The face appeared again.
"Your Excellency, the goddess is meditating. Besides, this is holy ground. Your Excellency would not wish to set foot on it. Moreover, the courtyard is full of worshippers. It would not be safe."
Ralston broke in upon the old man's fluttering protestations. "Open the door, or my men will break it in."
A murmur of indignation arose from the crowd which thronged about him.
Ralston paid no heed to it. He called to his two levies:
"Quick! Break that door in!"
As they advanced the door was opened. Ralston dismounted, and bade one of his men do likewise and follow him. To the second man he said,
"Hold the horses!"
He strode into the courtyard and stood still.
"It will be touch and go," he said to himself, as he looked about him.
The courtyard was as thronged as the open space without, and four strong walls enclosed it. The worshippers were strangely silent. It seemed to Ralston that suspense had struck them dumb. They looked at the intruder with set faces and impassive eyes. At the far end of the courtyard there was a raised stone platform, and this part was roofed. At the back in the gloom he could see a great idol of the goddess, and in front, facing the courtyard, stood the lady from Gujerat. She was what Ralston expected to see—a dancing girl of Northern India, a girl with a good figure, small hands and feet, and a complexion of an olive tint. Her eyes were large and lustrous, with a line of black pencilled upon the edges of the eyelids, her eyebrows arched and regular, her face oval, her forehead high. The dress was richly embroidered with gold, and she had anklets with silver bells upon her feet.