you to make yourself at home in der guest
chamber."

"Your humour, like yourself, is coarse," Finnerty retorted.

"You vill enter der door, or----" Boelke waved a hand, and the bayonets
were advanced to within striking distance, while the machine gun clicked
ominously.

Finnerty realised that to resist was suicide; no doubt Boelke would
prefer to have an excuse for killing them--there was absolute murder in
the bleary animal eyes.

Swinton said in an even, hard voice: "The British government will have
you shot as a German spy."

"Perhaps _Captain Herbert_ vill be shot as an English spy to-morrow; und
now"--Boelke raised his arm--"ven I drop my hand you vill be shot for
resisting arrest."

"We won't give the hound an excuse for murder," Finnerty said, leading
the way through the door. A German followed them in, and ran his hands
over their bodies for revolvers; finding Finnerty's hunting knife, he
took it away. The door was locked, and a guard placed in front of it.

It was only now that the two noticed that Darna Singh had disappeared;
nobody seemed to have seen him; he had simply vanished. Probably the
guard, even if they saw him, took him to be one of their own
natives--not associated with the sahibs who had dropped into their
hands.

Chapter XXI

Captain Foley sat in Doctor Boelke's big chair in the doctor's bungalow,
seeing a lovely vision in the smoke which curled upward from his
cheroot; he saw himself the possessor of two race horses he would buy
when he went back to Europe--perhaps it would have to be in
Germany--with the money Boelke had gone to the palace for. The crafty
captain had demanded "money down"--the two thousand pounds he was to
have for delivering the stolen paper, and that, too, before he showed
the paper. To guard against force, he had allowed Marie to keep the
document, but Marie should have been in the bungalow; however, she could
not be far--she would be in shortly.

From where he sat at Boelke's flat desk, Foley looked upon a wall of the
room that was panelled in richly carved teakwood, and from a brass rod
hung heavy silk curtains. On the panel that immediately fronted his eyes
was Ganesha, a pot-bellied, elephant-headed god; a droll figure that
caught the captain's fancy, especially when it reeled groggily to one
side to uncover an opening through which a dark, brilliant eye peered at
him. The captain's face held placid under this mystic scrutiny, but his
right hand gently pulled a drawer of the desk open, disclosing a Mauser
pistol.

When the whole panel commenced to slide silently, he lifted the pistol
so that its muzzle rested on the desk. Through the opening created in
the wall a handsome native stepped into the room, salaamed, and,
turning, closed the aperture; then he said: "I am Nawab Darna Singh, the
brother of Rajah Ananda's princess. May I close the door, sahib?"

Foley lifted the Mauser into view, drawling: "If you wish; I have a key
here to open it, if necessary."

Darna Singh closed a door that led from the front hall to the room, and,
coming back to stand just across the desk from Foley, said: "The major
sahib and the captain sahib are prisoners of Doctor Boelke; they are
below in a cell--they will be killed."

In answer to a question, Darna Singh related how the two men had been
captured and how he, not observed, had slipped away, and, knowing all
the passages, had made his way to the stone steps that led from the
tunnels to Doctor Boelke's bungalow.

Foley in his cold, unimpassioned voice asked: "What do you want me to
do?"

"Save them."

The captain's eyes narrowed. "They are not friends of mine; they
searched me to-day, and if I play this silly game I chuck in the sea two
thousand quid. It's a damn tall order."

Darna Singh's voice throbbed with passionate feeling: "I am a rajput,
sahib, and we look upon the sahibs as white rajputs. We may hate our
conquerors, but we do not despise them as cowards. I never knew a sahib
to leave a sahib to die; I never knew a rajput to leave a brother rajput
to die."

Foley puffed at his cigar, and behind his set face went on the conflict
the rajput's appeal to his manhood had stirred.

Darna Singh spoke again: "The sahib will not live to be branded a
coward, for his eyes show he has courage. And we must hurry or it will
be too late, for these two sahibs have risked their lives to save the
British raj against Prince Ananda's, who is a traitor to the sahib's
king; he is a traitor to his wife, the princess, for to-morrow he will
force into the palace the white mem-sahib who is here with Doctor
Boelke."

"By gad!" At last the cold gambler blood had warmed. His daughter Marie,
eh? That was different! And to funk it--let two Englishmen die! One an
Irishman, even! No doubt it was true, he reasoned, for that was why
Darna Singh was in revolt against the prince.

"What chance have we got?" Foley asked.

"There will be a guard at the cage."

"A German?"

"Yes, sahib."

"They have seen me with Doctor Boelke; perhaps we can turn the trick.
But," and his hard grey eyes rested on Darna Singh's face, "if, when we
go down there is no chance, I won't play the giddy goat; I'll come
back." He handed Boelke's Mauser to the rajput, saying: "I have a pistol
in my belt."

Darna Singh slid the panel, and they passed from the room to a landing
and down a dozen stone steps to a dim-lighted passage. Here the rajput
whispered: "I can take the sahib by a dark way to where he can see the
cage in which the two sahibs will be."

"Hurry!" Foley answered, for he was thinking ruefully of his money.

The underground place was a cross-hatch of many tunnels, and Darna Singh
led the way through a circuitous maze till they came to a bright-lighted
cross passage, and, peeping around a corner, Foley saw, fifty feet away,
a solitary German leaning against the wall, a rifle resting at his side.
Raising his voice in the utterance of Hindustani words, Foley rounded
the corner at a steady pace, followed by Darna Singh. The sentry grasped
his rifle, and, standing erect, challenged. In German Foley answered:
"We come from the Herr Doctor."

The sentry, having seen Foley with Doctor Boelke, was unsuspicious, and,
grounding his rifle tight against his hip, he clicked his heels together
at attention.

"The two prisoners are wanted above for examination," Foley said. "You
are to bind their arms behind their backs and accompany us."

"The one sahib is a giant," the other answered, when this order,
percolating slowly through his heavy brain, had found no objection.

"Give me the gun; I will cover him while you bind his arms."

The sentry unlocked the door, took a rope in his hand, and, saying to
Foley, "Keep close, _mein Herr_," entered the cell.

Finnerty and Swinton watched this performance, in the major's mind
bitter anger at the thought that an Irishman could be such a damnable
traitor.

"Will the _Herr Kapitän_ give orders in English to these _schweinehunds_
that if they do not obey they will be killed?"

Foley complied. What he said was: "Major, put your hands behind your
back; then when this chap comes close throttle him so quick he can't
squeak."

A hot wave of blood surged in a revulsion of feeling through Finnerty's
heart, and he crossed his hands behind his back, half turning as if to
invite the bondage. When the German stepped close a hand shot up, and,
closing on his windpipe, pinned him flat against the wall, lifted to his
toes, his tongue hanging out from between parted lips.

"Bind and gag him, Swinton," Foley suggested.

In a minute the sentry was trussed, a handkerchief wedged in his mouth,
and he was deposited in a corner. Outside, Foley turned off the cell
light, locked the door, and, handing the guard's gun to Swinton, led the
way back to the dark passage.

On the landing above the stone steps, Darna Singh silently moved the
carved Ganesha and peered through the hole. Then whispering, "The room
is empty," unlocked and slid open the panel, locking it behind them as
they entered Boelke's room.

The bungalow was silent. There was no sound of servants moving about; no
doubt they were over at the palace, waiting for the thing that was in
the air.

Out of the fullness of his heart, Foley spoke in low tones: "Gentlemen,
the doctor will be here shortly with money for me, and your presence
might irritate him."

"I'll never forget what you've done for us, Foley," Finnerty said.

"Neither will I if you do me out of two thousand quid by blathering
here," Foley drawled.

Swinton put his hand on Foley's arm. "Forgive me for what I said on the
trail, and I give you my word that what you've done for us will be
brought to the sircar's notice; but we've got to capture Boelke. We've
got to nip this revolt; you know there's one on."

"Look here, Herbert," Foley drawled, "I don't mind risking my life to
help out a couple of sahibs--a fellow's got to do that--but I'm damned
if I'm going to chuck away a kit bag full of rupee notes."

"I've got nothing to do with the money; that's a matter you must settle
with Boelke," Swinton said in dry diplomacy; "but if you and the major
will hide behind that heavy curtain and capture this enemy to the
British raj, I can promise you an unmolested return to England. There's
another thing"--his words were hesitatingly apologetic--"we are now your
heavy debtors and can't make demands on you for that paper, but if it
gets into Prince Ananda's hands it will make his revolt possible. He
will show it to the chiefs who meet him to-night."

"And with that I have nothing to do. I'll deliver the paper to Boelke
and take my money; what you do to the Herr Doctor after that is no
concern of mine."

With a smile, Swinton held out his hand, saying: "Darna Singh and I are
going to blow up the magazine, but I'll just say, thank you, for fear I
get pipped."

Chapter XXII

Foley and Major Finnerty took up their positions in a corner behind a
heavy curtain, Foley making two slits in it with a pocketknife. They
were clear of the door leading below, and even if Boelke came that way
he would not detect their presence.

In five minutes Marie entered the room, and stood looking about as if
she had expected to see some one. She wore a riding habit, and through
the curtain slit Finnerty could see that her face was drawn and white,
her eyes heavy in utter weariness.

Almost immediately a heavy tread sounded in the hall, followed by the
thrust of Boelke's ugly form through the door. He glared about the room,
and, crashing into his chair, asked gruffly: "Vhere is your fadder?"

"I don't know," the girl answered wearily.

"You don't know! Vell, vhere is der paper?"

"You must get it from my father."

"I don't like dot; some one is a liar!"

The girl's silence at this brutality but increased Boelke's ugliness.
"Your fadder don't trust me. Being a thief himself, und a traitor, he
pays me der same compliment--he refuse to deliver der paper till der
money is paid. Here is der rupees, und I vant der paper." His heavy
knuckles beat upon the table.

"You must wait, then, till he comes."

"He toldt me you had der paper still--for fear he might be robbed, I
suppose. Vhere is it?"

"It is hidden."

"Get it; der rajah vaits."

The girl sat with no movement of response. Finnerty could see her face
draw into a cast of resolve. Both he and Foley felt that it would be
better to wait for the girl to leave the room before they rushed upon
Boelke; there might be shooting.

The doctor's rage increased. "If your fadder is traitor to me--if der
paper is not produced in five minutes, I vill send out word that he be
shot on sight, und between you two ve vill find der paper." Boelke sat
back in his chair with a snorting growl.

"Listen to me, Herr Boelke," the girl said in a voice clean cutting as a
steel tool that rips iron. "My father is acting loyal to you, though he
is a traitor to his own government. He stole that paper because he faced
what he called dishonour over gambling debts, and I was blamed for
taking it. I was the one who faced dishonour, and, through me, Lord
Gilfain. I escaped and made my way to India under false names, not to
help, as you thought, but to recover that paper and give it back to the
government or destroy it."

"Haf you destroyed it?"

"You will never get it, Herr Boelke. I have to tell you this--that you
may know my father did not act the traitor to you."

"Ha, ha! You are as mad as your fadder. If der paper is not here in five
minutes do you know vat vill happen you?"

"I am not afraid; I took all these risks when I came here to clear my
name."

"Here is der money--my time is short."

Twice Foley had laid a hand on Finnerty's arm in restraint.

"Never! I swear it. I am not afraid."

"No; like your fadder you haf not fear or sense. But vait. You do not
fear for your own life--I know dot--but vill you trade dot paper for der
life of der man you love--Major Finnerty?" The listeners heard a gasp.
"I mean dot. He und der udder fool, Svinton, is below in a cell--caught
dere as spies--und to-morrow dey vill be shot as spies. Dey took care
dot nobody see dem go in, und I vill take care dot nobody see dem come
out."

A ghastly silence followed, only broken by the sound of the girl's
breathing.

Boelke waited to let this filter through her brain to her heart.

Then she said in a voice that carried no convincing force: "You are
lying to frighten me."

"I vill prove it to yourself. You haf on der riding habit, und now I
know you haf been riding to deliver dot paper to der major; but you did
not meet him because he is a prisoner below."

Again there was the hush of a debate in the girl's mind; then she said:
"If you will bring Major Finnerty and Captain Swinton from below,
through that door, and let them go as free men, and will swear to not
pursue them, I will give--get the paper, and----"

"_Ach, Gott!_ You haf der paper! You put your hand to your breast!"

The girl cried out, startled, frightened, as Boelke's gorilla form flung
his chair back. He saw the rush of Finnerty and threw back the drawer of
his desk; it was empty--Foley had taken the Mauser.

"If you open your mouth, you're a dead man!" Finnerty declared; then
adding, for relief: "You hound!"

The girl, who had backed to the wall, dropped to a chair, burying her
face in an arm on the desk, swept by a flood of confusion and relief.

Foley transferred the packages of rupee notes to his pockets, saying:
"I've delivered the paper in Darpore, and am taking my fee," while
Boelke sat blinking into a pistol that stared at him four feet away.

Finnerty said: "We're going to gag and bind you, so make no outcry."

When this little matter was attended to, the doctor was dumped into a
big closet and the door locked.

"I'll have a look at the outside, major," Foley said. "Fancy I heard
some one prowling."

When the curtain slipped back to place, blotting out Foley, Finnerty
gave an inward gasp; he was left alone with the girl whom he had heard
offer to barter her more than life--her reputation--for his life. A dew
of perspiration stood out on his forehead; he trembled; the shyness that
had been a curse to him from his boyhood made him a veritable coward. He
was alone with the girl in an atmosphere of love--the most dreaded word
in the whole English lexicon.

Marie held the paper in her hand, looking upon it as though she were
crystal gazing, using it as a magnet to focus her own multitudinous
emotions. Before her stood a man that was like a Greek god--the man who
had twice saved her life; though the saving of her life, while it would
have wakened feelings of deep gratitude, could not have filled her soul
with the passionate yearning that was there--the surging soul warmth
that submerges everything.

The man was like a child. Words utterly failed to shape themselves into
a fitting coherence for utterance. He stepped to the wall and swung the
little Ganesha panel, peering vacantly into the dark passage. He came
back and gazed out into the hall.

"I want to tell you something----" The girl's voice startled him as
though he had been struck; his nerves were frightful. "I want to tell
you," she said again, a wan smile striving to master her trembling lips,
"why I didn't give up this paper on the trail to-day."

"I understand," he interrupted; "it would not have cleared you."

"No; Captain Swinton would have thought that I had given it up under
compulsion. But if I had lost it, all I have gone through would have
been for nothing. That's what frightened me so when Doctor Boelke
discovered I had it. I did wrong in keeping it; I was selfish."

The girl's tensed nerves were being slacked by her words; expression was
easing the tightened coils as the striking of a clock unwinds the
spring; the relief was loosening tears; they flooded the great dark
eyes, and one had fallen on the paper, for an instant like a pearl
before it was absorbed.

This trivial thing was a power that swept away the bondage of shyness
that held the giant. He put his hand on the girl's shoulder; his voice
was trembling. "Marie," he said, "I must speak--something. Don't mind,
colleen, if you can't understand what I say, for I feel just like a boy
at home in Ireland. I'm just mad with love for you; I can't live without
you. All my life I've been alone. I love beautiful things--birds and
trees and flowers and animals--and I've starved here, where all is
treachery and work--nothing but just work."

It was a torrent, words trembling from the lips of a man whose soul was
on fire, and the blue eyes had turned deep like rich sapphires.

The girl rose from her chair and stood against the wall, holding up her
hand as if she would repel him, crying: "You mustn't say that; you must
not! Oh, my God! Why didn't you let me die--why did you save my life,
that I might now know the bitterness of living!"

Finnerty recoiled. His hand caught the corner of the desk; his voice was
husky, full of despair: "You don't--don't--I'm too late? Is it Lord
Victor that----"

"There is no one!" The girl's voice was almost fierce.

"What is it, then? Am I not worthy----"

"It is I who am not worthy. _You_ not worthy? And you heard, standing
behind the curtain, that I bargained my all for your life."

"Yes, I heard that. Then how are you not worthy of the love of a man if
he were a hundred times better than I am?"

"You could not marry me. My father was a traitor, a gambler--we are the
same blood."

Finnerty took a step forward and grasped the girl's wrist. The touch
steadied him. "Hush, colleen; don't say that. Your father was just a
brave, generous Irishman when I knew him before the gambling got into
his blood. Fear he did not know. He didn't know how to do a mean act;
he'd give away his last penny--the gambling got into his blood. Wasn't
that what got him into this? It was India that scorched and seared his
soul--the life here. The others had money, and here they lavish it,
throw it about, gamble. He tried to keep his end up, for he was game. He
was unlucky--it was a second name for him in the service--'Unlucky'
Foley. I tell you it got into his blood, the wild Irish blood that boils
so easily--that is not cold and sluggish from dilution from the essence
of self."

It was curious the metamorphosis of love, the glamour of it that roused
the imaginative sympathy of Finnerty, till, for the girl's sake, all her
geese were swans. And yet there was truth in what he said; only a Celt
could have understood Foley as Finnerty did.

Finnerty's hand had taken the other wrist. He drew the girl's hands up
and placed them either side of his neck, and looked into her eyes.
"Colleen, I love you. Nothing in the world is going to take you from
me--nothing. I'm going to seal that with a kiss, and neither man nor
devil is going to part us after that."

As his arms went around the girl a tremour shook the earth, the bungalow
rocked drunkenly, they heard the crashing of rocks and trees somewhere
on the plateau.

Chapter XXIII

It had been easy for Darna Singh to smuggle Swinton through the tiger
garden gate, for the guard were tribesmen of his own--rajputs who really
hated Ananda.

And now the two sat in a room of the palace, at Swinton's elbow a switch
that, at a shift, would send a current of eruptive force into the
magazine. Through a closed lattice they looked out upon the terrace
thronged with natives--Mussulmans, Hindus, Buddhists; and, gazing,
Swinton thought that it was like bringing together different
explosives--a spark would perhaps fan a sudden mental conflagration
among these fanatics. Silence reigned--a hush hung over the
many-coloured throng as if something of this held them on guard.

Darna Singh was explaining in a whisper:

"Ananda has called these chiefs to sign a blood pact against the sircar.
The two men of the big beards are from Khyber way--Pathans whose trade
is war; one is Ghazi Khan and the other is Dhera Ishmael. They will not
sign the blood pact unless Ananda shows them the paper wherein the
sircar is to force their young men to war. The maharajah will not be
here, but whether he is true to the sircar no man knows, and sometimes,
sahib, he does not know himself, because of the brandy."

They could see Burra Moti upon her bended legs on the marble-slabbed
terrace, a rich cloth, sparkling with jewels, draping her head and neck
and body. Huge gold rings had been driven upon her ivory tusks.

Darna Singh whispered:

"Look, sahib, at the two men that stand beside the elephant's neck; they
are my blood brothers, and when we entered at the teakwood gate I told
them of the sapphire bell. They have their mission."

Beyond, the Lake of the Golden Coin, rich in its gorgeous drape of
shadow and moon gold, lay serene, placid, undisturbed by the puny man
passion that throbbed like a ticking watch above its rim.

The droning hum of voices, like the buzz of bees, died to silence, and
foreheads were bowed to the marble floor as Prince Ananda, clothed in a
coarse yellow robe, came forth and strode like a Roman senator to table
at which sat with the two Pathans a dozen petty rajahs, nawabs, and
Mussulman chiefs.

"They are waiting to have the paper translated to them by a _moonshi_
and to see the sircar's seal upon it, for they all know that mark,"
Darna Singh said.

"What will happen if the paper does not come?" Swinton asked.

"They will not sign the blood bond; they will think that Rajah Ananda
has told them lies. Also the two men who are my brothers will place
another lie in the mouth of Ananda, if it is Kismet, and at that time
the sahib will blow up the mine."

From below the voice of Ananda came floating up to their ears as he
talked to the chiefs in impassioned words of hatred to the British raj.
He told them of the machine guns and ammunition he had below; that the
great German nation would send an army, for even now they had sent men
to train the soldiers of the revolt.

To Swinton it was simply the mad exhortation of a mind crazed by
ambition, but he knew that scores of revolts against the British had
originated in just this way; the untutored natives, taught hatred of the
British from their birth, would believe every word.

The voice of Ghazi Khan, rough as the bellow of a bull as it came
through an opening in his heavy, matted beard, was heard asking:

"Where is the paper, rajah, wherein is written that the sircar commands
our sons to cross the black water to fight against the caliph and to
destroy Mecca--even to destroy the faith of Mohammed, as thou hast
said?"

"We also, Rajah Darpore," the Nawab of Attabad said, "would see first
the sealed order of the sircar, that we, too, are forced to cross the
black water to the destruction of our caste--to fight battles that are
not the battle of India. Thou hast said, rajah, that it is so commanded
in a state paper that was to have been put in the Lord Sahib's hands as
he sat in council in Calcutta, and though no doubt it is true we would
see it, for war is not to be taken in words that are spoken."

Ananda explained that the paper would be brought soon by his German
officer, and he would show it to them before they signed the pact.

Then Ananda, lowering his voice to tragic intensity, said: "It is
written that if the three sacred sapphires come into the hand of a man
it is because the gods have bestowed upon him wisdom and goodness and
power; that he is to lead. It is also written that if, having the three
sapphires, he stand beside the Lake of the Golden Coin at midnight in
the full bloom of the mhowa tree King Jogendra will appear in his golden
boat if he be selected to lead. I will take the ordeal to-night, for the
mhowa is in bloom and the three sapphires have been sent."

Swinton saw Ananda throw open his yellow robe, disclosing two sapphires,
and heard him say: "The third is here on the neck of the sacred elephant
in a bell."

At that instant the booming note of a gong striking the midnight hour
came from somewhere in the palace.

A dead silence settled over the people on the terrace, and they turned
their eyes to the waters of the Lake of the Golden Coin.

Twelve times the gong throbbed as it quivered from a blow, and as the
last whimpering note died away in a forest echo a circling ripple spread
from the shadow of a pipal, and now the rippling waves came fast,
darting here and there like serpents of gold or silver in the moonlight.

Men gasped in awe; some touched their foreheads prone to the marble
floor as a boat of gold, its prow a serpent's head with gleaming ruby
eyes, came up out of the water and floated upon the surface.

King Jogendra clothed in a rich garment, his turban gleaming red and
blue and white and gold where the moon flashed upon jewels, rose from a
bier and lifted a hand as if to invoke the favour of the gods upon the
prince who had called him from his long sleep.

Even Swinton, knowing that it was but a trick of the German engineers,
shivered as if he caught a fragment of the spell that almost stilled the
beating of hearts below.

And then from the sal forest came floating to this stillness of death
the soft, sweet "Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle!" of the
sapphire bell.

Burra Moti threw up her trunk, uttering a cry that was like the sob of a
frightened child, and cocked her huge ears. As the bell called again,
"Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle!" she thrust her trunk beneath her neck cloth;
but her fingers found no bell; it had been stolen.

With a scream of rage she surged to her feet, and, trampling men,
throwing them to one side like bags of chaff with her ivory spears, she
crashed through the table and fled.

"Now, sahib!" Darna Singh cried.

In answer to Swinton's pull of the lever the plateau rose up, the palace
quivered, the waters of the Lake of the Golden Coin swept across the
terrace over a flattened, yellow-robed figure that had been Prince
Ananda, and then was sucked back to disappear through a yawning crevice.

"Come, sahib; there will be no revolt, for Ananda is dead," Darna Singh
said softly.

Sometimes when the mhowa tree is in full bloom the soft tinkle of the
sapphire bell is heard up in the sal-covered hills; then the natives
whisper:

"The spirit of Rajah Ananda rides forth on the Brown Elephant."

THE END