"It is my will."

"Shabash! I bear a message, hazoor, from the Bell."

"You are the Mouthpiece of the Voice?"

"That honor is mine, hazoor. For the rest I am--"

"Behari Lal Chatterji," interrupted Rutton impatiently; "solicitor of
the Inner Temple--disbarred; anointed thief, liar, jackal, lickspittle,
and perjurer--I know you."

"My lord," said the man insolently, "omits from his catalogue of my
accomplishments my chiefest honour; he forgets that, with him, I am an
accepted Member of the Body."

"The Body wears strange members that employs you, babu," commented
Rutton bitterly. "It has fallen upon evil days when such as you are
charged with a message of the Bell."

"My lord is harsh to one who would be his slave in all things.
Fortunate indeed am I to own the protection of the Token." A slow leer
widened greasily upon his moon-like face.

"Ah, the Token!" Rutton repeated tensely, beneath his breath. "It is
true that you have the Token?" "Aye; it is even here, my lord." The
heavy brown hand returned to the spot it had sought soon after the
babu's entrance, within the folds of silk across his bosom, and groped
therein for an instant. "Even here," he iterated with a maddening