"I, too, will find a way!" muttered Gungadhura to himself. Then to the priest: "What did she say? Why did she go to the commissioner?"
"To ask a favor."
"Of course! What favor?"
"That she may go to Europe."
"Then there is no longer any doubt whatever! By Saraswati (the goddess of wisdom) I know that she has discovered where the treasure is!"
"My son," said the priest, "it is not manners to call on other gods by name in this place."
"By Jinendra, then! Thou fat sedentary appetite, what a great god thine must be, that he can choose no cleverer servant than thee to muddle his affairs! While you were lulling me to sleep with dreams about a clue to be found in a cellar, she has already sucked the secret out from some cobra's hole and has sold it to the commissioner! As soon as he has paid her a proportion of it she will escape to Europe to avoid me—will she?"
"But the commissioner refused the desired permission," said the priest, puffing his lips and stroking his stomach, as much as to add, "It's no use getting impatient in Jinendra's temple. We have all the inside information here."
"What do you make of that?" demanded Gungadhura.
The priest smiled. One does not explain everything to a mere maharajah. But the mere maharajah was in no mood to be put off with smiles just then. As Yasmini got the story afterward from the bald old mendicant, whose piety had recently won him permission to bask on the comfortable carved stones just outside the window, Gungadhura burst forth into such explosive profanity that the high priest ran out of the room. The mendicant vowed that he heard the door slam—and so he did; but it was really Gungadhura, done with argument, on his way to put threat into action.