You'd better hide! I'll have to answer too many questions as it is. He'd
turn you outside in!"

"There is no hurry," said Yasmini. "He will not be here for five minutes
and he is a fool in any case. He is walking his horse up-hill."

Tess too had seen the beggar on the rock remove his ragged turban,
rewind it, and then leisurely remove himself from sight. The system
of signals was pretty obviously simple. The whole intriguing East is
simple, if one only has simplicity enough to understand it.

"Can your horse be seen from the road?" Yasmini asked.

"No, miss. The saises are attending to him under the neem-trees at
the rear."

"Then ask the memsahib's permission to pass through the house and
leave by the back way."

Tess, more amused than ever, nodded consent and clapped her hands
for Chamu to come and do the honors.

"I'll wait here," she said, "and welcome the commissioner."

"But you, Your Ladyship?" Tom Tripe scratched his head in evident
confusion. "I've got to account for you, you know."

"You haven't seen me. You have only seen a man named Gunga Singh."

"That's all very fine, missy, but the butler--that man Chamu--he knows