"I have had a prince on his knees to me, and many a priest," she chuckled, "aye, and many a soldier--but never yet a British colonel sahib. Kneel and beg!" "Why--what--what d'ye mean?" demanded Kirby. "Is his honor not your honor? I have heard it said. Then beg, Colonel sahib, on your knees--on those stiff British knees--beg for the honor of Ranjoor Singh!" "D'you mean--d'you mean--?" "Beg for his honor, and beg for his life, on your knees, Colonel sahib!" "I could look the other way, sir," whispered Warrington, for the regiment's need was very real. "Nay, both of you! Ye shall both beg!" said Yasmini, "or Ranjoor Singh shall taste a hillman's mercy. He shall die so dishonored that the regiment shall hang its head in shame." "Impossible!" said Kirby. "His honor is as good as mine!' "Then beg for his and thine--on your knees, Colonel sahib!" Then it seemed to Colonel Kirby that the room began to swim, for what with the heat and what with an unconquerable dread of snakes, he was not in shape to play his will against this woman's. "What if I kneel?" he asked. "I will promise you Ranjoor Singh, alive and clean!" "When?" "In time!" "In time for what?" "Against the regiment's need!" "No use. I want him at once!" said Colonel Kirby. "Then go, sahib! Put out the fire with the sweat that streams from thee! Nay, go, both of you--ye have my leave to go! And what is a Sikh risaldar more or less? Nay, go, and let the Jat die!" It is not to be written lightly that the British colonel of Outram's Own and his adjutant both knelt to a native woman--if she is a native--in a top back-room of a Delhi bazaar. But it has to be recorded that for the sake of Ranjoor Singh they did. They knelt and placed their foreheads where she bade them, against the divan at her feet, and she poured enough musk in their hair, for the love of mischief, to remind them of what they had done until in the course of slowly moving nature the smell should die away. And then in a second the lights went out, each blown by a fan from behind the silken hangings. They heard her silvery laugh, and they heard her spring to the floor. In cold, creeping sweat they listened to footsteps, and a little voice whispered in Hindustani: "This way, sahibs!" They followed, since there was nothing else to do and their pride was all gone, to be pushed and pulled by unseen hands and chuckling girls down stairs that were cut out of sheer blackness. And at the foot of the dark a voice that Warrington recognized shed new interest but no light on the mystery. "Salaam, sahibs," said a fat babu, backing through a door in front of them and showing himself silhouetted against the lesser outer darkness. "Seeing regimental risaldar on the box seat, I took liberty. The risaldar-major is sending this by as yet unrewarded messenger, and word to the effect that back way out of burning house was easier than front way in. He sends salaam. I am unrewarded messenger."