"Impossible!" murmured the Lord Chamberlain, feeling nevertheless an answering quiver of assent.
"Naught is impossible to ultimate guile," she went on, every atom of her seeming to gain in vitality as her dream of deceit unfolded itself to her ready mind. "Where is the diamond kept--dost know?"
Khodadâd spoke then; he was gathering initiative from her malice. "He knows," he said, nodding his head at Ibrahîm, "as Chamberlain he must know."
"Where it cannot be touched," retorted the palace official, sullenly. "In the Hall of Labour, guarded, besentinelled, day and night. No chance of theft--save by deep treachery. And there is none to bribe. Shall I offer a price to virtue-ridden Budaoni, court preacher, who works there at his translations? Or blazon our attempt abroad by approaching the Râjpût soldiery or the King's paid artizans?"
Khodadâd's face fell. In truth bribery in such a stronghold of the King's as the Hall of Labour where the best workmen were employed at fabulous wages, seemed hopeless. But Siyah Yamin's took on a sudden expression of amused contempt.
"So!" she began, "but they are men; that is enough for me. And one of them is Diswunt--Diswunt the King's crippled painter----"
"Aye!" assented the Lord Chamberlain still more sullenly. "Diswunt who is devoted to his master. 'Tis next his studio the Englishman's lathe is set up; farthest therefore from the door, farthest from treachery."
Siyah Yamin stretched her beautiful arms in an all-embracing gesture and leant back against the wall that was grimed by a hundred, a million such contacts with vicious humanity.
"What wilt give me for the diamond, Ibrahîm?" she said suddenly, "a thousand golden pieces? I will not take a dirrhm less. 'Twill serve to pay the crazy painter for his likeness of me. Hast seen it? No?" She clapped her hands, and sate up with an odd expression of doubt, dislike, and desire on her small, childish face. "Then thou shalt see, and--and condemn it. What? Drum-banger?" she went on sharply as Deena's wicked old face showed at the stair-head in answer to her call. "How now? Where is Nargîz?"
"Gone out, Princess, leaving me the while devising a new devil's dance for my Lord Chamberlain's delectation this evening. He entertains the King's friends!"