secret--another man to scheme and hunger for the
throne--another party to the bloody three-angled intrigue which kept the
Siva-servers fat and the princes lean.

Past masters of the art by which superstitious ignorance is swayed,
the priests could swing the allegiance of the mob whichever way they
chose--even the soldiers, loyal enough to their masters under ordinary
circumstances, would have rebelled at as much as a hint from holy Siva.
It was the priests who made it possible for Jaimihr to dare take
his part in the ceremony; without them he would not have entered his
brother's palace-yard unless five thousand men at least were there to
guard his back--but, if there was danger where the priests were, there
was safety too.

As the custom was, he rode to the temple of Siva first with a ten-man
guard; there, when the priests had finished droning age-old anthems to
the echoing roof, when his brother, the Maharajah, also with a ten-man
guard, had joined him, and the two had submitted to the sanctifying
rites prescribed, eleven priests would walk with them in solemn mummery
to the palace-entrance--censer-swinging, chanting, blasphemously acting
duty to their gods and state.

The moon--and that, too, was custom-rested with her lower rim one full
hand's breadth above the temple dome as viewed from the palace-gate,
when a gong clanged resonantly, died to silence, music of pipes and
cymbals broke on the evening quiet, and the strange procession started
from the temple door, the Maharajah leading.

Generally it passed uninterrupted over the intervening street to the
palace-entrance, between the ranks of a salaaming, silent crowd, and
disappeared from view. This time, though, for the first time in living
memory, and possibly for the first time in all history, the unforeseen,
amazing happened. The procession stopped. Moon-bathed, between the
carved posts of the palace-gate, two people blocked the way.

The music ceased. The sudden silence framed itself against the distant
thunder of a hundred drums. The crowd--all heads bowed, as decreed--drew
in its breath and held it. A sea of pugrees moved as brown eyes looked
up surreptitiously--stared--memorized--and then looked down again. There
was no precedent for this happening, and even the Maharajah and the
priests were at a momentary loss--stood waiting, staring--and said
nothing.

"Maharajah-sahib!--I must interrupt your ceremony. I must have word with
you at once!"

It was D