eaths, and all the tortures shall be yours--with alligators at
last to abolish the last traces of you! Do you like snakes, Ganesha? Do
you like a madhouse in the dark? I think not. Therefore, Ganesha, you
shall be left to yourself to think a little while. Think keenly! Invent
a means of finding Athelstan and I will let you go free for his sake.
But--fail--to think--of a successful plan--Ganesha--and you shall suffer
in every atom of your big body! Bass! Take him away!"

I was frog-marched, and flung face-downward on to cushions, after which
I heard a door snap shut and had leisure to work myself free from the
ropes and gag and towels. It took time, for the hussies had drawn the
cords until they bit into the muscles, and maybe I was twenty minutes
about getting loose. Then, for ten minutes more I sat and chafed the
rope-cuts, craving food, examining the room, and wishing above all
things that conscience would let me fall asleep on the feathery, scented
pillows with which the floor was strewn, rather than stay awake on the
off-chance of discovering where King might be.

It was practically a bare room, having walls of painted wood that
sounded solid when I made the circuit of the floor and tapped each panel
in turn. But that proved nothing, for even the door sounded equally
solid; the folk who built that palace used solid timber, not veneer, and
as I found out afterward the door was nearly a foot thick. On the floor
I could make no impression whatever by thumping, and there was no
furniture except the pillows--nothing that I could use for a weapon.

But there were the cotton ropes with which they had bound me, and before
doing anything else I knotted them all into one. I had no particular
reason for doing that beyond the general principle that one long rope is
usually better than a half-a-dozen short ones in most emergencies.

There was only one window, and that was perhaps two feet high, big
enough, that is, to scramble through, but practically inaccessible, and
barred. The only weapon I had was that infernal brass safety-pin that
had held the towel to my scalp, and I stuck that away in my clothes like
a magpie hiding things on general principles.

I began to wonder whether it would not be wisest after all to lie down
and sleep. But I was too hungry to sleep, and it was recognition of that
fact which produced the right idea.

Beyond doubt Yasmini realized that I was hungry. She had threatened me
with tortures, and wa