` Come away . The lamps are lit now , and none will mark thee in the bazar . We go to Huneefa 's house . ' On the way thither , Mahbub gave him much the same sort of advice as his mother gave to Lemuel , and curiously enough , Mahbub was exact to point out how Huneefa and her likes destroyed kings . ` And I remember , ' he quoted maliciously , ` one who said , `` Trust a snake before an harlot , and an harlot before a Pathan , Mahbub Ali . '' Now , excepting as to Pathans , of whom I am one , all that is true . Most true is it in the Great Game , for it is by means of women that all plans come to ruin and we lie out in the dawning with our throats cut . So it happened to such a one . ' He gave the reddest particulars . ` Then why -- ? ' Kim paused before a filthy staircase that climbed to the warm darkness of an upper chamber , in the ward that is behind Azim Ullah 's tobacco-shop . Those who know it call it The Birdcage -- it is so full of whisperings and whistlings and chirrupings . The room , with its dirty cushions and half-smoked hookahs , smelt abominably of stale tobacco . In one corner lay a huge and shapeless woman clad in greenish gauzes , and decked , brow , nose , ear , neck , wrist , arm , waist , and ankle with heavy native jewellery . When she turned it was like the clashing of copper pots . A lean cat in the balcony outside the window mewed hungrily . Kim checked , bewildered , at the door-curtain . ` Is that the new stuff , Mahbub ? ' said Huneefa lazily , scarce troubling to remove the mouthpiece from her lips . ' O Buktanoos ! '
-- like most of her kind , she swore by the Djinns -- ' O XXXXX !
Ali Birdcage Buktanoos Lemuel Mahbub Pathan Pathans clashing jewellery tobacco