So the German went down-stairs and climbed in beside the babu, changing his turban at once for the better one that he found waiting in there.

"This performance is worth a rajah's ransom!" grumbled babu Sita Ram.

"Will sahib not put elbow in my belly, seeing same is highly sensitive?"

But the German laughed at him.

"Love is rare, non-contagious sickness!" asserted Sita Ram with conviction.

At the head of the stairs Ranjoor Singh and Yasmini stood looking into each other's eyes. He looked into pools of laughter and mystery that told him nothing at all; she saw a man's heart glowing in his brown ones.

"It will be for you now," said Ranjoor Singh, "to act with speed and all discretion. I don't know what we are going to see, although I know it is artillery of some sort. I am sure he has a plan for destroying every trace of whatever it is, and of himself and me, if he suspects treachery. I know no more. I can only go ahead."

"And trust me!" said Yasmini.

The Sikh did not answer.

"And trust me!" repeated Yasmini. "I will save you out of this, Ranjoor Singh sahib, that we may fight our quarrel to a finish later on. What would the world be without enemies? You will not find artillery!"

"How do you know?"

"I have known for nearly two years what you will find there, my friend! Only I have not known exactly where to find it. And yet sometimes I have thought that I have known that, too! Go, Ranjoor Singh. You will be in danger. Above all, do not try to force that German's hand too far until I come with aid. It is better to talk than fight, so long as the enemy is strongest!"

"Woman!" swore Ranjoor Singh so savagely that she laughed straight into his face. "If you suspect—if you can guess where we are going—send men to surround the place and watch!"

"Will a tiger walk into a watched lair?" she answered. "Go, talker! Go and do things!"

So, swearing and dissatisfied, Ranjoor Singh went down and climbed on to the box seat of a two-horse carriage.

"Which way?" he asked; and the German growled an answer through the shutters.

"Now straight on!" said the German, after fifteen minutes. "Straight on out of Delhi!"

They were headed south, and driving very slowly, for to have driven fast would have been to draw attention to themselves. Ranjoor Singh scarcely troubled to look about him, and Sita Ram fell into a doze, in spite of his protestations of fear. The German was the only one of the party who was at pains to keep a lookout, and he was most exercised to know whether they were being followed; over and over again he called on Ranjoor Singh to stop until a following carriage should overtake them and pass on.

So they were a very long time driving to Old Delhi, where the ruins of old cities stand piled against one another in a tangled mass of verdure that is hardly penetrable except where the tracks wind in and out. The shadow of the Kutb Minar was long when they drove past it, and it was dusk when the German shouted and Ranjoor Singh turned the horses in between two age-old trees and drew rein at a shattered temple door.