nd the temple-caverns was unknown.

We swung along through the great bronze gate and into the courtyard
where the shrubs all stood reflected along with the marble stairway in a
square pool. We plunged right in without as much as hesitating on the
brink, dragging the Mahatma with us--not that he made the least
objection. He laughed, and seemed to regard it as thoroughly good fun.

We splashed and fooled for a few minutes, standing neck-deep and kicking
at an occasional fish as it darted by, stirring up mud with our toes
until the water was so cloudy that we could see the fish no longer. Then
King thought of clothes. He stood on tiptoe and shouted.

"Ismail! O--Ismail!"

Ismail came, like a yellow-fanged wolf, bowed to the Mahatma as if
nakedness and royalty were one, and stood eyeing the water curiously.

"Get us garments!" King ordered testily.

"I was not staring at thee, little King _sahib_," he answered. "I was
marveling!"

But he went off without explaining what he had been marveling at, and we
went on with our ablutions, the job of getting ashes out of your hair
not being quite so easy as it might appear. I daresay it was fifteen
minutes before Ismail came back carrying two complete native costumes
for King and me, and a long saffron robe for the Mahatma. Then we came
out of the water and the Gray Mahatma smiled.

"I said there were no more traps, and it seems I spoke the truth," he
said wonderingly. "Moreover, I did not set this trap, but it was you
yourselves who led me into it."

"Which trap?" we demanded with one voice.

"You have stirred the mud, my friends, to a condition in which the
_mugger_ who lives in that pool is not visible. But the _mugger_ is
there, and I don't know why he did not seize one of you!"

In the center of the pool there was a rockery, for the benefit of
plant-roots and breeding fish. I walked around it to look, and there,
sure enough, lay a brute about twenty feet long, snoozing with his chin
on a corner of the rock. I picked up a pole to prod him and he snapped
and broke it, coming close to the edge to clatter his jaws at me.
Prodding him a last time, I turned round to look for the Mahatma. He had
vanished--gone as utterly and silently as a myth. King had not seen him
go. We inquired of Ismail. He laughed.

"There is only one place to go--here," he answered.

"To the Princess?"

"There is nowhere else! Who shall disobey her? I have orders to unloose
the panther if the _s