Some monkeys loped away, chattering, and about a thousand parakeets flew off, shrilling for another roost. But there was no other sign of life.

"Stable the horses in here!" said the German; and they did so, Ranjoor

Singh dipping water out of a rain-pool and filling a stone trough that

had once done duty as receptacle for gifts for a long-forgotten god.

Then they pushed the carriage under a tangle of hanging branches.

"Look about you!" advised the German, as he emptied food for the horses on the temple floor; and babu Sita Ram made very careful note of the temple bearings, while Ranjoor Singh and the German blocked the old doorway with whatever they could find to keep night-prowlers outside and the horses in.

Then the German led the way into the dark, swinging a lantern that he had unearthed from some recess. Babu Sita Ram walked second, complaining audibly and shuddering at every shadow. Last came Ranjoor Singh, grim, silent. And the rain beat down on all three of them until they were drenched and numb, and their feet squelched in mud at every step.

For all the darkness, Ranjoor Singh made note of the fact that they were following a wagon track, into which the wheels of a native cart had sunk deep times without number. Only native ox-carts leave a track like that.

It must have been nine o'clock, and the babu was giving signs of nearly complete exhaustion, when they passed beyond a ring of trees into a clearing. They stood at the edge of the clearing in a shadow for about ten minutes, while the German watched catwise for signs of life.

"It is now," he said, tapping Ranjoor Singh's chest, "that you begin to be at my mercy. I assure you that the least disobedience on your part will mean your instant death!"

"Lead on!" growled Ranjoor Singh.

"Do you recognize the place?"

Ranjoor Singh peered through the rain in every direction. At each corner of the clearing, north, south, east and west, he could dimly see some sort of ruined arch, and there was another ruin in the center.

"No," he said.

"This is the oldest temple ruin anywhere near Delhi. On some inscriptions it is called 'Temple of the Four Winds,' but the old Hindu who lived in it before we bribed him to go away called it the 'Winds of the World.' It is known as 'Winds of the World' on the books of the German War Office. I think it is really of Greek origin myself, but I am not an Orientalist, and the text-books all say that I am wrong."

"Lead on!" said Ranjoor Singh; and the German led them, swinging his lantern and seeming not at all afraid of being seen now.

"We have taken steps quite often to make the people hereabouts believe this temple haunted!" he said. "They avoid it at night as if the devil lived here. If any of them see my lantern, they will not stop running till they reach the sea!"

They came to a ruin that was such an utter ruin that it looked as if an earthquake must have shaken a temple to pieces to be disintegrated by the weather; but Ranjoor Singh noticed that the cart-tracks wound around the side of it, and when they came to a fairly large teak trap-door, half hidden by creepers, he was not much surprised.

"My God, gentlemen!" said Sita Ram. "That place is wet-weather refuge for many million cobras! If I must die, I will prefer to perish in rain, where wife and family may find me for proper funeral rites. I will not go in there!"

But the German raised the trap-door, and Ranjoor Singh took the unhappy babu by the scruff of his fat neck.

"In with you!" he ordered.

And, chattering as if his teeth were castanets, the babu trod gingerly down damp stone steps whose center had been worn into ruts by countless feet. The German came last, and let the trap slam shut.

"My God!" yelled the babu. "Let me go! I am family man!"

"Vorwarts!" laughed the German, leading the way toward a teak door set in a stone wall.

They were in an ancient temple vault that seemed to have miraculously escaped from the destruction that had overwhelmed the whole upper part. Not a stone of it was out of place. It was wind and water-tight, and the vaulted roof, that above was nothing better than a mound of debris, from below looked nearly as perfect as when the stones had first been fitted into place.

The German produced a long key, opened the teak door, and stood aside to let them pass.

"No, no!" shuddered Sita Ram; but Ranjoor Singh pushed him through; the

German followed, and the door slammed shut as the trap had done.

"And now, my friends, I will convince you!" said the German, holding the lantern high. "What are those?"