ron robe without the slightest effort to seem
dignified or solemn.

"Keep your wits about you," King whispered; and then again, presently:
"Don't be fooled into thinking that anything you see is supernatural.
Remember that whatever you see is simply the result of something that
they know and that we don't. Keep your hair on! We're going to see some
wonderful stuff or I'm a Dutchman."

We passed down the long corridor outside Yasmini's room, but instead of
continuing straight forward, the Gray Mahatma found an opening behind a
curtain in a wall whose thickness could be only guessed. Inside the wall
was a stairway six feet wide that descended to an echoing, unfurnished
hall below after making two turns inside solid masonry.

The lower hall was dark, but he found his way without difficulty,
picking up a lantern from a corner on his way and then opening a door
that gave, underneath the outer marble stairway, on to the court where
the pool and the flowering shrubs were. The lantern was not lighted when
he picked it up. I did not see how he lighted it. It was an ordinary oil
lantern, apparently, with a wire handle to carry it by, and after he had
carried it for half a minute it seemed to burn brightly of its own
accord. I called King's attention to it.

"I've seen that done before," he answered, but he did not say whether or
not he understood the trick of it.

Ismail came running to meet us the instant we showed ourselves, but
stopped when he saw the Mahatma and, kneeling, laid the palms of both
hands on his forehead on the stone flags. That was a strange thing for a
Moslem to do--especially toward a Hindu--but the Mahatma took not the
slightest notice of him and walked straight past as if he had not been
there. He could hear King's footsteps and mine behind him, of course,
and did not need to look back, but there was something almost comical in
the way he seemed to ignore our existence and go striding along alone as
if on business bent. He acted as little like a priest or a fakir or a
fanatic as any man I have ever seen, and no picture-gallery curator or
theater usher ever did the honors of the show with less attention to his
own importance.

He led the way through the same bronze gate that we had entered by and
never paused or glanced behind him until he came to the cage where the
old black panther snarled behind the bars; and then a remarkable thing
happened.

At first the panther began running backward and forward