“Ask her!” grinned the trooper. “Unless she comes to look for Ali Partab, I know not.”
He made the last part of his remark in a hurried undertone, too low for the old woman to hear.
“Let her earn her meal around the stables,” said the Prince. A sudden light dawned on him. Here was a means, at least, of trying to make use of Ali Partab. “Go—do thy sweeping!” he commanded, and the hag slunk off.
For ten minutes longer, Jaimihr sat still and flicked at the stone column with his whip,—then he sent for his master of the horse, whose mistaken sense of loyalty had been the direct cause of Ali Partab's capture. He had acted instantly when the fat Hindoo brought him word, and he had expected to be praised for quick decision and rewarded; he was plainly in high dudgeon as he swaggered out of a dark door near the stables and advanced sulkily toward his master.
“Remove the prisoner from that cell, taking great care that the hag yonder sees what you do—yes, that hag—the new one; she is a spy. Bring the prisoner in to me, where I will talk with him; afterward place him in a different cell—put him where we kept the bear that died—there is a dark comer beside it, where a man might hide; hide a man there when it grows dark. And give the hag access. Say nothing to her; let her come and go as she will; watch, and listen.”
Without another word, the Prince got up and shuffled in his decorated slippers to a door at one end of the cloister. Five minutes later Ali Partab—high-chinned, but looking miserable—was led between two men through the same door, while the old woman went on very ostentatiously with her sweeping about the yard. She even turned her back, to prove how little she was interested.
Ali Partab was hustled forward into a high-ceilinged room, whose light came filtered through a scrollwork mesh of chiselled stone where the wall and ceiling joined. There were no windows, but six doors opened from it, and every one of them was barred, as though they opened into treasure-vaults. The Prince sat restlessly in a high, carved wooden chair; there was no other furniture at all, and Ali Partab was left standing between his guards. The Prince drew a pistol from inside his clothing.
“Leave us alone!” he ordered; and the guards went out, closing the door behind them.
“I gave no orders for your capture,” said Jaimihr, with a smile.
“Then, let me go,” grinned Ali Partab.