r of fact;
he had already squatted on the floor beside me. The women brought us
stools, but the Mahatma refused his. Thinking I might be less
conspicuous sitting than standing I sat down on my stool, whereat
Yasmini began showering the women with abuse for not having supplied me
with better garments. Considering the long swim, the dusty ride on an
elephant, and two fights with women, during which they had been ripped
nearly into rags, the clothes weren't half-bad!

So they brought me a silken robe that was woven all over with pictures
of the Indian gods. And I sat feeling rather like a Roman, with that
gorgeous toga wrapped around me; I might have been bearing Rome's
ultimatum to the Amazons, supposing those bellicose ladies to have
existed in Rome's day.

But it was presently made exceedingly clear to me that Yasmini and not I
was deliverer of ultimatums. She had the whole future of the world doped
out, and her golden voice proceeded to herald a few of the details in
mellifluous Punjabi.

"Princesses," she began, although doubtless some of them were not
princesses, "this holy and benign Mahatma has been sentenced to die
to-night, by those who resent his having trusted women with royal
secrets. He is too proud to appeal for mercy; too indifferent to his own
welfare to seek to avoid the unjust penalty. But there are others who
are proud, and who are not indifferent!

"We women are too proud to let this Gray Mahatma die on our account! And
it shall not be said of us that we consented to the death of the man who
gave us our first glimpse of the ancient mysteries! I say the Gray
Mahatma shall not die to-night!"

That challenge rang to the roof, and the women fluttered and thrilled to
it. I confess that it thrilled me, for I did not care to think of the
Mahatma's death, having come rather to like the man. The only person in
the hall who showed no trace of the interest was the Mahatma himself,
who squatted on the carpet close beside me as stolid and motionless as a
bronze idol, with his yellow lion's eyes fixed on Yasmini straight ahead
of him.

"These men, who think themselves omnipotent, who own the secret of the
royal sciences," Yasmini went on, "are no less human than the rest of
us. If I alone had learned the key to their secrets, they might have
made an end of me, but there were others, and they did not know how many
others! Now there are more; and not only women, but men! And not only
men, but known men! Men wh