'_Allah hamid!_' she muttered piously, and went on. The sound of wailing from one of the scarce-seen houses she was passing reminded her regretfully of the cardamoms; for she had left shops behind her. Then she remembered one, not far from the gate of the city, which she must pass; one of those miscellaneous shops which are always to be found near city gates, where travellers can buy most things--flour and vegetables, red peppers, pipe bowls, tobacco. Ay, and opium perhaps; but on the sly, since there was no licence over the door. It was not the sort of shop that such as Khôjeeya Khânum patronised as a rule; still it might have cardamoms. The low-caste _buniya_, with a wrinkled monkey face and long iron-grey hair, who crouched behind dingy platters and dusty bags, looked ghoulish by the one flickering light set in the solitary cavern of a shop; for on either side of it was blank wall, trending away to narrow alleys. Khôjee hesitated. Such men drove many nefarious trades. Still this one might have cardamoms! 'Cardamoms! he echoed with a leer. 'Yea, yea, princess! True cardamoms to satisfy the best of royal blood--he! he!' Those tall houses round his shop held many such as she, and he had recognised the accent. Khôjee scarce knew whether to be flustered or flattered beneath her domino. 'And be speedy,' she said haughtily. 'I have no time to spare thee.' 'Lo! _Nawâbin_,' he jeered, 'I have them; such cardamoms as----' He was rummaging in the heterogeneous mass piled up against the back wall of his shop. 'Wait but a moment. I have them--I have them. But two days ago, my princess, I had them.' Here, by chance, an unwary pull sent a pile of parcels and bundles in confusion round him, and one rolled nigh to Aunt Khôjee, who--careful ever--laid a hold of it to save a possible fall into the gutter. The light fell on something green and sheeny, her fingers recognised the feel of satin, and, the bundle having unrolled itself somewhat, she caught sight of the unmistakable cut of a trouser leg! She opened it out a little curiously. 'Canst not leave things alone?' snapped the shopkeeper angrily. 'Those be not cardamoms.' 'They be something I may need for all that,' retorted Khôjee with spirit--the spirit which never fails a woman in the struggle for _chiffons_. So there she was, testing the satin with her finger, appraising the make. If they had only been pink!--though that was but a detail, since they were beyond her purse; the satin better by far than the much-to-be-regretted pink-the whole newer-- She wrinkled them aside with a sigh. 'Give me the cardamoms, brother. I have not the money for these.' The man looked at her cunningly. 'If the Daughter of Kings needs trousers, she will find none cheaper.' 'They would yet be too dear for me, brother,' she answered mildly; 'the cardamoms will do.'--