you also, for you shall be the mouth of your lord, so that you may tell
me what perhaps he would hide."

"I will tell you everything, everything, O Asika," answered Jeekie,
stretching out his hands and bowing almost to the ground.

Then they started and following many long passages as before, although
whether they were the same or others Alan could not tell, came at last
to a door which he recognized, that of the Treasure House. As they
approached this door it opened and through it, like a hunted thing, ran
the bedizened Mungana, husband of the Asika, terror, or madness, shining
in his eyes. Catching sight of his wife, who bore the lamp, he threw
himself upon his knees and snatching at her robe, addressed some
petition to her, speaking so rapidly that Alan could not follow his
words.

For a moment she listened, then dragged her dress from his hand and
spurned him with her foot. There was something so cruel in the gesture
and the action, so full of deadly hate and loathing, that Alan, who
witnessed it, experienced a new revulsion of feeling towards the
Asika. What kind of a woman must she be, he wondered, who could treat a
discarded lover thus in the presence of his successor?

With a groan or a sob, it was difficult to say which, the poor man rose
and perceived Alan, whose face he now beheld for the first time, since
the Asika had told him not to mask himself as they would meet no one.
The sight of it seemed to fill him with jealous fury; at any rate he
leapt at his rival, intending, apparently, to catch him by the throat.
Alan, who was watching him, stepped aside, so that he came into violet
contact with the wall of the passage and, half-stunned by the shock,