The gongs striking eleven roused her. She stood up and looked about her, feeling lost, forlorn; and lo! she was in a world of stars. For it was the Night of the Dead, and every little hovel, every house, and homestead, and palace in the town behind her, glittered with the small lamps set to illuminate the feasts that are laid out for wandering spirits. And as she looked out over the unseen levels of the tank, the stars were there also, twinkling farther and farther away to the horizon in every hamlet and village. For an instant the inner vision of the soul was hers, and she saw, as it were a map stretched before her, the wide plain of India receding on and on into the darkness of the night, all sown with such stars in constellations.

And every star was the memory of some dear face; every star was set for some loved wandering soul!

She felt like a disembodied spirit herself as she looked down at her feet, remembering the little decorous platter in which she had hidden the diamond. Should she go back to the Beneficent Ladies and tell them what had happened? No! She had done her part toward them; she had given the gem they had given her into the jeweller's own hand as she had promised; so that was the end.

But it was not the True Luck; thus her duty, so far as she herself was concerned, still remained. She must try and find it, and if she failed there was always the death-dagger; for she must be true, though she was a woman.

"True! Aye! as true as it befits womanhood to be."

Who had said that?

SiyÂla?

Then in a second she knew, and turning swiftly on her heel ran toward the town. SiyÂl! SiyÂla was the thief! She had the King's Luck. Ye gods! had it come to this. Her sister of the veil, the little dainty, delicate, perfumed piece of femininity which she had borne with, nay, had almost loved as a half-forgotten part of herself--she, and she only, was preventing her, Âtma, the representative of ChÂrans, from playing her man's part in ChÂranship. An uttermost loathing of herself, as woman, came to the mind that had been educated to believe in her womanhood as nothingness, the while she hurried through the full bazaars toward Satanstown. She almost had to fight her way through one portion where the crowd filled every inch of the roadway past KhodadÂd's house. He was lying in state there with all the royal insignia of a TarkhÂn about him. That had not saved his corpse, however, from quick searching by the hands of the city police (for treasonable papers was the excuse) but now that Birbal had come and gone unsatisfied, the professional wailers were once more skirling away their mercenary grief, and through the wide arches of the upper floor the swaying heads of the hired priests could be seen as they chanted their orisons for the dead.

"Who is't?" she asked, faint curiosity rising in her as she passed.

"KhodadÂd, TarkhÂn. Hast not heard?" answered someone. "They found him dead at dawn, the blood pouring from his veins, and the white horse from which he had fallen by his side."

"Aye! but thou forgettest neighbour!" said another eager voice "his hands were tied and----"

"God send his soul to the nethermost hell for treachery," broke in Âtma on the gossiping, as she fought her way on.

"Ari, sister! Have a care," protested the crowd. "Thou hittest like a man, and will hurt."

But she was gone ere the sentence ended in a broad laugh, and a rough jest on him who had such a termagant to wife.

Old Deena caught sight of her as she came breathlessly along the balconied lane. There were lights and to spare here, but Siyah Yamin's house stood a dark block amongst its radiant neighbours.

"Thou art too late, mistress most chaste," he called, "the singing bird is fled."

"Whither?" she gasped.

He shook his wicked old head and leered with his wicked old eye.

"No-whither so far as this world knows. A many have been after her, even my Lord Birbal, without success. She left for the desert to my Lord KhodadÂd's devil's feast last evening and hath not returned. Now he is dead, and she hath disappeared! Belike the white horse carried her off too; or belike," he spoke in a lower voice, "the desert was but fair doubling ground for pursuit."

Âtma stared at him uncomprehending.

"But I need her," she muttered.

A hard metallic laugh rang from a neighbouring balcony.

"No woman needs woman!" came a coarse jeering voice. "But such a strapping wench could mayhap play a man's part. Play it, sister, and God go with you."

Âtma turned and fled from the burst of wild laughter that followed on the sally. There was nothing left now for her, truly, but the man's part. She must find the death-dagger of her race, and die as they had died.

But not for honour; for dishonour!

By the time she reached the winding tenement stair which led upward to her roof she had grown calm, and her mind, set loose from the urgency of the present, had begun to wander amid past scenes. Yea! yonder were the steps leading down to the cellar where the Wayfarer had lain asleep, half dead in dreams, with ZarÎfa's face upon his bosom. A strange man indeed! What was it he had said about Love? Her hand sought her throat involuntarily and finding the quaint green stone clasped it.

Roses! Roses! Roses! Their scent bewildered her!

Then in a second she saw all, she understood all. Aye! she, the woman in her, had loved the King and she had been ashamed of it. But this--this was different. This was the mortal following the immortal! She was going to death as to a funeral prye, to find herself sexless, beyond the flames.

She stumbled on and on, up and up, every atom of herself forgotten save the deathless desire for Unity which lies behind sex, until, suddenly, some unfamiliarity beneath her feet made her pause.

Had she come too far? She stopped in the mirk darkness to feel the step on which she stood, so, groping felt the wall.

A nail. And something had caught on it. What?

A tiny scrap of fringe. And that was scent--not bewildering scent of roses; but bewildering scent of musk and ambergris--the essences of Satanstown!

Siyah Yamin's paradise!

The thought leaped to her brain; a second or so afterward she stood at the secret door. It was ajar.

But this time the darkness of the roof showed like a black shadow against the diffused radiance from the town below.

"SiyÂla" she cried, but there was no answer. She moved forward a step; then, bethinking herself, turned back, locked the door and thrust the key in her bosom. If anyone were there, they would have to meet her face to face.

So, her eyes becoming accustomed to that outside radiance, that central shadow, she half-felt her way down the broad path from the door toward the place where, when last she had seen it, silken curtains had still hung, and the remains of feasting had still lain rotting--rotting surely, slowly by day and night.

But there was nothing now. Even the dead roses had disappeared and her feet as she walked sank softly in the carpet of sand and dust that covered all things. Was that a darker shadow flitting back as she advanced? She turned swiftly, heard an ineffectual rattle of the lock, and the next instant, in her haste, her outstretched hands pinned a slight figure to the door.

"Lo! Âto," came a petulant voice, "thou art rough as any man! I am here if thou needst me, so take thy big hands from my frail body and let me light a light. 'Twas thy step--manlike again--made me extinguish mine, for fear."

A spark from the tinder box showed small hands shaking; and the following light, a second too soon, found traces of sharp terror behind the mocking smile on Siyah Yamin's face. She was dressed as she had been before in man's clothes, but this time they seemed to sit ill on her shrinking figure; yet she strove hard for boldness.

"Well! what is't, Âto?" she went on recklessly as if trying to put off time. "Somewhat of the King I will go bail--the King thou dost not love! ha! ha!" Her jeering laugh roused a muffled echo from the low, empty walls.

"Yea, I love the King as woman loves man," replied Âtma gravely. "What of that. It is illusion. It will pass."

Siyah Yamin gave a little soft shuddering sigh.

"Come!" she said sharply, "we cannot talk so. Come! widow! follow thy lover, Sher KhÂn." She sprang forward light in hand, and her slender figure fled forward leaving darkness behind her; darkness through which her light song echoed.

"Peace SiyÂl!" said Âtma, sternly interrupting the ribald verses.

"Peace? oh yea! let there be peace between us." laughed the courtesan, as she sank down on the dusty step of the dais, and put the light beside her. But her wide eyes belied her light words.

Fear sate behind their glitter, watching wickedly; and every subtle sense sought for some means of escape, some method of cajolery. "Wherefore not," she rattled on. "Lo! I give you in his Monkey-Majesty! He is not a man after my heart. Yet, I would not his enemies got the better of him, as they will do. What! hast not heard? He challenged them this day to write failure across a promise of his, or change across his mind. From dawn to dawn it was. And see you, Âto" the hurried palpitating voice steadied, as the wild search for some false trail happened upon one. "Thou art the King's ChÂran and must warn him! They have sent poison out to the paralysed profligate at ShÂkin-garh--he will be burnt at dawn and with him the girl whose rÂm-rucki the King wears. There is small time to lose, Âto--I know it, I tell thee--I heard it from their lips--go thou, then, with warning."

She leant forward; her face full of guileful, beguileful beauty, close to the grave level brows that met in a steady frown.

"Aye! I will go, SiyÂl--but not without the King's Luck. Give it me. Thou hast it in thy bosom--thy hand has hovered there. Give it me, I say." She essayed to grip those fluttering fingers but Siyah Yamin was on her feet in a second, and stood back, swaying unsteadily, one hand clasped to her heart.

"I--lo! it is not true. 'Tis something here that hurts"--she beat her breast sharply. "Be not so rough, Âto! Thou wert always rough as a man. Lo! in the old days it was I, little SiyÂla who was to marry Âtma Singh, and now--now--Sher KhÂn." she paused, tore off her dandified turban, and let the great plaits and coils of her hair fall loose. "See I am woman again, and thou--thou art man! And, Âto, hist! Knowest thou why I came back here to-night?--would I had never come. It was to find the broken pieces of the glass goblet I broke." Her small face melted almost to tears, the babyish lips trembled over the words. "Yea! Yea! it is true. I came for them!--I was going away--for ever--and I remembered. Lo! Âto, a woman always remembers her first lover, even if she be courtezan. Yea! thou wilt remember the King, so have pity! What! dost not believe? Lo! I was looking when thou camest, and frightened me into putting out the light. See here if I lie." With her right hand she tore something out of her bosom and shifting it swiftly to her left held it out. It was a curved fragment of the blown-glass goblet which had fallen with a crash upon a rosebush, whose red wine of ShirÂz had trickled thirstily to the rose's root.

Twined upon it in golden tracery lay part of its legend--

She caught at the words hysterically. "So have I taken Life, Âto, as all women should; I have drunken heart's blood. Âto! touch me not! or before God I---- What dost seek, madwoman?

"The King's Luck, harlot! Thou hast it in thy bosom. Give it me, or----"

They were locked in each other's arms, but Âtma Devi was a second too late, for Siyah Yamin had drawn something besides a broken glass-sherd from her bosom, and her right hand with a flash of steel in it rose high, then fell on the ChÂran's broad breast. Âtma staggered under the blow, but the poniard blade crashing on the collar bone turned aside upward and cleft the muscles of the neck harmlessly. She had the weapon wrested from the small hand in a second, and her voice, breathless from exertion yet steady, went on relentlessly.

"Thou hast it, SiyÂl! Thou didst steal it and betray--all men! Best give it to me--or--or I shall have to kill thee--sister of the veil."

But Siyah Yamin was true to her womanhood, and every atom of her fought for full possession as she struggled madly.

"It--it is mine." she gasped. "No one shall have it--I claim--I am the woman and I will have----"

Suddenly there was silence. Resistance melted out of Âtma Devi's arms; her insistent hand, still seeking, found what it sought. She gave a sharp cry of joy and relaxed her hold.

But the dainty figure her insistence had supported, doubled up limply and fell in a huddled heap upon the ground.

She sank beside it on her knees. She would have killed it, as she had said. Aye, killed it remorselessly! but surely she had not----

"SiyÂl? SiyÂla? Sister?"

But she called in vain. The very glare of hatred and fear was dying from the eyes over which the impenetrable veil of death was creeping.

She watched them for a second or two, then closed them, and stood up. She was not frightened nor remorseful at what had happened. Vaguely she felt relieved. It was womanhood which had died there on the roof in the Paradise of Lust. Now that she had time to think, she saw it all. It was so simple. SiyÂla, beset by the desire of possession, had ordered the false gem maker to make two false stones, and palming them off on the conspirators had kept the real one, trusting to her luck that the one supposed to be the true gem would never again fall into the hands of the jeweller. But it had. The exchange of turbans had brought discovery close at hand, so she had meant to fly; and doubtless for once had spoken truly, when she said she had returned during the night to gather up the broken fragments of her first cup of joy.

So, quietly, methodically, Âtma straightened out the huddled figure that had held the deva-dasi, sister of the veil, daughter of the Gods, covering it decorously with the tinselled muslin scarf Sher KhÂn had worn in gay mockery of his sex. So it was pure Womanhood that lay there with face upturned to the dark. Then taking the light, Âtma searched under the rose-bushes for the broken cup. She found the bowl intact save for the one curved splinter SiyÂla had gathered up. The stem, too, jarred and chipped, would still stand upright; so, making a little pile of dust she set them together beside the dead woman's hand, and left her lying there in the shadow, with the diffused light from the Lamps of the Dead below making a far-away halo to that central darkness.

Closing, and locking the door, she flung the key through a narrow loophole in the stairway, through which that same radiance of the Dead could be seen faintly; so passed down to her own door.

There was much to be done. The diamond, however, being so far safe, her first care must be to warn the King that the little coward of the rÂm-rucki was in imminent danger. For this she must make her way to the palace.

She made it quicker than she had thought for, since, as she unlocked her door, figures started out on her from the darkness below, and she felt what the Beneficent Ladies called an "all-over dress," being respectfully yet firmly pulled over her.

"By the King's command, bÎbÎ," said the oily voice of a eunuch. "Thou hast been appointed of his household, and the Lord Chamberlain hath ordered us----"

She made no effort at escape, knowing herself helpless, but she could defend herself.

"The Lord Chamberlain, being here himself," she interrupted at a venture--and a faint stirring as if those around her turned to look at someone told her that her surmise was correct--"can take me prisoner if he choose; but let him remember that the King desires my presence as ChÂran at the Great Durbar. So let him treat me ill at his peril."

Mirza IbrahÎm who had, indeed, come to see his orders executed, said nothing; but he inwardly swore that the jade should repent her defiance. There were endless possibilities for a Lord Chamberlain once the wild-cat were fairly housed within reach.

Âtma meanwhile in her screened dhooli felt herself going palaceward contentedly enough. So far was good. But how to get her message conveyed to the King.

Yet conveyed it must be, and before long; for the soft radiance of the Lamps of the Dead had begun to die down. The wandering spirits had had their feasting; they must be in their graves by dawn.

Could she escape? Could she by good luck see a friend? bribe one of the bearers?

But time slipped by without opportunity and she found herself lodged at last in a very handsome apartment consisting of a room and beyond that a slip of roof with a latticed cupola before any chance had come of accomplishing her desire.

"Nay! no more! I need nothing more. I will call if so be," she said to the servants who fawned about her. "Go! I tell thee."

She must think, she must devise some plan. The room was well appointed; even a long pen-box with a quaint pot of glazy ink stood by a low stool, so she could write. Meanwhile she must have a few minutes in the open. The musk of the tented dhooli had almost been too much for her.

So, out on the roof of this cupola's bastion or turret, half way down the palace wall, she leant, her arms on the parapet, and looked downward and upward. Above, to one side, was the palace; but which part of it? Below her was one of the wide eaves so characteristic of Indian architecture, and it ran, after skirting the turret octagonally along the walls, into the darkness. There was foothold for one with a strong head, doubtless; but what then?

As she thought a sound of whirring ropes met her ear, and something dark slid down the wall from far above her.

The preacher's dhooli! Then the King's balcony was somewhere above her! Could she? How far did the eave run. It would need ten yards at least. And could she start the equipoise if once she got a hold on the ropes?

Stay! She would only have to signal.