The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1917-08-24
KINC-%Me KIYBER RIFLES
II Romance %1HdIaufure
Rz TALBOT MUNDy

GO up" said Ismail, giving King
a shove and disappearing at once. One
side-step into blackness and he might
have been mile away.
So King went up, STOPPING to feel
each next footing with a cautious
hand. He was beginning to be sleepy,
and to suspect that Yasmini had taken
him to view the dawn with just that
end in view. Nothing can make tired
eyes so long for sleep as glimpse of
waking day Sleepy eyes are easiest
to trick.
1t was not many minutes before he
was sure his guess was right.
The opening at the head of the
stairs led into a tunnel. He followed
it with a hand on either wall and
reached another of Khinjan's strange
leather curtains. His face struck the
leather Unexpectedly, and at that in
slant, as if his touch were electric,
the curtain sprang aside and his eyes
We're dazzled by the light of diamonds.
1t was Aladdin's Cave, with her
acting spirit of the lamp! 1t needed
effort of self-control to know that the
huge, white, cut crystals that sparkled
all about the heWn cell could not be
diamonds. They were as big as his
head, and bigger-at least hundred
of them, and they multiplied the light
of half dozen little oil lamps until
the cave seemed the home of light.
Yasmini had not jewel on her.
She was in a new mood and new gar
ments to suit it. Her feet were still
bare. but she was robed from head to
heelin pure white linen, on which her
long hair shone as if it were truly
strands of gold. She received him
with an air of mystic calm, gracious
and dignifed as the high-priestess of
Grecian temple. She seemed devout-
to have forgotten that she ever killed
a man, or made a threat or plotted for
kingdom.
BE STILL she said raising finger.
"The old gods talk to us in here. 1t
is not for us to answer them in words,
but in deeds. Let us listen and do"
There were two cushions-great bill
lowy modern ones, covered in gold
brocade-on the floor in the midst OF
the cave. Between them was stand
of ivory, some two feet high, whose
top was disk, cut from the largest
tusk that ever could have been. On
the disk resting in little hollow In
the ivory, was q pure. perfect crystal
sphere OF foot diameter. He could
see his reelection in it, and Yasmini's,
too the moment he entered the cave,
and whichever way they moved both
images remained undistorted. He sus-
pected that the lighting and the crys-
tai rafectors had not been arranged
at random
In the corner of the four-square cave
there was a brazier of bronze, and
from each rose incense smoke, straight
upward The four streams Of smoke
met at the ceiling and converged into
cloud that hung almost motionless.
Yasmini stepped very reyerentlv to
a cushion by the crystal in the middle,
and signed to King to initiate her.
They stood facing. She seemed to
pray, for her eyes were hidden under
the long lashes. Then she knelt, and
King did the same, his knees sinking
deep into another cushion. So they
kne!t eye to eye above the crystal for
many minutes without either saying
word 1t was Yasmini who spoke
first.
"The old gods have showed me the
past many and many a time in this,
she said 1T is their way Of speaking
to me. Now, today, have prayed to
them to show me the future. Look!
Look, Athelstan! Do as l do-so."
There seemed nothing to be gained
by disobeying her To obey her
might be to win new insight into the
qualifications of her plans. Men who
have experience of the East are the
last to deny that there is method in