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22 is the One, the All-Knowing. Come with me, child," he went on, lifting a brown-striped curtain that shut off the zenana. "Sitt Kumar will help you—a little dancing-girl whom"—he coughed apologetically—"I recently encountered, and whose feet are just now very busy crushing my fat, foolish old heart. Wait here, O babu-jee!" he said to the babu, while he and the Englishman disappeared be hind the zenana curtain.

There was a moment's silence. Then a woman's light, tinkly laughter, a clacking of bracelets and anklets, a rapid swishing of linen and silk.

Again the woman's light laughter. Her words:

"Keep quiet, sahib, lest the walnut-dye enter thy eye!" And ten minutes later the zenana curtains were drawn aside to disclose once more the Afghan, arm in arm with a middle-aged, dignified Brahman priest, complete in every detail of outer sacerdotal craft, from the broidered skull-cap and the brilliant caste-mark on his forehead to the patent-leather pumps, the open-work white stockings, and the sacred volume bound in red Bokhara leather that he carried in his right hand.

"Nobody will recognize you," said Youssef.

"Good!" said the Brahman in Thorneycroft's