ted on the moon; partly because they did not want
it to be a promiscuous affair.

To Thea's lively imagination--and to Roy's no less--Amber was more than
a mere city of ghosts and marble halls. It was a symbol of Rajput
womanhood--strong and beautiful, withdrawn from the clamour of the
market-place, given over to her dreams and her gods. For though kings
have deserted Amber, the gods remain. There is still life in her temples
and the blood of sacrifice on her altar stones. Therefore she must not
be approached in the spirit of the tourist. And, emphatically, she must
not be approached in a motor-car; at least so far as Thea's guests were
concerned. Of course one knew she _was_ approached by irreverent cars;
also by tourists--unspeakable ones, who made contemptible jokes about 'a
slump in house property.' But for these vandalisms Thea Leigh was not
responsible.

Her young ones, including Captain Martin, would ride; but, because of
Aruna, she and Vincent must submit to the barouche. So transparent was
the girl's pleasure at being included, that Thea's heart failed
her--knowing what she knew.

Roy and Lance had ridden on ahead; out through the fortified gates into
the open desert, strewn with tumbled fragments of the glory that was
Rajasthan. There, where courtiers had intrigued and flattered, crows
held conference. On the crumbling arch of a doorway, that opened into
emptiness, a vulture brooded, heavy with feeding on those who had died
for lack of food. Knee-deep in the Man Sagar Lake, grey cranes sought
their meat from God; every tint and curve of them repeated in the quiet
water. And there, beside a ruined shrine, two dead cactus bushes, with
their stiff distorted limbs, made Roy think suddenly of two dead Germans
he had come upon once--killed so swiftly that they still retained, in
death, the ghastly semblance of life. Why the devil couldn't a man be
rid of them? Dead Germans were not 'in the bond.'...

"Buck up, Lance," he said abruptly; for Desmond, who saw no ghosts, was
keenly interested. "Let's quit this place of skulls and empty
eye-sockets. Amber's dead; but not utterly decayed."

He knew. He had ridden out alone one morning, in the light of paling
stars, to watch the dawn steal down through the valley and greet the
sleeping city that would never wake again--half hoping to recapture the
miracle of Chitor. But Amber did not enshrine the soul of his mother's
race. And the dawn had proved merely a dawn. Moonli