the others have blindness and
vague yearnings? Can you answer?"

"Princess," he answered, "I had only one object in coming here."

"I know that," she said nodding.

"I have simply come to warn you."

"_Chut!_" she answered with her chin between her hands and her elbows
deep in the cushions. "I know how much is known. This man--what is his
name? Ramsden? Pouff! Ganesha, here, is far better! Ganesha is from
America. Those fools who went to prepare the American mind for what is
coming, because they were altogether too foolish to be anything but in
the way in India, have been found out, and Ganesha has come like a big
bull-buffalo to save the world by thrusting his clumsy horns into things
he does not understand! I tell you, Athelstan, that however much is
known there is much more that is not known. You would better make terms
with me!"

"What you must understand, Princess, is that your plan to overthrow the
West and make the East the world's controlling force, is known by those
who can prevent you," he answered quietly. "You see, I can't go away
from here and tell whoever asks me that you are observing your promise
to----"

"No," she interrupted with a ringing merry laugh of triumph. "You speak
truth without knowing it! You can not go away!"

Princess Yasmini's boast was good. But we had come to solve a problem,
not to run away with it, and she looked disconcerted by our rather
obvious willingness to be her prisoners for a while.

"Do you think I can not be cruel?" she asked suddenly.

"I have seen you at your worst, as well as at your best!" King answered.

"You act like a man who has resources. Yet you have none," she answered
slowly, as if reviewing all the situation in her mind. "None knows where
you are--not even Mulji Singh, with whom you left your other clothes
before putting on that uniform the better to impress me! The bag that
you and Ganesha share between you, like two mendicants emerging from the
jail, is now in a room in this palace. You came because you saw that if
I should be arrested there would be insurrection. You said so to Ommony
sahib, and his butler overheard. But not even Ommony knows where you
are. He said to you: 'If you can defeat that woman without using
violence, you'll stand alone in the world as the one man who could do
it. But if you use violence, though you kill her, she will defeat you
and all the rest of us.' Is not that what your Friend Ommony said?"

"What kind of terms do y