ca jacket, opened to us.

"The wire is broken," he said, and slammed the door in our faces.

King picked up the stone and beat another tattoo.

"How long has the wire been broken?" he demanded.

"Since morning."

"Who sent the last message?"

"Maharajah Jihanbihar sahib."

"In full or in code?"

"In code."

He slammed the door again and bolted it, and whether or not he really
fell asleep, within the minute he was giving us a perfect imitation of a
hog snoring. What was more, the crowd began to take its cue from the
babu, and a roof-tile broke at our feet as a gentle reminder that we had
the town's permission to depart. Without caste-marks, and in those
shabby, muddy, torn clothes, we were obviously undesirables.

So we made for the railroad station, where, since we had money, none
could refuse to sell us third-class tickets. But, though we tried, we
could not send a telegram from there either, although King took the
station babu to one side and proved to him beyond argument that he knew
the secret service signs. The babu was extremely sorry, but the wire was
down. The trains were being run for the present on the old block system,
one train waiting in a station until the next arrived, and so on.

So, although King sent a long telegram in code from a junction before we
reached Lahore, nothing had been done about it by the time we had
changed into Christian clothes at our hotel and called on the head of
the Intelligence Department. And by then it was a day and a half since
we had seen the Gray Mahatma.

The best part of another day was wasted in consulting and convincing men
on whose knees the peace of India rested. They were naturally nervous
about invading the sacred privacy of Hindu temples, and still more so of
investigating Yasmini's doings in that nest of hers. There were men
among them who took no stock in such tales as ours anyhow--hard and fast
Scotch pragmatists, who doubted the sanity of any man who spoke
seriously of anything that they themselves had not heard, seen, smelt,
felt and tasted. Also there was one man who had been jealous of
Athelstan King all his years in the service, and he jumped at the chance
of obstructing him at last.

After we had told our story at least twenty times, more and more men
being brought in to listen to it, who only served to increase
incredulity and water down belief, King saw fit to fling his even temper
to the winds and try what anger could accomplish. By that t