The casement opened upon a stone terrace flush with the city walls, and out of the green and white chaos of Shahjehanabad, or modern Delhi, rose the gilded bubbles of several domes. Beyond a dark green jungle area, the Jumna shone dully.
"India!" she exclaimed. "Moguls and howdahs and mosques!"
"India! Thugs, snakes and abominable hotels!" scoffed her brother from the adjoining room. "Here's the copy of the Pearl Scarf, if you care to see it."
As she turned, he stepped through the communicating doorway and extended a shallow box. When she lifted the cover a little gasp of astonishment left her lips. The cream-luster of pearls; red and blue gleams from paste diamonds!
"Why, they look genuine!" she cried; then shuddered. "There's a terrible fascination about jewels, Alan. They always have a story. Murder and pillage!"
"Grease and dirt usually, in India," he interpolated with a smile, taking the box. "But let's forget Chavigny and the round dozen Rajahs that are wailing over their stolen jewels. I promised Gerrish--he's an old friend--we'd dine with him this evening. Eight o'clock."
A few minutes later Dana unpacked her grips. Dear Alan! Her brother. After all those years. She wondered if it were not a dream, if presently she wouldn't wake up back at Bayou Latouche, or in Tante Lucie's court, down in New Orleans, with Tante Lucie talking of foreign lands....
Night settled over Delhi. From the River Jumna to the Ridge, and beyond, tiny lights blinked at the shadows, and like a huge spirit-eye in the dusk the moon looked down upon the domes and minarets of the old Mogul capital. At the clubs electric punkahs fanned the air, ice clinked in frosted glasses and home-sick young officers read news-sheets from Britain. The network of narrow, constricted highways between Burra Bazaar and the Delhi Gate steamed and stewed, and heat and stench crawled beneath dirty eaves and balconies. South of the modern city, on the dead plain of Firozabad, thornbush and acacia rustled mournfully and ruined ramparts yielded up their nightly squadron of bats.
In his residence beyond the Civil Lines, Colonel Sir Francis Duncraigie, Director of Central Intelligence, C. S. I., and probably one of the most important men in the empire, sat alone in his writing-room beneath a mildly whirring fan, and sweltered and swore.