Part 8 (1/2)
”In jail, or else over the border”
”Already?”
The Rangar nodded ”Trust Yasmini! She saw to that jolly well before she left Delhi! She would have stayed had there been anything ain, for it did not feel safe to look too long into the Rangar's eyes It was not wise just then to look too long at anything, or to think too long on any one subject
”Isar
”I wrote at the foot of the tar,” said King, ”that they are to detain hiar's eyes blazed for a second and then grew cold again (as King did not fail to observe) He kneell as the Rangar that not many men would have kept their will so unfettered in that roonized resignation, te back again to watch fro watched by a cat
All this while the wo flute-music, until, it seemed from nowhere, a lovelier wo cross-legged with a flat basket at her knees She sat with arms raised and swayed fro circles, higher and higher above the basket lid, and the lid began to rise nobody touched it, nor was there any string, but as it rose it swayed with sickening reat king-cobras could be led dress The basket lid was resting on their heads, and as therose to a eird shriek the lid rose too, until suddenly the woman snatched the lid away and the snakes were revealed, with hoods raised, hissing the cobra's hate-song that is prelude to the poison-death
They struck at the woe, swift and as supple as they Instantly then she joined in the dance, with the snakes striking right and left at her Left and right she swayed to avoid theracefully than aa deadlier peril than he-poisonous, two to his one As she danced she whirled both arms above her head and cried as the olves are said to do on storreatand an eerie green-and-golden light began to play fro the dancers into half-relief and deepening the e scents afted in frouessed means Every sense was treacherously wooed And ever, in the uorous dancers, the snakes pursued the wo, in a cal his eyes off the dance without any, very, great effort
Rewa Gunga clapped his hands and the dance ceased The woman spirited her snakes away The blind was draard and in aslowly overhead, except that the seductive s breath of all the different flowers of India
”If she were here,” said the Rangar, a little grimly-with a trace of disappointment in his tone-”you would not snatch your eyes away like that! You would have been jolly well transfixed, my friend! These-she-that woman-they are but clumsy amateurs! If she were here, to dance with her snakes for you, you would have been jolly well dancing with her, if she had wished it! Perhaps you shall see her dance some day! Ah,-here is Ismail,” he added in an altered tone of voice He seeh the glass-bead curtains at the door, the great savage strode down the rooa looked as if he would have snatched it, but King's hand was held out first and Isy King tore the envelope and in a second his eyes were ablaze with so more than wonder A mystery, added to a mystery, stirred all the zeal in him But in a second he had sweated his excite it to Rewa Gunga It was not in cypher, but in plain everyday English
”She has not gone North,” it ran ”She is still in Delhi Suit your ownin a level voice He atching the Rangar narrowly, yet he could not detect the slightest syar ”Who can explain foolishness? It eneral has made another fat mistake!”
”Whatasked
Instead of answering, Rewa Gunga beckoned Isiant came and loohts
”Whither went she?” asked the Rangar
”To the North!” he booo!”
”When went she?”
”Yesterday, when a telegram ca, for in the language he used ”yesterday” and ”to-morrow” are the same word; such is the East's estio?” asked Rewa Gunga
”By the terrain from the station”