He could hear one of them snoring; of the other he was not so certain. However, he contrived to strip himself stark naked without making any noticeable sound. Then he bound the silken turban on his head and, timing the sound to the snores of the sleeper, he tore the cotton sheeting until he had enough to make one simple loin-cloth, which he wrapped around his waist. He could now pass for a Chattrya, who had a right to worship, but no right whatever except in a certain section of the temple set apart for non-Brahmin suppliants for Siva's notice. So far, so good. But to reach the tunnel leading to the winding stairway, hewn out of the rock, that led upward to the temple floor appeared impossible. He could dimly see shadowy forms of men sitting in groups in the courtyard. He could hear the murmur and drone of their conversation. It would be impossible to get by them unnoticed, nor did he dare to risk losing himself in any of the other passages and tunnels whose dark openings loomed like ink-blots in the night. * * * * * He crept toward the courtyard until, on his right, he could see the flight of steps leading to a parapet from which, he knew, the bridge stretched over the street toward Kali's temple. Kali's temple would be worse than Siva's, as far as concerned getting out of it; its priests were not on speaking terms with Siva's priests, whom they regarded as loafers lacking discipline and zeal. But Bamjee knew that the parapet, and the bridge beyond it, as far as the midway barrier erected and protected by the rival priests of Kali, was a zone where idlers often broke the temple rules unknown to their superiors. It is not alone in Christian churches that the devil incites the sanctified to shoot craps in a vestry now and then; the critics of Christianity have problems also. Bamjee, seeing that the moonlight streamed down one side of the steps and left the other half in darkness, tiptoed silently along the shadow by the wall and climbed in search of sinners _in delictu_. "Luck," said Bamjee to himself, "is a hole in the roller of God that otherwise crushes us. I have found one or two in my day. Maybe I find another now." He did. There were no card parties, such as he hoped for; no surreptitious singing of immodest songs; no drinking--nothing of any blackmail value, until he peered around an image of the temple god, on whose impassive shoulders scores of pigeons slept, and saw a woman, who shrunk herself into a niche in the masonry, weeping. Never a man met misery with greater pleasure. "Woman," remarked Bamjee, "I disagree with you. It may be you are all he said you are, and worse, but you are not the most desperate person. I am he. I, too, am made incredulous of the divine because I rashly trusted a disciple of divinity. What shall you do? I don't know--until you tell me what the matter is. First you shall tell me your sad tale, then I will tell mine. Thus we may help each other."