"Send somebody to find Sita Ram! Bid him hurry! When he comes, put him in the small room next the cobras, and let him be shown the cobras until fear of too much talking has grown greater in him than the love of being heard! Then let me see him in a mirror, so that I may know when it is time. Have cobras in a hair-noose ready, close behind where the sahibs sit, and watch through the hangings for my signal! Both sahibs will kneel to me. Then watch for another signal, and let all lights be blown out instantly! Or, if the sahibs do not kneel (though they _shall!_), then watch yet more closely for a signal which I will give to extinguish lights. "So--now, go! Am I beautiful? Are my eyes bright? Twist me that jasmine in my hair--so. Now run--I will surprise them through the hangings!" So Yasmini surprised Kirby and his adjutant, as has been told, and it need not be repeated how she humbled the pride of India's army on their knees. She would have to forego the delight of being Yasmini before she could handle any situation or plan any coup along ordinary lines, and Kirby and his adjutant were not the first Englishmen, nor likely to be the last, to feed her merriment. The general, for his part, had--even although pushed without ceremony through a door--behaved with perfect confidence, for he knew that, whatever her whim or her sense of humor, or her impudence, Yasmini would not fail him in the pinch. Even she, whose jest it is to see men writhe under her hand, has to own somebody her master, and though she would giggle at the notion of fearing any one man, or any dozen, she does fear the representative of what she and perhaps a hundred others call "The Game." For the night, and for the place, the general was that representative, and however much he might disapprove, he had no doubt of her. * * * * * Ranjoor Singh stood aghast at sight of him, and the trooper saluted like an automaton, since nothing save obedience was any affair of his. "Evening, Risaldar-Major!" smiled the general. "Salaam, General sahib!" "To save time, I will tell you that I know stage by stage how you got here." Ranjoor Singh looked suspicious. For five-and-twenty years he had watched British justice work, and British justice gives both sides a hearing; he had not told his own version yet. "I know that you have had word in another part of this house with a German, who pretends to be a merchant but who is really a spy." Ranjoor Singh looked even more suspicious. The charge was true, though, so he did not answer. "Your being brought to this house was part of a plan--part of the same plan that leaves the German still at liberty. You are wanted to take further part in it." "General sahib, am I an officer of the Raj or am I dreaming?" Ranjoor Singh had found his tongue at last, and the general noted with keen pleasure that eye, voice and manner were angry and unafraid.