ake one of the men send him away!" she whispered urgently. "Please do!
It may be a snake-charmer as you say. He moves like a reptile himself.
And I--abhor snakes."

But Dacre stood his ground. He felt none of her shrinking horror of the
bowed, misshapen creature approaching them. In fact he was only curious
to see how far a Kashmiri beggar's audacity would carry him.

Within half a dozen paces of them, in the full moonlight, the shambling
figure halted and salaamed with clawlike hands extended. His deformity
bent him almost double, but he was so muffled in rags that it was
difficult to discern any tangible human shape at all. A tangled black
beard hung wisplike from the dirty _chuddah_ that draped his head, and
above it two eyes, fevered and furtive, peered strangely forth.

The salaam completed, the intruder straightened himself as far as his
infirmity would permit, and in a moment spoke in the weak accents of an
old, old man. "Will his most gracious excellency be pleased to permit
one who is as the dust beneath his feet to speak in his presence words
which only he may hear?"

It was the whine of the Hindu beggar, halting, supplicatory, almost
revoltingly servile. Stella shuddered with disgust. The whole episode
was so utterly out of place in that moonlit paradise. But Dacre's
curiosity was evidently aroused. To her urgent whisper to send the man
away he paid no heed. Some spirit of perversity--or was it the hand of
Fate upon him?--made him bestow his supercilious attention upon the
cringing visitor.

"Speak away, you son of a centipede!" he made kindly rejoinder. "I am
all ears--the _mem-sahib_ also."

The man waved a skinny, protesting arm. "Only his most gracious
excellency!" he insisted, seeming to utter the words through parched
lips. "Will not his excellency deign to give his unworthy servant one
precious moment that he may speak in the august one's ear alone?"

"This is highly mysterious," commented Dacre. "I think I shall have to
find out what he wants, eh, Stella? His information may be valuable."

"Oh, do send him away!" Stella entreated. "I am not used to these
natives. They frighten me."

"My dear child, what nonsense!" laughed Dacre. "What harm do you imagine
a doddering old fool like this could do to any one? If I were Monck, I
should invite him to join the party. Not being Monck, I propose to hear
what he has to say and then kick him out. You run along to bed, dear!
I'll soon settle him and fol