To return to Umballa. Upon landing, he asked at once if any knew where
the cave was. One man did know the way, but he refused to show it.
There were spirits there, ruled by an evil god.

"Take me there, you, and I will enter without harm. Am I not holy?"

That put rather a new face upon the situation. If the holy man was
willing to risk an encounter with the god, far be it that they should
prevent him. An ordinary seeker would not have found the entrance in a
lifetime. Umballa had not known exactly where the cave was, but he
knew all that the cave contained. When they came to it Umballa
sniffed; the tang of sulphur became evident both in his nose and on his
tongue. He understood. It was simply a small spring, a mineral, in
which sulphur predominated. He came out with some cupped in his hands.
He drank and showed them that it was harmless. Besides, he was a holy
man, and his presence made ineffectual all evil spirits which might
roam within the cave.

Umballa, impatient as he was, had to depend upon patience. By dint of
inquiries he learned that wild Mohammedans had cast the spell upon the
cave, set a curse upon its threshold. Umballa tottered and destroyed
this by reasoning that the curse of a Mohammedan could not affect a
Hindu. Finally, he offered each and all of them a fortune--and won.

Torches were lighted and the cave entered. There were many side
passages; and within these the astute Umballa saw the true reason for
the curse of the Mohammedans: guns and powder, hundreds and hundreds of
pounds of black destruction! A lower gallery--the mouth of which lay
under a slab of rock--led to the pit wherein rested the filigree
basket. . . . For a time Umballa acted like a madman. He sang,
chanted, dug his hands into the gold and stones; choked, sobbed. Here
was true kingship; the private treasures of a dozen decades, all his
for the taking. He forgot his enemies and their nearness as the
fortune revealed itself to him.

As his men at length staggered out of the lower gallery with the basket
slung upon an improvised litter he espied his enemies marching up the
hill! Back into the cave again. Umballa cursed and bit his nails. He
was unarmed, as were his men, and he had not time to search among the
smuggled arms to find his need.

"Heaven born," spoke up the man who had known where the cave was,
"there is an exit on the other side. We can go through that without
yonder people noticing us."

"A