"My mistress will join you presently," announced Chandra Lal. "Be seated, Sahib, and you will be served with refreshments!"
Trent flung himself upon a divan pushed against the wall; silken cushions yielded to his weight and clung to him caressingly. Kerth dropped cross-legged at his feet.
Before Chandra Lal made his exit he drew the gold-hued draperies opposite where Trent reclined, drew bamboo blinds and disclosed a white arch that framed a portion of a garden. Stone steps sank into a courtyard where rustling shrubs wove shadows about a fountain; falling water played flute-notes on a tiled basin; stars scraped a white wall.
"She's no novice, this cobra," thought Trent. "Wonder if she's anything like her lair?"
"... wine," thought Kerth. "And we must drink it ... unless--yes, guile for guile."
Suddenly, from behind gold curtains, came the faint whispering of music. Trent smothered an insurgent desire to laugh. Incongruity, the essence of India! The music was made by a gramophone! Presently he recognized the tune--Tschaikowsky's "Serenade Melancholique"!
He glanced furtively at Kerth. The latter's face was expressionless, his slim hands toying with the tassel of a cushion. Trent sensed in his attitude the same wild desire to laugh that possessed him.
"Steady!" he mentally encouraged himself, fixing his gaze upon a piece of brassware close by--a _lota_ overlaid with copper and chased with mythological figures. "Hmm.... Half as old as India, I'll wager," ran his musings. "Siva--who the deuce is the other chap?"
Gold brocades parted and a turbaned servant glided out silently with a tray, which he placed on a pearl-inlaid table. Claret-hued wine glowed in twin beaten-brass goblets, rich as melted rubies. One he passed to Trent, the other to Kerth. Then he made a soundless departure.
Inwardly, Trent smiled. And drained his goblet. The gramophone ceased; only the music of the fountain stole to him, with a breath of fragrant shrubs that made the incense seem sensuous and heavy.
Again the brass _lota_ claimed his gaze; held it until he heard a sigh from Kerth and looked down to see the latter's eyelids droop, to see his eyes close and his chin sink into his white shawl.
"Damn!" he swore, almost inaudibly, and his hand sprang to Kerth's shoulder and gripped it none too gently. "Rawul Din!"