Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
"Never mind the money now," Tess answered. "Dick's alive! When did you first know you'd found the treasure, Dick?" "Not until the day that Gungadhura found me closing up the fault, and asked me to dig at the other place. The princess told me I was on the trail of it that night that you went with her by camel; but I didn't know I'd found it till the day that Gungadhura came."
Almost as soon as the breathless girl could break that evil tidings there came another hammering, and this time Hasamurti went down to answer. Her news was worse. Gungadhura was at the outer gate demanding admission, and threatening to order the guard to break the gate in if refused. "What harm can he do?" demanded Tess. "He won't dare try any violence in front of me. Let us change clothes again."
"This house is yours?" she asked, and he nodded, his sharp eyes shining like an animal's, determined to recognize his questioner. "There is a miscalculating son of lies who brings a lawsuit to get the title?" He nodded again a man of few words except when words exacted interest. "Dhulap Singh, is it not? He is a secret agent of Gungadhura." "How do you know?
"What do you suggest?" he asked her. "Leave Sialpore?" "Yes, but with me! I know a safe place. She should come with me." "When?" "Tonight! Before dawn." "How?" "By camel. I had horses and Gungadhura took them all, but his brain was too sotted to think of camels, and I have camels waiting not many miles from here!
"What in the palace?" "In the grounds! There's a tunnel already half-dug, leading toward it from inside the palace wall. I've proof of the location in my pocket!" "Gad's teeth!" barked Willoughby de Wing. "All right, I'll have your escort in a jiffy. Have a whisky and soda, my boy, to stiffen you before the talk with Gungadhura!"
There's an old fort on one of them, garrisoned by a handful of British troops a constant source of heart-burn, I believe, to Gungadhura. He can see the top of the flag-staff from his palace roof; a predecessor of mine had the pole lengthened, I'm told.
The mendicant vowed that he heard the door slam and so he did; but it was really Gungadhura, done with argument, on his way to put threat into action. The mildest epithet he called Yasmini was "Widyadhara," which meant in his interpretation of the word that she was an evil spirit condemned to roam the earth because her sins were so awful that the other evil spirits simply could not tolerate her.
Gungadhura broke out at last. "You have missed a golden opportunity! But if you will hold your tongue absolutely you shall draw your pension in a month or two from now, with ten thousand rupees in gold into the bargain!" "Yes, Your Highness." But there are more differences than one between the ranks of East and West; more degrees than one of dissimulation.
The commissioner was known to have written more than one very secret report to Simla on the subject of the treasure, and on the political consequences that might follow on its discovery by natives of the country. The reports had been so secret and important that Gungadhura had thought it worth while to have the blotting paper from Samson's desk photographed in Paris by a special process.
"Let the watchmen who feared and hid themselves stay to give their own account to Gungadhura!" Yasmini sneered scornfully. "They are no longer men of mine!" "Now, where away?" demanded Dick, giving the horse his head. "To my house? You'll be safe there for the present." "No. They might trace us there."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking