His presence was, if possible, the more scandalous. Blake, it might be presumed, might hardly understand the horror of the Indian aristocracy if it should learn that he was sitting _vis-à-vis_ the Ranee on her sacred roof--and she unveiled. But they would know that Rana Raj Singh understood the significance, even as Bamjee did. It meant that the pillars of Indian aristocracy were falling--or else changing; and to some people change is as bad as decay. Rana Raj Singh was a cataclysm, not a scandal; compared to his presence there, Sodom and Gomorrah were a minor incident. But the Ranee, even at nineteen, which is a revolutionary age, had not thrown all tradition to the winds. She had kept its substance, while throwing away the shell. She had ten of her ladies with her, five on either hand--surely sufficient witnesses to prove to any jury that she had not sinned as deeply as Mother Eve, who set the first unveiled example. Nor had she forgotten strategy. Her ladies were as marvelously dressed as flowers in the early morning dew, but none of them was younger than herself and some were older; none was as good-looking. Her dress was the plainest and made in Paris by a magician who knew how youth should look beneath a hot night sky amid the smell of musk and the rustle of palm leaves. Although Bamjee knew her well, and had seen her often, in that setting she made his sharp little eyes almost snap from his head, and took away all his remaining breath. "What can it be, Bamjee, so important that you must intrude at this hour?" she asked pleasantly. But underneath the velvet voice there was a hint of iron. It might not fare well with Bamjee if his errand lacked justification. "Speak," she said. "The company will excuse you." "Sister of the Starlight, this is terrible and secret news I bring," said Bamjee. "Is it wise to spread the scroll of evil before strangers' eyes?" he quoted. "Who, then, is the stranger?" she asked him. "Speak, fool!" "But, Daughter of the Dew, there are the servants--" "Oh, very well." She clapped her hands until the chief attendant stood before her. "You and the servants have my leave to go until I send for you again. See that none waits in hiding behind the flower pots--and now," she said, staring at Bamjee. "What is it?" * * * * * "The elephant Asoka slew a man." "I know that. It is a great pity, even though the man who was killed seems to have been almost as disgusting a reptile as the snakes that crawled like vermin on him. I am sorry to say that Asoka will have to be shot, unless--perhaps you have come to tell me some way out of it?" "Playmate of the gods, they are saying that the man who was slain was Maraj! He was crushed out of recognition. Who shall say it was not he?" "Who should want to say it was not Maraj? If such good news is true your intrusion is justified. We may forgive Asoka."