Burkut knew this, and had cast his fly dexterously. Now, feeling the rise, he allowed grave concern to overlay the yellow mask of his face--it was one of those which never change except by an effort of will. 'Because, sire,' he replied, in tones to be heard of all, 'it is known, beyond doubt, that the English Government, being hard pressed by reason of famines and the yearly tribute to the City of London, which the low value of the rupee causes to be greater every year, hath an eye on the endowment of the mausoleum.'

Govind the editor stifled a yawn of disappointment. 'That tale is old,' he put in contemptuously, 'I heard it a week past from the Secretariat Office. My cousin is clerk--as I should have been but for injustice--and saw the papers. It is true; for see you, they closed the mints so as to make the poor folk sell their silver hoards cheap, and now the rupees are scarce.'

He nodded sagely over his own political economy, and as he spoke in Urdu, the barber, as newsmonger of an older type, paused in the sharpening of a razor to listen.

'Impossible!' interrupted Jehân angrily. 'The Government is bound to uphold the shrines and services by strict promises. My fathers only lent them the money on those conditions. The interest was to be spent----'

Govind burst into boisterous laughter; for his head was muddled, his nerves unstrung by an overnight debauch.

'Ay! Nawâb-jee. Crores and crores of rupees lent in the old days, and the interest spent now in gardens for the mems to play games in, and statues to their own Queen! But it is no new thing, I tell you. I am no ignoramus--I am middle fail.[[4]] I have read their histories, and I know. They took all the religious endowments in their own land, and'--he added louder, as an ash-smeared naked figure which had been passing along the alley with the beggar's cry of 'Alâkh Alâkh' paused to listen--'would have killed the religious also but for those among them like Gladstone and Caine-sahib who say, as we do, that the others are tyrants and have no right to India.'

The hotch-potch of history was interrupted by Dilarâm's yawn. 'Hai! Hai! brother!' she said, 'keep that dreary stuff for Burkut or the barber--they can spread it over folk's hot imaginings like butter on a hearth cake! Or give it to jogi-jee yonder,' she swept her fingers to the weird figure at the door; a figure whose right hand and arm, withered in the ceaseless task of appealing to high heaven for righteousness, showed like a dry stick pointing upwards, 'though he and his like are never at a loss for lies. Hast a new one to-day, Gopi? Or is it still the old wonder of the golden paper which fell from the sky into one of Mother Kali's many embraces!'

'Jest not of Her, sister,' said the jogi in a theatrically hollow voice, as he thrust his left arm--lean as a lath, yet round in comparison with that raised claim to virtue--towards her in menace. 'Thou art Hers, even in thy denial of Her. Woman as She, spreading disease and death. Mother of Pain, embracing the world, biding thy time to slay.'

Despite the palpable striving for effect, something in the words thrilled the woman beneath the courtesan; and though she flicked all her supple fingers in derision, there was a note of triumph in her voice.

'Talk not to me, saint, as to thy Hindoo widows who believe in golden papers and gods. Yet 'tis true! We of the bazaar lead the world by the nose! Govind may blacken what he likes with ink. Burkut's craft may spend itself in spider's webs. The plague may come. Yea! even the sniffing out of other folk's smells--ay! and the payment for silence!--may be taken from the Mimbrâns-committee, and yet the world will wag peaceful. But touch us and it is different. Let none meddle with the men's women or with our will, or they meddle to their cost!'