the Mahatma, nudging me as if I were the
elephant.

"I trust my friend King," I retorted. "If he decides to trust you, I
stand back of him."

"Very well then, let us exchange promises."

"Suppose we go a little more cautiously and discuss them first,"
suggested King.

"I will promise both of you your life, your eventual freedom, and my
friendship. Will you promise me not to go in league with _her_----"

"I'll agree to that unconditionally!" King assured him with a dry smile.

"--not to try to learn the secret of the science----"

"Why not?"

"Because if you _should_ try I could never save your lives."

"Well, what else?"

"Will you take oath never to disclose the whereabouts of the entrance to
the caverns in which you were allowed to see the sciences?"

"I shall have to think that over."

"Furthermore, will you promise to take whatever means is pointed out to
you of helping India to independence?"

"What do you mean by independence?"

"Self-government."

"I've been working for that ever since I cut my eye-teeth," answered
King. "So has every other British officer and civil servant who has any
sense of public duty."

"Will you continue to work for it, and employ the means that shall be
pointed out to you?"

"Yes is the answer to the first part. Can't answer the second part until
I've studied the means."

"Will you join me in preventing that princess from throwing the world
into fresh confusion?"

"Dunno about joining you. It's part of my business to prevent her little
game," King answered.

"She has proven herself almost too clever, even for us," said the
Mahatma. "She spied on us, and she hid so many witnesses behind a wall
pierced with holes that it would be impossible for us to make sure of
destroying all of them. And somewhere or other she has hidden an account
of what she knows, so that if anything should happen to her it would
fall into the hands of the Government and compel investigation."

"Wise woman!" King said smiling.

"Yes! But not so altogether wise. Hitherto we fooled her for all her
cleverness. Her price of silence was education in our mysteries, and we
have made the education incomprehensible."

"Then why do you want my help?"

"Because she has a plan now that is so magnificent in its audacity as to
baffle even our secret council!"

King whistled, and the Mahatma looked annoyed--whether with himself or
King I was not sure.

"That is what I have been hunting for three y