“Rewa Gunga met you in the dark, beyond those outer curtains, did he not?”
He nodded.
“Did he tell you that if you pass the curtains you shall be told all I know?”
He nodded again, and she laughed.
“It would take time to tell you all I know! First, I think I will show you things. Afterward you shall ask me questions, and I will answer them!”
She stood up, and of course he stood up, too. So, she on the footstool of the throne, her eyes and his were on a level. She laid hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes until he could see his own twin portraits in hers that were glowing sunset pools. Heart of the Hills? The Heart of all the East seemed to burn in her, rebellious!
“Are you believing me?” she asked him.
He nodded, for no man could have helped believing her. As she knew the truth, she was telling it to him, as surely as she was doing her skillful best to mesmerize him. But the Secret Service is made up of men trained against that.
“Come!” she said, and stepping down she took his arm.
She led him past the thrones to other leather curtains in a wall, and through them into long hewn passages from cavern into cavern, until even the Rock of Gibraltar seemed like a doll's house in comparison.