pointed with a brown finger, gleaming with whitest gems, to a
closed door. It was the entrance to the room specially devoted to
the superb collection of arms, the regained loot of Delhi, slyly
collected in the days of the mad sacking by the revengeful English
soldiery. A bottle of rum then bought a princely token.

It had been with a guilty, beating heart that Justine Delande abandoned
her fair, young charge to the morning ministrations of a bevy of
dark-skinned servants. However, the sturdy Genevese waiting-maid
who had accompanied them to India was at hand, when the spinster
incoherently murmured her all too voluble excuses for an early
morning visit to the European shops on the Chandnee Chouk, and then
fled away as if fearful of her own shadow. She was duly thankful
that no one had observed her entrance to the jewel shop, and the
refuge of the room, pointed out by the amiable Ram Lal, at once
reassured her. Justine was accorded a brief breathing spell by the
fates as the Major settled his plans.

It did not seem so very hard, this first fall from maidenly grace,
when Major Alan Hawke, entering the little armory chamber, politely
led the startled woman to a seat, with a graceful self-introduction.

"I should have recognized you any where, Mademoiselle Justine,"
deftly remarked the Major, "by your resemblance to your most charming
sister. You have, I hope, received some private letters from her,
with regard to my visit?" The Swiss gouverriante faltered forth
her affirmative answer, while secretly approving the enthusiastic
judgment of her distant sister upon this most admirable Crichton of
English Majors. "Then," said Hawke, alluringly, "we must be very good
friends, you and I, for we are alone together, among strangers, in