"Pardon, I know nothing. I have told thee, Ranee, that I am not Har
Dyal Rutton."
She was mistress of a thousand artifices. Brought to a standstill on the one line of attack, she diverged to another without the quiver of an eyelash to betray her discomfiture.
"Yea, thou hast told me," she purred. "But I, Naraini, I know what I know. Thou dost deny thyself even as thou dost deny me, but … art thou willing to be put to the proof, my king?"
"If you've any means of proving my identity, I would thank you for making use of it, Ranee."
"There is the test of the Token, Lalji."
"I am not aware of it."
"The test of the Token—the ring that was brought to thee, the signet of thy House. Surely thou hast it with thee?"
Since that night in Calcutta Amber had resumed his habit of carrying the Token in the chamois bag. Now, on the reflection that it had been given him for a special purpose, which had been frustrated by the death of Dhola Baksh, so that he had no further use for it, he decided against the counsels of prudence. "What's the odds," he asked himself, "if I do lose it? I don't want the damn' thing—it's brought me nothing but trouble, thus far." And he thrust a hand within his shirt and brought forth the emerald. "Here it is," he told the woman cheerfully. "Now this test?" "Place it upon thy finger—so, even upon thy little finger, as was thy father's wont with it. Now lift up thine arm, so, and turn the stone to the west, toward Kathiapur."
Without comprehension he yielded to this whim, folding up his right arm and turning the emerald to the quarter indicated by Naraini.
The hour had drawn close upon dawn. A cold air breathed down the valley and was chill to them in that lofty eyrie. The moon, dipping towards the rim of the world, was poised, a globe of dull silver, upon the ridge of a far, dark hill. As they watched it dropped out of sight and everything was suddenly very bleak and black.