RUNG HO!

A Novel

By Talbot Mundy

RUNG HO!

CHAPTER I

 Howrah City bows the knee More or less to masters three, King, and Prince, and Siva. Howrah City pays in pain Taxes which the royal twain Give to priests, to give again (More or less) to Siva. 

THAT was no time or place for any girl of twenty to be wanderingunprotected. Rosemary McClean knew it; the old woman, of the sweepercaste, that is no caste at all, --the hag with the flat breasts andwrinkled skin, who followed her dogwise, and was no more protectionthan a toothless dog, --knew it well, and growled about it in incessantundertones that met with neither comment nor response. 

"Leave a pearl of price to glisten on the street, yes!" she grumbled. "Perhaps none might notice it--perhaps! But her--here--at this time--"She would continue in a rumbling growl of half-prophetic catalogues ofevil--some that she had seen to happen, some that she imagined, and notany part of which was in the least improbable. 

As the girl passed through the stenching, many-hued bazaar, theroar would cease for a second and then rise again. Turbaned andpugreed--Mohammedan and Hindoo--men of all grades of color, language, and belief, but with only one theory on women, would stare first at thepony that she rode, then at her, and then at the ancient grandmother whotrotted in her wake. Low jests would greet the grandmother, and then thetrading and the gambling would resume, together with the under-thread ofrestlessness that was so evidently there and yet so hard to lay a fingeron. 

The sun beat down pitilessly--brass--like the din of cymbals. Beneaththe sun helmet that sat so squarely and straightforwardly on the tidychestnut curls, her face was pale. She smiled as she guided her ponyin and out amid the roaring throng, and carefully refused to see thescowls, her brave little shoulders seconded a pair of quiet, brave grayeyes in showing an unconquerable courage to the world, and her clean, neat cotton riding-habit gave the lie and the laugh in one to poverty;but, as the crowd had its atmosphere of secret murmuring, she hadanother of secret anxiety. 

Neither had fear. She did not believe in it. She was there to help herfather fight inhuman wrong, and die, if need be, in the last ditch. T a two-hundred-million crowd, held down and compelled by less than ahundred thousand aliens. And, least of all, had the man who followedher at a little distance the slightest sense of fear. He was far moreconversant with it than she, but--unlike her, and far more than theseething crowd--he knew the trend of events, and just what likelihoodthere was of insult or injury to Rosemary McClean being avenged in ageneration. 

He caused more comment than she, and of a different kind. His rose-pinkpugree, with the egret and the diamond brooch to hold the egret in itsplace--his jeweled sabre--his swaggering, almost ruffianly air--wereno more meant to escape attention than his charger that clattered andkicked among the crowd, or his following, who cleared a way for him withthe butt ends of their lances. He rode ahead, but every other minute amounted sepoy would reach out past him and drive his lance-end into theribs of some one in the way. 

There would follow much deep salaaming; more than one head would bowvery low indeed; and in many languages, by the names of many gods, hewould be cursed in undertones. Aloud, they would bless him and call him"Heaven-born!"

But he took no interest whatever in the crowd. His dark-brown eyes werefixed incessantly on Rosemary McClean's back. Whenever she turned acorner in the crowded maze of streets, he would spur on in a hurry untilshe was in sight again, and then his handsome, swarthy face would lightwith pleasure--wicked pleasure--self-assertive, certain, cruel. He wouldrein in again to let her draw once more ahead. 

Rosemary McClean knew quite well who was following her, and knew, too, that she could do nothing to prevent him. Once, as she passed a speciesof caravansary--low-roofed, divided into many lockable partitions, andpacked tight with babbling humanity--she caught sight of a pair of long, black thigh boots, silver-spurred, and of a polished scabbard that movedspasmodically, as though its owner were impatient. 

"Mahommed Gunga!" she muttered to herself. "I wonder whether hewould come to my assistance if I needed him. He fought once--or so hesays--for the British; he might be loyal still. I wonder what he isdoing here, and what--Oh, I wonder!"

She was very careful not to seem to look sideways, or seek acquaintancewith the wearer of the boots; had she done so, she would have gainednothing, for the moment that he caught sight of her through the openeddoor he drew back into a shadow, and swore lustily. What he said tohimself would have been little comfort to her. 

"By the breath of God!" he growled. "These preachers of new creeds arethe last straw, if one were wanting! They choose the one soft placewhere Mohammedan and Hindoo think alike, and smite! If I wanted to raisehell from end to end of Hind, I too would preach a new creed, and turngood-looking women loose to wander on the country-side!--Ah!" He drewback even further, as he spied the egret and the sabre and the stallioncavorting down the street--then thought better of it and strodeswaggering to the doorway, and stood, crimson-coated, in the sunlight, stroking upward insolently at his black, fierce-barbered beard. Therewas a row of medal ribbons on his left breast that bore out something atleast of his contention; he had been loyal to the British once, whetherhe was so now or not. 

The man on the charger eyed him sideways and passed on. Mahommed Gungawaited. One of the prince's followers rode close to him--leaned low fromthe saddle--and leered into his face. 

"Knowest not enough to salute thy betters?" he demanded. 

Mahommed Gunga made a movement with his right hand in the direction ofhis left hip--one that needed no explanation; the other legged hishorse away, and rode on, grinning nastily. To reassure himself of hissuperiority over everybody but his master, he spun his horse presentlyso that its rump struck against a tented stall, and upset tent andgoods. Then he spent two full minutes in outrageous execration of themen who struggled underneath the gaudy cloth, before cantering away, looking, feeling, riding like a fearless man again. Mahommed Gungasneered after him, and spat, and turned his back on the sunshine and thestreet. 

"I had a mind to teach that Hindoo who his betters are!" he growled. 

"Come in, risaldar-sahib!" said a voice persuasively. "By your ownshowing the hour is not yet--why spill blood before the hour?"

The Rajput swaggered to the dark door, spurs jingling, looking backacross his shoulder once or twice, as though he half-regretted leavingthe Hindoo horseman's head upon his shoulders. 

"Come in, sahib, " advised the voice again. "They be many. We are few. And, who knows--our roads may lie together yet. "

Mahommed Gunga kicked his scabbard clear, and strode through the door. The shadows inside and the hum of voices swallowed him as though he werea big, red, black-legged devil reassimilated in the brewing broth oftrouble; but his voice boomed deep and loud after he had disappearedfrom view. 

"When their road and my road lie together, we will travel all feetforemost!" he asserted. 

Ten turnings further away by that time, Rosemary McClean pressed onthrough the hot, dinning swarm of humanity, missing no opportunity toslip her pony through an opening, but trying, too, to seem unaware thatshe was followed. She chose narrow, winding ways, where the awningsalmost met above the middle of the street, and where a cavalcade ofhorsemen would not be likely to follow her--only to hear a roar behindher, as the prince's escort started slashing at the awnings with theirswords. 

There was a rush and a din of shouting beside her and ahead, as thefrightened merchants scurried to pull down their awnings beforethe ruthless horse-men could ride down on them; the narrow streettransformed itself almost on the instant into a undraped, cleared defilebetween two walls. And after that she kept to the broader streets, wherethere was room in the middle for a troop to follow, four abreast, shouldit choose. She had no mind to seek her own safety at the expense of menwhose souls her father was laboring so hard to save. 

She got no credit, though, for consideration--only blame for what theswordsmen had already done. One man--a Maharati trader--half-naked, his black hair coiled into a shaggy rope and twisted up above hisneck--followed her, side-tracking through the mazy byways of thebewildering mart, and coming out ahead of her--or lurking beside balesof merchandise and waiting his opportunity to leap from shadow intoshadow unobserved. 

He followed her until she reached the open, where a double row of treeson each side marked the edge of a big square, large enough for thedrilling of an army. Along one side of the square there ran thehigh brick wall, topped with a kind of battlement, that guarded theMaharajah's palace grounds from the eyes of men. 

Just as she turned, just as she was starting to canter her pony besidethe long wall, he leaped out at her and seized her reins. The old womanscreamed, and ran to the wall and cowered there. 

Very likely the man only meant to frighten her and heap insults on her, for in '56, though wrath ran deep and strong, men waited. There was tobe sudden, swift whelming when the time came, not intermittent outrage. But he had no time to do more than rein her pony back onto its haunches. 

There came a clatter of scurrying hoofs behind, and from a whirl ofdust, topped by a rose-pink pugree, a steel blade swooped down on herand him. A surge of brown and pink and cream, and a dozen rainbow tintsflashed past her; a long boot brushed her saddle on the off side. Therewas a sickening sound, as something hard swished and whicked home;her pony reeled from the shock of a horse's shoulder, and--none toogently--none too modestly--the prince with the egret and the handsomeface reined in on his horse's haunches and saluted her. 

There was blood, becoming dull-brown in the dust between them. He shookhis sabre, and the blood dripped from it then he held it outstretched, and a horseman wiped it, before he returned it with a clang. 

"The sahiba's servant!" he said magnificently, making no motion to lether pass, but twisting with his sword-hand at his waxed mustache andsmiling darkly. 

She looked down between them at the thing that but a minute since hadlived, and loved perhaps as well as hated. 

"Shame on you, Jaimihr-sahib!" she said, shuddering. A year ago shewould have fallen from her pony in a swoon, but one year of Howrah andits daily horrors had so hardened her that she could look and loathewithout the saving grace of losing consciousness. 

"The shame would have been easier to realize, had I taken more thanone stroke!" he answered irritably, still blocking the way on his greathorse, still twisting at his mustache point, still looking down at herthrough eyes that blazed a dozen accumulated centuries' store of lawlessambition. He was proud of that back-handed swipe of his that wouldcleave a man each time at one blow from shoulder-joint to ribs, severingthe backbone. A woman of his own race would have been singing songs inpraise of him and his skill in swordsman-ship already; but no woman ofhis own race would have looked him in the eye like that and dared him, nor have done what she did next. She leaned over and swished his chargerwith her little whip, and slipped past him. 

He swore, deep and fiercely, as he spurred and wheeled, and canteredafter her. His great stallion could overhaul her pony in a minute, goingstride for stride; the wall was more than two miles long with no breakin it other than locked gates; there was no hurry. He watched herthrough half-closed, glowering, appraising eyes as he cantered in herwake, admiring the frail, slight figure in the gray cotton habit, andbridling his desire to make her--seize her reins, and halt, and makeher--admit him master of the situation. 

As he reached her stirrup, she reined in and faced him, after a hurriedglance that told her her duenna had failed her. The old woman wasinvisible. 

"Will you leave that body to lie there in the dust and sun?" she askedindignantly. 

"I am no vulture, or jackal, or hyena, sahiba!" he smiled. "I do not eatcarrion!" He seemed to think that that was a very good retort, for heshowed his wonderful white teeth until his handsome face was the epitomeof self-satisfied amusement. His horse blocked the way again, and allretreat was cut off, for his escort were behind her, and three of themhad ridden to the right, outside the row of trees, to cut off possibleescape in that direction. "Was it not well that I was near, sahiba?Would it have been better to die at the hands of a Maharati of nocaste--?"

"Than to see blood spilt--than to be beholden to a murderer? Infinitelybetter! There was no need to kill that man--I could have quieted him. Let me pass, please, Jaimihr-sahib!"

He reined aside; but if she thought that cold scorn or hot anger wouldeither of them quell his ardor, she had things reversed. The less shebehaved as a native woman would have done--the more she flouted him--themore enthusiastic he became. 

"Sahiba!"--he trotted beside her, his great horse keeping up easily withher pony's canter--"I have told you oftener than once that I make a goodfriend and a bad enemy!"

"And I have answered oftener than once that I do not need yourfriendship, and am not afraid of you! You forget that the BritishGovernment will hold your royal brother liable for my safety and myfather's!"

"You, too, overlook certain things, sahiba. " He spoke evenly, with alittle space between each word. With the dark look that accompanied it, with the blood barely dry yet on the dusty road behind, his speechwas not calculated to reassure a slip of a girl, gray-eyed or not, stiff-chinned or not, borne up or not by Scots enthusiasm for a cause. "This is a native state. My brother rules. The British--"

"Are near enough, and strong enough, to strike and to bring you and yourbrother to your knees if you harm a British woman!" she retorted. "Youforget--when the British Government gives leave to missionaries to gointo a native state, it backs them up with a strong arm!"

"You build too much on the British and my brother, sahiba!Listen--Howrah is as strong as I am, and no stronger. Had he beenstronger, he would have slain me long ago. The British are--" He checkedhimself and trotted beside her in silence for a minute. She affectedcomplete indifference; it was as though she had not heard him; if shecould not be rid of him, she at least knew how to show him his utterunimportance in her estimation. 

"Have you heard, sahiba, of the Howrah treasure? Of the rubies? Of thepearls? Of the emeralds? Of the bars of gold? It is foolishness, ofcourse; we who are modern-minded see the crime of hoarding all thatwealth, and adding to it, for twenty generations. Have you heard of it, sahiba?"

"Yes!" she answered savagely, swishing at his charger again to make himkeep his distance. "You have told me of it twice. You have told me thatyou know where it is, and you have offered to show it to me. You havetold me that you and your brother Maharajah Howrah and the priestsof Siva are the only men who know where it is, and you lust for thattreasure! I can see you lust! You think that I lust too, and you make agreat mistake Jaimihr-sahib! You see, I remember what you have told me. Now, go away and remember what I tell you. I care for you and for yourtreasure exactly that!" She hit his charger with all her might, andat the sting of the little whip he shied clear of the road before theRajah's brother could rein him in. 

Again her effort to destroy his admiration for her had directly theopposite effect. He swore, and he swore vengeance; but he swore, too, that there was no woman in the East so worth a prince's while as thisone, who dared flout him with her riding-whip before his men!

"Sahiba!" he said, sidling close to her again, and bowing in the saddlein mock cavalier humility. "The time will come when your governmentand my brother, who--at present--is Maharajah Howrah--will be of littleservice to you. Then, perhaps, you may care to recall my promise to loadall the jewels you can choose out of the treasure-house on you. Then, perhaps, you may, remember that I said 'a throne is better than a grave, sahiba. ' Or else--"

"Or else what, Jaimihr-sahib?" She reined again and wheeled about andfaced him--pale-trembling a little--looking very small and frail besidehim on his great war-horse, but not flinching under his gaze for asingle second. 

"Or else, sahiba--I think you saw me slay the Maharati? Do you thinkthat I would stop at anything to accomplish what I had set out to do?See, sahiba--there is a little blood there on your jacket! Let that befor a pledge between us--for a sign--or a token of my oath that on theday I am Maharajah Howrah, you are Maharanee--mistress of all the jewelsin the treasure-house!"

She shuddered. She did not look to find the blood; she took his word forthat, if for nothing else. 

"I wonder you dare tell me that you plot against your brother!" That wasmore a spoken thought than a statement or a question. 

"I would be very glad if you would warn my brother!" he answered her;and she knew like a flash, and on the instant, that what he said wastrue. She had been warned before she came to bear no tales to any one. No Oriental would believe the tale, coming from her; the Maharajah wouldarrest her promptly, glad of the excuse to vent his hatred of Christianmissionaries. Jaimihr would attempt a rescue; it was common knowledgethat he plotted for the throne. There would be instant civil war, in which the British Government would perforce back up the allegedprotector of a defenseless woman. There would be a new Maharajah; then, in a little while, and in all likelihood, she would have disappearedforever while the war raged. There would be, no doubt, a circumstantialstory of her death from natural causes. 

She did not answer. She stared back at him, and he smiled down at her, twisting at his mustache. 

"Think!" he said, nodding. "A throne, sahiba, is considerably betterthan a grave!" Then he wheeled like a sudden dust-devil and decampedin a cloud of dust, followed at full pelt by his clattering escort. Shewatched their horses leap one after the other the corpse of the Maharatithat lay by the corner where it fell, and she saw the last of them goclattering, whirling up the street through the bazaar. The old hag roseout of a shadow and trotted after her again as she turned and rode on, pale-faced and crying now a little, to the little begged school placewhere her father tried to din the alphabet into a dozen low-castefosterlings. 

"Father!" she cried, and she all but fell out of the saddle into hisarms as the tall, lean Scotsman came to the door to meet her and stoodblinking in the sunlight. "Father, I've seen another man killed! I'vehad another scene with Jaimihr! I can't endure it! I--I--Oh, why did Iever come?"

"I don't know, dear, " he answered. "But you would come, wouldn't you?"

CHAPTER II

 'Twixt loot and law--'tween creed and caste-- Through slough this people wallows, To where we choose our road at last. I choose the RIGHT! Who follows?

HEMMED in amid the stifling stench and babel of the caravansary, secluded by the very denseness of the many-minded swarm, five otherRajputs and Mahommed Gunga--all six, according to their turbans, followers of Islam--discussed matters that appeared to bring them littlesatisfaction. 

They sat together in a dark, low-ceilinged room; its open door--it wasfar too hot to close anything that admitted air--gave straight onto thestreet, and the one big window opened on a courtyard, where a pair ofgame-cocks fought in and out between the restless legs of horses, whilea yelling horde betted on them. On a heap of grass fodder in a cornerof the yard an all-but-naked expert in inharmony thumped a skin tom-tomwith his knuckles, while at his feet the own-blood brother to thescreech-owls wailed of hell's torments on a wind instrument. 

Din--glamour--stink--incessant movement--interblended poverty and richesrubbing shoulders--noisy self-interest side by side with introspectiverevery, where stray priests nodded in among the traders, --many-peopledIndia surged in miniature between the four hot walls and through thepassage to the overflowing street; changeable and unexplainable, inever-moving flux, but more conservative in spite of it than the veryrocks she rests on--India who is sister to Aholibah and mother of allfascination. 

In that room with the long window, low-growled, the one thin thread ofclear-sighted unselfishness was reeling out to very slight approval. Mahommed Gunga paced the floor and kicked his toes against the walls, as he turned at either end, until his spurs jingled, and looked withblazing dark-brown eyes from one man to the other. 

"What good ever came of listening to priests?" he asked. "All priestsare alike--ours, and theirs, and padre-sahibs! They all preach peace andgoad the lust that breeds war and massacre! Does a priest serve any buthimself? Since when? There will come this rising that the priests speakof--yes! Of a truth, there will, for the priests will see to it! Thereis a padre-sahib here in Howrah now for the Hindoo priests to whet theirhate on. You saw the woman ride past here a half-hour gone? There is apile of tinder ready here, and any fool of a priest can make a spark!There will be a rising, and a big one!"

"There will! Of a truth, there will!" Alwa, his cousin, crossed one legabove the other with a clink of spurs and scabbard. He had no objectionto betraying interest, but declined for the present to betray his hand. 

"There will be a blood-letting that will do no harm to us Rajputs!"said another man, whose eyes gleamed from the darkest corner; he, too, clanked his scabbard as though the sound were an obbligato to histhoughts. "Sit still and say nothing is my advice; we will be all readyto help ourselves when the hour comes!"

"It is this way, " said Mahommed Gunga, standing straddle-legged to faceall five of them, with his back to the window. He stroked hisblack beard upward with one hand and fingered with the other at hissabre-hilt. "Without aid when the hour does come, the English willbe smashed--worn down--starved out--surrounded--stampedout--annihilated--so!" He stamped with his heel descriptively on thehard earth floor. "And then, what?"

"Then, the plunder!" said Alwa, showing a double row of wonderful whiteteeth. The other four grinned like his reflections. "Ay, there will beplunder--for the priests! And we Rajputs will have new masters over us!Now, as things are, we have honorable men. They are fools, for anyman is a fool who will not see and understand the signs. But they arehonest. They ride straight! They look us straight between the eyes, andspeak truth, and fear nobody! Will the Hindoo priests, who will ruleIndia afterward, be thus? Nay! Here is one sword for the British whenthe hour comes!"

"I have yet to see a Hindoo priest rule me or plunder me!" said Alwawith a grin. 

"You will live to see it!" said Mahommed Gunga. "Truly, you will live tosee it, unless you throw your weight into the other scale! What are weRajputs without a leader whom we all trust? What have we ever been?"He swung on his heels suddenly--angrily--and began to pace the flooragain--then stopped. 

"Divided, and again subdivided--one-fifth Mohammedan and four-fifthsHindoo--clan within clan, and each against the other. Do we ownRajputana? Nay! Do we rule it? Nay! What were we until Cunnigan-bahadurcame?"

"Ah!" All five men rose with a clank in honor to the memory of that man. "Cunnigan-bahadur! Show us such another man as he was, and I and mineride at his back!" said Alwa. "Not all the English are like Cunnigan!A Cunnigan could have five thousand men the minute that he asked forthem!"

"Am I a wizard?--Can I cast spells and bring dead men's spirits fromthe dead again? I know of no man to take his place, " said Mahommed Gungasadly. 

He was the poorest of them, but they were all, comparatively speaking, poor men; for the long peace had told its tale on a race of men who arefirst gentlemen, then soldiers, and last--least of all--and only as alast resource, landed proprietors. The British, for whom they had oftenfought because that way honor seemed to lie, had impoverishedthem afterward by passing and enforcing zemindary laws that liftednine-tenths of the burden from the necks of starving tenants. The newlaw was just, as the Rajputs grudgingly admitted, but it pinched theirpockets sadly; like the old-time English squires, they would give theirbest blood and their last rack-rent-wrung rupee for the cause thatthey believed in, but they resented interference with the rack-rents!Mahommed Gunga had had influence enough with these five landlordrelations of his to persuade them to come and meet him in Howrah City todiscuss matters; the mere fact that he had thought it worth his whileto leave his own little holding in the north had satisfied them that hewould be well worth listening to--for no man rode six hundred miles onan empty errand. But they needed something more than words before theypledged the word that no Rajput gentleman will ever break. 

"Find us a Cunnigan--bring him to us--prove him to us--and if a bladeworth having from end to end of Rajputana is not at his service, Imyself will gut the Hindoo owner of it! That is my given word!" saidAlwa. 

"He had a son, " said Mahommed Gunga quietly. 

"True. Are all sons like their fathers? Take Maharajah Howrah here; hisfather was a man with whom any soldier might be proud to pick a quarrel. The present man is afraid of his own shadow on the wall--divided betweenlove for the treasure-chests he dare not broach and fear of a brotherwhom he dare not kill. He is priest-ridden, priest-taught, and fit to benothing but a priest. Who knows how young Cunnigan will shape? Where ishe? Overseas yet! He must prove himself, as his father did, before hecan hope to lead a free regiment of horse!"

"Then Cunnigan-bahadur's watch-word 'For the peace of India, ' isdead-died with him?" asked Mahommed Gunga. "We are each for our ownagain?"

"I have spoken!" answered Alwa. As the biggest clan-chief left on allthat countryside, he had a right to speak before the others, and heknew that what he said would carry weight when they had all ridden homeagain, and the report had gone abroad in ever-widening rings. "If theEnglish can hold India, let them! I will not fight against them, forthey are honest men for all their madness. If they cannot, then I am forRajputana, not India--India may burn or rot or burst to pieces, so longas Rajputana stands! But--" He paused a moment, and looked at each manin turn, and tapped his sabre-hilt, "--if a Cunnigan-bahadur were amongus--a man whom I could trust to lead me and mine and every man--I wouldlend him my sword for the sheer honor of helping him hack truth out ofcorruption! I have nothing more to say!"

"One word more, cousin!" said Mahommed Gunga. "I was risaldar inCunnigan-bahadur's regiment of horse. There was more than merediscipline between us. I ate his salt. Once--when he might have savedhimself the trouble without any daring to reproach him--he risked hisown life, and a troop, and his reputation to save a woman of my familyfrom capture, and something worse. There was never a Rajput or any othernative woman wronged while he was with us. "

"Well?"

"I am no friend of Christian priests--of padres. But--"

"She who rode by just now? What, then?"

"I ride northward now, and then very likely South again. I can donothing in the matter, yet--were he in my shoes, and she a native womanat the mercy of the troops--Cunnigan-bahadur would have assigned a guardfor her. "

"Ho! So I am thy sepoy?" sneered Alwa, standing sideways--lookingsideways--and throwing out his chest. "I am to do thy bidding, guardingstray padres" (he spoke the word as though it were a bad taste he wasspitting from his mouth), "and herding women without purdah, while thouridest on assignations Allah knows where? Since when?"

"I have yet to refuse to guard thy back, or thy good name, Alwa!"Mahommed Gunga eyed him straight, and thrust his hilt out. "The woman isnothing to me--the padre-sahib less. It is because of the debt I owe toCunnigan that I ask this favor. "

"Oh. It is granted! Should she appeal to me, I will rip Howrah intorags and burn this city to protect her if need be! She must first ask, though, even as thou didst. "

Mahommed Gunga saluted him, bolt-upright as a lance, and without theslightest change in his expression. 

"The word is sufficient, cousin!"

Alwa returned his salute, and raised his voice in a gruff command. Asaice outside the window woke as though struck by a stick--sprang to hisfeet--and passed the order on. A dozen horses clattered in the courtyardand filed through the arched passage to the street, and Alwa mounted. The others, each with his escort, followed suit, and a moment later, with no further notice of one another, but with as much pomp and noiseas though they owned the whole of India, the five rode off, each on hisseparate way, through the scattering crowd. 

Then Mahommed Gunga called for his own horse and the lone armed man ofhis own race who acted squire to him. 

"Did any overhear our talk?" he asked. 

"No, sahib. "

"Not the saice, even?"

"No, sahib. He slept. "

"He awoke most suddenly, and at not much noise. "

"For that reason I know he slept, sahib. Had he been pretending, hewould have wakened slowly. "

"Thou art no idiot!" said Mahommed Gunga. "Wait here until I return, andlie a few lies if any ask thee why we six came together, and of what wespoke!"

Then he mounted and rode off slowly, picking his way through the throngmuch more cautiously and considerately than his relatives had done, though not, apparently, because he loved the crowd. He used somesingularly biting insults to help clear the way, and frowned as thoughevery other man he looked at were either an assassin or--what a goodMohammedan considers worse--an infidel. He reached the long brick wallat last--broke into a canter--scattered the pariah dogs that were nosingand quarreling about the corpse of the Maharati, and drew rein fifteenminutes later by the door of the tiny school place that Miss McClean hadentered. 

CHAPTER III

For service truly rendered, and for duty dumbly done--For men whoneither tremble nor forget--There is due reward, my henchman. There ishonor to be won. There is watch and ward and sterner duty yet. 

No sound came, from within the schoolhouse. The little building, coaxedfrom a grudging Maharajah, seemed to strain for light and air betweentwo overlapping, high-walled brick warehouses. Before the door, in aspot where the scorching sun-rays came but fitfully between a mesh offast-decaying thatch, the old hag who had followed Rosemary McClean laysnoozing, muttering to herself, and blinking every now and then as astreet dog blinks at the passers-by. She took no notice of MahommedGunga until he swore at her. 

"Miss-sahib hai?" he growled; and the woman jumped up in a hurry andwent inside. A moment later Rosemary McClean stood framed in the doorwaystill in her cotton riding-habit, very pale--evidently frightened atthe summons--but strangely, almost ethereally, beautiful. Her wealth ofchestnut hair was loosely coiled above her neck, as though she had beencaught in the act of dressing it. She looked like the wan, wasted spiritof human pity--he like a great, grim war-god. 

"Salaam, Miss Maklin-sahib!"

He dismounted as he spoke and stood at attention, then staredtruculently, too inherently chivalrous to deny her civility--he wouldhave cut his throat as soon as address her from horseback while shestood--and too contemptuous of her father's calling to be more civilthan he deemed in keeping with his honor. 

"Salaam, Mohammed Gunga!" She seemed very much relieved, althoughdoubtful yet. "Not letters again?"

"No, Miss-sahib. I am no mail-carrier! I brought those letters as afavor to Franklin-sahib at Peshawur; I was coming hither, and he hadno man to send. I will take letters, since I am now going, if there areletters ready; I ride to-night. "

"Thank you, Mahommed Gunga. I have letters for England. They are not yetsealed. May I send them to you before you start?"

"I will send my man for them. Also, Miss Maklin-sahib" (heavens!how much cleaner and better that sounded than the prince's ironical"sahiba"!)

"If you wish it, I will escort you to Peshawur, or to any city betweenhere and there. "

"But--but why?"

"I saw Jaimihr. I know Jaimihr. "

"And--"

"And--this is no place for a padre, or for the daughter of a padre. "

What he said was true, but it was also insolent, said insolently. 

"Mahommed Gunga-sahib, what are those ribbons on your breast?" she askedhim. 

He glanced down at them, and his expression changed a trifle; it wasscarcely perceptible, but underneath his fierce mustache the muscles ofhis mouth stiffened. 

"They are medal ribbons--for campaigns, " he answered. 

"Three-four-five! Then, you were a soldier a long time? Did you--did youdesert your post when there was danger?"

He flushed, and raised his hand as though about to speak. 

"Or did people insult you when you chose to remain on duty?"

"Miss-sahib, I have not insulted you!" said Mahommed Gunga. "I came herefor another purpose. "

"You came, very kindly, to ask whether there were letters. Thank you, Mahommed Gunga-sahib, for your courtesy. There are letters, and I willgive them to your man, if you will be good enough to send him for them. "

He still stood there, staring at her with eyes that did not blink. Hewas too much of a soldier to admit himself at a loss what to say, yethe had no intention of leaving Howrah without saying it, for that, too, would have been unsoldierly. 

"The reason why your countrymen have found men of this land before nowto fight for them--one reason, at least--" he said gruffly, "is thathitherto they have not meddled with our religions. It is not safe! Itwould be better to come away, Miss-sahib. "

"Would you like to say that to my father? He is--"

"Allah forbid that I should argue with him! I spoke to you, on youraccount!"

"You forget, I think, " she answered him gently, "that we had permissionfrom the British Government to come here; it has not been withdrawn. Weare doing no harm here--trying only to do good. There is always dangerwhen--"

"I would speak of that, " he interrupted--"You will not come away?"

She shook her head. 

"Your father could remain. "

She shook her head again. "I stay with him, " she answered. 

"At present, Jaimihr is the danger, Miss-sahib; but I think that atpresent he will dare do nothing. The Maharajah dare do nothing either, yet. Should either of them make a move to interfere with you, it wouldnot be safe to appeal to the other one. You will not understand, butit is so. In that event, there is a way to safety of which I would warnyou. "

"Thank you, Mahommed Gunga. What is it?"

"There are men more than a day's ride away from here who are to bedepended on--by you, at least--under all circumstances. Is that oldwoman to be trusted?"

"How should I know?" she smiled. "I believe she is fond of me. "

"That should be enough. I would like, if the Miss-sahib will permit, tospeak with her. "

At a word from Miss McClean the old hag came out into the sun again andblinked at the Rajput, very much afraid of him. Mahommed Gunga salutedMiss McClean--swore at the old woman--pointed a wordless order with hisright arm--watched her shuffle half a hundred yards up-street--followedher, and growled at her for about five minutes, while she nodded. Finally, he drew from the pocket of his crimson coat a small handfulof gold mohurs--fat, dignified coins that glittered--and held them outtoward her with an air as though they meant nothing to him--positivelynothing--Her eyes gleamed. He let her take a good look at the moneybefore replacing it, then tossed her a silver quarter-rupee piece, saluted Miss McClean again--for she was watching the pantomime from thedoorway still--and mounted and rode off, his back looking like the backof one who has neither care nor fear nor master. 

At the caravansary his squire came running out to hold his stirrup. 

"Picket the horse in the yard, " said Mahommed Gunga, "then find meanother servant and bring him to me in the room here!"

"Another servant? But, sahib--"

"I said another servant! Has deafness overcome thee?" He used a word inthe dialect which left no room for doubt as to his meaning; it was tobe a different servant--a substitute for the squire he had already. Thesquire bowed his head in disciplined obedience and led the horse away. 

An hour later--evening was drawing on--he came back, followed by asomewhat ruffianly-looking half-breed Rajput-Punjaubi. The new man wasrather ragged and lacked one eye, but with the single eye he had helooked straight at his prospective master. Mahommed Gunga glared at him, but the man did not quail or shrink. 

"This fellow wishes honorable service, sahib. " The squire spoke asthough he were calling his master's attention to a horse that was forsale. "I have seen his family; I have inquired about him; and I haveexplained to him that unless he serves at thee faithfully his wife andhis man child will die at my hands in his absence. "

"Can he groom a horse?"

"So he says, sahib, and so say others. "

"Can he fight?"

"He slew the man with his bare hands who pricked his eye out with asword. "

"Oh! What payment does he ask?"

"He leaves that matter to your honor's pleasure. "

"Good. Instruct him, then. Set him to cleaning my horse and then returnhere. "

The squire was back again within five minutes and stood before MahommedGunga in silent expectation. 

"I shall miss thee, " said Mahommed Gunga after five minutes' reflection. "It is well that I have other servants in the north. "

"In what have I offended, sahib?"

"In nothing. Therefore there is a trust imposed. "

The man salaamed. Mahommed Gunga produced his little handful of goldmohurs and divided it into two equal portions; one he handed to thesquire. 

"Stay here. Be always either in the caravansary or else at call. Shouldthe old woman who serves Miss Maklin-sahib, the padre-sahib's daughtercome and ask thy aid, then saddle swiftly the three horses I will leavewith thee, and bear Miss Maklin-sahib and her father to my cousin Alwa'splace. Present two of the gold mohurs to the hag, should that happen. "

"But sahib--two mohurs? I could buy ten such hags outright for theprice!"

"She has my word in the matter! It is best to have her eager to wingreat reward. The hag will stay awake, but see to it that thou sleepestnot!"

"And for how long must I stay here, sahib?"

"One month--six months--a year--who knows? Until the hag summons thee, or I, by writing or by word of mouth, relieve thee of thy trust. "

At sunset he sent the squire to Miss McClean for the letters he hadpromised to deliver; and at one hour after sunset, when the heat of theearth had begun to rise and throw back a hot blast to the darkened skyand the little eddies of luke-warm surface wind made movement for horseand man less like a fight with scorching death, he rode off, with hisnew servant, on the two horses left to him of the five with which hecame. 

A six-hundred-mile ride without spare horses, in the heat of northernIndia, was an undertaking to have made any strong man flinch. Thestronger the man, and the more soldierly, the better able he would be torealize the effort it would call for. But Mahommed Gunga rode as thoughhe were starting on a visit to a near-by friend; he was not givento crossing bridges before he reached them, nor to letting prospectsinfluence his peace of mind. He was a soldier. He took precautionsfirst, when and where such were possible, then rode and looked fate inthe eye. 

He appeared to take no more notice of the glowering looks thatfollowed him from stuffy balconies and dense-packed corners than of themosquitoes to and the heat. Without hurry he picked his way throughthe thronged streets, where already men lay in thousands to escape thebreathlessness of walled interiors; the gutters seemed like trencheswhere the dead of a devastated city had been laid; the murmur was likethe voice of storm-winds gathering, and the little lights along thehousetops were for the vent-holes on the lid of a tormented underworld. 

But he rode on at his ease. Ahead of him lay that which he consideredduty. He could feel the long-kept peace of India disintegrating allaround him, and he knew--he was certain--as sometimes a brave man cansee what cleverer men all overlook--that the right touch by the rightman at the right moment, when the last taut-held thread should break, would very likely swing the balance in favor of peace again, instead ofindividual self seeking anarchy. 

He knew what "Cunnigan-bahadur" would have done. He swore byCunnigan-bahadur. And the memory of that same dead, desperately honestCunningham he swore that no personal profit or convenience or safetyshould be allowed to stand between him and what was honorable and right!Mahommed Gunga had no secrets from himself; nor lack of imagination. Heknew that he was riding--not to preserve the peace of India, for thatwas as good as gone--but to make possible the winning back of it. And herode with a smile on his thin lips, as the crusaders once rode on a lessself-advertising errand. 

CHAPTER IV

 "You have failed!" whispered Fate, and a weary civilian Threw up his task as a matter of course. "Failed?" said the soldier. He knew a million Chances untackled yet. "Get me a horse!"

THAT was a strange ride of Mahommed Gunga's, and a fateful one--morefull of portent for the British Raj in India than he, or the British, or the men amid whose homes he rode could ever have anticipated. Heaveraged a little less than twenty miles a day, and through an Indianhot-weather, and with no spare horse, none but a born horseman--a manof light weight and absolute control of temper--could have accomplishedthat for thirty days on end. 

Wherever he rode there was the same unrest. Here and there were newcomplaints he had not yet heard of, imaginary some of them, and someonly too well founded. Wherever there were Rajputs--and that race offighting men is scattered all about the north--there was ill-suppressedimpatience for the bursting of the wrath to come. They bore no grudgeagainst the English, but they did bear more than grudge against themoney-lenders and the fat, litigious traders who had fattened underBritish rule. At least at the beginning it was evident that all theinterest of all the Rajputs lay in letting the British get the worstof it; even should the British suddenly wake up and look about them andtake steps--or should the British hold their own with native aid, andso save India from anarchy, and afterward reward the men who helped--theRajputs would stand to gain less individually, or even collectively, than if they let the English be driven to the sea, and then reverted tothe age-old state of feudal lawlessness that once had made them rich. 

Many of the Hindoo element among them were almost openly disloyal. Theryots--the little one and two acre farmers--were the least unsettled;they, when he asked them--and he asked often--disclaimed the leastdesire to change a rule that gave them safe holdings and but onetax-collection a year; they were frankly for their individualselves--not even for one another, for the ryots as a class. 

Nobody seemed to be for India, except Mahommed Gunga; and he saidlittle, but asked ever-repeated questions as he rode. There were men whowould like to weld Rajputana into one again, and over-ride the restof India; and there were other men who planned to do the same for thePunjaub; there were plots within plots, not many of which he learned inanything like detail, but none of which were more than skin-deep belowthe surface. All men looked to the sudden, swift, easy whelming of theBritish Raj, and then to the plundering of India; each man expected tobe rich when the whelming came, and each man waited with ill-controlledimpatience for the priests' word that would let loose thehundred-million flood of anarchy. 

"And one man--one real man whom they trusted--one leader--one man whohad one thousand at his back--could change the whole face of things!"he muttered to himself. "Would God there we a Cunnigan! But there is noCunnigan. And who would follow me? They would pull my beard, tell me Iwas scheming for my own ends!--I, who was taught by Cunnigan, and wouldserve only India!"

He would ride before dawn and when the evening breeze had come to coolthe hot earth a little through the blazing afternoons he would lie inthe place of honor by some open window, where he could watch a hirelingflick the flies off his lean, road-hardened horse, and listen tothe plotting and the carried tales of plots, pretending always to besympathetic or else open to conviction. 

"A soldier? Hah! A soldier fights for the side that can best rewardhim!" he would grin. "And, when there is no side, perhaps he makes one!I am a soldier!"

If they pressed him, he would point to his medal ribbons, that he alwayswore. "The British gave me those for fighting against the northerntribes beyond the Himalayas, " he would tell them. "The southerntribes--Bengalis of the south and east--would give better picking thanmere medal ribbons!"

They were not all sure of him. They were not all satisfied why heshould ride on to Peshawur, and decline to stay with them and talk goodsedition. 

"I would see how the British are!" he told them. And he told the truth. But they were not quite satisfied; he would have made a splendid leaderto have kept among them, until he--too--became too powerful and wouldhave to be deposed in turn. 

His own holding was a long way from Peshawur, and he was no rich manwho could afford at a mere whim to ride two long days' march beyond hisgoal. Nor was he, as he had explained to Miss McClean, a letter-carrier;he would get no more than the merest thanks for delivering her lettersto where they could be included in the Government mail-bag. Yet heleft the road that would have led him homeward to his left, and carriedon--quickening his pace as he neared the frontier garrison town, andwasting, then, no time at all on seeking information. Nobody supposedthat the Pathans and the other frontier tribes were anything but openlyrebellious, and he would have been an idiot to ask questions about theirloyalty. 

Because of their disloyalty, and the ever-present danger that theywere, the biggest British garrison in India had to be kept cooped upin Peshawur, to rot with fever and ague and the other ninety Indianplagues. 

He wanted to see that garrison again, and estimate it, and make up hismind what exactly, or probably, the garrison would do in the event ofthe rebellion blazing out. And he wanted to try once more to warn someone in authority, and make him see the smouldering fire beneath theouter covering of sullen silence. 

He received thanks for the letters. He received an invitation to taketea on the veranda of an officer so high in the British servicethat many a staff major would have given a month's pay for a likeopportunity. But he was laughed at for the advice he had to give. 

"Mahommed Gunga, you're like me, you're getting old!" said the highofficial. 

"Not so very old, sahib. I was a young man when Cunnigan-bahadur raiseda regiment and licked the half of Rajputana into shape with it. Not tooold, sahib, to wish there were another Cunnigan to ride with!"

"Well, Mahommed Gunga, you're closer to your wish than you suppose!Young Cunningham's gazetted, and probably just about starting on his wayout here via the Cape of Good Hope. He should be here in three or fourmonths at the outside. "

"You mean that, sahib?"

"Wish I didn't! The puppy will arrive here with altogether swollennotions of his own importance and what is due his father's son. He'sbeen captain of his college at home, and that won't lessen his sense ofself-esteem either. I can foresee trouble with that boy!"

"Sahib, there is a service I could render!"

The Rajput spoke with a strangely constrained voice all of a sudden, but the Commissioner did not notice it; he was too busy pulling on awool-lined jacket to ward off the evening chill. 

"Well, risaldar--what then?"

"I think that I could teach the son of Cunnigan-bahadur to be worth hissalt. "

"If you'll teach him to be properly respectful to his betters I'll begrateful to you, Mahommed Gunga. "

"Then, sahib, I shall have certain license allowed me in the matter?"

"Do anything you like, in reason, risaldar! Only keep the pup fromcutting his eye-teeth on his seniors' convenience, that's all!"

Mahommed Gunga wasted no time after that on talking, nor did he wait tospecify the nature of the latitude he would expect to be allowed him; heknew better. And he knew now that the one chance that he sought had beengiven him. 

Like all observant natives, he was perfectly aware that the Britishweakness mostly lay in the age of the senior officers and the slownessof promotion. There were majors of over fifty years of age, and if aman were a general at seventy he was considered fortunate and young. Thejealousy with which younger men were regarded would have been humoroushad it not come already so near to plunging India into anarchy. 

He did not even trouble to overlook the garrison. He took his leave, and rode away the long two-day ride to his own place, where a sadlyattenuated rent-roll and a very sadly thinned-down company of servantswaited his coming. There, through fourteen hurried, excited days, hemade certain arrangements about the disposition of his affairs duringan even longer absence; he made certain sales--pledged the rent of fiftyacres for ten years, in return for an advance--and on the fifteenth dayrode southward, at the head of a five-man escort that, for quality, wasworthy of a prince. 

A little less than three months later he arrived at Bombay, and by dintof much hard bargaining and economy fitted out himself and his escort, so that each man looked as though he were the owner of an escort of hisown. Then, fretful at every added day that strained his fast-diminishingresources, he settled down to wait until the ship should come thatbrought young Cunningham. 

CHAPTER V

 Lies home beneath a sickly sun, Where humbleness was taught me? Or here, where spurs my father won On bended knee are brought me?

HE landed, together with about a dozen other newly gazetted subalternsand civil officers, cramped, storm-tossed, snubbed, and then disgorgedfrom a sailing-ship into a port that made no secret of its absolutecontempt for new arrivals. 

There were liners of a kind on the Red Sea route, and the only seniorswho chose the long passage round the Cape were men returning aftersick-leave--none too sweet-tempered individuals, and none too proneto give the young idea a good conceit of himself. He and the otheryoungsters landed with a crushed-in notion that India would treatthem very cavalierly before she took them to herself. And all, saveCunningham, were right. 

The other men, all homesick and lonely and bewildered, were met bybankers' agents, or, in cases, only by a hotel servant armed with aletter of instructions. Here and there a bored, tired-eyed European hadfound time, for somebody-or-other's sake, to pounce on a new arrivaland bear him away to breakfast and a tawdry imitation of the realhospitality of northern India; but for the most part the beardless boyslounged in the red-hot customs shed (where they were to be mulcted forthe privilege of serving their country) and envied young Cunningham. 

He--as pale as they, as unexpectant as they were of anything approachingwelcome--was first amazed, then suspicious, then pleased, then proud, inturn. The different emotions followed one another across his clean-linedface as plainly as a dawn vista changes; then, as the dawn leaves alandscape finally, true and what it is for all to see, true dignity wasleft and the look of a man who stands in armor. 

"His father's son!" growled Mahommed Gunga; and the big, black-beardedwarriors who stood behind him echoed, "Ay!"

But for four or five inches of straight stature, and a foot, perhaps, of chest-girth, he was a second edition of the Cunnigan-bahadur who hadraised and led a regiment and licked peace into a warring countryside;and though he was that much bigger than his father had been, they dubbedhim "Chota" Cunnigan on the instant. And that means "Little Cunningham. "

He had yet to learn that a Rajput, be he poorest of the poor, admits nosuperior on earth. He did not know yet that these men had come, at oneman's private cost, all down the length of India to meet him. Nobody hadtold him that the feudal spirit dies harder in northern Hindustan thanit ever did in England, or that the Rajput clans cohere more tightlythan the Scots. The Rajput belief that honest service--unselfishlygiven--is the greatest gift that any man may bring--that one who hasreceived what he considers favors will serve the giver's son--was anunknown creed to him as yet. 

But he stood and looked those six men in the eye, and liked them. Andthey, before they had as much as heard him speak, knew him for a soldierand loved him as he stood. 

They hung sickly scented garlands round his neck, and kissed his handin turn, and spoke to him thereafter as man to man. They had found theirgoal worth while, and they bore him off to his hotel in clattering glee, riding before him as men who have no doubt of the honor that theypay themselves. No other of the homesick subalterns drove away with asix-man escort to clear the way and scatter sparks!

They careered round through the narrow gate of the hotel courtyard asthough a Viceroy at least were in the trap behind them; and MahommedGunga--six medaled, strapping feet of him--dismounted and held out anarm for him to take when he alighted. The hotel people understood atonce that Somebody from Somewhere had arrived. 

Young Cunningham had never yet been somebody. The men who give theirlives for India are nothing much at home, and their sons are even less. Scarcely even at school, when they had made him captain of the team, hadhe felt the feel of homage and the subtle flattery that undermines abad man's character; at schools in England they confer honors but takesimultaneous precautions. He was green to the dangerous influence offeudal loyalty, but he quitted himself well, with reserve and dignity. 

"He is good! He will do!" swore Mahommed Gunga fiercely, for the otheremotions are meant for women only. 

"He is better than the best!"

"We will make a man of this one!"

"Did you mark how he handed me his purse to defray expenses?" asked ablack-bearded soldier of the five. 

"He is a man who knows by instinct!" said Mahommed Gunga. "See to itthat thy accounting is correct, and overpay no man!"

Deep-throated as a bull, erect as a lance, and pleased as a littlechild, Mahommed Gunga came to him alone that evening to talk, and tohear him talk, and to tell him of the plans that had been made. 

"Thy father gave me this, " he told him, producing a gold watch andchain of the hundred-guinea kind that nowadays are only found amongthe heirlooms. Young Cunningham looked at it, and recognized the heavyold-gold case that he had been allowed to "blow open" when a little boy. On the outside, deep-chiseled in the gold, was his father's crest, andon the inside a portrait of his mother. 

"Thy father died in these two arms, bahadur! Thy father said: 'Lookafter him, Mahommed Gunga, when the time is ripe for him to be asoldier. ' And I said: 'Ha, huzoor!' So! Then here is India!"

He waved one hand grandiloquently, as though he were presenting thethrone of India to his protegé!

"Here, sahib, is a servant--blood of my own blood. "

He clapped his hands, and a man who looked like the big, black-endedspirit of Aladdin's lamp stood silent, instant, in the doorway. 

"He speaks no English, but he may help to teach thee the Rajput tongue, and he will serve thee well--on my honor. His throat shall answer forit! Feed him and clothe him, sahib, but pay him very little--to servewell is sufficient recompense. "

Young Cunningham gave his keys at once to the silent servant, as a tacitsign that from that moment he was trusted utterly; and Mahommed Gunganodded grim approval. 

"Thy father saw fit to bequeath me much in the hour when death came onhim, sahib. I am no boaster, as he knew. Remember, then, to tell me if Ifail at any time in what is due. I am at thy service!"

Tact was inborn in Cunningham, as it had been in his father. He realizedthat he ought at once to show his appreciation of the high plane of theservice offered. 

"There is one way in which you could help me almost at once, MahommedGunga, " he answered. 

"Command me, sahib. "

"I need your advice--the advice of a man who really knows. I needhorses, and--at first at least--I would rather trust your judgment thanmy own. Will you help me buy them?"

The Raiput's eyes blazed pleasure. On war, and wine, and women, and ahorse are the four points to ask a man's advice and win his approval bythe asking. 

"Nay, sahib; why buy horses here? These Bombay traders have only crows'meat to sell to the ill-advised. I have horses, and spare horses forthe journey; and in Rajputana I have horses waiting for thee--seven, all told--sufficient for a young officer. Six of them arecountry-bred-sand-weaned--a little wild perhaps, but strong, and up tothy weight. The seventh is a mare, got by thy father's stallion AgaKhan (him that made more than a hundred miles within a day under afifteen-stone burden, with neither food nor water, and survived!). Agood mare, sahib--indeed a mare of mares--fit for thy father's son. Thatmare I give thee. It is little, sahib, but my best; I am a poor man. Theother six I bought--there is the account. I bought them cheaply, payingless than half the price demanded in each case--but I had to borrow andmust pay back. "

Young Cunningham was hard put to it to keep his voice steady as heanswered. This man was a stranger to him. He had a hazy recollectionof a dozen or more bearded giants who formed a moving background to hisdreams of infancy, and he had expected some sort of welcome from one ortwo perhaps, of his father's men when he reached the north. But to havemen borrow money that they might serve him, and have horses ready forhim, and to be met like this at the gate of India by a man who admittedhe was poor, was a little more than his self-control had been trained asyet to stand. 

"I won't waste words, Mahommed Gunga, " he said, half-choking. "I'll--er--I'll try to prove how I feel about it. "

"Ha! How said I? Thy father's son, I said! He, too, was no believer inmuch promising! I was his servant, and will serve him still by servingthee. The honor is mine, sahib, and the advantage shall be where thyfather wished it. "

"My father would never have had me--"

"Sahib, forgive the interruption, but a mistake is better checked. Thyfather would have flung thee ungrudged, into a hell of bayonets, me, too, and would have followed after, if by so doing he could have servedthe cause he held in trust. He bred thee, fed thee, and sent theeoversea to grow, that in the end India might gain! Thou and I arebut servants of the peace, as he was. If I serve thee, and thou theRaj--though the two of us were weaned on the milk of war and get ourbread by war--we will none the less serve peace! Aie! For what is honorif a soldier lets it rust? Of what use is service, mouthed and ready, but ungiven? It is good, Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur, that thou art come atlast!"

He saluted and backed out through the swinging door. He had come in hisuniform of risaldar of the elder Cunningham's now disbanded regiment, so he had not removed his boots as another native--and he himself ifin mufti--would have done. Young Cunningham heard him go swaggering andclanking and spur-jingling down the corridor as though he had half atroop of horse behind him and wanted Asia to know it!

It was something of a brave beginning that, for a twenty-one-year-old!Something likely--and expressly calculated by Mahommed Gunga--to bringthe real man to the surface. He had been no Cunningham unless his senseof duty had been very near the surface--no Englishman, had he not beenproud that men of a foreign, conquered race should think him worthy ofall that honor; and no man at all if his eye had been quite dry whenthe veteran light-horseman swaggered out at last and left him to his ownreflections. 

He had not been human if he had not felt a little homesick still, although home to him had been a place where a man stayed with distantrelatives between the intervals of school. He felt lonely, in spite ofhis reception--a little like a baby on the edge of all things new andwonderful. He would have been no European if he had not felt the heat, the hotel was like a vapor-bath. 

But the leaping red blood of youth ran strong in him. He hadimagination. He could dream. The good things he was tasting were apresage only of the better things to come, and that is a wholesome pointof view. He was proud--as who would not be?--to step straight into thetracks of such a father; and with that thought came another--just asgood for him, and for India, that made him feel as though he were arobber yet, a thief in another's cornfield, gathering what he did notsow. It came over him in a flood that he must pay the price of all thishomage. 

Some men pay in advance, some at the time, and some pay afterward. All men, he knew, must pay. It would be his task soon to satisfy thesegentle-men, who took him at his face value, by proving to them thatthey had made no very great mistake. The thought thrilled him insteadof frightening--brought out every generous instinct that he had and madehim thank the God of All Good Soldiers that at least he would have achance to die in the attempt. There was nothing much the matter withyoung Cunningham. 

CHAPTER VI

 I take no man at rumor's price, Nor as the gossips cry him. A son may ride, and stride, and stand; His father's eye--his father's hand-- His father's tongue may give command; But ere I trust I'll try him!

BUT before young Cunningham was called upon to pay even a portion of theprice of fealty there was more of the receiving of it still in storefor him, and he found himself very hard put to it, indeed, to keepoverboiling spirits from becoming exultation of the type that nauseates. 

None of the other subalterns had influence, nor had they hereditaryanchors in the far northwest that would be likely to draw them on toactive service early in their career. They had already been made tosurrender their boyhood dreams of quick promotion; now, standing inlittle groups and asking hesitating questions, they discovered thattheir destination--Fort William--was about the least desirable of allthe awful holes in India. 

They were told that a subaltern was lucky who could mount one step ofthe promotion ladder in his first ten years; that a major at fifty, acolonel at sixty, and a general at seventy were quite the usual thing. And they realized that the pay they would receive would be a merebeggar's pittance in a neighborhood so expensive as Calcutta, and thattheir little private means would be eaten up by the mere, necessitiesof life. They showed their chagrin and it was not very easy for youngCunningham, watching Mahommed Gunga's lordly preparations for the longup-country journey, to strike just the right attitude of pleasure at theprospect without seeming to flaunt his better fortune. 

Mahommed Gunga interlarded his hoarse orders to the mule-drivers withdescriptions in stateliest English, thrown out at random to the world atlarge, of the glories of the manlier north--of the plains, where a manmight gallop while a horse could last, and of the mountains up beyondthe plains. He sniffed at the fetid Bombay reek, and spoke of the cleanair sweeping from the snow-topped Himalayas, that put life and courageinto the lungs of men who rode like centaurs! And the other subalternslooked wistful, eying the bullock-carts that would take their baggage byanother route. 

Fully the half of what Mahommed Gunga said was due to pride of raceand country. But the rest was all deliberately calculated to rouse thewicked envy of those who listened. He meant to make the son of "Pukka"Cunnigan feel, before he reached his heritage, that he was going up tosomething worth his while. To quote his own north-country metaphor, hemeant to "make the colt come up the bit. " He meant that "Chota" Cunniganshould have a proper sense of his own importance, and should chafe atrestraint, to the end that when his chance did come to prove himself hewould jump at it. Envy, he calculated--the unrighteous envy of men lessfortunately placed--would make a good beginning. And it did, thoughhardly in the way he calculated. 

Young Cunningham, tight-lipped to keep himself from grinning like achild, determined to prove himself worthy of the better fortune; andMahommed Gunga would have cursed into his black beard in disgust hadhe known of the private resolutions being formed to obey orders to theletter and obtain the good will of his seniors. The one thing that thegrim old Rajput wished for his protege was jealousy! He wanted him sowell hated by the "nabobs" who had grown crusty and incompetent in highcommand that life for him in any northern garrison would be impossible. 

Throughout the two months' journey to the north Mahommed Gunga neverleft a stone unturned to make Cunningham believe himself much more thanordinary clay. All along the trunk road, that trails by many thousandtowns and listens to a hundred languages, whatever good there was wasCunningham's. Whichever room was best in each dak-bungalow, whicheverchicken the kansamah least desired to kill, whoever were the stoutestdhoolee-bearers in the village, whichever horse had the easiestpaces--all were Cunningham's. Respect were his, and homage andobeisance, for the Rajput saw to it. 

Of evenings, while they rested, but before the sun went down, the oldrisaldar would come with his naked sabre and defy "Chota" Cunnigan totry to touch him. For five long weeks he tried each evening, the Rajputnever doing anything but parry, --changing his sabre often to the otherhand and grinning at the schoolboy swordsmanship--until one evening, atthe end of a more than usually hard-fought bout, the youngster prickedhim, lunged, and missed slitting his jugular by the merest fraction ofan inch. 

"Ho!" laughed Mahommed Gunga later, as he sluiced out the cut while hisown adherents stood near by and chaffed him. "The cub cuts his teeth, then! Soon it will be time to try his pluck. "

"Be gentle with him, risaldar-sahib; a good cub dies as easily as a poorone, until he knows the way. "

"Leave him to me! I will show him the way, and we will see what we willsee. If he is to disgrace his father's memory and us, he shall do itwhere there are few to see and none to talk of it. When Alwa and theothers ask me, as they will ask, 'Is he a man?' I will give them a trueanswer! I think he is a man, but I need to test him in all ways possiblebefore I pledge my word on it. "

But after that little accident the old risaldar had sword-sticksfashioned at a village near the road, and ran no more risks of beingkilled by the stripling he would teach; and before many more days ofthe road had ribboned out, young Cunningham--bareback or from thesaddle--could beat him to the ground, and could hold his own on footafterward with either hand. 

"The hand and eye are good!" said Mahommed Gunga. "It is time now foranother test. "

So he made a plausible excuse about the horses, and they halted for fourdays at a roadside dak-bungalow about a mile from where a foul-mouthedfakir sat and took tribute at a crossroads. It was a strangely chosenplace to rest at. 

Deep down in a hollow, where the trunk road took advantage of a windinggorge between the hills--screened on nearly all sides by greenjungle whose brown edges wilted in the heat which the inner steamdefied--stuffy, smelly, comfortless, it stood like a last leftrear-guard of a white-man's city, swamped by the deathless, ceaselesslyadvancing tide of green. It was tucked between mammoth trees thathad been left there when the space for it was cleared a hundredyears before, and that now stood like grim giant guardians with armsout-stretched to hold the verdure back. 

The little tribe of camp-followers chased at least a dozen snakes outof corners, and slew them in the open, as a preliminary to furtherinvestigation. There were kas-kas mats on the foursquare floors, andeach of these, when lifted, disclosed a swarm of scorpions that had tobe exterminated before a man dared move his possessions in. The oncewhite calico ceilings moved suggestively where rats and snakes chasedone another, or else hunted some third species of vermin; and there wasa smell and a many-voiced weird whispering that hinted at corruption andwar to the death behind skirting boards and underneath the floor. 

It had evidently not been occupied for many years; the kansamah lookedlike a gray-bearded skeleton compressed within a tightened shroud ofparchment skin that shone where a coffin or a tomb had touched it. Heseemed to have forgotten what the bungalow was for, or that a sahibneeded things to eat, until the ex-risaldar enlightened him, and then hecomplained wheezily. 

The stables--rather the patch-and-hole-covered desolation that once hadbeen stables--were altogether too snake-defiled and smelly to be worthrepairing; the string of horses was quartered cleanly and snugly undertents, and Mahommed Gunga went to enormous trouble in arranging a ringof watch-fires at even distances. 

"Are there thieves here, then?" asked Cunningham, and the Rajput noddedbut said nothing. He seemed satisfied, though, that the man he hadbrought safely thus far at so much trouble would be well enough housedin the creaky wreck of the bungalow, and he took no precautions of anykind as to guarding its approaches. 

Cunningham watched the preparations for his supper with ill-concealeddisgust--saw the customary chase of a rubber-muscled chicken, heard itsdeath gurgles, saw the guts removed, to make sure that the kansamah didnot cook it with that part of its anatomy intact, as he surely would dounless watched--and then strolled ahead a little way along the road. 

The fakir was squatting in the distance, on a big white stone, and inthe quiet of the gloaming Cunningham could hear his coarse, lewd voicetossing crumbs of abuse and mockery to the seven or eight villagerswho squatted near him--half-amused, half-frightened, and altogethercredulous. 

Even as he drew nearer Cunningham could not understand a word of whatthe fakir said, but the pantomime was obvious. His was the voice andthe manner of the professional beggar who has no more need to whinebut still would ingratiate. It was the bullying, brazen swagger andthe voice that traffics in filth and impudence instead of wit; and, inpayment for his evening bellyful he was pouring out abuse of Cunninghamthat grew viler and yet viler as Cunningham came nearer and the fakirrealized that his subject could not understand a word of it. 

The villagers looked leery and eyed Cunningham sideways at each freshsally. The fakir grew bolder, until one of his listeners smotheredan open laugh in both hands and rolled over sideways. Cunningham camecloser yet, half-enamoured of the weird scene, half-curious to discoverwhat the stone could be on which the fakir sat. 

The fakir grew nervous. Perhaps, after all, this was one of thosehatefully clever sahibs who know enough to pretend they do not know!The abuse and vile innuendo changed to more obsequious, less obviouslyfilthy references to other things than Cunningham's religion, likes, and pedigree, and the little crowd of men who had tacitly encouraged himbefore got ready now to stand at a distance and take sides against himshould the white man turn out to have understood. 

But Cunningham happened to catch sight of a cloud of paroquets thatswept in a screaming ellipse for a better branch to nest in and addedthe one touch of gorgeous color needed to make the whole scene utterlyunearthly and unlike anything he had ever dreamed of, or had seen inpictures, or had had described to him. He stood at gaze--forgetful ofthe stone that had attracted him and of the fakir--spellbound by thewonder-blend of hues branch-backed, and framed in gloom as the birds'scream was framed in silence. 

And, seeing him at gaze, the fakir recovered confidence and jeered newribaldry, until some one suddenly shot out from behind Cunningham, andbefore he had recovered from his surprise he saw the fakir sprawling onhis back, howling for mercy, while Mahommed Gunga beat the blood out ofhim with a whalebone riding-whip. 

The sun went down with Indian suddenness and shut off the sceneof upraised lash and squirming, naked, ash-smeared devil, as amagic-lantern picture; disappears. Only the creature's screamsreverberated through the jungle, like a belated echo to the restlessparoquets. 

"He will sleep less easily for a week or two!" hazarded Mahommed Gunga, stepping back toward Cunningham. In the sudden darkness the whitebreeches showed and the whites of his eyes, but little else; his voicegrowled like a rumble from the underworld. 

"Why did you do it, risaldar? What did he say?"

"It was enough, bahadur, that he sat on that stone; for that alonehe had been beaten! What he said was but the babbling of priests. Allpriests are alike. They have a common jargon--a common disrespect forwhat they dare not openly defy. These temple rats of fakirs mimic them. That is all, sahib. A whipping meets the case. "

"But the stone? Why shouldn't he sit on it?"

"Wait one minute, sahib, and then see. " He formed his hands into atrumpet and bellowed through them in a high-pitched, nasal, ululatingorder to somebody behind:

"Oh-h-h--Battee-lao!"

The black, dark roadside echoed it and a dot of light leapt up as a mancame running with what gradually grew into a lamp. 

Mahommed Gunga seized the lamp, bent for a few seconds over the stillsprawling fakir, whipped him again twice, cursed him and kicked him, until he got up and ran like a spectre for the gloom beyond the trees. Then, with a rather stately sweep of the lamp, and a tremble in hisvoice that was probably intentional--designed to make Cunningham atleast aware of the existence of emotion before he looked--he let thelight fall on the slab on which the fakir had been squatting. 

"Look, Cunningham-sahib!"

The youngster bent down above the slab and tried, in the fitful light, to make out what the markings were that ran almost from side to side, incurves, across the stone; but it was too dark--the light was too fitful;the marks themselves were too faint from the constant squatting ofroadside wanderers. 

Mahommed Gunga set the lamp down on the stone, and he and the attendanttook little sticks, sharp-pointed, with which they began to dighurriedly, scratching and scraping at what presently showed, even inthat rising and falling light, as Roman lettering. Soon Cunninghamhimself began to lend a hand. He made out a date first, and he couldfeel it with his fingers before his eyes deciphered it. Gradually, letter by letter--word by word--he read it off, feeling a strange newthrill run through him, as each line followed, like a voice from thehaunted past. 

 A. D. 1823. A. D. SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF GENERAL ROBERT FRANCIS CUNNINGHAM WHO DIED ON THIS SPOT AETAT 81 FROM WOUNDS INFLICTED BY A TIGER

There was no sound audible except the purring of the lamp flame andthe heavy breathing of the three as Cunningham gazed down at the verycrudely carved, stained, often-desecrated slab below which lay the firstof the Anglo-Indian Cunninghams. 

This man--these crumbled bones that lay under a forgotten piece ofrock--had made all of their share of history. They had begotten "Pukka"Cunningham, who had hacked the name deeper yet in the crisscrossedannals of a land of war. It was strange--it was queer--uncanny--for thethird of the Cunninghams to be sitting on the stone. It was unexpected, yet it seemed to have a place in the scheme of things, for he caughthimself searching his memory backward. 

He received an impression that something was expected of him. He knew, by instinct and reasoning he could not have explained, that neitherMahommed Gunga nor the other men would say a word until he spoke. Theywere waiting--he knew they were--for a word, or a sign, or an order(he did not know which), on which would hang the future of all three ofthem. 

Yet there was no hurry--no earthly hurry. He felt sure of it. Inthe silence and the blackness--in the tense, steamy atmosphere ofexpectancy--he felt perfectly at ease, although he knew, too, that therewas superstition to be reckoned with--and that is something which awhite man finds hard to weigh and cope with, as a rule. 

The sweat ran down his face in little streams a the prickly heat beganto move across his skin, like a fiery-footed centiped beneath hisundershirt, but he noticed, neither. He began to be unconscious anythingexcept the knowledge that the bones of his grandsire lay underneathhim and that Mahommed Gunga waited for the word that would fit into thescheme and solve a problem. 

"Are there any tigers here now?" he asked presently, in a perfectlynormal voice. He spoke as he had done when his servant asked him whichsuit he would wear. 

"Ha, sahib! Many. "

"Man-eaters, by any chance?"

Mahommed Gunga and the other man exchanged quick glances, but Cunninghamdid not look up. He did not see the quick-flashed whites as their eyesmet and looked down again. 

"There is one, sahib--so say the kansamah and the head man--a full-growntiger, in his prime. "

"I will shoot him. " Four words, said quietly--not "Do you think, " or "Iwould like to, " or "Perhaps. " They were perfectly definite and without atrace of excitement; yet this man had never seen a tiger. 

"Very good, sahib. " That, too, was spoken in a level voice, but MahommedGunga's eyes and the other man's met once again above his head. 

"We will stay here four days; by the third day there will be time enoughto have brought an elephant and--"

"I will go on foot, " said Cunningham, quite quietly. "Tomorrow, at dawn, risaldar-sahib. Will you be good enough to make arrangements? All weneed to know is where he is and how to get there--will you attend tothat?"

"Ha, sahib. "

"Thanks. I wonder if my supper's ready. "

He turned and walked away, with a little salute-like movement of hishand that was reminiscent of his father. The two Rajputs watched himin heavy-breathing silence until the little group of lights, where thehorse-tents faced the old dak-bungalow, swallowed him. Then:

"He is good. He will do!" said the black-beard who had brought the lamp. 

"He is good. But many sahibs would have acted coolly, thus. There mustbe a greater test. There must be no doubt--no littlest doubt. Alwa andthe others will ask me on my honor, and I will answer on my honor, yesor no. "

It was an hour before the two of them returned, and looked the horsesover and strolled up to bid Cunningham good night; and in the meanwhilethey had seen about the morrow's tiger, and another matter. 

CHAPTER VII

 What found ye, then? Why heated ye the pot? What useful metal down the channels ran? Gold? Steel for making weapons? Iron? What? Nay. Out from the fire we kindled strode a man!

THEY set the legs of Cunningham's string-woven bed into pans of water, to keep the scorpions and ants and snakes at bay, and then left him inpitch darkness to his own devices, with a parting admonition to keep hisslippers on for the floor, in the dark, would be the prowling-place ofvenomed death. 

It was he who set the lamp on the little table by his bedside, for hisservant--for the first time on that journey--was not at hand to executehis thoughts almost before he had spoken them. Mahommed Gunga hadexplained that the man was sick; and that seemed strange, for he hadbeen well enough, and more than usually efficient, but an hour before. 

But there were stranger things and far more irritating ones to interferewith the peaceful passage of the night. There were sounds that wereunaccountable; there was the memory of the wayside tombstone and thetrain of thought that it engendered. Added to the hell-hot, bakingstuffiness that radiated from the walls, there came the squeaking of apunka rope pulled out of time--the piece of piping in the mud-brick wallthrough which the rope passed had become clogged and rusted, and thevillager pressed into service had forgotten how to pull; he jerked atthe cord between nods as the heat of the veranda and the unaccustomednight duty combined to make him sleepy. 

Soon the squeaking became intolerable, and Cunningham swore at him--inEnglish, because he spoke little of any native language yet, and had notthe least idea in any case what the punka-wallah's tongue might be. For a while after that the pulling was more even; he lay on one elbow, letting the swinging mat fan just miss his ear, and examining his rifleand pistols for lack of anything better to keep him from going mad. Then, suddenly, the pulling ceased altogether. Silence and hell heatshut down on him like a coffin lid. Even the lamp flame close beside himseemed to grow dim; the weight of black night that was suffocating himseemed to crush light out of the flame as well. 

No living mortal could endure that, he imagined. He swore aloud, butthere was no answer, so he got up, after crashing his rifle-butt downon the floor to scare away anything that crawled. For a moment he stood, undecided whether to take the lamp or rifle with him--then decided onthe rifle, for the lamp might blow out in some unexpected night gust, whereas if he left it where it was it would go on burning and show himthe way back to bed again. Besides, he was too unaccustomed to the joyof owning the last new thing in sporting rifles to hesitate for longabout what to keep within his grasp. 

Through the open door he could see nothing but pitch-blackness, unpunctuated even by a single star. There were no lights where the tentsstood, so he judged that even the accustomed natives had found the addedheat of Mahommed Gunga's watch-fires intolerable and had raked themout; but from where he imagined that the village must be came thedum-tu-dum-tu-dum of tom-toms, like fever blood pulsating in the veinsof devils of the night. 

The punka-wallah slept. He could just make out the man's blurredshape--a shadow in the shadows--dog-curled, with the punkah rope loopedround his foot. He kicked him gently, and the man stirred, butfell asleep again. He kicked him harder. The man sat up and stared, terrified; the whites of his eyes were distinctly visible. He seemed tohave forgotten why he was there, and to imagine that he saw a ghost. 

Cunningham spoke to him--he first words that came into his head. 

"Go on pulling, " he said in English, quite kindly. 

But if he had loosed his rifle off, the effect could not have been moreinstantaneous. Clutching his twisted rag of a turban in one hand, and kicking his leg free, he ran for it--leaped the veranda rail, andvanished--a night shadow, swallowed by its mother night. 

"Come back!" called Cunningham. "Iderao! I won't hurt you!"

But there was no answer, save the tom-toms' thunder, swelling now intoa devil's chorus-coming nearer. It seemed to be coming from the forest, but he reasoned that it could not be; it must be some village marriagefeast, or perhaps an orgy; he had paid out what would seem to thevillagers a lot of money, and it might be that they were celebrating theoccasion. It was strange, though, that he could see no lights where thevillage ought to be. 

For a moment he had a half-formed intention to shout for MahommedGunga; but he checked that, reasoning that the Rajput might think hewas afraid. Then his eye caught sight of something blacker thanthe shadows--something long and thin and creepy that moved, and heremembered that bed, where the pans of water would protect him, was theonly safe place. 

So he returned into the hot, black silence where the tiny lamp-flameguttered and threw shadows. He wondered why it guttered. It seemed tobe actually short of air. There were four rooms, he remembered, to thebungalow, all connected and each opening outward by a door that facedone of the four sides; he wondered whether the outer doors were openedto admit a draught, and started to investigate. 

Two of them were shut tight, and he could not kick them open; thedried-out teak and the heavy iron bolts held as though they had beenbuilt to resist a siege; the noise that he made as he rattled at themfrightened a swarm of unseen things--unguessed-at shapes--that scurriedaway. He thought he could see beady little eyes that looked anddisappeared and circled round and stopped to look again. He could hearcreepy movements in the stillness. It seemed better to leave those doorsalone. 

One other door, which faced that of his own room, was open wide, and hecould feel the forest through it; there was nothing to be seen, but thestillness moved. The velvet blackness was deeper by a shade, and theheat, uprising to get even with the sky, bore up a stench with it. Therewas no draught, no movement except upward. Earth was panting-in time, itseemed, to the hellish thunder of the tom-toms. 

He went back and lay on the bed again, leaning the rifle against thecot-frame, and trying by sheer will-power to prevent the blood frombursting his veins. He realized before long that he was parched withthirst, and reached out for the water-jar that stood beside the lamp;but as he started to drink he realized that a crawling evil was swimminground and round in rings in the water. In a fit of horror he threw thething away and smashed it into a dozen fragments in a corner. He saw adozen rats, at least, scamper to drink before the water could evaporateor filter through the floor; and when they were gone there was nohalf-drowned crawling thing either. They had eaten it. 

He clutched his rifle to him. The barrel was hot, but the feel of itgave him a sense of companionship. And then, as he lay back on the bedagain, the lamp went out. He groped for it and shook it. There was nooil. 

Now, what had been hot horror turned to fear that passed allunderstanding--to the hate that does not reason--to the cold sweatbreaking on the roasted skin. Where the four walls had been there wasblackness of immeasurable space. He could hear the thousand-footedcannibals of night creep nearer--driven in toward him by the dinning ofthe tom-toms. He felt that his bed was up above a scrambling swarm ofblack-legged things that fought. 

He had no idea how long he lay stock-still, for fear of callingattention to himself, and hated his servant and Mahommed Gunga and allIndia. Once--twice--he thought he heard another sound, almost like thefootfall of a man on the veranda near him. Once he thought that a manbreathed within ten paces of him, and for a moment there was a distinctsensation of not being alone. He hoped it was true; he could deal withan assassin. That would be something tangible to hate and hit. Manhoodcame to his assistance--the spirit of the soldier that will bow tonothing that has shape; but it died away again as the creeping silenceonce more shut down on him. 

And then the thunder of the tom-toms ceased. Then even the venomedcrawlers that he knew were near him faded into nothing that reallymattered, compared to the greater, stealthy horror that he knew wascoming, born of the shuddersome, shut silence that ensued. Therewas neither air nor view--no sense of time or space--nothing butthe coal-black pit of terror yawning--cold sweat in the heat, and afootfall--an undoubted footfall--followed by another one, too heavy fora man's. 

Where heavy feet were there was something tangible. His veins tingledand the cold sweat dried. Excitement began to reawaken all his soldiersenses, and the wish to challenge seized him--the soldierly intent towarn the unaware, which is the actual opposite of cowardice. 

"Halt! Who comes there?"

He lipped the words, but his dry throat would not voice them. Before hecould clear his throat or wet his lips his eye caught something lighterthan the night--two things--ten--twelve paces off--two things thatglowed or sheened as though there were light inside them--too big andtoo far apart to be owl's eyes, but singularly like them. They moved, alittle sideways and toward him; and again he heard the heavy, stealthyfootfall. 

They stayed still then for what may have been a minute, and anothersense--smell--warned him and stirred up the man in him. He had neversmelled it in his life; it must have been instinct that assured him ofan enemy behind the strange, unpleasant, rather musky reek that filledthe room. His right hand brought the rifle to his shoulder withoutsound, and almost without conscious effort on his part. 

He forgot the heat now and the silence and discomfort. He lay still onhis side, squinting down the rifle barrel at a spot he judged was midwaybetween a pair of eyes that glowed, and wondering where his foresightmight be. It struck him all at once that it was quite impossible to seethe foresight--that he must actually touch what he would hit if he wouldbe at all sure of hitting it. He remembered, too, in that instant--as aborn soldier does remember things--that in the dark an attacking enemyis probably more frightened than his foe. His father had told it himwhen he was a little lad afraid of bogies; he in turn had told it to theother boys at school, and they had passed it on until in that school ithad become rule number one of school-boy lore--just as rule number twoin all schools where the sons of soldiers go is "Take the fight to him. "

He leaped from the bed, with his rifle out in front ofhim--white-nightshirted and unexpected--sudden enough to scare thewits out of anything that had them. He was met by a snarl. The two eyesnarrowed, and then blazed. They lowered, as though their owner gatheredup his weight to spring. He fired between them. The flash and thesmoke blinded him; the burst of the discharge within four echoing wallsdeadened his cars, and he was aware of nothing but a voice beside himthat said quietly: "Well done, bahadur! Thou art thy father's son!"

He dropped his rifle butt to the floor, and some one struck a light. Even then it was thirty seconds before his strained eyes grew accustomedto the flare and he could see the tiger at his feet, less than a yardaway--dead, bleeding, wide-eyed, obviously taken by surprise and shot ashe prepared to spring. Beside him, within a yard, Mahommed Gunga stood, with a drawn sabre in his right hand and a pistol in his left, and therewere three other men standing like statues by the walls. 

"How long have you been here?" demanded Cunningham. 

"A half-hour, sahib. "

"Why?"

"In case of need, sahib. That tiger killed a woman yesterday at dawnand was driven off his kill; he was not likely to be an easy mark for anuntried hunter. "

"Why did you enter without knocking?"

The ex-risaldar said nothing. 

"I see that you have shoes on. "

"The scorpions, sahib--"

"Would you be pleased, Mahommed Gunga, if I entered your house with myhat on and without knocking or without permission?"

"Sahib, I--"

"Be good enough to have that brute's carcass dragged out and skinned, and--ah--leave me to sleep, will you?"

Mahommed Gunga bowed, and growled an order; another man passed the orderon, and the tom-tom thundering began again as a dozen villagers patteredin to take away the tiger. 

"Tell them, please, " commanded Cunningham, "that that racket is tocease. I want to sleep. "

Again Mahommed Gunga bowed, without a smile or a tremor on his face;again a growled order was echoed and re-echoed through the dark. Thedrumming stopped. 

"Is there oil in the bahadur's lamp?" asked Mahommed Gunga. 

"Probably not, " said Cunningham. 

"I will command that--"

"You needn't trouble, thank you, risaldar-sahib. I sleep better in thedark. I'll be glad to see you after breakfast as usual--ah--without yourshoes, unless you come in uniform. Good night. "

The Rajput signed to the others and withdrew with dignity. Cunninghamreloaded his rifle in the dark and lay down. Within five minutesthe swinging of the punka and the squeaking of the rope resumed, butregularly this time; Mahommed Gunga had apparently unearthed a man whounderstood the business. Reaction, the intermittent coolth, as themat fan swung above his face, the steady, evenly timed squeak andmovement--not least, the calm of well-asserted dignity--all joined tohave one way, and Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur slept, to dream of fire-eyedtigers dancing on tombstones laid on the roof of hell, and of agrandfather in full general's uniform, who said: "Well done, bahadur!"

But outside, by a remade camp-fire, Mahommed Gunga sat and chuckled tohimself, and every now and then grew eloquent to the bearded men who satbeside him. 

"Aie! Did you hear him reprimand me? By the beard of God's prophet, thatis a man of men! So was his father! Now I will tell Alwa and the othersthat I bring a man to them! By the teeth of God and my own honor I willswear to it! His first tiger--he had never seen a tiger!--in the dark, and unexpected--caught by it, to all seeming, like a trapped man in acage--no lamp--no help at hand, or so he thought until it was allover. And he ran at the tiger! And then, 'you come with your shoes on, Mahommed Gunga--why, forsooth?' Did you hear him? By the blood of Allah, we have a man to lead us!"

CHAPTER VIII

 Now, the gist of the thing is--Be silent. Be calm. Be awake. Be on hand on the day. Be instant to heed the first note of alarm. And--precisely--exactly--Obey. 

AT Howrah, while Mahommed Gunga was employing each chance circumstanceto test the pluck and decision and reliability of Cunningham at almostevery resting-place along the Grand Trunk Road, the armed squire he hadleft behind with a little handful of gold mohurs and three horses wasfinding time heavy on his hands. 

Like his master, Ali Partab was a man of action, to whom the purlieusof a caravansary were well enough on rare occasions. He could ruffleit with the best of them; like any of his race, he could loungewith dignity and listen to the tales that hum wherever many horsemencongregate; and he was no mean raconteur--he had a tale or two to tellhimself, of women and the chase and of the laugh that he, too, had flungin the teeth of fear when opportunity arose. 

But each new story of the paid taletellers, who squat and drone andreach a climax, and then pass the begging bowl before they finishit--each merrily related jest brought in by members of the constantlyarriving trading parties--each neigh of his three chargers--every newphase of the kaleidoscopic life he watched stirred new ambition inhim to be up, and away, and doing. Many a dozen times he had to remindhimself that "there had been a trust imposed. "

He exercised the horses daily, riding each in turn until he was as leanand lithe and hard beneath the skin as they were. They were MahommedGunga's horses--he Mahommed Gunga's man; therefore, his honor wasinvolved. He reasoned, when he took the trouble to, along the good cleanfeudal line that lays down clearly what service is: there is no honor, says that argument, in serving any one who is content with half aservice, and the honor is the only thing that counts. 

As day succeeded ever sultrier, ever longer-drawn-out day--as each nightcame that saw him peg the horses out wherever what little breezes movedmight fan them--as he sat among the courtyard groups and listened in theheavy heat, the fact grew more apparent to him that this trust of hiswas something after all which a man of worth might shoulder proudly. There was danger in it. 

The talk among the traders--darkly hinted, most of it, and couched inmetaphor--was all of blood, and what would follow on the letting of it. Now and then a loud-mouthed boaster would throw caution to the winds andspeak openly of a grim day coming for the British; he would be checkedinstantly by wiser men, but not before Ali Partab had heard enough toadd to his private store of information. 

Priests came from a dozen cities to the eastward, all nominally afterpilgrims for the sacred places, but all strangely indifferent to theirquest. They preferred, it would seem, to sit in rings with chance-metruffians--with believers and unbelievers alike--even with men of nocaste at all--and talk of other things than pilgrimages. 

"Next year, one hundred years ago the English conquered India. Rememberye the prophecy? One hundred years they had! This, then, is the lastyear. Whom the gods would whelm they first deprive of reason; mark yethis! The cartridges they serve out to the sepoys now are smeared withthe blended fat of cows and pigs. Knowing that we Hindoos hold the cowa sacred beast, they do this sacrilege--and why? They would make us bitethe cartridges and lose our caste. And why again? Because they wouldmake us Christians! That is the truth! Else why are the Christianmissionaries here in Howrah?"

The listeners would nod while the little red fires glowed and purredabove the pipes, and others not included in the circle strained forwardthrough the dark to listen. 

"The gods get ready now! Are ye ready?"

Elsewhere, a hadji--green-turbaned from the pilgrimage to Mecca--wouldhold out to a throng of true believers. 

"Ay! Pig's fat on the cartridges! The new drill is that the sepoy bitesthe cartridge first, to spill a little powder and make priming. Whichtrue believer wishes to defile himself with pig's fat? Why do theythis? Why are the Christian missionaries here? Ask both riddles with onebreath, for both two are one!"

"Slay, then!"

"Up now, and slay!"

There would be an instant, eager restlessness, while Ali Partab wouldglance over to where the horses stood, and would wonder why theword that loosed him was so long in coming. The hadji would calm hislisteners and tell them to get ready, but be still and await the sign. 

"There were to be one hundred years, ran the prophecy; but ninety-nineand a portion have yet run. Wait for the hour!"

Then, for perhaps the hundredth time, Ali Partab would pretend thatmovement alone could save one or other of his horses from heat apoplexy. He would mount, and ride at a walking pace through the streets thatseemed like a night view of a stricken battle-field, turn down by thepalace wall, and then canter to the schoolhouse, where the hag--wiserthan her mistress--would be sleeping in the open. 

"Thou! Mother of a murrain! Toothless one! Is there no word yet?"

The hag would leer up through the heavy darkness--make certain thathe had no lance with him with which to prod her in the ribs--scratchherself a time or two like a stray dog half awakened--and then leerknowingly. 

"Hast thou the gold mohurs?" she would demand. 

"Am I a sieve?"

"Let my old eyes see them, sahib. "

He would take out two gold coins and hold them out in such a way thatshe could look at them without the opportunity to snatch. 

"There is no word yet, " she would answer, when her eyes had feasted onthem as long as his patience would allow. 

"Have they no fear then?"

"None. Only madness!"

"See that they bite thee not! Keep thy wits with thee, and be ready tobring me word in time, else--"

"Patience, sahib! Show me the coins again--one little look--again once!"

But Ali Partab would wheel and ride away, leaving her to mumble andgibber in the road and curl again on to her blanket in the blackestcorner by the door. 

Once, on an expedition of that kind, he encountered Duncan McCleanhimself. The lean, tall Scotsman, gray-headed from the cares he hadtaken on himself, a little bowed from heat and hopelessness, but showingno least symptom of surrender in the kind, strong lines of a ruggedface, stood, eyes upward, in the moonlight. The moon, at least, lookedcool. It was at the full, like a disk of silver, and he seemed to drinkin the beams that bathed him. 

"Does he worship it?" wondered Ali Partab, reining from an amble to awalk and watching half-reverently. The followers of Mohammed are mostsuperstitious about the moon. The feeling that he had for this man ofpeace who could so gaze up at it was something very like respect, and, with the twenty-second sense that soldiers have, he knew, without a wordspoken or a deed seen done, that this would be a wielder of cold steelto be reckoned should he ever slough the robes of peace and take it intohis silvered head to fight. The Rajput, that respects decision above allother virtues, perhaps because it is the one that he most lacks, couldsense firm, unshakable, quick-seized determination on the instant. 

Duncan McClean acknowledged the fierce-seeming stare with a salute, and Ali Partab dismounted instantly. He who holds a trust from such asMahommed Gunga is polite in recognition of the trust. He leaned, then, against the horse's withers, wondering how far he ought to letpoliteness go and whether his honor bade him show contempt for theChristian's creed. 

"Is there any way, I wonder, " asked the Scotsman, the clean-clippedsuspicion of Scots dialect betraying itself even through the Hindustaneethat he used, "of getting letters through to some small station?"

"I know not, " said the Rajput. 

"You are a Mohammedan?" The Scotsman peered at him, adjusting hisviewpoint to the moon's rays. "I see you are. A Rajput, too, I think. "

"Ha, sahib. "

"There was a Rangar here not very long ago. " This man evidently knew theproper title to give a he true believer of the proudest race there is. Ali Partab's heart began to go out to him--"an officer, I think, onceof the Rajput Horse, who very kindly carried letters for me. Perhaps youknow of some other gentleman of your race about to travel northward? Hecould earn, at least, gratitude. "

"So-ho!" thought Ali Partab to himself. "I have known men of his racewho would have offered money, to be spat on!--Not now, sahib, " heanswered aloud. 

"Mahommed Gunga was the officer's name. Do you know him, or know of him, by any chance?"

"Ha, sahib, I know him well. It is an honor. "

The Scotsman smiled. "He must be very far away by this time. How manyare there, I wonder, in India who have such things said of them whentheir backs are turned?"

"More than a few, sahib! I would draw steel for the good name of morethan a hundred men whom I know, and there be many others!"

"Men of your own race?"

"And yours, sahib. "

There was no bombast in the man's voice; it was said good-naturedly, asa man might say, "There are some friends to whom I would lend money. "No man with any insight could mistake the truth that underlay the boast. The Scotsman bowed. 

"I am glad, indeed, to have met you. Will you sit down a little while?"

"Nay, sahib. The hour is late. I was but keeping the blood moving inthis horse of mine. "

"Well, tell me, since you won't stay, have you any notion who the manwas whom Mahommed Gunga sent to get my letters? My daughter handed themto him one evening, late, at this door. "

"I am he, sahib. "

"Then--I understood--perhaps I was mistaken--I thought it was his manwho came?"

"Praised be Allah, I am his man, sahib!"

"Oh! I wonder whether my servants praise God for the privilege!" McCleanmade the remark only half-aloud and in English. Ali Partab could nothave understood the words, but he may have caught their meaning, for heglanced sideways at the old hag mumbling in the shadow and grinned intohis beard. "Are you in communication with him? Could you get a letter tohim?"

"I have no slightest notion where he is, sahib. "

"If my letters could once reach him, wherever he might be, I would feelconfident of their arriving at their destination. "

"I, too, sahib!"

"I sent one letter--to a government official. It cannot have reachedhim, for there should have been an answer and none has come. It hadreference to this terrible suttee business. Suttee is against the lawas well as against all dictates of reason and humanity; yet the Hindoosmake a constant practice of it here under our very eyes. These nativestates are under treaty to observe the law. I intend to do all in mypower to put a stop to their ghoulish practices, and Maharajah Howrahknows what my intentions are. It must be a Mohammedan, this time, towhom I intrust my correspondence on suttee!"

Now, a Rangar is a man whose ancestors were Hindoos but whobecame converts to Islam. Like all proselytes, they adhere moreenthusiastically to their religion than do the men whose mother creedit is; and the fact that the Rangars originally became converts underduress is often thrown in their teeth by the Hindoos, who gain nothingin the way of brotherly regard in the process. A Rangar hates a Hindooas enthusiastically as he loves a fight. Ali Partab began to drum hisfingers on his teeth and to exhibit less impatience to be off. 

"There is no knowing, sahib. I, too, am no advocate of superstitiouspractices involving cruelty. I might get a letter through. My commissionfrom the risaldar-sahib would include all honorable matters notobstructive to the main issue. I have certain funds--"

"I, too, have funds, " smiled the missionary. 

"I am not allowed, sahib, to involve myself in any brawl until after mybusiness is accomplished. It would be necessary first to assure me onthat point. My honor is involved in that matter. To whom, and of whatnature, would the letter be?"

"A letter to the Company's Resident at Abu, reporting to him that Hindoowidows are still compelled in this city to burn themselves to deathabove their husbands' funeral pyres. "

The Rajput grinned. "Does the Resident sahib not know it, then?"

"There will be no chance of his not knowing should my report reach him!"

"I will see, sahib, what can be done, then, in the matter. If I can finda man, I will bring him to you. "

The missionary thanked him and stood watching as the Rajput rode away. When the horseman's free, lean back had vanished in the inky darknesshis eyes wandered over to a point where tongues of flame licked upward, casting a dull, dancing, crimson glow on the hot sky. Here and there, silhouetted in the firelight, he could see the pugrees and occasionallong poles of men who prodded at the embers. Ululating through the dinof tom-toms he could catch the wails of women. He shuddered, prayed alittle, and went in. 

That day even the little bazaar fosterlings, whom he had begged, andcoaxed, and taught, had all deserted to be present at the burning ofthree widows. Even the lepers in the tiny hospital that he had startedhad limped out for a distant view. He had watched a year's workall disintegrating in a minute at the call of bestial, loathsome, blood-hungry superstition. 

And he was a man of iron, as Christian missionaries go. He had beenhard-bitten in his youth and trained in a hard, grim school. In the Isleof Skye he had seen the little cabin where his mother lived pulled downto make more room for a fifty-thousand-acre deer-forest. He had seen hismother beg. 

He had worked his way to Edinburgh, toiled at starvation wages for thesake of leave to learn at night, burned midnight oil, and failed at theend of it, through ill health, to pass for his degree. 

He had loved as only hard-hammered men can love, and had married aftera struggle the very thought of which would have melted the courage of anordinary man, only to see his wife die when her child was born. And eventhen, in that awful hour, he had not felt the utterness of misery suchas came to him when he saw that his work in Howrah was undone. He hadgiven of his best, and all his best, and it seemed that he had given itfor nothing. 

"Who was that man, father?" asked a very weary voice through whichcourage seemed to live yet, as the tiniest suspicion of a sweet refrainstill lives through melancholy bars. 

"The man who took your home letters to Mahommed Gunga. "

"And--?"

"He has promised to try to find a man for me who will take my report onthis awful business to the Resident at Abu. "

"Father, listen! Listen, please!" Rosemary McClean drew a chair for himand knelt beside him. Youth saved her face from being drawn as his, butthe heat and horror had begun to undermine youth's powers of resistance. She looked more beautiful than ever, but no law lays down that a wraithshall be unlovely. She had tried the personal appeal with him a hundredtimes, and argument a thousand; now, she used both in a concentrated, earnest effort to prevail over his stubborn will. Her will was as strongas his, and yielded place to nothing but her sense of loyalty. Therewere not only Rajputs, as the Rajputs knew, who could be true to a highideal. "I am sure that whoever that man is he must be the link betweenus and the safety Mahommed Gunga spoke of. Otherwise, why does he staybehind? Native officers who have servants take their servants with them, as a rule. "

"Well?"

"Give the word! Let us at least get in touch with safety!"

"For myself, no. For you, yes! I have been weak with you, dear. I havelet my selfish pleasure in having you near me overcome my sense ofduty--that, and my faithless fear that you would not be properlyprovided for. I think, too, that I have never quite induced myselfto trust natives sufficiently--even native gentlemen. You shall go, Rosemary. You shall go as soon as I can get word to Mahommed Gunga'sman. Call that old woman in. "

"Father, I will not go without you, and you know it! My place is withyou, and I have quite made up my mind. If you stay, I stay! My presencehere has saved your life a hundred times over. No, I don't mean justwhen you were ill; I mean that they dare not lay a finger on me! Theyknow that a nation which respects their women would strike hard andswiftly to avenge a woman of its own! If I were to go away and leaveyou they would poison you or stab you within a day, and then hold a mocktrial and hang some innocent or other to blind the British Government. Iwould be a murderess if I left you here alone! Come! Come away!"

He shook his head. "It was wrong of me to ever bring you here, " he saidsadly. "But I did not know--I would never have believed. " Then wrathtook hold of him--the awful, cold anger of the Puritan that hates evilas a concrete thing, to be ripped apart with steel. "God's wrath shallburst on Howrah!" he declared. "Sodom and Gomorrah were no worse!Remember what befell them!"

"Remember Lot!" said Rosemary. "Come away!"

"Lot stayed on to the last, and tried to warn them! I will warn theResident! Here, give me my writing things--where are they?"

He pushed her aside, none too gently, for the fire of a Covenanter'sanger was blazing in his eyes. 

"There are forty thousand British soldiers standing still, andwrong--black, shameful wrong--is being done! For a matter of gold--forfear of the cost in filthy lucre--they refrain from hurling wrong-doersin the dust! For the sake of dishonorable peace they leave these nativestates to misgovern themselves and stink to high heaven! Will God allowwhat they do? The shame and the sin is on England's head! Her statesmenshut their eyes and cry 'Peace, peace!' where there is no peace. Herqueen sits idle on the throne while widows burn, screaming, in theflames of superstitious priests. Men tell her, 'All is well; there isBritish rule in India!' They are too busy robbing widows in theIsle of Skye to lend an ear to the cries of India's widows!Corruption--superstition--murder--lies--black wrong--blackselfishness--all growing rank beneath the shadow of the Britishrule--how long will God let that last?"

He was pacing up and down like a caged lion, not looking at Rosemary, not speaking to her--speaking to himself, and giving rein to all therankling rage at wrong that wrong had nurtured in him since his boyhood. She knelt still by the chair, her eyes following him as he raged up anddown the matted floor. She pitied him more than she did India. 

When he took the one lamp at last and set it where the light wouldfall above his writing pad, she left the room and went to stand at thestreet-door, where the sluggish night air was a degree less stiflingthan in the mud-plastered, low-ceilinged room. As she stood there, onehand on either door-post to remind her she was living in a concreteworld, not a charred whisp swaying in the heat, a black thing rose outof the blackness, and the toothless hag held out a bony hand and touchedher. 

"Is it not time yet for the word to go?" she asked. 

"No. No word yet, Joanna. "

CHAPTER IX

 Now, God give good going to master o' mine, God speed him, and lead him, and nerve him; God give him a lead of a length in the line, And, --God let him boast that I serve him!

THE dawn was barely breaking yet when things stirred in the littlemission house. The flea-bitten gray pony was saddled by a sleepy saice, and brought round from his open-sided thatch stable in the rear. Theviolet and mauve, that precede the aching yellow glare of day werefading; a coppersmith began his everlasting bong-bong-bong, apparentlyreverberating from every direction; the last, almost indetectable, warmwhiff of night wind moved and died away, and the monkeys in the near-bybaobab chattered it a requiem. Almost on the stroke of sunrise RosemaryMcClean stepped out--settled her sun-helmet, with a moue above thechin-strap that was wasted on flat-bosomed, black grandmotherdom andsulky groom--and mounted. 

She needed no help. The pony stood as though he knew that the hot windwould soon dry the life out of him; and, though dark rings beneath darkeyes betrayed the work of heat and sleepless worry on a girl who shouldhave graced the cool, sweet, rain-swept hills of Scotland, she hadspirit left yet and an unspent store of youth. The saice seemed moreweathered than the twenty-year-old girl, for he limped back into thesmelly shelter of the servants' quarters to cook his breakfast andmumble about dogs and sahibs who prefer the sun. 

She looked shrunk inside the riding-habit--not shrivelled, for she sattoo straight, but as though the cotton jacket had been made for a largerwoman. If she seemed tired, and if a stranger might have guessed thather head ached until the chestnut curls were too heavy for it, she wasstill supple. And, as she whipped the pony into an unwilling trot andold mission-named Joanna broke into a jog behind, revolt--no longerimpatience, or discontent, or sorrow, but reckless rebellion--rode withher. 

It was there, plain for the world to see, in the firm lines of a littlePuritan mouth, in the angle of a high-held chin in the set of a gallantlittle pair of shoulders. The pony felt it, and leaned forward to acanter. Joanna scented, smelt, or sensed in some manner known to Easternold age, that purpose was afoot; this was to be no early-morning canter, merely out and home again; there was no time, now, for the customarytricks of corner-cutting and rest-snatching under eaves; she tucked herhead down and jogged forward in the dust, more like a dog than ever. Itwas a dog's silent, striving determination to be there when the finishcame--a dog's disregard of all object or objective but his master's--buta long-thrown stride, and a crafty, beady eye that promised moreusefulness than a dog's when called on. 

The first word spoken was when Rosemary drew rein a little more thanhalf-way along the palace wall. 

"Are you tired yet, Joanna?"

"Uh-uh!" the woman answered, shaking her head violently and pointing atthe sun that mounted every minute higher. The argument was obvious; inless than twenty minutes the whole horizon would be shimmering againlike shaken plates of brass; wherever the other end might be, a restwould be better there than here! Her mistress nodded, and rode on again, faster yet; she had learned long ago that Joanna could show a dustypair of heels to almost anything that ran, and she had never yetknown distance tire her; it had been the thought of distance and speedcombined that made her pause and ask. 

She did not stop again until they had cantered up through the awakeningbazaar, where unclean-looking merchants and their underlings rinsed outtheir teeth noisily above the gutters, and the pariah dogs had startednosing in among the muck for things unthinkable to eat. The sun hadshortened up the shadows and begun to beat down through the gaps; theadvance-guard of the shrivelling hot wind had raised foul dust eddies, and the city was ahum when she halted at last beside the big brick archof the caravansary, where Mahommed Gunga's boots and spurs had caughther eye once. 

"Now, Joanna!" She leaned back from the saddle and spoke low, but witha certain thrill. "Go in there, find me Mahommed Gunga-sahib's man, andbring him out here!"

"And if he will not come?" The old woman seemed half-afraid to enter. 

"Go in, and don't come out without him--unless you want to see me go inby myself!"

The old woman looked at her piercingly with eyes that gleamed from amida bunch of wrinkles, then motioned with a skinny arm in the direction ofan awning where shade was to be had from the dangerous early sun-rays. She made no move to enter through the arch until her mistress had takenshelter. 

Fifteen minutes later she emerged with Ali Partab, who looked sleepy, but still more ashamed of his unmilitary dishabille. Rosemary McCleanglanced left and right--forgot about the awning and the custom whichdecrees aloofness--ignored the old woman's waving arm and Ali Partab'sfrown, and rode toward him eagerly. 

"Did Mahommed Gunga-sahib leave you here with any orders relative tome?" she asked. 

The Rajput bowed. 

"Before he went away, he spoke to me of safety, and told me he wouldleave a link between me and men whom I may trust. "

The Rajput bowed again. Neither of them saw an elbow laid on thewindow-ledge of a room above the arch; it disappeared, and very gingerlya bared black head replaced it. Then the head too disappeared. 

The girl's eyes sparkled as the reassurance came that at least one goodfighting man was waiting to do nothing but assist her. For the momentshe threw caution to the winds and remembered nothing but her plight andher father's stubbornness. 

"My father will not come away, but--"

Ali Partab's eyes betrayed no trace of concern. 

"But--I thought--Are you all alone?"

"All alone, Miss-sahib, but your servant. "

"Oh! I thought--perhaps that"--she checked herself, then rushed thewords out as though ashamed of them--"that, if you had men to help you, you might carry him away against his will! Where are these others whoare to be trusted?"

Ali Partab grinned and then drew himself up with a movement of politedissent. It was not for him to question the suggestions of a Miss-sahib;he conveyed that much with an inimitable air. But it was his business tokeep strictly to the letter of his orders. 

"Miss-sahib, I cannot do that. So said Mahommed Gunga: 'When the hagbrings word, then take three horses and bear the Miss-sahib and herfather to my cousin Alwa's place. ' I stand ready to obey, but thepadre-sahib comes not against his will. "

"To whose place?"

"Alwa's, Miss-sahib. "

"And who is he?" She seemed bewildered. "I had hoped to be escorted tosome British residency. "

"That would be for Alwa, should he see fit. He has men and horses, anda fort that is impregnable. The Miss-sahib would be safe there under allcircumstances. "

"But--but, supposing I declined to accept that invitation? Supposing Ipreferred not to be carried off to a--er--a Mohammedan gentleman's fort. What then?"

"I could but wait here, Miss-sahib, until the hour came when youchanged your mind, or until Mahommed Gunga by letter or by word of mouthrelieved me of my trust. "

"Oh! Then you will wait here until I ask?"

"Surely, Miss-sahib. "

The head again peered through the window up above them, but disappearedbelow the ledge furtively, and none of the three were aware of it. For that matter, the old woman was gazing intently at Ali Partab andlistening eagerly; he stood almost underneath the arch, and Miss McCleanwas staring at him frowning with the effort to translate her thoughtsinto a language that is very far from easy. They would none of them haveseen the roof descending on them. 

"And--and won't you under any circumstances take us, say, to theResident at Abu instead?"

"I may not, Miss-sahib. "

"But why?"

"Of a truth I know not. I never yet knew Mahommed Gunga to give an orderwithout good reason for it; but beyond that he chose me, because he saidthe task might prove difficult and he trusted me, I know nothing. "

"Have you no idea of the reason?"

"Miss-sahib, I am a soldier. To me an order is an order to be carriedout; suspicions, fears are nothing unless they stand in the way ofaccomplishment. I await your word. I am ready. The horses are here--goodhorses--lean and hard. The order is that you must ask me. "

"Thank you--er--Ali what?--thank you, Ali Partab. " The disappointment inher voice was scarcely more noticeable than the despondency her droopingfigure showed. The little shoulders that had sat so square and gallantlyseemed to have lost their strength, and there was none of the determinedring left in the words she hesitated for. "I--hope you will understandthat I am grateful--but--I cannot--er--see my way just yet to--"

"In your good time, Miss-sahib. I was ordered to have patience!"

"At least I will have more confidence, knowing that you are always closeat hand. "

The Rajput bowed. She reined back. He saluted, and she bowed again;then, with a glance to make sure that Joanna followed, she started backat little more than a walking pace--a dejected wraith of a girl on adejected-looking pony, too overcome by the upsetting of her rebelliousscheme to care or even think whether Joanna dropped out of sight ornot. Ali Partab watched her down the street with a face that betrayed noemotion and no suspicion of what his thoughts might be. When she was outof sight he went back under the arch to attend to his three horses;and the moment that he did so a fat but very furtive Hindoo took hisplace--glanced down the street once in the direction that Rosemary hadtaken--and then darted up-street as fast as his shaking paunch wouldlet him. He had been gone at the least ten minutes, when Joanna, alsofurtive, also in a hurry, dodged here and there among the commencingsurge of traffic and approached the arch again. 

It would be useless to try to read her mind, or to translate the glitterof her beady eyes into thoughts intelligible to any but an Oriental. It was quite clear, though, that she wished not to be noticed, that shefeared the occupants of the caravansary, and that she had returned forword with Ali Partab. He, least of all, would have doubted her intentionof demanding the two gold mohurs, for it was she who had brought theword that Miss McClean wanted him. But what relation that intentionhad to her loyalty or treachery, or whether she were capable ofeither--capable of anything except greed, and obedience for the sake ofpay--were problems no man living could have guessed. 

She asked the lounging sweeper by the arch whether Ali Partab had riddenout as yet. He jeered back outrageous improprieties, suggestive ofimpossible ambition on the hag's part. She called him "sahib, " dubbedhim "father of a dozen stalwart sons, " returned a few of his immodestcompliments with a flattering laugh, and learned that Ali Partab wasstill busy in the caravansary. Then she proceeded to make herselfvery inconspicuous beside a two-wheeled wagon, up-ended in the gutteropposite the arch, and waited with eastern patience for the horseman toride out. 

She saw the fat Hindoo come back, in no particular hurry now, and seathimself not far from her. Later she saw eight horsemen ride down thestreet, pass the arch, wheel, and halt. She noticed that they werenot Maharajah Howrah's men but a portion of his brother Jaimihr'sbody-guard, then took no further notice of them. If they chose to waitthere, it was no affair of hers, and to appear inquisitive would be toinvite a lance-butt, very shrewdly thrust where it would hurt. 

It was an hour at least before Ali Partab rode out through the arch, looking down anxiously at his horse's off-hind that had been showingsymptoms of "brushing" lately. Joanna rose instantly to cross the streetand intercept him; and she recoiled in the nick of time to save herselffrom being ridden down. 

At a sign from the fat Hindoo the eight horsemen spurred, and swoopedup-street with the speed and certainty of sparrow-hawks and the noise ofdevastation. They rode down Ali Partab--unhorsed him--bound him--threwhim on his horse again--and galloped off before any but the Hindoo hadtime to realize that he was their objective. He was gone--snatchedlike a chicken from the coop. Noise and dust were all the trace orexplanation that he left. The mazy streets swallowed him; the Hindoowaddled over to the arch and disappeared without a smile on his face toshow even interest. The interrupted trading and bartering went on again, and no one commented or made a move to follow but Joanna. 

She watched the fat Hindoo, and made sure that she would recognize himanywhere again. Then, by a trail that no one would have guessed at andfew could have followed, she made her way to Jaimihr's palace--threemiles away from Howrah's--where a dozen sulky-looking sepoys lolled, dismounted, by the wooden gate. There was neither sight nor sound ofmounted men, and the gate was shut; but in the middle of the roadwaythere was smoking dung, and there was a suspicion of overacting aboutthe indifference of the guardians of the entrance. 

There was no overacting, though, in what Joanna did. Nobody would havedreamed that she was playing any kind of part, or interested in anythingat all except the coppers that she begged for. She squatted inthe roadway, ink-black and clear-cut in the now blazing sunlight, alternately flattering them and pretending to a knowledge ofunguessed-at witchcraft. 

She was there still at midday when they changed the guard. She wasthere when night fell, still squatting in the roadway, still exchangingrepartee and hints at the supernatural with armed men who shuddered nowand then between their bursts of mockery. The sore, suffering dogs thatsniff through the night for worse eyesores than themselves whimpered andwatched her. The guard changed and the moon paled, but she stayedon; and whatever her purpose, or whatever information she obtained infragments amid the raillery, she did not return to the mission house. 

It was not until Rosemary McClean returned and dismounted by the doorthat she realized Joanna had not kept pace. Even then she thought littleof it; the old woman often lingered on the homeward way when the chanceof her being needed was remote. Two or three hours passed before thesuspicion rose that anything might have happened to Joanna, and eventhen she might not have been remembered had not Duncan McClean asked forher. 

"I have changed my mind, " he said, calling Rosemary into the long, lowliving-room. It was darkened to exclude the hot wind and the glare, andhe looked like a ghost as he rose to meet her. "I have decided that myduty is to get away from this place for your sake and for the sake ofthe cause I have at heart. We are doing no good here. I can do most bygoing to the Resident, or even to somebody higher up than he, and layingmy case before him personally. Send for Joanna, and tell her to go andbring Mahommed Gunga's man. "

It was then that they missed Joanna and began to search for her. But noJoanna came. It was then that Rosemary McClean rehearsed with her fatherher former conversation with Mahommed Gunga and part, at least, of herrecent one with Ali Partab, and the missionary started off himself tofind the horseman whom Mahommed Gunga had so thoughtfully left behind. 

But he very naturally found no Ali Partab. What he did discover was thathe was followed--that a guard, unarmed but obvious, was placed aroundthe mission house--that his servants deserted one by one--that no morechildren came to the mission school. 

He decided to take chances and ride off with his daughter in the night. But the ponies went mysteriously lame, and nobody would lend or sell himhorses on any terms at all. He did his best to get a letter through toanywhere where there were British, but nobody would take it. And thenJaimihr came, swaggering with his escort, to offer him and his daughterthe hospitality of his palace. 

He declined that offer a little testily, for the insolence behind theoffer was less than half concealed. Jaimihr sneered as he rode away. 

"Perhaps a month or two of undisturbed enjoyment will induce thepadre-sahib to change his mind about my invitation!" he said nastily. And he made no secret then, as he ordered them about before he went, that the men who lounged and watched at every vantage-point were his. 

CHAPTER X

 They looked into my eyes and laughed, -- But, what when I was gone? Have strong men made me one of them? Or do I ride alone?

ON the morning after Mahommed Gunga's daring experiment withCunningham's nervous system he was anxious to say the least of it; andthat is only another way of saying that he was irritable. He watched theEnglishman at breakfast, on the dak-bungalow veranda, with a sidewaysrestless glance that gave the lie a dozen times over to his assumed airof irascible authority. 

"We will see now what we will see, " he muttered to himself. "These whoknow such a lot imagine that the test is made. They forget that therebe many brave men of whom but a few are fit to lead. Now--now--we willsee!" And he kept on repeating that assurance to himself, with theair of a man who would like to be assured, but is not, while heostentatiously found fault with every single thing on which his eyeslit. 

"One would think that the Risaldar-sahib were afraid of consequences!"whispered the youngest of his followers, stung to the quick by a quiteunmerited rebuke. "Does he fear that Chota-Cunnigan will beat him?"

White men have been known--often--to do stupider things than that, and particularly young white men who have not yet learned to gaugeproportions accurately; so there was nothing really ridiculous in thesuggestion. A young white man who has had his temper worked up tothe boiling-point, his nerves deliberately racked, and then has beensubjected to the visit of a driven tiger, may be confidently expected toexhibit all the faults of which his character is capable. 

To make the situation even more ticklish, Cunningham's servant, inhis zeal for his master's comfort, had forgotten to sham sickness, andinstead of limping was in abominably active evidence. He was even doingmore than was expected of him. Ralph Cunningham had said nothing tohim--had not needed to; every single thing that a pampered sahib couldimagine that he needed was done for him in the proper order, withoutnoise or awkwardness, and the Risaldar cursed as he watched theclockwork-perfect service. He had hoped for a lapse that might callforth some pointer, either by way of irritation or amusement, as to howyoung Cunningham was taking things. 

But not a thing went wrong and not a sign of any sort gave Cunningham. The youngster did not smile either to himself darkly or at his servant. He lit his after-breakfast cigar and smoked it peacefully, as though hehad spent an absolutely normal night, without even a dream to worry him, and if he eyed Mahommed Gunga at all, he did it so naturally, and withso little interest, that no deductions could be drawn from it. He wasneither more nor less than a sahib at his ease--which was disconcerting, very, to the Oriental mind. 

He smoked the cigar to a finish, without a word or sign that he wishedto give audience. Then his eyes lit for the first time on the tiger-skinthat was pegged out tight, raw side upward, for the sun to sterilize;he threw the butt of his cigar away and strolled out to examine the skinwithout a sign to Mahommed Gunga, counted the claws one by one tomake sure that no superstitious native had purloined any of them, andreturned to his chair on the veranda without a word. 

"Is he vindictive, then?" wondered Mahommed Gunga. "Is he a mean man?Will he bear malice and get even with me later on? If so--"

"Present my compliments to Mahommed Gunga-sahib, and ask him to be goodenough to--"

The Risaldar heard the order, and was on his way to the veranda beforethe servant started to convey the message. He took no chances on areprimand about his shoes, for he swaggered up in riding-boots, whichno soldier can be asked to take off before he treads on a private floor;and he saluted as a soldier, all dignity. It was the only way by whichhe could be sure to keep the muscles of his face from telling tales. 

"Huzoor?"

"Morning, Mahommed Gunga. Take a seat, won't you?"

A camp-chair creaked under the descending Rajput's weight, and creakedagain as he remembered to settle himself less stiffly--less guiltily. 

"I say, I'm going to ask you chaps to do me a favor. You don't mindobliging me now and then, do you?"

The youngster leaned forward confidentially, one elbow on his knee, andlooked half-serious, as though what he had to ask were more importantthan the ordinary. 

"Sahib, there is nothing that we will not do. "

"Ah! Then you won't mind my mentioning this, I'm sure. Next time youwant to kennel a tiger in my bedroom, d'you mind giving me notice inadvance? It's not the stink I mind, nor being waked up; it's the deucedawful risk of hurting somebody. Besides--look how I spoilt that tiger'smask! The skins I've always admired at home had been shot where itdidn't show so badly. "

There was not even the symptom of a smile on Cunningham's face. Helooked straight into Mahommed Gunga's eyes, and spoke as one man talkingcalm common sense to another. He raised his hand as the Rajput began tostammer an apology. 

"No. Don't apologize. If you'll forgive me for shooting your pet tiger, I'll overlook the rest of it. If I'd known that you kept him in thereo' nights, I'd have chosen another room, that's all--some room whereI couldn't smell him, and where I shouldn't run the risk of killing aninoffensive man. Why, I might have shot you! Think how sorry I'd havebeen!"

The Risaldar did not quite know what to say; so, wiser than most, hesaid nothing. 

"Oh, and one other matter. I don't speak much of the language yet, so, would you mind translating to my servant that the next time he goes sickwithout giving me notice, and without putting oil in my lamp, I'll havehim fed to the tiger before he's brought into my room? Just tell himthat quietly, will you? Say it slowly so that it sinks in. Thanks. "

Straight-faced as Cunningham himself, the Risaldar tongue-lashedthe servant with harsh, tooth-rasping words that brought him up toattention. Whether he interpreted or not the exact meaning of whatCunningham had said, he at least produced the desired effect;the servant mumbled apologetic nothings and slunk off the verandabackward--to go away and hold his sides with laughter at the back of thedak-bungalow. There Mahommed Gunga found him afterward and administereda thrashing--not, as he was careful to explain, for disobedience, butfor having dared to be amused at the Risaldar's discomfiture. 

But there was still one point that weighed heavily on Mahommed Gunga'smind as the servant shuffled off and left him alone face to face withCunningham. There is as a very general rule not more than one man-eatingtiger in a neighborhood, and not even the greenest specimen of subalternnew brought from home would be likely to mistake one for the other kind. The man-eater was dead, and there was an engagement to shoot one thatvery morning. He hesitated--said nothing for the moment--and wonderedwhether his best course would be to go ahead and pretend to beat out thejungle and tell some lie or other about the tiger having got away. ButRalph Cunningham, with serious gray eyes fixed full on his, saved himthe trouble of deciding. 

"If it's all one to you, Mahommed Gunga, " he said, the corner of hismouth just flickering, "we'll move on from here at once. This is abeastly old bungalow to sleep in, and shooting tigers don't seem soterribly exciting to me. Besides, the climate here must be rotten forthe horses. "

"As you wish, sahib. "

"Very well--if the choice rests with me, I wish it. It might--ah--savethe villagers a lot of hard work beating through the jungle, mightn'tit--besides, there'll be other tigers on the road. "

"Innumerable tigers, sahib. "

"Good. Will you order a start then?"

The Risaldar departed round the corner of the bungalow, and a minute ortwo later Cunningham's ears caught the sound of a riding-switch, lustilyapplied, and of muffled groans. He suspected readily enough what wasgoing on, particularly since his servant was not in evidence, but hedared not laugh on the veranda. He went inside, and made believe to bebusy with his bag before he relaxed the muscles of his face. 

"Now, I wonder whether I handled that situation rightly?" he askedhimself between chuckles. "One thing I know--if that old ruffian playsanother trick on me--one more of any kind--Ill show my teeth. There's athing known as the limit!"

He would not have wondered, though, if he could have overheard MahommedGunga less than an hour later. The Risaldar had stayed behind to makesure nothing had been forgotten, and one of his men remained with him. 

"There be sahibs and then sahibs, " said Mahommed Gunga. "Two kinds arethe worst--those who strike readily in anger and use bad language whenannoyed, and those whose lips are thin and who save their vengeance tobe wreaked later on. They are worse, either of them, than the sahib whois usually drunk. "

"And Cunnigan?"

"Is altogether otherwise. As his father was, and as a few other sahibs Ihave met, he understands what is not spoken--concedes dignity to him whois caught napping, as one who having disarmed his adversary, allows himto recover his weapon--and--"

"And?"

"Proves himself a man worth following! I myself will slit the throat ofany man I catch disparaging the name of Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur! Bythe blood of God--by my medals, my own honor, and the good name ofPukka-Cunnigan, his father, I swear it!"

"Rung Ho!" grinned the six-foot son of war who, rode beside him. 

They rode on at a walk past the tombstone that--at Mahommed Gunga'sorders--the villagers had decked with sickly scented forest flowers, andas they passed they both saluted it in silence. The fakir of the nightbefore, sitting not very far away from it, mimicked them. He sprang onthe stone as soon as they were out of sight, scattering the flowers allabout him, and calling down the vengeance of a hundred gods on the headsof Christian and Mohammedan alike. 

CHAPTER XI

 From lone hunt came the yearling cub And brought a grown kill back; With fangs aglut "'Tis nothing but Presumption!" growled the pack. 

RALPH CUNNINGHAM reached Peshawur at last with no less than nine tigersto his gun, and that in itself would have been sufficient to damn him inthe eyes of more than half of the men who held commands there. Jealousyin those days of slow promotion and intrenched influence had eateninto the very understanding of men whose only excuse for rule over aconquered people ought to have been understanding. 

It was not considered decent for a boy of twenty-one to do much morethan dare to be alive. For any man at all to offer advice or informationto his senior was rank presumption. Criticism was high treason. Sport, such as tiger-shooting, was for those whose age and apoplectic temperrendered them least fitted for it. Conservatism reigned: "High Toryism, sir, old port, and proud Prerogative!"

Mahommed Gunga grinned into his beard at the reception that awaited theyoungster whom he had trained for months now in the belief that Indiahad nothing much to do except reverence him. He laughed aloud, when hecould get away to do it, at the flush of indignation on his protege'sface. Tall, lean-limbed, full of health and spirits, he had paid hisduty call on a General of Division; with the boyish enthusiasm that saysso plainly, "Laugh with me, for the world is mine!" he had boastedhis good luck on the road, only to be snubbed thoroughly and told thattiger-shooting was not what he came for. 

He took the snub like a man and made no complaint to anybody; he didnot even mention it to the other subalterns, who, most of them, made nosecret of their dissatisfaction and its hundred causes. He listened, and it was not very long before it dawned on him that, had not MahommedGunga gone with him to pay a call as well, the General Division wouldnot have so much as interviewed him. 

Mahommed Gunga soon became the bane of his existence. The veteran seemedin no hurry to go back to his estate that must have been in serious needof management by this time, but would ride off on mysterious errands andreturn with a dozen or more black-bearded horsemen each time. He wouldintroduce them to Cunningham in public whenever possible under the eyesof outraged seniors who would swear and, fume and ride away disgustat the reverence paid to "a mere boy, sir--a bally, ignorant youngjackanapes!"

Had Cunningham been other than a born soldier with his soldier sensesall on edge and sleepless, he would have fallen foul of disgrace withina month. He was unattached as yet, and that fact gave opportunity tothe men who looked for it to try to "take the conceit out of the cub, bygad. "

"They "--everybody spoke of them as "they"--conceived the brilliant ideaof confronting the youngster with conditions which he lacked experienceto cope with. They set him to deal with circumstances which had longago proved too difficult for themselves, and awaited confidently theoutcome--the crass mistake, or oversight, or mere misfortune that, withthe aid of a possible court martial, would reduce him to a proper stateof humbleness. 

Peshawur, the greatest garrison in northern India, was there onsufferance, apparently. For lack of energetic men in authority to dealwith them, the border robbers plundered while the troops remained coopedup within the unhealthiest station on the list. The government itself, with several thousand troops to back it up, was paying blackmail to theborder thieves! There was not a government bungalow in all Peshawur thatdid not have its "watchman, " hired from over the border, well paid tosleep on the veranda lest his friends should come and take tribute in aneven more unseemly manner. 

The younger men, whose sense of fitness had not yet been rotted byclimate and system and prerogative, swore at the condition; there wereone or two men higher up, destined to make history, whose voices, raisedin emphatic protest, were drowned in the drone of "Peace! Peace is thething to work for. Compromise, consideration, courtesy, these three arethe keys of rule. " They failed to realize that cowardice was theirreal keynote, and that the threefold method that they vaunted was quiteuseless without a stiffening of courage. 

So brave men, who had more courtesy in each of their fingers thanmost of the seniors had all put together, had to bow to a scandalouscondition that made England's rule a laughing-stock within a stone'sthrow of the city limits. And they had to submit to the indecency ofseeing a new, inexperienced arrival picked for the task of commanding abody of irregulars, for no other reason than because it was consideredwise to make an exhibition of him. 

Cunningham became half policeman, half soldier, in charge of a smallspecial force of mounted men engaged for the purpose of patrol. He hadnothing to do with the selection of them; that business was attendedto perfunctorily by a man very high up in departmental service, whoconsidered Cunningham a nuisance. He was a gentleman who did not knowMahommed Gunga; another thing he did not know was the comfortable feelof work well done; so he was more than pleased when Mahommed Gungadropped in from nowhere in particular--paid him scandalously untruecompliments without a blush or a smile and offered to produce therequired number of men at once. 

Only fifty were required. Mahommed Gunga brought three hundred to selectfrom, and, when asked to do so in order to save time and trouble, pickedout the fifty best. 

"There are your men!" said the Personage off-handedly, when they hadbeen sworn in in a group. "Be good enough to remember, Mr. Cunningham, that you are now responsible for their behavior, and for the propernight patrolling of the city limits. "

That was a tall order, and in spite of all of youth's enthusiasm wasenough to make any young fellow nervous. But Mahommed Gunga met him inthe street, saluted him with almost sacrilegious ceremony, and drew himto one side. 

"Have courage, now, bahadur! I ride away to visit my estates (he spokeof them always in the plural, as though he owned a county or two). Youhave under you the best eyes and the keenest blades along the border forI attended to it! Be ruthless! Use them, work them--sweat them to death!Keep away from messes and parades; seek no praise, for you will get nonein any case! Work! Work for what is coming!"

"You speak as though the fate of a continent were hanging in thebalance, " laughed Cunningham, shaking hands with him. 

"I speak truth!" said Mahommed Gunga, riding off and leaving theyoungster wondering. 

Now, there was nothing much the matter with the men on either side, taken in the main, who hated one another on that far-pushed frontier. Even the insufferable incompetents who held the rotting reins of controlwere such because circumstance had blinded them. There was not a manamong the highly placed ones even who would have deliberately placed hisown importance or his own opinion in the scale against India's welfare. There was not a border thief but was ready to respect what he couldrecognize as strong-armed justice. 

The root of the trouble lay in centralization of authority, and rigidadherence to the rule of seniority. Combined, these two processes hadserved to bring about a state of things that is nearly unbelievable whenviewed in the light of modern love for efficiency. Young men, with thefire of ambition burning in them and a proper scorn for mere superficialceremony, had to sweat their tempers and bow down beneath the yoke ofsenile pompousness. 

Strong, savage, powder-weaned Hill-tribesmen--inheritors of egoisticindependence and a love of loot--laughed loud and long and openly atSystem that prevented officers from taking arms against them untilauthority could come by delegate from somebody who slept. By that timethey would be across the border, quarrelling among themselves aboutdivision of the plunder!

They had respect in plenty for the youth and virile middle age thatdealt with them on the rare occasions when a timely blow was loosed. Then they had proof that from that strange, mad country overseas therecame men who could lead men--men who could strike, and who knew enoughto hold their hands when the sudden blow had told--just men, who couldkeep their plighted word. No border thief pretended that the Britishcould not rule him; to a man, they laughed because the possible was notimposed. And to the last bold, ruffianly iconoclast they stole when, where, and what they dared. 

Things altered strangely soon after Ralph Cunningham, with thediffidence of youth but the blood of a line of soldiers leaping inhim, took charge of his tiny force of nondescripts. They were neithersoldiers nor police. Nominally, he was everybody's dog, and so werethey; actually he found himself at the head of a tiny department ofhis own, because it was nobody's affair to give him orders. They haddeliberately turned him loose "to hang himself, " and their hope that hemight get his head into a noose of trouble as soon as possible--the veryliberty they gave him, on purpose for his quick damnation--was the meansof making reputation for him. 

Nobody advised him; so with singularly British phlegm and not morethan ordinary common sense he devised a method of his own for scotchingnight-prowlers. He stationed his men at well-considered vantage-points, and trusted them. With a party of ten, he patrolled the city ceaselesslyhimself and whipped every "watchman" he caught sleeping. One by one, theblackmailing brigade began to see the discomfort of a job that calledfor real wakefulness, and deserted over the Hills to urge the resumptionof raids in force. One by one, the night-prowling fraternity wereshot as they sneaked past sentries. One by one, the tale of robberiesdiminished. It was merely a question of one man, and he awake, having power to act without first submitting a request to somebody intriplicate on blue-form B. 

The time came, after a month or two, when even natives dared to leavetheir houses after dark. The time came very soon, indeed, when thenearest tribes began to hold war councils and inveigh against thefalling off of the supply of plunder. Cunningham was complimentedopenly. He was even praised by one of "Them. " So it was perfectlynatural, and quite in keeping with tradition, that he should shortlybe relieved, and that a senior to him should be placed in charge of hislittle force, with orders to "organize" it. 

The organization process lasted about twelve hours; at the end of thattime every single man had deserted, horse and arms! Two nights later, the prowling and plundering was once more in full swing, and Cunninghamwas blamed for it; it was obvious to any man of curry-and-port-wineproclivities that his method, or lack of it, had completely underminedhis men's loyalty!

A whole committee of gray-headed gentlemen took trouble to point outto him his utter failure; but a brigadier, who was not a member of thatcommittee, and who was considered something of an upstart, asked thathe might be appointed to a troop of irregular cavalry that had recentlybeen raised. With glee--with a sigh of relief so heartfelt and unanimousthat it could be heard across the street--the committee leaped at thesuggestion. The proper person was induced without difficulty to puthis signature to the required paper, and Cunningham found himselftransferred to irregular oblivion. Incidentally he found himselfcommanding few less than a hundred men, so many of whose first nameswere Mahommed or Mohammed that the muster-roll looked like a list ofAllah's prophets. 

Cunningham was more than a little bit astonished, on the day he joined, in camp, a long way from Peshawur, to find his friend Mahommed Gunga, seated in a bell tent with the Brigadier. He caught sight of the longblack military boot and silver spur, and half-recognized the up-and-downmovement of the crossed leg long before he reached the tent. It waslike father and son meeting, almost, as the Rajput rose to greet himand waited respectfully until he had paid his compliments to his newcommander. Cunningham felt throat-bound, and could scarcely more thanstammer his introduction of himself. 

"I know who you are and all about you, " said the Brigadier. "Used toknow your father well. I applied to have you in my command partly foryour father's sake, but principally because Risaldar Mahommed Gungaspake so highly of you. He tells me he has had an eye on you from thestart, and that you shape well. Remember, this is irregular cavalry, andin many respects quite unlike regulars. You'll need tact and a firm handcombined, and you mustn't ever forget that the men whom you will leadare gentlemen. "

Cunningham reported to his Colonel, only to discover that he, too, knewall about him. The Colonel was less inclined to be restricted as totopic, and less mindful of discretion than the Brigadier. 

"I hear they couldn't stand you in Peshawur. That's hopeful! If you'dcome with a recommendation from that quarter, I'd have packed you offback again. I never in my life would have believed that a dozen mencould all shut their eyes so tightly to the signs--never!"

"The signs, sir?"

"Yes, the signs! Come and look your troop over. "

Cunningham found that the troop, too, had heard about his coming. Hedid not look them over. When he reached the lines, they came out in aswarm--passed him one by one, eyed him, as traders eye a horse--and thensaluted him a second time, with the greeting:

"Salaam, Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur!"

"Yes! You're in disgrace!" said his Colonel, noticing the color risingto the youngster's cheeks. 

CHAPTER XII

 Sons of the sons of war we be, Sabred and horsed, and whole and free; One is the caste, and one degree, -- One law, --one code decreed us. Who heads wolves in the dawning day? Who leaps in when the bull's at bay? He who dare is he who may! Now, rede ye who shall lead us!

THE check that Ralph Cunningham's management of his police had caused, and the subsequent resumption of night looting, served to whet theappetites of the hungry crowd beyond the border. Those closest toPeshawur, who had always done the looting, were not the ultimateconsignees by any means; there were other tribes who bought fromthem--others yet to whom they paid tribute in the shape of stolenrifles. Cunningham's administration had upset the whole modus vivendi ofthe lower Himalayas!

Though it all began again the moment he was superseded, there had been, none the less, a three-month interregnum, and that had to be compensatedfor. The tribes at the rear were clamorous and would not listen toargument or explanation; they had collected in hundreds, led by thenotorious Khumel Khan, preparatory to raiding in real earnest and withsufficient force to carry all before them at the first surprise attack. 

They were disappointed when the pilfering resumed, for a tribal Hillmanwould generally rather fight than eat, and would always prefer hisdinner from a dead enemy's cooking-pot. They sat about for a long time, considering whether there were not excuse enough for war in any caseand listening to the intricately detailed information brought by thedeserting watchmen. And as they discussed things, but before they hadtime to decide on any plan, the Brigadier commanding the Irregulars gotwind of them. 

He was a man who did not worry about the feelings of senile heads ofred-tape-bound departments; nor was he particularly hidebound by respectfor the laws of evidence. When he knew a thing, he knew it; then heeither acted or did not act, as the circumstances might dictate. Andwhen the deed was done or left undone, and was quite beyond the reach ofcriticism, he would send in a verbose, voluminous report, written out inseveral colored inks, on all the special forms he could get hold of. Theheads of departments would be too busy for the next twelvemonth tryingto get the form of the report straightened out to be able to give anyattention to the details of it; and then it would be too late. But hewas a brigadier, and what he could do with impunity and quiet amusementwould have brought down the whole Anglo-Indian Government in awful wrathon the head of a subordinate. 

He heard of the tribesmen under Khumel Khan one evening. At dawn histents stood empty and the horse-lines were long bands of brown on thegreen grass. The pegs were up; only the burying beetles labored wherethe stamping chargers had neighed overnight. 

The hunger-making wind that sweeps down, snow-sweetened, from theHimalayas bore with it intermittent thunder from four thousand hoofsas, split in three and swooping from three different directions, thesquadrons viewed, gave tongue, and launched themselves, roaring, at thehalf-awakened plotters of the night before. 

There was a battle, of a kind, in a bowlder-lined valley where the earlymorning sun had not yet reached to lift the chill. Long lances--devils'antennae--searched out the crevices where rock-bred mountain-men soughtcover; too suddenly for clumsy-fingered Hillmen to reload, the reformedtroops charged wedgewise into rallying detachments. In an hour, or less, there were prisoners being herded like cattle in the valley bottom, anda sting had been drawn from the border wasp that would not grow againfor a year or two to come. 

But Khumel Khan was missing. Khumel Khan, the tulwar man--he whose boastit was that he could hew through two men's necks at one whistling sweepof his notched, curved cimeter--had broken through with a dozen at hisback. He had burst through the half-troop guarding the upper end ofthe defile, had left them red and reeling to count their dead, and theoverfolding hill-spurs swallowed him. 

"Mr. Cunningham! Take your troop, please, and find their chief! Hunt himout, ride him down, and get him! Don't come back until you do!"

The real thing! The real red thing within a year! A lonecommand--and that is the only thing a subaltern of spunk may prayfor!--eighty-and-eight hawk-eyed troopers asking only for theopportunity to show their worth--lean, hungry hills to hunt in, nocommissariat, fair law to the quarry, and a fight--as sure as God mademountains, a fight at the other end! There are men here and there whothink that the day when they pass down a crowded aisle with Her is thegreat one, other great days are all as gas-jets to the sun. And thereare others. There are men, like Cunningham, who have heard the drummingof the hoofs behind them as they led their first un-apron-stringed unitout into the unknown. The one kind of man has tasted honey, but theother knows what fed, and feeds, the roaring sportsmen in Valhalla. 

There were crisscross trails, where low-hung clouds swept curtainwise tomake the compass seem like a lie-begotten trick. There weregorges, hewn when the Titans needed dirt to build the awfulHimalayas--shadow-darkened--sheer as the edge of Nemesis. Long-reaching, pile on pile, the over-lapping spurs leaned over them. The wind blewthrough them amid silence that swallowed and made nothing of the dinwhich rides with armed men. 

But, with eyes that were made for hunting, on horses that seemed partof them, they tracked and trailed--and viewed at last. Their shout gaveKhumel Khan his notice that the price of a hundred murders was overdue, and he chose to make payment where a V-shaped cliff enclosed a small, flat plateau and not more than a dozen could ride at him at a time. Hiscompanions scattered much as a charge of shrapnel shrieks through therocks, but Khumel Khan knew well enough that he was the quarry--his wasthe head that by no conceivable chance would be allowed to planfresh villainies. He might have run yet a little way, but he saw theuselessness, and stood. 

The troop, lined out knee to knee, could come within a hundred paces ofhim without breaking; it formed a base, then, to a triangle from whichthe man at bay could no more escape than a fire-ringed scorpion. 

"Call on him to surrender!" ordered Cunningham. 

A chevroned black-beard half a horse-length behind him translated thedemand into stately Pashtu, and for answer the hill chieftain mountedhis stolen horse and shook his tulwar. He had pistols at his belt, buthe did not draw them; across his shoulder swung a five-foot-long jezail, but he loosed it and flung it to the ground. 

"Is there any here dare take me single-handed?" he demanded with a grin. 

Of the eight-and-eighty, there were eighty-eight who dared; but therewas an eighty-ninth, a lad of not yet twenty-two, whom Indian chivalrydesired to honor. The troop had heard but the troop had not yet seen. 

"Ride in and take him!" ordered Cunningham and there was athoroughly well acted make-believe of fear, while every eye watched"Cunnigan-bahadur, " and the horses, spurred and reined at once, prancedat their bits for just so long as a good man needs to make his mind up. And Cunningham rode in. 

He rode in as a Rajput rides, with a swoop and a swinging sabre and asilent, tight-lipped vow that he would prove himself. Green though hewas yet, he knew that the troop had found for him--had rounded up forhim--had made him his opportunity; so he took it, right under theireyes, straight in the teeth of the stoutest tulwar man of the lowerHimalayas. 

He, too, had pistols at his belt, but there was no shot fired. Therewas nothing but a spur-loosed rush and a shock--a spark-lit, swirling, slashing, stamping, snorting melee--a stallion and a mare up-ended--twostrips of lightning steel that slit the wind--and a thud, as a lifelessborder robber took the turf. 

There was silence then--the grim, good silence of Mohammedanapproval--while a native officer closed up a sword-cut with his fingersand tore ten-yard strips from his own turban to bind the youngster'shead. They rode back without boast or noise and camped withoutadvertisement. There was no demonstration made; only-a colonel said, "I like things done that way, quickly, without fuss, " and a brigadierremarked, "Hrrrumph! 'Gratulate you, Mr. Cunningham!"

Later, when they camped again outside Peshawur, a reward of threethousand rupees that had been offered on the border outlaw's head waspaid to Cunningham in person--a very appreciable sum to a subaltern, whose pay is barely sufficient for his mess bills. So, although nopublic comment was made on the matter, it was considered "decent of him"to contribute the whole amount to a pension fund for the dependents ofthe regiment's dead. 

"You know, that's your money, " said his Colonel. "You can keep everyanna of it if you choose. "

"I suppose I needn't be an officer unless I choose?" suggestedCunningham. 

"I don't know, youngster! I can't guess what your troop would do if youtried to desert it!"

That was, of course, merely a diplomatic recognition of the fact thatCunningham had done his duty in making his men like him, and was notintended seriously. Nobody--not even the Brigadier--had any notion thatthe troop would very shortly have to dispense with its leader's serviceswhether it wanted to or not. 

But it so happened that one troop at a time was requisitioned to beornamental body-guard to such as were entitled to one in the frontiercity; and the turn arrived when Cunningham was sent. None liked theduty. No soldier, and particularly no irregular, likes to considerhimself a pipe-clayed ornament; but Cunningham would have "gone sick"had he had the least idea of what was in store for him. 

It was bad enough to be obliged to act as body-guard to men who hadjockeyed him away because they were jealous of him. The white scar thatran now like a chin-strap mark from the corner of his eye to the angleof his jaw would blaze red often at some deliberately thought-out, not fancied, insult from men who should have been too big to more thannotice him. And that, again, was nothing to the climax. 

Mahommed Gunga chose to polish up his silver spurs and ride in from his"estates" on a protracted visit to Peshawur, and with an escort thatmust have included half the zemindars on the countryside as well ashis own small retinue. Glittering on his own account like a regiment ofhorse, and with all but a regiment clattering behind him, he chosethe occasion to meet Cunningham when the youngster was fuming withimpatience opposite the club veranda, waiting to escort a general. 

On the veranda sat a dozen men who had been at considerable pains toput and keep the officer of the escort in his place. If the jingle andglitter of the approaching cavalcade had not been sufficient to attracttheir notice, they could have stopped their cars and yet have beenforced to hear the greeting. 

"Aha! Salaam sahib! Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur, bohut salaam! Thy father'sson! Sahib, I am much honored!"

The white scar blazed, but Mahommed Gunga affected not to notice thediscomfort of his victim. Many more than a hundred sabred gentlemenpressed round to "do themselves the honor, " as they expressed it, ofpaying Cunningham a compliment. They rode up like knights in armor inthe lists, and saluted like heralds bringing tribute and allegiance. 

"Salaam, Chota-Cunnigan!"

"Salaam, sahib!"

"Bohut salaam, bahadur!"

The Generals, the High-Court judges, and Commissioners on the clubveranda sat unhonored, while a boy of twenty-two received obeisance frommen whose respect a king might envy. No Rajput ever lived who was notsure that his salute was worth more than tribute; he can be polite onall occasions, and what he thinks mere politeness would be consideredoveracting in the West, but his respect and his salute he keeps for hisequals or his betters--and they must be men indeed. 

The coterie of high officials sat indignation-bound for ten palpitatingminutes, until the General remembered that it was his escort that waswaiting for him. He had ordered it an hour too soon, for the expresssweet purpose of keeping Cunningham waiting in the sun, but it dawnednow on his apoplectic consciousness that his engagement was most urgent. He descended in a pompous hurry, mounted and demanded why--by all thegods of India--the escort was not lined up to receive him. A minutelater, after a loudly administered reprimand that was meant as much forthe swarm of Rajputs as for the indignant Cunningham, he rode off withthe escort clattering behind him. 

But on the club veranda, when the Rajputs with Mahommed Gunga haddispersed, the big wigs sat and talked the matter over very thoroughly. 

"It's no use blinking matters, " said the senior man present, using ahuge handkerchief to wave the flies away from the polished dome whichrose between two side wisps of gray hair. "They're going to lionize himwhile he's here, so we'd better move him on. "

"But where?"

"I've got it! There's a letter in from Everton at Abu, saying he needsa man badly to go to Howrah and act resident there--says he hasn't heardfrom the missionaries and isn't satisfied--wants a man without too muchauthority to go there and keep an eye on things in general. Howrah's ahell of a place from all accounts. "

"But that 'ud be promotion!"

"Can't be helped. No excuse for reducing him, so far as I've heard. Thetrouble is the cub has done too dashed well. We've got to promote him ifwe want to be rid of him. "

They talked it over for an hour, and at the end of it decided Cunninghamshould go to Howrah, provided a brigadier could be induced without toomuch argument to see reason. 

"The Brigadier probably wants to keep him, and his Colonel will raiseall the different kinds of Cain there are!" suggested the man who hadbegun the discussion. 

"I've seen brigadiers before now reduced to a proper sense of theirown unimportance!" remarked another man. And he was connected with theTreasury. He knew. 

But a week later, when the papers were sent to the Brigadier forsignature, he amazed everybody by consenting without the leastobjection. Nobody but he knew who his visitor had been the night before. 

"How did you know about it, Mahommed Gunga?" he demanded, as the veteransat and faced him over the tent candle, his one lean leg swaying up anddown, as usual, above the other. 

"Have club servants not got ears, sahib?"

"And you--?"

"I, too, have ears--good ones!"

The Brigadier drummed his fingers on the table, hesitating. No officer, however high up in the service, likes to lose even a subaltern from hiscommand when that subaltern is worth his salt. 

"Let him go, sahib! You have seen how we Rangars honor him--you mayguess what difference he might make in a crisis. Sign, sahib--let himgo!"

"But--where do you come in? What have you had to do with this?"

"First, sahib, I tested him thoroughly. I found him good. Second, I toldtales about him, making him out better than even he is. Third, I madesure that all those in authority at Peshawur should hate him. Thatwould have been impossible if he had been a fool, or a weak man, oran incompetent; but any good man can be hated easily. Fourth, sahib, Isent, by the hand of a man of mine, a message to Everton-sahib at Abureporting to him that it was not in Howrah as it should be, and warninghim that a sahib should be sent there. I knew that he would listen to ahint from me, and I knew that he had no one in his office whom he couldsend. Then, sahib, I brought matters to a head by bringing every man ofmerit whom I could raise to salute him and make an outrageous exhibitionof him. That is what I have done!"

"One would think you were scheming for a throne, Mahommed Gunga!"

"Nay, sahib, I am scheming for the peace of India! But there will be warfirst. "

"I know there will be war, " said the Brigadier. "I only wish I couldmake the other sahibs realize it. "

"Will you sign the paper, sahib?"

"Yes, I will sign the paper. But--"

"But what, sahib?"

"I'm not quite certain that I'm doing right. "

"Brigadier-sahib, when the hour comes--and that is soon--it will be timeto answer that! There lie the papers. "

CHAPTER XIII

 Even in darkness lime and sand Will blend to make up mortar. Two by two would equal four Under a bucket of water. 

NOW it may seem unimaginable that two Europeans could be cooped inHowrah, not under physical restraint, and yet not able to communicatewith any one who could render them assistance. It was the case, though, and not by any means an isolated case. The policy of the BritishGovernment, once established in India, was and always has been not tooccupy an inch of extra territory until compelled by circumstances. 

The native states, then, while forbidden to contract alliances withone another or the world outside, and obliged by the letter of writtentreaties to observe certain fundamental laws imposed on them by theAnglo-Indian Government, were left at liberty to govern themselves. Andit was largely the fact that they could and did keep secret what wasgoing on within their borders that enabled the so-called Sepoy Rebellionto get such a smouldering foothold before it burst into a blaze. Thesepoys were the tools of the men behind the movement; and the men behindwere priests and others who were feeling nothing but their own ambition. 

No man knows even now how long the fire rebellion had been burningunderground before showed through the surface; but it is quite obviousthat, in spite of the heroism shown by British and loyal native alikewhen the crash did come, the rebels must have won--and have won easilysheer weight of numbers--had they only used the amazing system solelyfor the broad, comprehensive purpose for which it was devised. 

But the sense of power that its ramifications and extent gave birth toalso whetted the desires individuals. Each man of any influence at allbegan to scheme to use the system for the furtherance of his individualambition. Instead of bending all their energy and craft to the onegreat object of hurling an unloved conqueror back whence he came, eachreigning prince strove to scheme himself head and shoulders above therest; and each man who wanted to be prince began to plot harder thanever to be one. 

So in Howrah the Maharajah's brother, Jaimihr, with a large followingand organization of his own, began to use the secret system of which heby right formed an integral part and to set wheels working within thewheels which in course of time should spew him up on the ledge which hisbrother now occupied. Long before the rebellion was ready he had allhis preparations made and waited only for the general conflagration tostrike for his own hand. And was so certain of success that he daredmake plans as well for Rosemary McClean's fate. 

There is a blindness, too, quite unexplainable that comes over wholenations sometimes. It is almost like a plague in its mysterious arrivaland departure. As before the French Revolution there were almost none ofthe ruling classes who could read the writing on the wall, so it was inIndia in the spring of '57. Men saw the signs and could not read theirmeaning. As in France, so in India, there were a few who understood, butthey were scoffed at; the rest--the vast majority who held the reins ofpower--were blind. 

Rosemary McClean discovered that her pony had gone lame, and was angrywith the groom. The groom ran away, and she put that down to nativesenselessness. Duncan McClean sent one after another of the littlenative children to find him a man who would take a letter to Mount Abu. The children went and did not come back again, and he put that down tothe devil, who would seem to have reclaimed them. 

Both of them saw the watchers, posted at every vantage-point, insolentlywakeful; both of them knew that Jaimihr had placed them there. Butneither of them looked one inch deeper than the surface, nor supposedthat their presence betokened anything but the prince's unreachableambition. Neither of them thought for an instant that the day couldpossibly have come when Britain would be unable to protect a woman ofits own race, or when a native--however powerful--would dare to do morethan threaten. 

Joanna disappeared, and that led to a chain of thought which was notcreditable to any one concerned. They reasoned this way: Rosemary hadseen Mahommed Gunga hold out a handful of gold coins for the oldwoman's eyes to glitter at, therefore it was fair to presume that hehad promised her a reward for bringing word to the man whom, it wasnow known, he had left behind. She had brought word to him and haddisappeared. What more obvious than to reason that the man had gladlypaid her, and had just as gladly ridden off, rejoicing at the thoughtthat he could escape doing service?

"So much, " they argued, "for native constancy! So much for MahommedGunga's boast that he knew of men who could be trusted! And so much forJoanna's gratitude!"

The old woman had been saved by Rosemary McClean from the long-drawn-outhell that is the life portion of most Indian widows, even of low caste;she had had little to do, ever, beyond snooze in the shade and eat, andrun sometimes behind the pony--a task which came as easily to her asdid the other less active parts of her employment. Her desertion, particularly at a crisis, made Rosemary McClean cry, and set her fatherto quoting Shakespeare's "King Lear. "

 "Blow, blow, thou winter wind! Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude!"

All Scotsmen seem to have a natural proclivity for quotingthe appropriate dirge when sorrow shows itself. The Book ofLamentations--Shakespeare's sadder lines--roll off their tonguesmajestically and seem to give them consolation--as it were to lay asound, unjoyous basis for the proper enjoyment of the songs of RobbieBurns. 

The poor old king of the poet's imagining, declaiming up above thecliffs of Dover, could have put no more pathos into those immortal linesthan did Duncan McClean as he paced up and down between the hot warsof the darkened room. The dry air parched his throat, and his ambitionseemed to shrivel in him as he saw the brave little woman who was all hehad sobbing with her head between her hands. 

He turned to the Bible, but he could find no precedent in any of itspages for abandoning a quest like his in the teeth of disaster oradversity. He read it for hour after crackling hour, moisteninghis throat from time to time with warm, unappetizing water from theimprovised jar filter; but when the oven blast that makes the Indiansummer day a hell on earth had waned and died away, he had found nothingbut admonishment to stand firm. There had been women, too, whosedeeds were worthy of record in that book, and he found no argumentfor deserting his post on his daughter's account either. In the Bibleaccount, as he read it, it had always been the devil who fled whenthings got too uncomfortable for him, and he was conscious of atight-lipped, stern contempt for the devil. 

He had about made up his mind what line to take with his daughter, whenshe ceased her sobbing and looked up through swollen eyes to relieve himof the necessity for talking her over to his point view. What she saidamazed him, but not be cause it came to him as a new idea. She said, indifferent words, exactly what was passing in his own mind, and it was asthough her tears and his search of the Scriptures had brought them bothto one clear-cut conclusion. 

"Why are we here, father?" she asked him suddenly; and because she tookhim by surprise he did not answer her at once. "We are here to dogood aren't we?" That was no question; it was beginning of a line ofargument. Her father held his tongue, and laid his Bible down, andlistened on. "How much good have we done yet?"

She paused, but the pause was rhetorical, and he knew it; he could seethe light behind her eyes that was more than visionary; it was the lightof practical Scots enthusiasm, unquenched and undiscouraged after abattle with fear itself. She began to be beautiful again as the spiritof unconquerable courage won its way. 

"Have we won one convert? Is there one, of those you have taught who iswith us still?"

The answer was self-evident. There was none. But there was no sting forhim in what she asked. Rather her words came as a relief, for he couldfeel the strength behind them. He still said nothing. 

"Have we stopped one single suttee? Have we once, in any least degree, lessened the sufferings of one of those poor widows?"

"Not once, " he answered her, without a trace of shame. He knew, and sheknew, how hard the two of them had tried. There was nothing to apologizefor. 

"Have we undermined the power of the Hindoo priests? Have we removed onetrace of superstition?"

"No, " he said quietly. 

"Have we given up the fight?"

He looked hard at her. Gray eyes under gray brows met gray eyes thatshone from under dark, wet lashes, and deep spoke unto deep. Scotsmanrecognized Scotswoman, and the bond between them tightened. 

"It seems to me"--there was a new thrill in her voice--"that here isour opportunity! Either Jaimihr wants to frighten us away or he is inearnest with his impudent attentions to me. In either case let us makeno attempt to go away. Let us refuse to go away. Let us stay here at allcosts. If he wishes us to go away, then he must have a reason and willshow it, or else try to force us. If he is really trying to make loveto me, then let him try; if he has pluck enough, let him seize me. Ineither case we shall force his hand. I am willing to be the bait. Themoment that he harms either you or me, the government will have tointerfere. If he kills us so much the better, for that would mean swiftvengeance and a British occupation. That would stop suttee for all time, and we would have given our lives for something worth while. As we are, we cannot communicate with our government, and Jaimihr thinks he has usin his grasp. Let him think it! Let him go ahead! Sooner or later thegovernment must find out that we are missing Then--!" Her eyes blazed atthe thought of what would happen then. 

Her father looked at her for about a minute, sadness and pride in herfighting in him for the mastery. Then he rose and crossed the littlespace between them. 

"Lassie!" he said. "Lassie!"

She took his hand--the one little touch of human sentiment lacking todisturb his emotional balance. The Scots will talk readily enough ofsorrow, but at showing it they are a grudging race of men. Unless aScotsman thinks he can gain something for his cause by showing whatemotion racks him, he will swallow down the choking flood of grief, andkeep a straight face to the world and his own as well. Duncan McCleanturned from her--drew his hand away--and walked to open the slitshutters. A moment later he came back, once more master of himself. 

"As things are, dear, " he said gently, "how would it be possible for usto get away?"

"'We canna gang awa'!" she quoted, with a smile. 

"NO, lassie. We must stay here and be brave. This matter is not in ourhands. We must wait, and watch, and see. If opportunity should cometo us to make our escape, we will seize it. Should it not come--shouldJaimihr, or some other of them, make occasion to molest us--it maybe--it might be that--surely the day of martyrs is not past--it mightbe that--well, well, in either case we will eventually win. Should theykill us, the government must send here to avenge us; should we get away, surely our report will be listened to. A month or two--perhaps only aweek or two--even a day or two, who knows?--and the last suttee willhave been performed!"

He stood and stroked her head--then stooped and kissed it--an unusualbetrayal of emotion from him. 

"Ye're a brave lassie, " he said, leaving the room hurriedly, to escapethe shame of letting her see tears welling from his eyes--salt tearsthat scalded as they broke their hot-wind-wearied bounds. 

Five minutes later she arose, dry-eyed, and went to stand in thedoorway, where an eddy or two of lukewarm evening breeze might possiblybe stirring. But a dirtily clad Hindoo, lounging on a raised, raillessstore veranda opposite, leered at her impudently, and she came insideagain--to pass the evening and the sultry, black, breathless night outof sight, at least, of the brutes who shut her off from even exercise. 

CHAPTER XIV

 So, I am a dog? Hence I must come To do thy bidding faster? Must tell thee--Nay, a dog stays dumb! A dog obeys one master!

NOT many yards from where the restless elephants stood lined underbig brick arches--in an age-old courtyard, three sides of which werestone-carved splendor and the fourth a typically Eastern mess ofstables, servants' quarters, litter, stink, and noisy confusion--astone door, slab-hewn, gave back the aching glitter of the sun. Its onlyopening--a narrow slit quite near the top--was barred. A man--his faceclose-pressed against them--peered through the interwoven iron rods fromwithin. 

Jaimihr, in a rose-pink pugree still, but not at all the swaggeringcavalier who pranced, high-booted, through the streets--a down-at-heelprince, looking slovenly and heavy-eyed from too much opium--sat ina long chair under the cloister which faced the barred stone door. Heswished with a rhino riding-whip at the stone column beside him, and themuch-swathed individual of the plethoric paunch who stood and spoke withhim kept a very leery eye on it; he seemed to expect the binding swishof it across his own shins, and the thought seemed tantalizing. 

"It is not to be done, " said Jaimihr, speaking in a dialect peculiarto Howrah. "That--of all the idiotic notions I have listened to--is theleast worth while! Thy brains are in thy belly and are lost amid thefat! If my brother Howrah only had such counsellors as thou--such monkeyfolk to make his plans for him--the jackals would have finished with himlong ago. "

"Sahib, did I not bring word, and overhear, and trap the man?"

"Truly! Overheard whisperings, and trapped me a hyena I must feed!Now thou sayest, 'Torture him!' He is a Rangar, and of good stock;therefore, no amount of torturing will make him speak. He is that pigMahommed Gunga's man; therefore, there' is nothing more sure than thatMahommed Gunga will be here, sooner or later, to look for him--MahommedGunga, with the half of a Hindoo name, the whole of a Moslem's fire, andthe blind friendship of the British to rely on!"

"But if the man be dead when Mahommed Gunga comes?"

"He will be dead when Mahommed Gunga comes, if only what we await hasfirst happened. But this rising that is planned hangs fire. Were IMaharajah I would like to see the Rangar who dare flout me or askquestions! I would like but to set eyes on that Rangar once! But Iam not yet Maharajah; I am a prince--a younger brother--surrounded, counselled, impeded, hampered, rendered laughable by fat idiots!"

"My belly but shows your highness's generosity. At whose cost have Igrown fat?"

"Ay, at whose cost? I should have kept thee slim, on prison diet, andsaved myself a world of useless problems! Cease prattling! Get away fromme! If I have to poison this Ali Partab, or wring his casteless neck, Iwill make thee do it, and give thee to Mahommed Gunga to wreak vengeanceon. Leave me to think!"

The fat former occupant of the room above the arch of the caravansarywaddled to the far end of the cloister, and sat down, cross-legged, to grumble to himself and scratch his paunch at intervals. His master, low-browed and irritable, continued to strike the stone column with hiscane. He was in a horrid quandary. 

Mahommed Gunga was one of many men he did not want, for the present, to offend seriously. Given a fair cause for quarrel, that irascibleex-Risaldar was capable of going to any lengths, and was known, moreover, to be trusted by the British. Nobody seemed to know whether ornot Mahommed Gunga reciprocated the British regard, and nobody had caredto ask him except his own intimates; and they, like he, were men ofclose counsel. 

The Prince had given no orders for the capture of Ali Partab; that hadbeen carried out by his men in a fit of ill-advised officiousness. Butthe Prince had to solve the serious problem caused by the presence ofAli Partab within a stone-walled cell. 

Should he let the fellow go, a report would be certain to reach MahommedGunga by the speediest route. Vengeance would be instantly decided on, for a Rajput does not merely accept service; he repays it, feudal-wise, and smites hip and thigh for the honor of his men. The vengeance wouldbe sure to follow purely Eastern lines, and would be complicated; itwould no doubt take the form of siding in some way or other with hisbrother the Maharajah. There would be instant, active doings, forthat was Mahommed Gunga's style! The fat would be in the fire months, perhaps, before the proper time. 

The prisoner's presence was maddening in a million ways. It had been thePrince's plan (for he knew well enough that Mahommed Gunga had left aman behind) to allow the escape to start; then it would have been aneasy matter to arrange an ambush--to kill Ali Partab--and to pretend toride to the rescue. Once rescued, Miss McClean and her father would bealmost completely at his mercy, for they would not be able to accuse himof anything but friendliness, and would be obliged to return to whateverhaven of safety he cared to offer them. Once in his palace of their ownconsent, they would have had to stay there until the rising of thewhole of India put an end to any chance of interference from the BritishGovernment. 

But now there was no Ali Partab outside to try to escort them tosome place of safety; therefore, there was little chance that themissionaries would try to make a bolt. Instead of being in the positionof a cat that watches silently and springs when the mouse breaks cover, he was in the unenviable condition now of being forced to make the firstmove. Over and over again he cursed the men who had made Ali Partabprisoner, and over and over again: he wondered how--by all the gods ofall the multitudinous Hindoo mythology--how, when, and by what strokeof genius he could make use of the stiff-chinned Rangar and convert himfrom being a rankling thorn into a useful aid. 

He dared not poison him--yet. For the same reason he dared not put himto the torture, to discover, or try to discover, what Mahommed Gunga'sreal leanings were in the matter of loyalty to the Raj or otherwise. Hedared not let the man go, for forgiveness is not one of the virtuesheld in high esteem by men of Ali Partab's race, and wrongful arrest isconsidered ground enough for a feud to the death. It seemed he did notdare do anything!

He racked his opium-dulled brain for a suspicion of a plan thatmight help solve the difficulty, until his eye--wandering around thecourtyard--fell on the black shape of a woman. She was old and bent andshe was busied, with a handful of dry twigs, pretending to sweep aroundthe stables. 

"Who is that mother of corruption?" demanded Jaimihr; and a man camerunning to him. 

"Who is that eyesore? I have never seen her, have I?"

"Highness, she is a beggar woman. She sat by the gate, and pretendedto a power of telling fortunes--which it would seem she does possess insome degree. It was thought better that she should use her gift in here, for our advantage, than outside to our disadvantage. So she was broughtin and set to sweeping. "

"By the curse of the sin of the sack of Chitor, is my palace, then, a midden for the crawling offal of all the Howrah streets? First thisRangar--next a sweeper hag--what follows? What bring you next? Go, fetchthe street dogs in!"

"Highness, she is useful and costs nothing but the measure or two ofmeal she eats. "

"A horse eats little more!" the angry Prince retorted, perfectlyaccustomed to being argued with by his own servants. That is thetime-honored custom of the East; obedience is one thing--argumentanother--both in their way are good, and both have their innings. "Bringher to me--nay!--keep her at a decent distance--so!--am I dirt for herbroom?"

He sat and scowled at her, and the old woman tried to hide more of herprotruding bones under the rag of clothing that she wore; she stood, wriggling in evident embarrassment, well out in the sun. 

"What willst thou steal of mine?" the Prince demanded suddenly. 

"I am no thief. " Bright, beady eyes gleamed back at him, and gave thelie direct to her shrinking attitude of fear. But he had taken too muchopium overnight, and was in no mood to notice little distinctions. He was satisfied that she should seem properly afraid of him, and hescowled angrily when one of his retainers--in slovenly undress--crossedthe courtyard to him. The man's evident intention, made obvious by hismanner and his leer at the old woman, was to say something against her;the Prince was in a mood to quarrel with any one, on any ground at all, who did not cower to him. 

"Prince, she it is who ran ever with the white woman, as a dog runs inthe dust. "

"What does she here, then?"

"Ask her!" grinned the trooper. "Unless she comes to look for AliPartab, I know not. "

He made the last part of his remark in a hurried undertone, too low forthe old woman to hear. 

"Let her earn her meal around the stables, " said the Prince. A suddenlight dawned on him. Here was a means, at least, of trying to make useof Ali Partab. "Go--do thy sweeping!" he commanded, and the hag slunkoff. 

For ten minutes longer, Jaimihr sat still and flicked at the stonecolumn with his whip, --then he sent for his master of the horse, whosemistaken sense of loyalty had been the direct cause of Ali Partab'scapture. He had acted instantly when the fat Hindoo brought him word, and he had expected to be praised for quick decision and rewarded; hewas plainly in high dudgeon as he swaggered out of a dark door near thestables and advanced sulkily toward his master. 

"Remove the prisoner from that cell, taking great care that the hagyonder sees what you do--yes, that hag--the new one; she is a spy. Bringthe prisoner in to me, where I will talk with him; afterward place himin a different cell--put him where we kept the bear that died--there isa dark comer beside it, where a man might hide; hide a man there whenit grows dark. And give the hag access. Say nothing to her; let her comeand go as she will; watch, and listen. "

Without another word, the Prince got up and shuffled in his decoratedslippers to a door at one end of the cloister. Five minutes later AliPartab--high-chinned, but looking miserable--was led between two menthrough the same door, while the old woman went on very ostentatiouslywith her sweeping about the yard. She even turned her back, to prove howlittle she was interested. 

Ali Partab was hustled forward into a high-ceilinged room, whose lightcame filtered through a scrollwork mesh of chiselled stone where thewall and ceiling joined. There were no windows, but six doors openedfrom it, and every one of them was barred, as though they opened intotreasure-vaults. The Prince sat restlessly in a high, carved woodenchair; there was no other furniture at all, and Ali Partab was leftstanding between his guards. The Prince drew a pistol from inside hisclothing. 

"Leave us alone!" he ordered; and the guards went out, closing the doorbehind them. 

"I gave no orders for your capture, " said Jaimihr, with a smile. 

"Then, let me go, " grinned Ali Partab. 

"First, I must be informed on certain matters. "

Ali Partab still grinned, but the muscles of his face changed theirposition slightly, and it took no expert in physiognomy to read thatquestions he would answer must be very tactfully asked. 

"Ask on!"

"You are Mahommed Gunga's man?"

"Yes. It is an honorable service. "

"Did he order you to stay here?"

"Here--in this palace? Allah forbid!"

"Did he order you to stay in Howrah?"

"He gave me certain orders. I obeyed them until your men invited swiftdeath for themselves and you by interfering with me!"

"What were the orders?"

Ali Partab grinned again--this time insolently. 

"To make sure that the Jaimihr-sahib did not make away with the treasureof his brother Howrah!" he answered. 

"If you were released now what would you proceed to do?"

"To obey my orders. "

Jaimihr changed his tactics and assumed the frequently successful legalline of pretending to know far more than he really did. 

"I am told by one who overheard you speak that you were to take themissionary and his daughter to Alwa's place. How much is my brotherHowrah paying for Mahommed Gunga's services in this matter? It is wellknown that he and Alwa between them could call out all the Rangars inthe district for whichever side they chose. Since they are not on myside, they must be for Howrah. How much does he pay? I might offermore. "

"I know not, " said Ali Partab, perfectly ready to admit anything thatwas not true. 

"It is true, then, that Howrah has designs on the missionary's daughter?Alwa is to keep her prisoner until the great blow is struck, and Howrahdare take possession of her?"

"That is not my business, " answered Ali Partab, with the air of a manwho knew all of the secret details but would not admit it. Jaimihr beganto think that he had lit at random on the answer to the riddle. 

"Where is Mahommed Gunga?"

"I know not. "

"At Alwa's place?"

"Am I God that I should know where any man is whom I cannot see?"

"Oh! So he is at Alwa's, eh?" That overdose of opium had renderedJaimihr's brain very dull indeed; he considered himself clever, andoverlooked the fact that Ali Partab would be almost surely lying to him. In India men never tell the truth to chance-met strangers or to theirenemies; the truth is a valuable thing, to be shared cautiously amongfriends. 

"If Mahommed Gunga is at Alwa's, " reasoned Jaimihr, "then he is muchtoo close at hand to take any chances with. I must keep this man closeconfined. " He raised his voice in a high-pitched command, and the guardsopened the door instantly; at a sign from the Prince they seized AliPartab by the wrists. 

"I will send a message to Mahommed Gunga for thee, " said Jaimihr. "Onhis answer will depend your release or otherwise. " He nodded. The guardstook their prisoner out between them--led him past the wrinkled oldwoman in the courtyard--and halted him in a far corner, where anevil-smelling cage of a place stood open to receive him. A moment later, in order to make sure, the master of the horse sent for the old womanand made her sweep out the cell a little; then he drove her away witha fierce injunction not to let herself be caught anywhere near the cellagain unless ordered. Following the line of eastern reasoning, had henot given that order he would not have known what her object could beshould she make her way toward the cell; but now, if she risked hiswrath by disobeying, he would know beyond the least shadow of a doubtthat she had a message to deliver to the prisoner--the man who washidden in the dark corner need entertain no hope of keeping the secretto himself for purposes of sale or blackmail!

They trust each other wonderfully--with an almost childlikeconfidence--in a household such as Jaimihr's!

CHAPTER XV

 Ho! I am king! All lesser fry Must cringe, and crawl, and cry to me, And none have any rights but I, -- Except the right to lie to me. 

JAIMIHR was not the only man who would have dearly liked to know of thewhereabouts of Mahommed Gunga. It had been reported to Maharajah Howrah, by his spies, that the redoubtable ex-Risaldar of horse had visited hisrelatives in Howrah City, and, though he had not been able to ascertaina word of what had passed, he was none the less anxious. 

He knew, of course--for every soul in Howrah knew--that Jaimihr wasplotting for the throne. He knew, too, that the priests of Siva, who with himself were joint keepers of the wickedly won, tax-swollentreasure, had sounded Jaimihr; they had tentatively hinted that theymight espouse his cause, provided that an equitable division of thetreasure were arranged beforehand. The question uppermost in MaharajahHowrah's mind was whether the Rangars--the Moslem descendants of onceHindoo Rajputs, who formed such a small but valuable proportion of thelocal population--could or could not be induced to throw in their lotwith him. 

No man on the whole tax-ridden countryside believed or considered it asa distant possibility that the Rangars would strike for any hand excepttheir own; they were known, on the other hand, to be more or lesscohesive, and it was considered certain that, whichever way they swung, when the priest-pulled string let loose the flood of revolution, theywould swing all together. The question, then, was how to win the favorof the Rangars. It was not at all an easy question, for the love lostbetween Hindoos and Mohammedans is less than that between dark-skinnedmen and white--a lot less. 

Within two hours of its happening he had been told of the capture ofAli Partab; and he knew--for that was another thing his spies had toldhim--that Ali Partab was Mahommed Gunga's man. Apparently, then, AliPartab--a prisoner in Jaimihr's palace-yard--was the only connectinglink between him and the Rangars whom he wished to win over to his side. He was as anxious as any to help overwhelm the British, but he naturallywished to come out of the turmoil high and dry himself, and he was, therefore, ready to consider the protection of individual Britishsubjects if that would please the men whom he wanted for his friends. 

Mahommed Gunga was known to have carried letters for the missionaries. He was known to have engaged a new servant when he rode away from Howrahand to have left his trusted man behind. Miss McClean was known to haveconversed with the retainer, immediately after which the man had beenseized and carried off by Jaimihr's men. Jaimihr was known to haveplaced watchers round the mission house and--once--to have killed a manin Miss McClean's defense. The deduction was not too far-fetchedthat the retainer had been left as a protection against Jaimihr, andconsequently that the Rangars, at the behest of Mahommed Gunga, haddecided--on at least the white girl's safety. 

Therefore, he argued, if he now proceeded to protect the McCleans, hewould, at all events, not incur the Rangars' enmity. 

It was a serious decision that he had to make, for, for one thing, hedared not yet make any move likely to incite his strongly supportedbrother to open rebellion; he dared not, therefore, interfere atpresent with the watchers near the mission house. To openly befriend theChristian priests would be to set the whole Hindoo population againsthimself, for it had been mainly against suttee and its kindred horrorsthat the missionaries had bent all their energy. 

The great palace of Howrah was ahum. Elephants with painted tusks, and loaded to the groaning-point under howdahs decked with jewels andgold-leaf, came and went through the carved entrance-gates. Occasionallycamels, loaded too until their legs all but buckled underneath them, strutted with their weird, mixed air of foolishness and dignity, to bedisburdened of great cases that eight men could scarcely lift; on theoutside the cases were marked "Hardware, " but a horde of armed andwaiting malcontents scattered about the countryside could have given amore detailed and accurate guess at what was in them. 

Men came and went--men almost of all castes and many nationalities. Priests--not all of them fat, but every single one fat-smiling--sunnedthemselves, or waited in the shade until they could have audience; nopriest of any Hindoo temple had to wait long to be admitted to thatRajah's presence, and there was an everlasting chain of them, each withhis axe to grind, coming and going by day and night. 

Color rioted in the blazing sun and deep, dark shadows lurked in allthe thousand places where the sun could never penetrate. It was Indiain essence--noise and blaze and flouted splendor, with a back-ground andunderground of mystery. Any but the purblind British could have told athalf a glance, merely by the attitude of Howrah's armed sepoys, that aconcerted movement of some kind was afoot--that there was a tight-heldthread of plan running through the whole confusion; but no man--noteven a native--could have guessed what secret plotting might be going onwithin the acres of the straggling palace. 

From the courtyard there was no least hint obtainable even of thebuilding's size; its shape could only have been marked down from abird's-eye view aloft. Even the roof was so uneven, and so subdivided bytraced and deep-carved walls and ramparts, that a sentry posted at oneend could not have seen the next man to him, perhaps some twenty feetaway. Building had been piled on building--other buildings had beenadded end to end and crisscrosswise--and each extension had been walledin as new centuries saw new additions, until the many acres were a mazeof bricks and stone and fountain-decorated gardens that no lifelongpalace denizen could have learned to know in their entirety. 

Within--one story up above the courtyard din--in a spacious, richlydecorated room that gave on to a gorgeous roof-garden, the Maharajah satand let himself be fanned by women, who were purchasable for perhaps atenth of what any of the fans had cost. Another woman, younger than therest, played wild minor music to him on an instrument not much unlikea flute; they were melancholy notes--beautiful--but sad enough to sowpessimism's seed in any one who listened. 

His divan--carved, inlaid, and gilded--faced the wide, awning-hungopening to the garden. Round him on all three sides was a carved stonescreen through whose interstices came rustlings and whisperings thattold of the hidden life which sees and is not seen. The women with thefans and flute were mere court accessories; the real nerves of Asia--theveiled intriguers whom none may know but whose secret power any man mayfeel--could be heard like caged birds crowding on their perches. 

Now and then glass bracelets tinkled from behind the screen; ever andagain the music stopped, until another girl appeared to play anothermelancholy air. But the even purring of the fans went on incessantly, and the poor, priest-ridden fool who owned it all scowled straight infront of him, his brows lined deep in thought. 

It is a strange malady, that which seizes men whom fate has elevated toa throne. It acts as certain Indian drugs are known to do--deprives itsvictim of the power to act, but intensifies his ability to think, andtheorize, and feel. Howrah, with untold treasure in his vaults, with anarmy of five thousand men, with the authority and backing that a hundredgenerations give, could long for more--could fear the loss of what hedid have--but could not act. 

The priests held him fear-bound. His brother held him hate-bound. Hiswomen--and not even he knew, probably, how many of them languished inthe secret warren inside those palace walls--kept him restless in a netof this-and-that-way-tugged intrigue. Flattery--and that is by far thesubtlest poison of the East--blinded him utterly to his own best course, and kept him blind. Luxury unmanned him; he who had once held thestraightest spear in western India, and for the love of feeling redblood racing in his veins had ridden down panthers on the maidan, was flabby now; deep, dark rings underlined his eyes and the oncesteel-sinewed wrist trembled. 

His brother Jaimihr in his place, unsapped yet by decadent delights, would have loosed his five thousand on the countryside--butchered anywho opposed him--pressed into service those who merely lagged--and wouldhave plunged India in a welter of blood before the priests had timeto mature their plans and arrange to keep all the power and plunder tothemselves. But Jaimihr had to stalk lesser game and content himselfwith pricking at the ever-growing hate that gradually rendered theMaharajah decisionless and sorry only for himself. 

A first glimpse at Howrah, particularly in the shaded room, showed ahandsome man, black-bearded, lean, and lithe; a second look, undazzledby his jewelry or by the studied magnificence of each apparentlyunstudied movement, betrayed a man whose lightest word was law, but whofeared to give the word. Where muscles had been were unfilled folds ofskin that shook; where a firm if selfish mouth had once smiled merrilybeneath a pointed black mustache, a mouth still smiled, but meanly; theselfishness was there, but the firmness had faded. 

His eyes, though, were his most marked feature. They were hungry eyes, pathetic as a caged beast's and as savage. No one could see them withoutpitying him, and no man in his senses would have accepted their owner'sword on any point at all. A man looks as he did when the fire of aburning velt has circled him and there is no way out. There was fearbehind them, and the look of restless search for safety that is nowhere. 

In one of the many-columned courtyards of the palace was a chained, mad elephant whose duty was to kneel on the Rajah's captive enemies. Inanother courtyard was a big, square tank with a weedy, slippery stoneramp at one end; in the tank were alligators; down the ramp other of theRajah's enemies, tight-bound, would scream and struggle and slide fromtime to time. But they were only little enemies who died in that way;the greater ones, who had power or influence, lived on and plotted, because the owner of the execution beasts was afraid to put them totheir use. 

Below, in damp, unlit dungeons, there were silken cords suspended fromstone ceilings; their ends were noosed, and the nooses hung ten feetabove the floor; those told only, though, of the fate of women who hadschemed unwisely--favorites of a week, perhaps, who had dared to sulk, listeners through screens who had forgotten to forget. No men died everby the silken cord, and no tales ever reached the outside world of whodid die down in the echoing brick cellars; there was a path that ledunderground to the alligator tank and a trap-door that opened justabove the water edge. Night, and the fungus-fouled long jaws, and slimy, weed-filled water--the creak of rusty hinges--a splash--the bang ofa falling trap--a swirl in the moonlit water, and ring after heavy, widening ring that lapped at last against the stone would writeconclusion to a tragedy. There would be no record kept. 

Howrah was childless. That, of all the hell-sent troubles that besethim, was the worst. That alone was worse than the hoarded treasure whosesecret he and his brother and the priests of Siva shared. Only in Indiacould it happen that a line of Rajahs, drag-net-armed--oblivious to theduties of a king and greedy only of the royal right to tax--could pileup, century by century, a hoard of gold an jewels--to be looked at. Thesecret of that treasure made the throne worth plotting for--gave thepriests, who shared the secret, more than nine tenths of their power forblackmail, pressure, and intrigue--and grew, like a cancer, into eachsucceeding Rajah's mind until, from a man with a soul inside him hebecame in turn a heartless, fear ridden miser. 

Any childless king is liable to feel the insolent expectancy betrayed bythe heir apparent. But Jaimihr--who had no sons either--was an heir whounderstood all of the Indian arts whereby a man of brain may hasten thesuccession. Worry, artfully stirred up, is the greatest weapon of themall, and never a day passed but some cleverly concocted tale would reachthe Rajah, calculated to set his guessing faculties at work. 

Either of the brothers, when he happened to be thirsty, would call hisleast-trusted counsellor to drink first from the jewelled cup, and wouldwatch the man afterward for at least ten minutes before daring to slakehis thirst; but Jaimihr had the moral advantage of an aspirant; Howrah, on the defensive, wilted under the nibbling necessity for wakefulness, while Jaimihr grinned. 

What were five thousand drilled, armed men to a king who feared to usethem? Of what use was a waiting countryside, armed if not drilled, if hewas not sure that his brother had not won every man's allegiance? BeingHindoo, priest-reared, priest-fooled, and priest-flattered, he knew, orthought he knew, to an anna the value he might set on Hindoo loyaltyor on the loyalty of any man who did not stand to gain in pocket byremaining true; and, as many another fear-sick tyrant has begun to do, he turned, in his mind at least, to men of another creed--which in Indiameans of another race, practically-wondering whether he could not makeuse of them against his own. 

Like every other Rajah of his line, he longed to have sole controlof that wonderful treasure that had eaten out his very manhood. Miserthough he was, he was prepared at least to bargain with outsiders withthe promise of a portion of it, if that would give him possession of itall. He had learned from the priests who took such full advantage of himan absolute contempt for Mohammedans; and their teaching, as well as hisown trend of character, made him quite indifferent to promises he mightmake, for the sake of diplomacy, to men of another creed. It began to beobvious to him that he would lose nothing by courting the favor of theRangars, and of Alwa in particular, and that he might win security bycoaxing them to take his part. Of one thing he was certain: the Rangarswould do anything at all, if by doing it they could harm the Hindoopriests. 

But, being of the East Eastern, and at that Hindoo, he could not havebrought himself to make overtures direct and go straight to the realissue. He had to feel his way gingerly. The thousand horses in hisstables, he reflected, would mount a thousand of the Rangars and placeat his disposal a regiment of cavalry which would be difficult to beat;but a thousand mounted Mohammedans might be a worse thorn in his sidethan even his brother or the priests. He decided to write to Alwa, butto open negotiations with a very thin and delicately inserted wedge. 

He could write. The priests had overlooked that opportunity, and hadtaught him in his boyhood; in that one thing he was their equal. But theother things that they had taught him, too, offset his penmanship. He was too proud to write--too lazy, too enamoured of his dignity. He called a court official, and the man sat very humbly at hisfeet--listened meekly to the stern command to secrecy--and took theletter from dictation. 

Alwa was informed, quite briefly, that in view of certain happenings inHowrah City His Highness the Maharajah had considered it expedientto set a guard over the Christian missionaries in the city, for theirsafety. The accompanying horse was a gift to the Alwa-sahib. TheAlwa-sahib himself would be a welcome guest whenever he might care tocome. 

The document was placed in a silver tube and scaled. Within the space ofhalf an hour a horseman was kicking up the desert dust, riding as thoughhe carried news of life-and-death importance, and with another man and aled horse galloping behind him. Five minutes after the man had started, in a cell below the temple, of Siva, the court official who had takendown the letter was repeating it word for word to a congeries ofpriests. And one hour later still, in a room up near the roof ofJaimihr's palace, one of the priests--panting from having come sofast--was asking the Rajah's brother what he thought about it. 

"Did he say nothing--, " asked Jaimihr. 

"Nothing, sahib. "

The priest watched him eagerly; he would have to bear back to the otherpriests an exact account of the Prince's every word, and movement, andexpression. 

"Then I, too, say nothing!" answered Jaimihr. 

"But to the priests of Siva, who are waiting, sahib?"

"Tell them I said nothing. "

CHAPTER XVI

 Eyes in the dark, awake and keen, See and may not themselves be seen; But--and this is the tale I tell-- What if the dark have eyes as well?

BESIDE the reeking bear's cage in which Ali Partab stood and swore wasa dark, low corner space in which at one time and another sacks anduseless impedimenta had been tossed, to become rat-eaten and decayed. Inamong all the rubbish, cross-legged like the idol of the underworld, anearly naked Hindoo sat, prick-eared. He was quite invisible long beforethe sun went down, for that was the dingiest corner of the yard; whentwilight came, he could not have been seen from a dozen feet away. 

Joanna, sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, in the courtyard, with her backvery nearly always turned toward the cage, appeared to take no noticeof the falling darkness; unlike the other menials, who hurried to theirrest and evening meal, she went on working, accomplishing very littlebut seeming to be very much in earnest about it all. Very, verygradually she drew nearer to the cage. When night fell, she was withinten feet of it. A few lamps were lit then, here and there over doorways, but nobody appeared to linger in the courtyard; no footfalls resounded;nothing but the neigh of stabled horses and the chatter around the big, flat supper pans broke on the evening quiet. 

Joanna drew nearer. Ali Partab came forward to the cage bars, but saidnothing; it was very dark inside the cage, and even the sharp-eyedold woman could not possibly have seen his gestures; when he stood, tight-pressed, against the bars she might have made out his dark shapedimly, but unless he chose to speak no signal could possibly have passedfrom him to her. He said nothing, though, and she-still sweeping, withher back toward him--passed by the cage, and stooped to scratch at somehard-caked dirt or other close to the rubbish hole where the Hindoowaited. Still scratching, still working with her twig broom, stillwith her back toward the rubbish hole, she approached until the darkestshadow swallowed her. 

There were two in the dark then--she and the man who listened. He, motionless as stone, had watched her; peering outward at the lesserdarkness, he lost sight of her for a second as she backed into thedeepest shadow unexpectedly. Before he could become accustomed to thealtered focus and the deeper black, her beady eyes picked out the whitesof his. Before he could move she was on him--at his throat, tearing itwith thin, steel fingers. Before he could utter a sound, or move, shehad drawn a short knife from her clothing and had driven it to the hiltbelow his ear. He dropped without a gurgle, and without a sound shegathered up her broom again and swept her way back past the cage-bars, where Ali Partab waited. 

"Was any there?" he whispered. 

"There was one. "

"And--?"

"He was. "

"Good! Now will the reward be three mohurs instead of two!"

"Where are they?"

"These pigs have taken all the money from me. Now we must wait untilMahommed Gunga-sahib comes. His word is pledged. "

"He said two mohurs. "

"I--Ali Partab--pledge his word for three. "

"And who art thou? The bear in the cage said: 'I will eat thee if I getoutside!"'

"Mother of corruption! Listen! Alwa must know! Canst thou escape fromhere? Canst thou reach the Alwa-sahib?"

"If the price were four mohurs, there might be many things that I coulddo. "

"The price is three! I have spoken!"

"'I would eat honey were I outside!' said the bear. "

"Hag! The bear died in the cage, and they sold his pelt for how much?Alive, he had been worth three mohurs, but he died while they bargainedfor him!--Quick!"

"I am black, sahib, and the night is black. I am old, and none wouldbelieve me active. They watch the gates, but the bats fly in and out. "

"Find out, then, what has happened to my horses, left at thecaravansary; give that information to the Alwa-sahib. Tell theMiss-sahib at the mission where I am. Tell her whither I have sent thee. Tell the Alwa-sahib that a Rangar--by name Ali Partab--sworn follower ofthe prophet, and servant of the Risaldar Mahommed Gunga--is in need andasks his instant aid. Say also to the Alwa-sahib that it may be well torescue the Miss-sahib first, before he looks for me, but of that matterI am no judge, being imprisoned and unable to ascertain the truth. Hastthou understood?"

"And all that for three mohurs?"

"Nay. The price is now two mohurs again. It will be one unless--"

"Three, sahib! It was three!"

"Then run! Hasten!"

The shadows swallowed her again. She crept where they were darkest--laystill once, breathless, while a man walked almost over her--reached theouter wall, and felt her way along it until she reached low eaves thatreached down like a jagged saw from utter blackness. Less than a minutelater she was crawling monkeywise along a roof; before another five hadpassed she had dropped on all fours in the dust of the outer road andwas running like a black ghost--head down--an end of her loin-clothbetween her teeth--one arm held tight to her side and the other crookedoutward, swinging--striding, panting, boring through the blackness. 

She wasted little time at the caravansary. The gate was shut and asleepy watchman cursed her for breaking into his revery. 

"Horses? Belonging to a Rangar? Fool! Does not the Maharajah-sahibimpound all horses left ownerless? Ask them back of him that took them!Go, night-owl! Go ask him!"

Almost as quickly as a native pony could have eaten up the distance, shedropped panting on the door-step of the little mission house. Shewas panting now from fright as well as sheer exhaustion. There werewatchers--two sets of them. One man stood, with his back turned withinten paces of her, and another--less than two yards away from him--stood, turned half sideways, looking up the street and whistling to himself. There was not a corner or an angle of the little place that was notguarded. 

She had tried the back door first, but that was locked, and she hadrapped on it gently until she remembered that of evenings the missionaryand his daughter occupied the front room always and that they would nothave heard her had she hammered. She tapped now, very gently, with herfingers on the lower panel of the door, quaking and trembling in everylimb, but taking care to make her little noise unevenly, in a waythat would be certain to attract attention inside. Tap-tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap. The door openedsuddenly. Both watchers turned and gazed straight into the lamplightthat streamed out past the tall form of Duncan McClean. He stared atthem and they stared back again. Joanna slunk into the deep shadow atone side of the steps. 

"Is it necessary for you to annoy me by rapping on my door as well as byspying on me?" asked the missionary in a tone of weary remonstrance. 

The guards laughed and turned their backs with added insolence. In thatsecond Joanna shot like a black spirit of the night straight past themissionary's legs and collapsed in a bundle on the floor behind him. 

"Shut the door, sahib!" she hissed at him. "Quick! Shut the door!"

He shut it and bolted it, half recognizing something in the voice orelse guided by instinct. 

"Joanna!" he exclaimed, holding up a lamp above her. "You, Joanna!"

At the name, Rosemary McClean came running out--looked for aninstant--and then knelt by the old woman. 

"Father, bring some water, please, quickly!"

The missionary went in search of a water-jar, and Rosemary McClean bentdown above the ancient, shrivelled, sorry-looking mummy of a woman--drewthe wrinkled head into her lap--stroked the drawn face--and wept overher. The spent, age-weakened, dried-out widow had fainted; there was nowakened self-consciousness of black and white to interfere. This was afriend--one lone friend of her own sex amid all the waste of smoulderinghate--some one surely to be wept over and made much of and caressed. The poor old hag recovered consciousness with her head pillowed on aEuropean lap, and Duncan McClean--no stickler for convention and nobeliever in a line too tightly drawn--saw fit to remonstrate as he laidthe jar of water down beside them. 

"Why, " she answered, looking up at him, "father, I'd have kissed a dogthat got lost and came back again like this!"

They picked her up between them, after they had let her drink, andcarried her between them to the long, low sitting-room, where she toldthem--after considerable make-believe of being more spent than shereally was--after about a tenth "sip" at the brandy flask and whenanother had been laughingly refused--all about Ali Partab and what hisorders to her were. 

"I wonder what it all can mean?" McClean sat back and tried to summarizehis experiences of months and fit them into what Joanna said. 

"What does that mean?" asked his daughter, leaning forward. She wasstaring at Joanna's forearm and from that to a dull-red patch on thewoman's loin-cloth. Joanna answered nothing. 

"Are you wounded, Joanna? Are you sure? That's blood! Look here, father!"

He agreed that it was blood. It was dry and it came off her forearm inlittle flakes when he rubbed it. But not a word could they coax outof Joanna to explain it, until Rosemary--drawing the old woman toher--espied the handle of her knife projecting by an inch above thewaist-fold of her cloth. Too late Joanna tried to hide it. Rosemary heldher and drew it out. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, there was blood onthe blade still, and on the wooden hilt, and caked in the clumsy jointbetween the hilt and blade. 

"'Joanna--have you killed any one?"

Joanna shook her head. 

"Tell me the truth, Joanna. Whose blood is that?"

"A dog's, Miss-sahib. A street dog attacked me as I ran hither. "

"I wish I could believe it!"

"I too!" said her father, and he took Joanna to one side andcross-examined her. But he could get no admission from her--nothing butthe same statement, with added details each time he made her tell it, that she had killed a dog. 

They fed her, and she ate like a hyena. No caste prejudices or forbiddenfoods troubled her; she ate whatever came her way, Hindoo food, orMohammedan, or Christian, --and reached for more--and finished, as hyenasfinish, by breaking bones to get the marrow out. At midnight they lefther, curled dogwise on a mat in the hall, to sleep; and at dawn, whenthey came to wake her, she was gone again--gone utterly, without a traceor sign of explanation. The doors, both front and back, were locked. 

It was two days later when they found a hole torn through the thatch, through which she had escaped; and though they searched the house fromcellar up to roof, and turned all their small possessions over, theycould not find (and they were utterly glad of it) that she had stolenanything. 

"Thank God for that!" said the missionary. 

"I've finished disbelieving in Joanna!" said his daughter with a grimacethat went always with irrevocable decision. 

"I've come to the conclusion, " said McClean, "that there are more thanjust Joanna to be trusted. There is Ali Partab, and--who knows howmany?"

CHAPTER XVII

 Against all fear; against the weight of what, For lack of worse name, men miscall the Law; Against the Tyranny of Creed; against the hot, Foul Greed of Priest, and Superstition's Maw; Against all man-made Shackles, and a man-made Hell-- Alone--At last--Unaided-- I REBEL!

No single, individual circumstance, but a chain of happenings in veryquick succession, brought about a climax, forcing the hand of Howrahand his brother and for the moment drawing the McCleans, father anddaughter, into the toothed wheel of Indian action. As usual in India, the usual brought about the unexpected, and the unexpected fittedstrangely into the complex, mysteriously worked-out whole. 

Two days after Joanna left the mission house, through a hole made in thethatch, the spirit of revolt took hold of Rosemary McClean again. Thestuffy, narrow quarters--the insolent, doubled, unexplained, but veryobvious, guard that lounged outside--the sense of rank injusticeand helplessness--the weird feeling of impending horror added ontostale-grown ghastliness--youth, chafing at the lack of liberty--stirredher to action. 

Without a word to her father, who was writing reports that seemedendless at the little desk by the shaded window, she left thehouse--drew with a physical effort on all her reserve of strength andhealth--faced the scorching afternoon wind, as though it were a foe thatcould shrink away before her courage, and walked, since she had no ponynow, in any direction in which chance or her momentary whim might careto lead her. 

"I won't cry again--and I won't submit--and I'll see what happens!" shetold herself; and the four who followed her at a none-too-respectfuldistance--two of the Maharajah's men in uniform and two shabby-lookingruffians of Jaimihr's--grinned as they scented action. Like theirmasters they bore no love for one another; they were there now, in fact, as much to watch one another as the missionaries; they detected thepossibility of an excuse to be at one another's throats, and gloatedas they saw two messengers, one of either side, run off in a hurry toinform the rival camps. 

It was neither plan nor conscious selection that led Rosemary McCleantoward the far end of the maidan, where the sluggish, narrow, windingHowrah River sucked slimily beside the burning ghats. When she realizedwhere her footsteps were leading her she would have turned in horror andretreated, for even a legitimately roasting corpse that died before theHindoo priests had opportunity to introduce it to the flames is no sightfor eyes that are civilized. 

But, when she turned her head, the sight of her hurrying escortperspiring in her wake--(few natives like the heat and wind one whitbetter than their conquerors)--filled her with an unexpected, probablyunjustifiable, determination not to let them see her flinch at any kindof horror. That was the spirit of sahibdom that is not always quitecommendable; it is the spirit that takes Anglo-Saxon women to theseething, stenching plains and holds them there high-chinned to stiffentheir men-folk by courageous example, but it leads, too, to things notquite so womanly and good. 

"I'll show them!" muttered Rosemary McClean, wiping the blown dust fromher eyes and facing the wind again that now began to carry with it theunspread taint--the awful, sickening, soul-revolting smell inseparablefrom Hindoo funeral rites. There were three pyres, low-smouldering, close by the river-bank, and men stirred with long poles among the ashesto make sure that the incineration started the evening before should becomplete; there was one pyre that looked as though it had been lit longafter dawn--another newly lit--and there were two pyres building. 

It was those two new ones that held her attention, and finallydecided her to hold her course. She wanted to make sure. The smell ofburning--the unoutlined, only guessed-at ghastliness--would probablyhave killed her courage yet, before she came close enough to really see;but the suspicion of a greater horror drew her on, as snakes are said todraw birds on, by merely being snakes, and with red-rimmed eyes smartingfrom smoke as well as wind she pressed forward. 

The ghats were deserted-looking, for the funeral rites of those whoburned were practically over until the time should come to scatter asheson the river-surface; only a few attendants hovered close to the firesto prod them and occasionally throw on extra logs. Only round thetwo new pyres not yet quite finished was anything approaching a crowdassembled, and there a priest was officiously directing the laying ofthe logs. It was the manner of their laying and the careful buildingof a scaffold on each side of either pyre that held RosemaryMcClean's attention--called all the rebellious womanhood within her tointerfere--and drew her nearer. 

Soon the priest noticed her--a cotton-skirted wraith amid the smoke--andshouted to the guards behind; one of them answered, laughing coarsely, and Rosemary understood enough of the dialect he used to grit her teethwith shame and anger. The men left off building, and, directed by thepriest, came toward her in a ragged line to cut her off from closerapproach; she stood, then--examined the new pyres as carefully as shecould--walked to another vantage-point and viewed them sideways--thenturned her back. 

"Oh, the brutes!" she ejaculated. There were tears in her voice, as wellas helpless anger. "There is not one devil, there are a million, andthey all live here!"

She looked back again once, trembling with an overmastering hate, directed less at the priest who grinned back at her than at theloathsome rite he represented. In two actual words, she cursed him. It was the first time she had ever cursed anybody in her life, and thewickedness of doing it swept over her as a relief. She revelled in it. She was glad she had cursed him. Her little, light, graceful body thathad been quivering grew calm again, and she turned to hurry home with anunexpected sense of having pulled some lever in the mechanism that wouldbring about results. She neither knew nor cared what results, nor howthey were to happen; she felt that that curse of hers, her first, hadlanded on the mark!

But she had come further than she thought. Distance, hot wind, andemotion had exhausted her far more, too, than she had had time torealize. Before a mile of the homeward journey had been accomplished, she was forced against her stubborn Scots will to sit down on a bigstone by the roadside and rest, while the four that followed came upclose, grinning and passing remarks in anything but under-tones. Ifthe meaning of the words escaped her, their gestures left little tobe misunderstood. A crowd of stragglers drew together near thefour--laughed with them--took sides in the coarse-worded argument aboutJaimihr's known ambition--and shamed her into pressing on homeward. 

But she was forced to rest again, and then again. Physical sicknessprevented her from obeying instinct, reason, will, that all three urgedher on. No false pride now told her to dare the insolence of the guards;nothing appealed to her but the desire to hurry, hurry, hurry, and dowhatever should appear to need doing when she reached the mission house. She had no plan in her head. She only knew that she had cursed a man, and that the curse was potent. But her feet dragged, and her vitalitydied down. It was sundown when she reached the mission house, and shecould hear the rising, falling, intermittent din of drums before she sawher father in the doorway. 

"Father!" She ran to him, and he caught her in his arms to save her fromfalling headlong. "Father, there is going to be a suttee tonight! Hearthe drums, father! Hear the drums! It'll be tonight! That's to stop thescreams from being heard! Listen to them, father--two suttees, sideby side--I've seen the pyres and the scaffolds--do they jump into theflames, father, from the scaffolds?--tell me! No-don't tell me--I won'tlisten! Take me away from here--away--away--away--take me away, d'youhear!"

He carried her inside, and laid her on the caned couch in theliving-room, looking like a great, big, helpless, gray-haired baby, asany man is prone to do when he has hysteria to deal with in a woman whomhe loves. 

"I cursed a man, father! I cursed a man! I did! I said 'Damn you!' I'mglad!"

"Don't, little girl--don't! Lassie mine, don't! Never mind what you sawor what you said--be calm now--there is something we must do; we mustact; I have determined we must act. We must act tonight. But we can't doanything with you in this state. "

Slowly, gradually he calmed her--or probably she grew calm, in spite ofhis attentions, for he was too upset himself to exercise much soothingsway over anybody else. At last, though, she fell into a fitful sleep, and he sat beside her, holding rigid the left hand that she clutched, letting it stiffen and grow cold and numb for fear of waking her. 

Outside a full moon rose majestically, pure and silvery as peaceherself, bathing the universe in blessings. And each month, when thefull moon rose above the carved dome of Siva's temple, there was aceremony gone through that commemorated cruelty, greed, poisoning, throat-slitting, hate, and all the hell-invented infamy that sucklesalways at the breast of stagnant treasure. 

Since history has forgotten when, at each full moon, the priests of Sivahad gone with circumstantial ceremony to view the hoarded wealth tied upby jealousy and guarded jealously in Howrah's palace. With them, asthe custom that was stronger than a thousand laws dictated, went theMaharajah and his brother Jaimihr--joint owners with the priests. 

There had not been one Maharajah, since the first of that long line, whowould not have given the lives of ten thousand men for leave to broachthat treasure; nor, since the first heir apparent shared the secret withthe priests and the holder of the throne, had there been one prince inline-son-brother-cousin--who would not have drenched the throne with hisrelation's blood with that same purpose. 

Heir after heir could have agreed with Maharajah, but the priests hadstood between. That treasure was their fulcrum; the legacy, dictated bya dead, misguided hand, intended as a war reserve to stay the throne ofHowrah in its need, and trebly locked to guard against profligacy, hadplaced the priests of Siva in the position of dictators of Howrah'sdestiny. A word from them, and a prince would slay his father--onlyto discover that the promises of Siva's priests were something less tobuild on than the hope of loot. There would be another heir apparentto be let into the secret--another man to scheme and hunger for thethrone--another party to the bloody three-angled intrigue which kept theSiva-servers fat and the princes lean. 

Past masters of the art by which superstitious ignorance is swayed, the priests could swing the allegiance of the mob whichever way theychose--even the soldiers, loyal enough to their masters under ordinarycircumstances, would have rebelled at as much as a hint from holy Siva. It was the priests who made it possible for Jaimihr to dare takehis part in the ceremony; without them he would not have entered hisbrother's palace-yard unless five thousand men at least were there toguard his back--but, if there was danger where the priests were, therewas safety too. 

As the custom was, he rode to the temple of Siva first with a ten-manguard; there, when the priests had finished droning age-old anthems tothe echoing roof, when his brother, the Maharajah, also with a ten-manguard, had joined him, and the two had submitted to the sanctifyingrites prescribed, eleven priests would walk with them in solemn mummeryto the palace-entrance--censer-swinging, chanting, blasphemously actingduty to their gods and state. 

The moon--and that, too, was custom-rested with her lower rim one fullhand's breadth above the temple dome as viewed from the palace-gate, when a gong clanged resonantly, died to silence, music of pipes andcymbals broke on the evening quiet, and the strange procession startedfrom the temple door, the Maharajah leading. 

Generally it passed uninterrupted over the intervening street to thepalace-entrance, between the ranks of a salaaming, silent crowd, anddisappeared from view. This time, though, for the first time in livingmemory, and possibly for the first time in all history, the unforeseen, amazing happened. The procession stopped. Moon-bathed, between thecarved posts of the palace-gate, two people blocked the way. 

The music ceased. The sudden silence framed itself against the distantthunder of a hundred drums. The crowd--all heads bowed, as decreed--drewin its breath and held it. A sea of pugrees moved as brown eyes lookedup surreptitiously--stared--memorized--and then looked down again. Therewas no precedent for this happening, and even the Maharajah and thepriests were at a momentary loss--stood waiting, staring--and saidnothing. 

"Maharajah-sahib!--I must interrupt your ceremony. I must have word withyou at once!"

It was Duncan McClean, bareheaded, holding his daughter's hand. Theyhad no weapons; they were messengers of peace, protesting, or so theylooked. No longer timid, but resigned to what might happen--they heldeach other's hands, and blocked the way of Siva's votaries--Siva'stools--and Siva's ritual. 

Jaimihr whispered to his brother--the first time he had dared oneword to him in person for years--the high priest of the temple pressedforward angrily, saying nothing, but trying to combine rage and dignitywith an attempt to turn the incident to priestly advantage. Surely thiswas a crisis out of which the priests must come triumphant; they heldall the cards--knew how and when rebellion was timed, and could compare, as the principals themselves could not do, Howrah's strength withJaimihr's. And the priests had the crowd to back them--the ignorant, superstitious crowd that can make or dethrone emperors. 

But some strange freak of real dignity--curiosity perhaps, or possiblyoccasion--spurred desire to act of his own initiative and keep the highpriest in his place--impelled the Maharajah in that minute. Men saidafterward that Jaimihr had whispered to him advice which he knew wasbarbed because it was his brother whispering, and that he promptly didthe opposite; but, whatever the motive, he drew himself up in all hisjewelled splendor and demanded: "What do you people wish?"

The McCleans were given no time to reply. The priests did not see fitto let the reins of this occasion slip; the word went out, panic-voiced, that sacrilege to Siva was afoot. 

"Slay them! Slay them!" yelled the crowd. "They violate the sacredrites!"

There were no Mohammedans among that crowd to take delight in seeingHindoo priests discomfited and Hindoo ritual disturbed. There came nocounter-shout. The crowd did not, as so often happens, turn and renditself; and yet, though a surge from behind pressed forward, the men infront pressed back. 

"Slay them! Slay the sacrilegious foreigners!" The yell grew louder andmore widely voiced, but no man in the front ranks moved. 

The Maharajah looked from the company of guards that lined thepalace-steps to the priests and his brother and the crowd--and then tothe McCleans again. 

He remembered Alwa and his Rangars, thought of the messenger whom he hadsent, remembered that a regiment of lance-armed horsemen would be wortha risk or two to win over to his side, and made decision. 

"You are in danger, " he asserted, using a pronoun not intended to conveypoliteness, but--Eastern of the East--counteracting that by courtesy ofmanner. "Do you ask my aid?"

"Yes, among other things, " Duncan McClean answered him. "I wish alsoto speak about a Rangar, who I know is held prisoner in a cage in theJaimihr-sahib's palace. "

"Speak of that later, " answered Howrah. "Guard!"

He made a sign. A spoken word might have told the priests too much, andhave set them busy fore-stalling him. The guards rushed down thesteps, seized both McCleans, and half-carried, half-hustled them up thepalace-steps, through the great carved doors, and presently returnedwithout them. 

"They are my prisoners, " said the Maharajah, turning to the high priest. "We will now proceed. "

The crowd was satisfied, at least for the time being. Well versed in thekind of treatment meted out to prisoners, partly informed of what waspreparing for the British all through India, the crowd never doubtedfor an instant but that grizzly vengeance awaited the Christians whohad dared to remonstrate against time-honored custom. It looked for themoment as though the high priest's word had moved the Maharajah toorder the arrest, and the high priest realized it. By skilful play andwell-used dignity he might contrive to snatch all the credit yet. Heordered; the pipes and cymbals started up again at once; and, one byone--Maharajah, Jaimihr, high priest, then royal guard, Jaimihr's guard, priest again--the procession wound ahead, jewelled and egretted, sabredand spurred, priest-robed, representative of all the many cancers eatingat the heart of India. 

Chanting, clanging, wailing minor dirges to the night, it circled allthe front projections of the palace, turned where a small door opened ona courtyard at one side, entered, and disappeared. 

CHAPTER XVIII

 Oh, is it good, my soldier prince and is the wisdom clear, To guard thy front a thousand strong, while ten may take thy rear?

Now, because it was impregnable to almost anything except ayet-to-be-invented air-ship, the Alwa-sahib owned a fortress still, high-perched on a crag that overlooked a glittering expanse of desert. More precious than its bulk in diamonds, a spring of clear, cold waterfrom the rock-lined depths of mother earth gushed out through a fissurenear the Summit, and round that spring had been built, in bygonecenturies, a battlemented nest to breed and turn out warriors. Alwa's grandfather had come by it through complicated bargaining anddowry-contracts, and Alwa now held it as the rallying-point for theRangars thereabout. 

But its defensibility was practically all the crag fort had to offer byway of attraction. Down at its foot, where the stream of rushing watersplashed in a series of cascades to the thirsty, sandy earth, there werean acre or two of cultivation--sufficient, in time of peace, tosupport an attenuated garrison and its horses. But for his revenues theAlwa-sahib had to look many a long day's march afield. Leagues of desertlay between him and the nearest farm he owned, and since--more in theEast than anywhere--a landlord's chief absorption is the watching of hisrents, it followed that he spent the greater part of his existence inthe saddle, riding from one widely scattered tenant to another. 

It was luck or fortuitous circumstance--Fate, he would have called it, had he wasted time to give it name--that brought him along a road where, many miles from Howrah City, he caught sight of Joanna. Needless to say, he took no slightest notice of her. 

Dog-weary, parched, sore-footed, she was hurrying along the burning, sandy trail that led in the direction of Alwa's fort. The trail wasnarrow, and the horsemen whose mounts ambled tirelessly behind Alwa'splain-bred Arab pressed on past him, to curse the hag and bid her makehorse-room for her betters. She sunk on the sand and begged of them. Laughingly, they asked her what a coin would buy in all that arid waste. 

"Have the jackals, then, turned tradesman?" they jeered; but she onlymumbled, and displayed her swollen tongue, and held her hands inan attitude of pitiful supplication. Then Alwa cantered up--rodepast--heard one of his men jeering--drew rein and wheeled. 

"Give her water!" he commanded. 

He sat and watched her while she knelt, face upward, and a Rangar pouredlukewarm water from a bottle down her tortured throat. He held it highand let the water splash, for fear his dignity might suffer should he orthe bottle touch her. Strictly speaking, Rangars have no caste, but theyretain by instinct and tradition many of the Hindoo prejudices. Alwahimself saw nothing to object to in the man's precaution. 

"Ask the old crows' meat whither she was running. "

"She says she would find the Alwa-sahib. "

"Tell her I am he. "

Joanna fawned and laid her wrinkled forehead in the dust. 

"Get up!" he growled. "Thy service is dishonor and my ears are deaf toit! Now, speak! Hast thou a message? Who is it sends a rat to bring menews?"

"Ali Partab. "

"Soho! And who is Ali Partab? He needs to learn manners. He has come toa stern school for them!"

"Sahib--great one--Prince of swordsmen!--Ali Partab is MahommedGunga-sahib's man. He bid me say that he is held a prisoner in abear-cage in Jaimihr's palace and needs aid. "

Alwa's black beard dropped onto his chest as he frowned in thought. Hehad nine men with him. Jaimihr had by this time, perhaps, as many asnine thousand, for no one knew but Jaimihr and the priests how manyin the district waited to espouse his cause. The odds seemed about asstupendous as any that a man of his word had ever been called upon totake. 

A moment more, and without consulting any one, he bade one of his mendismount. 

"Put that hag on thy horse!" he commanded. "Mount thou behind another!"

The order was obeyed. Another Rangar took the led horse, and Joannafound herself, perched like a monkey on a horse that objected to thechange of riders, between two troopers whose iron-thewed legs squeezedhers into the saddle. 

"To Howrah City!" ordered Alwa, starting off at an easy, desert-eatingamble; and without a word of comment, but with downward glances at theirswords and a little back-stiffening which was all of excitement thatthey deigned to show, his men wheeled three and three behind him. 

It was no affair of Alwa's that a full moon shone that night--none ofhis arranging that on that one night of the month Jaimihr and his mosttrusted body-guard should go with the priests and the Maharajah toinspect the treasure. Alwa was a soldier, born to take instant advantageof chance--sent opportunity; Jaimihr was a schemer, born to indecisionand the cunning that seeks underhanded means but overlooks the obvious. Because the streets were full of men whose allegiance was doubtful yet, because he himself would be too occupied to sit like a spider in a weband watch the intentions of the crowd unfold, Jaimihr had turned outevery retainer to his name, and had scattered them about the city, withorders, if they were needed, to rally on a certain point. 

He did think that at any minute a disturbance might break out whichwould lead to civil war, and he saw the necessity for watchfulness atevery point; but he did not see the rather obvious necessity forleaving more than twenty men on guard inside his palace. Not eventhe thoughtfulness of Siva's priests could have anticipated that tenhorse-men would be riding out of nowhere, with the spirit in them thatignores side issues and leads them only straight to their objective. 

Alwa, as a soldier, knew exactly where fresh horses could be borrowedwhile his tired ones rested. A little way beyond the outskirts of thecity lived a man who was neither Mohammedan nor Hindoo--a fearful man, who took no sides, but paid his taxes, carried on his business, andbehaved--a Jew, who dealt in horses and in any other animal or thingthat could be bought to show a profit. 

Alwa had an utterly complete contempt for Jews, as was right and properin a Rangar of the blood. He had not met many of them, and those he hadhad borne away the memory of most outrageous insult gratuitously offeredand rubbed home. But this particular Jew was a money-lender on occasion, and his rates had proved as reasonable as his acceptance of Alwa'sunwritten promise had been prompt. A man who holds his given word assacred as did Alwa respects, in the teeth of custom or religion, the manwho accepts that word; so, when the chance had offered, Alwa had donethe Jew occasional favors and had won his gratitude. He now counted onthe Jew for fresh horses. 

To reach him, he had to wade the Howrah River, less than a mile fromwhere the burning ghats glowed dull crimson against the sky; the crowdaround the ghats was the first intimation he received that thestreets might prove less densely thronged than usual. It was the Jew, beard-scrabbling and fidgeting among his horses, who reminded him thatwhen the full moon shone most of the populace, and most of Jaimihr's andHowrah's guards, would be occupied near Siva's temple and the palace. 

He left his own horses, groomed again, and gorging their fill of good, clean grain in the Jew's ramshackle stable place. Joanna he turnedloose, to sneak into any rat-hole that she chose. Then, with theirswords drawn--for if trouble came it would be certain to comesuddenly--he and his nine made a wide-ringed circuit of the city, to apoint where the main street passing Jaimihr's palace ended in a runeof wind-piled desert sand. From the moment when they reached that pointthey did not waste a second; action trod on the heel of thought andthought flashed fast as summer lightning. 

They lit through the deserted street, troubling for speed, not silence;the few whom they passed had no time to determine who they were, andno one followed them. A few frightened night-wanderers ran at sight ofthem, hiding down side streets, but when they brought up at last outsideJaimihr's palace-gate they had so far escaped recognition. And thatmeant that no one would carry word to Jaimihr or his men. 

It was death-dark outside the bronze-hinged double gate; only a dim lamphung above from chains, to show how dark it was, and the moon--cut offby trees and houses on a bluff of rising ground--lent nothing to thegloom. 

"Open! The jaimihr-sahib comes!" shouted Alwa and one of his horsemenlegged up close beside the gate. 

Some one moved inside, for his footsteps could be heard; whoever he wasappeared to listen cautiously. 

"Open for the Jaimihr-sahib!" repeated Alwa. 

Evidently that was not the usual command, or otherwise the gates wouldhave swung open on the instant. Instead, one gate moved inward by afraction of a foot, and a pureed head peered cautiously between the gap. That, though, was sufficient. With a laugh, the man up closest drovehis sword-hilt straight between the Hindoo's eyes, driving his horse'sshoulder up against the gate; three others spurred and shoved besidehim. Not thirty seconds later Alwa and his nine were striking hoofsparks on the stone of Jaimihr's courtyard, and the gates--that couldhave easily withstood a hundred-man assault with battering-rams--hadclanged behind them, bolted tight against their owner. 

"Where is the bear cage?" demanded Alwa. "It is a bear I need, notblood!"

The dozen left inside to guard the palace had recovered quickly enoughfrom their panic. They were lining up in the middle of the courtyard, ready to defend their honor, even if the palace should be lost. It wasbarely probable that Jaimihr's temper would permit them the privilegeof dying quickly should he come and find his palace looted; a Rangar'ssword seemed better, and they made ready to die hard. 

"Where's Ali Partab?"

There was no answer. The little crowd drew in, and one by one took upthe fighting attitude that each man liked the best. 

"I say I did not come for blood! I came for Ali Partab! If I get him, unharmed, I ride away again; but otherwise--"

"What otherwise?" asked the captain of the guard. 

"This palace burns!"

There was a momentary consultation--no argument, but a quickly reachedagreement. 

"He is here, unharmed, " declared the captain gruffly. 

"Bring him out!"

"What proof have we that he is all you came for?"

"My given word. "

"But the Jaimihr-sahib--"

"You also have my given word that unless I get Ali Partab this palaceburns, with all that there is in it!"

Distrustful still, the captain of the guard called out to a sweeper, skulking in the shadow by the stables to go and loose Ali Partab. 

"Send no sweepers to him!" ordered Alwa. "He has suffered indignityenough. Go thou!"

The captain of the guard obeyed. Two minutes later Ali Partab stoodbefore Alwa and saluted. 

"Sahib, my master's thanks!"

"They are accepted, " answered Alwa, with almost regal dignity. "Bring alamp!" he ordered. 

One of the guard brought a hand-lantern, and by its light Alwa examinedAli Partab closely. He was filthy, and his clothing reeked of thedisgusting confinement he had endured. 

"Give this man clothing fit for a man of mine!" commanded Alwa. 

"Sahib, there is none; perhaps the Jaimihr-sahib--"

"I have ordered!"

There was a movement among Alwa's men--a concerted, horse-length-forwardmovement, made terrifying by the darkness--each man knew well enoughthat the men they were bullying could fight; success, should they haveto force it at the sword-point, would depend largely on which side tookthe other by surprise. 

"It is done, sahib, " said the leader of the guard, and one man hurriedoff to execute the order. Ten minutes later--they were ten impatientminutes, during which the horses sensed the fever of anxiety and couldbe hardly made to stand--Ali Partab stood arrayed in clean, new khakithat fitted him reasonably well. 

"A sword, now!" demanded Alwa. "Thy sword! This man had a sword when hewas taken! Give him thine, unless there is a better to be had. "

There was nothing for it but obedience, for few things were more certainthan that Alwa was not there to waste time asking for anything he wouldnot fight for if refused. The guard held out his long sword, hilt first, and Ali Partab strapped it on. 

"I had three horses when they took me, " he asserted, "three good ones, sound and swift, belonging to my master. "

"Then take three of Jaimihr's!"

It took ten minutes more for Ali Partab and two of Alwa's men to searchthe stables and bring out the three best chargers of the twenty andmore reserved for Jaimihr's private use. They were wonders of horses, half-Arab and half-native-bred, clean-limbed and firm--worth more, eachone of them, than all three of Mahommed Gunga's put together. 

"Are they good enough?" demanded Alwa. 

"My master will be satisfied, " grinned Ali Partab. 

"Open the gate, then!" Alwa was peering through the blackness fora sight of firearms, but could see none. He guessed--and he wasright--that the guard had taken full advantage of their master'sabsence, and had been gambling in a corner while their rifles restedunder cover somewhere else. For a second he hesitated, dallying with thenotion of disarming the guard before he left, then decided that a fightwas scarcely worth the risking now, and with ten good men behind him hewheeled and scooted through the wide-flung gates into outer gloom. 

He galloped none too fast, for his party was barely out of range beforea ragged volley ripped from the palace-wall; one of his men, hamperedand delayed by a led horse that was trying to break away from him, wasactually hit, and begged Alwa to ride back and burn the palace afterall. He was grumbling still about the honor of a Rangar, when Alwacalled a halt in the shelter of a deserted side street in order toquestion Ali Partab further. 

Ali Partab protested that he did not know what to say or think about themissionaries. He explained his orders and vowed that his honor held himthere in Howrah until Miss McClean should consent to come away. He didnot mention the father; he was a mere side issue--it was Alwa who askedafter him. 

"A tick on the belly of an ox rides with the ox, " said Ali Partab. 

"Lead on, then, to the mission house, " commanded Alwa, and the ten-mantroop proceeded to obey. They had reached the main street again, andwere wheeling into it, when Joanna sprang from gutter darkness andintercepted them. She was all but ridden down before Ali Partabrecognized her. 

"The mohurs, sahib!" she demanded. "Three golden mohurs!"

"Ay, three!" said Ali Partab, giving her a hand and yanking her off theground. She sprang across his horse's rump behind him, and he seemed tohave less compunction about personal defilement than the others had. 

"Is she thy wife or thy mother-in-law?" laughed Alwa. 

"Nay, sahib, but my creditor! The mother of confusion tells me that theMiss-sahib and her father are in Howrah's palace!"

They halted, all together in a cluster in the middle of the street--shutin by darkness--watched for all they knew, by a hundred enemies. 

"Of their own will or as prisoners?"

"As prisoners, sahib. "

"Back to the side street! Quickly! Jaimihr' rat's nest is one affair, "he muttered; "Howrah' beehive is another!"

CHAPTER XIX

 Now, secrets and things of the Councils of Kings Are deucid expensive to buy, For it wouldn't look nice if a Councillor's price Were anything other than high. Be advised, though, and note that the price they will quote Is less at each grade you go deeper, And--(Up on its toes it's the Underworld knows!)-- The cheapest of all is the Sweeper. 

JOANNA--when Alwa forgot about her and loosed her to run just where shechose--had sneaked, down alleys and over roof-tops, straight for themission house. She found there nothing but a desultory guard and animpression, rather than the traces, of an empty cage. About twominutes of cautious questioning of neighbors satisfied her where themissionaries were; nothing short of death seemed able to deprive her ofability to flit like a black bat through the shadows, and the distanceto Howrah's palace was accomplished, by her usual bat's entry route, in less time than a pony would have taken by the devious street. BeforeAlwa had thundered on Jaimihr's gate Joanna had mingled in the crowdoutside the palace and was shrewdly questioning again. 

She arrived too late to see McClean and his daughter seized; what shedid hear was that they were prisoners, and that the Maharajah, Jaimihr, and the priests were all of them engaged in the secret ceremonywhose beginning was a monthly spectacle but whose subsequentdevelopments--supposed to be somewhere in the bowels of the earth--wereknown only to the men who held the key. 

Like a rat running in the wainscot holes, she tried to follow theprocession; like everybody else, she knew the way it took from thepalace gate, and--as few others were--she was aware of a scaling-placeon the outer wall where a huge baobab drooped century-scarred branchesnearly to the ground on either side. The sacred monkeys used that routeand where they went Joanna could contrive to follow. 

It was another member of the sweeper caste, lurking in the darknessof an inner courtyard, who pointed out the bronze-barred door to herthrough which the treasure guardians had chanted on their way; it washe, too, who told her that Rosemary McClean and her father had beenrushed into the palace through the main entrance. Also, he informed herthat there was no way--positively no way practicable even for a monkeyor a bird--of following further. He was a sweeper-intimate acquaintanceof creeper ladders, trap-doors, gutters drains, and byways; she realizedat once that there would be no wisdom in attempting to find within anhour what he had not discovered in a lifetime. 

So Joanna, her beady eyes glittering between the wrinkled folds of skin, slunk deeper in a shadow and began to think. She, the looker-on, hadseen the whole play from its first beginning and could judge at leastthat part of it which had its bearing on her missionary masters. First, she knew what Jaimihr's ambition was--every man in Howrah knew how heplanned to seize Miss McClean when the moment should be propitious--andher Eastern wisdom warned her that Jaimihr, foiled, would stop atnothing to contrive vengeance. If he could not seize Miss McClean, hewould be likely to use every means within his power to bring about herdeath and prevent another from making off with his prize. Jaimihr, then, was the most pressing danger. 

Second, as a Hindoo, she knew well how fiendishly the priests loathedthe Christian missionaries; and it was common knowledge that theMaharajah was cross-hobbled by the priests. The Maharajah was a fearfulman, and, unless the priests and Jaimihr threatened him with a showof combination, there was a slight chance that he might dread Britishvengeance too much to dare permit violence to the McCleans. Possibly hemight hold out against the priests alone; but before an open alliancebetween Jaimihr and the priests he would surrender for his own throne'ssake. 

So far Joanna could reason readily enough, for there was a vast fund ofwisdom stored beneath her wrinkled ugliness. But her Eastern limitationstopped her there. She could not hold loyalty to more than one cause, or to more than one offshoot of that cause, in the same shrewd head atonce. She decided that at all costs Jaimihr must be out of the way sothat the Maharaja might be left to argue with the priests alone. For themoment no other thought occurred to her. 

The means seemed ready to her hand. A peculiarity of the East, which isdemocratic in most ways under the veneer of swaggering autocracy, thatservants of the very lowest caste may speak, and argue on occasion, withmen who would shudder at the prospect of defilement from their touch. There was nothing in the least outrageous in the proposition that thesweeper, waiting in a corner for the procession to emerge again so thathe might curl on his mat and sleep undisturbed when it had gone, shoulddare to approach Jaimihr and address him. He would run no small riskof being beaten by the guards; but, on the other hand, should he catchjaimihr's ear and interest him, he would be safe. 

"Wouldst thou win Jaimihr's favor?" asked Joanna, creeping up besidehim, and whispering with all the suggestiveness she could assume. 

"Who would not? Who knows that within week he will not be ruler?"

"True. I have a message for him. I must hurry back. Deliver it for me. "

"What would be the nature of the message?"

"This. His prisoner is gone. A raid has taken place. In his absence, while his men patrolled the city, certain Rangars broke into hispalace--looted--and prepared to burn. Bid him hurry back with all themen he can collect. "

"From whom is this message?"

"From the captain of the guard. "

"And I am to deliver it? Thou dodderest! Mother of a murrain, have I nottrouble sufficient for one man? Who bears bad news to a prince, or toany but his enemy? I--with these two eyes--I saw what happened to themen who bore bad news to Howrah once. I--with this broom of mine--Ihelped clean up the mess. Deliver thine own message!"

"Nay. Afterward I will say this--to the Jaimihr-sahib in person. Thereis one, I will tell him, a sweeper in the palace, who refused to beartidings when the need was great. "

"If his palace is burned and his wealth all ashes, who cares whatJaimihr hears?"

"There is no glow yet in the sky, " said Joanna looking up. "The palaceis not yet in flames; they loot still. "

"What if it be not true?"

"Will Jaimihr not be glad?"

"Glad to see me, the bearer of false news, impaled--or crushed beneathan elephant--ay--glad, indeed. "

"The reward, were the Jaimihr-sahib warned in time, would be a greatone. "

"Then, why waitest thou not to have word with him. Art thou aboverewards?"

"Have no fear! He will know in good time who it was brought thee thenews. "

They argued for ten minutes, Joanna threatening and coaxing andpromising rewards, until at last the man consented. It was the thought, thoroughly encouraged by Joanna, that the penalty for not speaking wouldbe greater than the beating he might get for bearing evil news thatat last convinced him; and it was not until she had won him over andassured herself that he would not fail that it dawned on Joanna justwhat an edged tool she was playing with. While getting rid of Jaimihr, she was endangering the liberty and life of Alwa--the one man able to doanything for the McCleans!

That thought sent her scooting over housetops, diving down darkalleyways, racing, dodging, hiding, dashing on again, and brought herin the nick of time to a ditch, from whose shelter she sprang and seizedthe hand of Ali Partab. That incident, and her intimation that themissionaries were in Howrah's palace, took Alwa back up the black, blindside street; and before he emerged from it he saw Jaimihr and his ten gothundering past, their eyes on the sky-line for a hint of conflagration, and their horses--belly-to-the-earth--racing as only fear, orenthusiasm, or grim desperation in their riders' minds can make themrace. 

A little later, in groups and scattered fours, and one by one, hisheavy-breathing troopers followed, cursing the order that had sentthem abroad with-out their horses, damning--as none but a dismountedcavalryman can damn--the earth's unevenness, their swords, their luck, their priests, the night, their boots, and Jaimihr. Forewarned, Alwaheld on down the pitch-dark side street, into whose steep-sided chasmthe moon's rays would not reach for an hour or two to come, and onceagain he led his party in a sweeping, wide-swung circle, loose-reinedand swifter than the silent night wind--this time for Howrah's palace. There was his given word, plighted to Mahommed Gunga, to redeem. 

CHAPTER XX

 Ha! my purse may be lean, but my 'scutcheon is clean, And I'm backed by a dozen true men; I've a sword to my name, and a wrist for the same; Can a king frown fear into me, then?

IT is the privilege of emperors, and kings and princes, that--howeverlittle real authority they have, or however much their power isundermined by men behind the throne--they must be accorded dignity. Theymust be, on the face of things, obeyed. 

Inspection of the treasure finished and an hour-long mummery of ritesperformed, the thirty wound their way, chanting, in single file backagain. The bronze-enforced door, that was only first of half a hundredbarriers between approach and the semi-sacred hoard, at last clangedshut and was locked with three locks, each of whose individual keys wasin the keeping of a separate member of the three--Maharajah, Prince, andpriest. The same keys fitted every door of the maze--made passages, butno one door would open without all three. 

Speaking like an omen from the deepest shadow, the sweeper called toJaimihr. 

"Sahib, thy palace burns! Sahib, thy prisoner runs! Haste, sahib! Callthy men and hasten back! Thy palace is in flames--the Rangars come to--"

As a raven, disturbed into night omen-croaking, he sent forth his newsfrom utter blackness into nerve-strung tension. No one member of thethirty but was on the alert for friction or sudden treachery; the wereall eyes for each other, and the croaking fell on ears strained to theaching point. He had time to repeat his warning before one of Jaimihr'smen stepped into the darkness where he hid and dragged him out. 

"Sahib, a woman came but now and brought the news. It was from thecaptain of the guard. The Rangars came to take their man away. Theybroke in. They burn. They loot. They--"

But Jaimihr did not wait another instant to hear the rest. To him thisseemed like the scheming of his brother. Now he imagined he could readbetween the lines! That letter sent to Alwa had been misreported tohim, and had been really a call to come and free the prisoner and wreakRangar vengeance! He understood! But first he must save his palace, ifit could be saved. The priests must have deceived him, so he wasted notime in arguing with them; he ran, with his guards behind him, to theouter wall of Siva's temple where the horses waited, each with a saicesquatting at his head. The saices were sent scattering among the crowdto give the alarm and send the rest of his contingent hurrying back;Jaimihr and his ten drove home their spurs, and streaked, as thefrightened jackal runs when a tiger interrupts them at their worry, hell-bent-for-leather up the unlit street. 

Then Maharajah Howrah's custom-accorded dignity stood him in good stead. It flashed across his worried brain that space had been given him by thegods in which to think. Jaimihr--one facet of the problem andperhaps the sharpest--would have his hands full for a while, and thepriests--wish how they would--would never dare omit the after-ritual inSiva's temple. He--untrammelled for an hour to come--might study out acourse to take and hold with those embarrassing prisoners of his. 

He turned--updrawn in regal stateliness--and intimated to the highpriest that the ceremony might proceed without him. When the priestsdemurred and murmured, he informed them that he would be pleased to givethem audience when the ritual was over, and without deigning anotherargument he turned through a side door into the palace. 

Within ten minutes he was seated in his throne-room. One minute laterhis prisoners stood in front of him, still holding each other's hands, and the guard withdrew. The great doors opening on the marble outer hallclanged tight, and in this room there were no carved screens throughwhich a hidden, rustling world might listen. There was gold-incrustedsplendor--there were glittering, hanging ornaments that far outdid thepeacocks' feathers of the canopy above the throne; but the walls weresolid, and the marble floor rang hard and true. 

There was no nook or corner anywhere that could conceal a man. For aminute, still bejewelled in his robes of state and glittering as thediamonds in his head-dress caught the light from half a dozen hanginglamps, the Maharajah sat and gazed at them, his chin resting on one handand his silk-clad elbow laid on the carved gold arm of his throne. 

"Why am I troubled?" he demanded suddenly. 

"You know!" said the missionary. His daughter clutched his hand tightly, partly to reassure him, partly because she knew that a despot would bebearded now in his gold-bespattered den, and fear gripped her. 

"Maharajah-sahib, when I came here with letters from the government ofIndia and asked you for a mission house in which to live and work, Itold you that I came as a friend--as a respectful sympathizer. I toldyou I would not incite rebellion against you, and that I would notinterfere with native custom or your authority so long as acquiescenceand obedience by me did not run counter to the overriding law of theBritish Government. "

Howrah did not even move his head in token that he listened, but histired eyes answered. 

"To that extent I promised not to interfere with your religion. "

Howrah nodded. 

"Once--twice--in all nine times--I came and warned you that the practiceof suttee was and is illegal. My knowledge of Sanskrit is only slight, but there are others of my race who have had opportunity to translatethe Sanskrit Vedas, and I have in writing what they found in them. Iwarned you, when that information reached me, that your priests havebeen deliberately lying to you--that the Vedas say: 'Thrice-blessed isshe who dies of a broken heart because her lord and master leaves her. 'They say nothing, absolutely nothing, about suttee or its practice, which from the beginning has been a damnable invention of the priests. But the practice of suttee has continued. I have warned the governmentfrequently, in writing, but for reasons which I do not profess tounderstand they have made no move as yet. For that reason, and for noother, I have tried to be a thorn in your side, and will continue to tryto be until this suttee ceases!"

"Why, " demanded Howrah, "since you are a foreigner with neitherinfluence nor right, do you stay here and behold what you cannotchange? Does a snake lie sleeping on an ant-hill? Does a woman watch thebutchering of lambs? Yet, do ant-hills cease to be, and are lambs notbutchered? Look the other way! Sleep softer in another place!"

"I am a prisoner. For months past my daughter and I have been prisonersto all intents and purposes, and you, Maharajah-sahib, have known itwell. Now, the one man who was left to be our escort to another place isa prisoner, too. You know that, too. And you ask me why I stay! Supposeyou answer?"

Rosemary squeezed his hand again, this time less to restrain him thanherself. She was torn between an inclination to laugh at the daring orshiver at the indiscretion of taking to task a man whose one word couldplace them at the mercy of the priests of Siva, or the mob. ButDuncan McClean, a little bowed about the shoulders, peered throughhis spectacles and waited--quite unawed by all the splendor--for theMaharajah's answer. 

"Of what man do you speak?" asked Howrah, still undecided what to dowith them, and anxious above all things to disguise his thoughts. "Whatman is a prisoner, and how do you know it?"

Before McClean had time to answer him, a spear haft rang on the greatteak double door. There was a pause, and the clang repeated--anotherpause--a third reverberating, humming metal notice of an interruption, and the doors swung wide. A Hindoo, salaaming low so that the expressionof his face could not be seen, called out down the long length of thehall. 

"The Alwa-sahib waits, demanding audience!" There was no change apparenton Howrah's face. His fingers tightened on the jewelled cimeter thatprotruded, silk-sashed, from his middle, but neither voice nor eyes norlips betrayed the least emotion. It was the McCleans whose eyes blazedwith a new-born hope, that was destined to be dashed a second later. 

"Has he guards with him?"

"But ten, Maharajah-sahib. "

"Then remove these people to the place where they were, and afterwardadmit him--without his guards!"

"I demand permission to speak with this Alwa-sahib!" said McClean. 

"Remove them!"

Two spear-armed custodians of the door advanced. Resistance wasobviously futile. Still holding his daughter's hand, the missionary lethimself be led to the outer hall and down a corridor, where, presently, a six-inch door shut prisoners and guards even from sound of whattranspired beyond. 

Alwa, swaggering until his long spurs jingled like a bunch of keyseach time his boot-heels struck the marble floor, strode straight asa soldier up to the raised throne dais--took no notice whatever ofthe sudden slamming of the door behind him--looked knife-keenly intoHowrah's eyes--and saluted with a flourish. 

"I come from bursting open Jaimihr's buzzard roost!" he intimatedmildly. "He held a man of mine. I have the man. "

Merely to speak first was insolence; but that breach of etiquette wasnothing to his manner and his voice. It appeared that he was so utterlyconfident of his own prowess that he could afford to speak casually; hedid not raise his voice or emphasize a word. He was a man of his word, relating facts, and every line of his steel-thewed anatomy showed it. 

"I sent a letter to you, by horseman, with a present, " said Howrah. "Iawait the answer. "

Alwa's eyes changed, and his attention stiffened. Not having beenat home, he knew nothing of the letter, but he did not choose toacknowledge the fact. The principle that one only shares the truth withfriends is good, when taken by surprise. 

"I preferred to have confirmation of the matter from the Maharajah'slips in person, so--since I had this other matter to attend to--Icombined two visits in one trip. "

He lied, as he walked and fought, like a soldier, and the weary man whowatched him from the throne detected no false ring. 

"I informed you that I had extended my protection to the twomissionaries, man and daughter. "

"You did. Also, you did well. " He tossed that piece of comfort to thedespot as a man might throw table scraps to a starveling dog! "I havecome to take away the missionaries. "

"With a guard of ten!"

It was the first admission of astonishment that either man had made. 

"Are you not aware that Jaimihr, too, has eyes on the woman?"

"I am aware of it. I have shown Jaimihr how deep my fear of him lies! Iknow, too, how deep the love lies between thee and thy brother, king ofHowrah! I am here to remind you that many more than ten men wouldrace their horses to a stand-still to answer my summons--brave men, Maharajah-sahib--men whose blades are keen, and straightly held, andtrue. They who would rally round me against Jaimihr would--"

"Would fight for me?"

"I have not yet said so. " There was a little, barely accentuatedemphasis on the one word "yet. " The Maharajah thought a minute before heanswered. 

"How many mounted troopers could you raise?"

"Who knows? A thousand--three thousand--according to the soreness of theneed. "

"You have heard--I know that you have heard--what, even at this minute, awaits the British? I know, for I have taken care to know, that a cousinof yours--Mahommed Gunga--is interested for the British. So--so I aminterested to have word with you. "

Alwa laughed ironically. 

"And the tiger asked the wolf pack where good hunting was!" he mocked. "I and my men strike which way suits us when the hour comes. "

"My palace has many chambers in it!" hinted Howrah. "There have been menwho wondered what the light of day was like, having long ago forgotten!"

"Make me prisoner!" laughed Alwa. "Count then the hours until threethousand blades join Jaimihr and help him grease the dungeon hinges withthy fat!"

"Having looted Jaimihr's palace, you speak thus?"

"Having whipped a dog, I wait for the dog to lick my hand. "

"What is your purpose with these missionaries?"

"To redeem my given word. "

"And then?"

"I would be free to pledge it again. "

"To me?"

"To whom I choose. "

"I will give thee the missionaries, against thy word to fight on my sidewhen the hour comes. "

"Against whom?"

"The British. "

"I have no quarrel with the British, yet. "

"I will give thee the missionaries, against thy word to support me onthis throne. "

"Against whom?"

"Against all comers. "

"If I refuse, what then?"

"Jaimihr--who by this time must surely be thy very warmestfriend!--shall attack thee unmolested. Pledge thy word--take thymissionary people--and Jaimihr must oppose thee and me combined. "

"Should Jaimihr ride after me, what then?"

"If he takes many with him, he must leave his camp unguarded, or onlyweakly guarded. Then I would act. If he goes with few, how can he takethy castle?"

"Then I have your protection against Jaimihr, and the missionaries, against my promise to support you on the throne?"

"My word on it. "

"And mine. "

Howrah rose, stepped forward to the dais edge, and held his hand out. 

"Nay!" swore Alwa, recoiling. "My word is given. I take no Hindoo'shand!"

Howrah glared for a moment, but thought better of the hot retort thatrose to his lips. Instead he struck a silver gong, and when the doorsswung open ordered the prisoners to be produced. 

"Escape through the palace-grounds, " he advised Alwa. "A man of minewill show the way. "

"Remember!" said Alwa across his shoulder with more than royalinsolence, "I swore to help thee against Jaimihr and to support thee onthy throne--but in nothing did I swear to be thy tool--remember!"

CHAPTER XXI

 Howrah City bows the knee (More or less) to masters three, King, and Prince, and Siva. Howrah City comes and goes-- Buys and sells--and never knows Which is friend, and which are foes-- King, or Prince, or Siva. 

THAT that followed Alwa's breakaway was all but the tensest hour inHowrah City's history. The inevitable--the foiled rage of the priestsand Jaimihr's impudent insistence that the missionaries should be handedover to him--the Maharajah's answer--all combined to set the murmuringsafoot. Men said that the threatened rebellion against the rule ofBritain had broken loose at last, and a dozen other quite as false andequally probable things. 

Jaimihr, finding that his palace was intact, and that only the prisonerand three horses from his stable were missing, placed the whole guardunder arrest--stormed futilely, while his hurrying swarm flocked to himthrough the dinning streets--and then, mad-angry and made reckless byhis rage, rode with a hundred at his back to Howrah's palace, scatteringthe bee-swarm of inquisitive but so far peaceful citizens right andleft. 

With little ceremony, he sent in word to Howrah that he wanted Alwa andthe missionaries; he stated that his private honor was at stake, andthat he would stop at nothing to wreak vengeance. He wanted the man whohad dared invade his palace--the man whom he had released--and thetwo who were the prime cause of the outrage. And with just as littleceremony word came out that the Maharajah would please himself as towhat he did with prisoners. 

That message was followed almost instantly by the high priest of Sivain person, angry as a turkey-gobbler and blasphemously vindictive. Heit was who told Jaimihr of the unexpected departure through thepalace-grounds. 

"Ride, Jaimihr-sahib! Ride!" he advised him. 

"How many have you? A hundred? Plenty! Ride and cut him off! There isbut one road to Alwa's place; he must pass by the northern ford throughHowrah River. Ride and cut him off!"

So, loose-reined, foam-flecked, breathing vengeance, Jaimihr and hishundred thundered through the dark hot night, making a bee-line for thepoint where Alwa's band must pass in order to take the shortest route tosafety. 

It was his word to the Jew that saved Alwa's neck. He and his men wereriding borrowed horses, and he had promised to return them and reclaimhis own. They had moved at a walk through winding, dark palace-alleys, led by a palace attendant, and debouched through a narrow door that gavebarely horse-room into the road where Jaimihr had once killed a Maharatitrader who molested Rosemary McClean. The missionary and his daughterwere mounted on the horses seized in Jaimihr's stable; Joanna, moaningabout "three gold mohurs, sahib--three, where are they?" was up behindAli Partab, tossed like a pea on a drum-skin by the lunging movements ofthe wonder of a horse. 

Instead of heading straight for home, in which case--although he did notknow it--he would have been surely overhauled and brought to bay, he ledat a stiff hand gallop to the Jew's, changed horses, crossed the ford bythe burning ghats, and swooped in a wide half-circle for the sandy trailthat would take him homeward. He made the home road miles beyond thepoint where Jaimihr waited for him--drew rein into the long-stridingamble that desert-taught horses love--and led on, laughing. 

"Ho!" He laughed. "Ho-ho! Here, then, is the end of Mahommed Gunga'sscheming! Now, when he comes with arguments to make me fight on theBritish side, what a tale I have for him! Ho! What a swearing there willbe! I will give him his missionary people, and say, 'There, MahommedGunga, cousin mine, there is my word redeemed--there is thy man into thebargain--there are three horses for thee--and I--I am at Howrah's beckand call!' Allah! What a swearing there will be!"

There was swearing, viler and more blasphemous than any of whichMahommed Gunga might be capable, where Jaimihr waited in the dark. Hewaited until the yellow dawn broke up the first dim streaks of violetbefore he realized that Alwa had given him the slip; and he cursed eventhe high priest of Siva when that worthy accosted him and asked whattidings. 

"Another trick!" swore Jaimihr. "So, thou and thy temple rats saw fit tosend me packing for the night! What devils' tricks have been hatched outin my absence?"

The high priest started to protest, but Jaimihr silenced him withcoarse-mouthed threats. 

"I, too, can play double when occasion calls for it!" he swore. And withthat hint at coming trouble he clattered on home to his palace. 

To begin with, when he reached home, he had the guard beaten all butunconscious for having dared let raiders in during the night before;then he sent them, waterless and thirsty, back to the dungeon. He feltbetter then, and called for ink and paper. 

For hours he thought and wrote alternately, tearing up letter afterletter. Then, at last, he read over a composition that satisfied him andset his seal at the foot. He placed the whole in a silver tube, pouredwax into the joint, and called for the fat man who had been responsiblefor Ali Partab's capture. 

"Dog!" he snarled. "Interfering fool! All this was thy doing! Didst thousee the guard beaten awhile ago?"

"I did. It was a lordly beating. The men are all but dead but will livefor such another one. "

"Wouldst thou be so beaten?"

"How can I prevent, if your highness wishes?"

"Take this. It is intended for Peshawur but may be given to any Britishofficer above the rank of major. It calls for a receipt. Do not darecome back, or be caught in Howrah City, without a receipt for that tubeand its contents intact!"

"If Alwa and Mahommed Gunga are in league with my brother, " mutteredJaimihr to himself when the fat Hindoo had gone, "then the sooner theBritish quarrel with both of them the better. Howrah alone I can disposeof easily enough, and there is yet time before rebellion starts for theBritish to spike the guns of the other two. By the time that is done, Iwill be Maharajah!"

It was less than three days later when the word came mysteriouslythrough the undiscoverable "underground" route of India for all men tobe ready. 

"By the next full moon, " went the message, from the priests alone knewwhere, "all India will be waiting. When the full moon rises then thehour is come!"

"And when that full moon rises, " thought Jaimihr to himself, "mybrother's funeral rites will be past history!"

For the present, though, he made believe to regret his recent rage, andwas courteous to priest and Maharajah alike--even sending to his brotherto apologize. 

CHAPTER XXII

 They've called thee by an evil word, They've named thee traitor, friend o' mine. Thou askest faith? I send my sword. There is no greater, friend o' mine. 

RALPH CUNNINGHAM said good-by to Brigadier-General Byng (Byng theBrigadier) with more feeling of regret and disappointment than he caredto show. A born soldier, he did his hard-mouthed utmost to refrainfrom whining; he even pretended that a political appointment wasa recognizable advance along the road to sure success--or, rather, pretended that he thought it was; and the Brigadier, who knew men, andparticularly young men, detected instantly the telltale expressionof the honest gray eyes--analyzed it--and, to Cunningham's amazement, approved the unwilling make-believe. 

"Now, buck up, Cunningham!" he said, slapping him familiarly on theshoulder. "You're making a good, game effort to hide chagrin, and you'rea good, game ass for your pains. There isn't one man in all India whohas half your luck at this minute, if you only knew it; but go aheadand find out for yourself! Go to Abu and report, but waste no more timethere than you can help. Hurry on to Howrah, and once you're there, ifMahommed Gunga tells you what looks like a lie, trust him to the hilt!"

"Is he coming with me, then?" asked Cunningham in some amazement. 

"Yes--unofficially. He has relations in that neighborhood and wants tovisit them; he is going to take advantage of your pack-train and escort. You'll have a small escort as far as Abu; after that you'll be expectedto look out for yourself. The escort is made up of details travellingdown-country; they'll leave you at Abu Road. "

So, still unbelieving--still wondering why the Brigadier should goto all that trouble to convince him that politics in a half-forgottennative state were fair meat for a soldier--Cunningham rode off at thehead of a variously made-up travelling party, grudging every step ofthat wonderful mare Mahommed Gunga had given him, that bore him awayfrom the breeze-swept north--away from the mist-draped hills he hadalready learned to love--ever down, down, down into the hell-bakedplains. 

Each rest-house where he spent a night was but another brooding-placeof discontent and regret, each little petty detail connected with thecommand of the motley party (mainly time-expired men, homeward bound), was drudgery; each Hindoo pugree that he met was but a beastly contrast, or so it seemed to him, to the turbans of the troop that but a week agohad thundered at his back. 

More than any other thing, Mahommed Gunga's cheerfulness amazed him. Heresented it. He did not see why the man who had expressed such interestin the good fortune of his father's son should not be sympathetic nowthat his soldier career had been nipped so early in the bud. He began tolose faith in Mahommed Gunga's wisdom, and was glad when the ex-Risaldarchose to bring up the rear of the procession instead of riding by hisside. 

But behind, in Peshawur, there was one man at least who knew MahommedGunga and his worth, and who refused to let himself be blinded by anysort of circumstantial evidence. The evidence was black--in black onwhite--written by a black-hearted schemer, and delivered by a big, fatblack man, who was utterly road-weary, to the commissioner in person. 

The sepoy mutiny that had been planned so carefully had started to takecharge too soon. News had arrived of native regiments whose officershad been obliged against their will to disarm and disband them, and theloyalty of other regiments was seriously called in question. 

But the men whose blindness was responsible for the possibility ofmutiny were only made blinder by the evidence of coming trouble. Witha dozen courses open to them, any one of which might have savedthe situation, they deliberately chose a thirteenth--two-forkedtoboggan-slide into destruction. To prove their misjudged confidence inthe native army, they actually disbanded the irregulars led by Byngthe Brigadier--removed the European soldiers wherever possiblefrom ammunition-magazine guard-duty, replacing them with nativecompanies--and reprimanded the men whose clear sight showed them howevents were shaping. 

They reprimanded Byng, as though depriving him of his command were notenough. When he protested, as he had a right to do, they showed himJaimihr's letter. 

"Mahommed Gunga told you, did he? Look at this!"

The letter, most concisely and pointedly written, considering theindirect phraseology and caution of the East, deliberately accusedMahommed Gunga and a certain Alwa, together with all the Rangars ofa whole province, of scheming with Maharajah Howrah to overthrow theBritish rule. It recommended the immediate arrest of Mahommed Gunga andstern measures against the Rangars. 

"What do you propose to do about it?" inquired Byng. 

"It's out of our province. A copy of this letter has been sent to theproper quarter, and no doubt the story will be investigated. There havebeen all kinds of stories about suttee being practised in Howrah, and itvery likely won't be difficult to find a plausible excuse for deposingthe Maharajah and putting Jaimihr in his place. In the meantime, ifMahommed Gunga shows himself in these parts he'll be arrested. "

Byng did then the sort of thing that was fortunately characteristic ofthe men who rose in the nick of time to seize the reins. He hurried tohis quarters, packed in its case the sword of honor that had once beengiven him by his Queen, and despatched it without a written line ofcomment to Mahommed Gunga. The native who took it was ordered to ridelike the devil, overtake Mahommed Gunga on the road to Abu, present thesword without explanation, and return. 

Cunningham, in spite of himself, had travelled swiftly. The moon lackedtwo nights of being full and two more days would have seen him climbingup the fourteen-mile rock road that leads up the purple flanks of Abu, when the ex-trooper of Irregulars cantered from a dust cloud, caught upMahommed Gunga, who was riding, as usual, in the rear, and handed himthe sword. He held it out with both hands. Mahommed Gunga seized it bythe middle, and neither said a word for the moment. 

In silence Mahommed Gunga drew the blade--saw Byng's name engraved closeto the hilt--recognized the sword, and knew the sender--thought--andmistook the meaning. 

"Was there no word?"

"None. "

"Then take this word back. 'I will return the sword, with honor added toit, when the peace of India is won. ' Say that, and nothing else. "

"I would rest my horse for a day or two, " said the trooper. 

"Neither thou nor yet thy horse will have much rest this side of Eblis!"said Mahommed Gunga. "Ride!"

The trooper wheeled and went with a grin and a salute which he repeatedtwice, leaning back from the saddle for a last look at the man of hisown race whom Byng had chosen to exalt. He felt himself honored merelyto have carried the sword. Mahommed Gunga removed his own great sabreand handed it to one of his own five whom he overtook; then he buckledon the sword of honor and spurred until he rode abreast of Cunningham, ahundred yards or more ahead of the procession. 

"Sahib, " he asked, "did Byng-bahadur say a word or two about listeningto me?"

"He did. Why?"

"Because I will now say things!"

The fact that the Brigadier had sent no message other than the swordwas probably the Rajput's chief reason for talking in riddles stillto Cunningham. The silence went straight to his Oriental heart--soto speak, set the key for him to play to. But he knew, too, thatCunningham's youth would be a handicap should it come to argument; whathe was looking for was not a counsellor or some one to make plans, forthe plans had all been laid and cross-laid by the enemy, and MahommedGunga knew it. He needed a man of decision--to be flung blindfold intounexpected and unexpecting hell wrath, who would lead, take charge, decide on the instant, and lead the way out again, with men behind himwho would recognize decision when they saw it. So he spoke darkly. He understood that the sword meant "Things have started, " so with asoldier's courage he proceeded to head Cunningham toward the spot wherehell was loose. 

"Say ahead!" smiled Cunningham. 

"Yonder, sahib, lies Abu. Yonder to the right lies thy road now, notforward. "

"I have orders to report at Abu. "

"And I, sahib, orders to advise!"

"Are you advising me to disobey orders?"

The Rajput hesitated. "Sahib, have I anything to gain, " he asked, "byoffering the wrong advice?"

"I can't imagine so. "

"I advise, now, that we--thou and I, sahib, and my five turn offhere--yonder, where the other trail runs--letting the party proceed toAbu without us. "

"But why, Mahommed Gunga?"

"There is need of haste, sahib. At Abu there will be delay--much talkwith Everton-sahib, and who knows?--perhaps cancellation of the plan tosend thee on to Howrah. "

"I'd be damned glad, Mahommed Gunga, not to have to go there!"

"Sahib, look! What is this I wear?"

"Which?"

"See here, sahib--this. "

For the first time Cunningham noticed the fine European workmanship onthe sword-hilt, and realized that the Rajput's usual plain, workmanlikeweapon had been replaced. 

"That is Byng-bahadur's sword of honor! It reached me a few minutes ago. The man who brought it is barely out of sight. It means, sahib, that thehour to act is come!"

"But--"

"Sahib--this sending thee to Howrah is my doing? Since the day when Ifirst heard that the son of Pukka Cunnigan-bahadur was on his way I haveschemed and planned and contrived to this end. It was at word from methat Byng-bahadur signed the transfer papers--otherwise he would havekept thee by him. There are owls--old women--men whom Allah has deprivedof judgment--drunkards--fools--in charge at Peshawur and in otherplaces; but there are certain men who know. Byng-bahadur knows. Iknow--and I will show the way! Let me lead, sahib, for a little while, and I will show thee what to lead!"

"But--"

"Does this sword, sahib, mean nothing? Did Byng-bahadur send it me forfun?"

"But what's the idea? I can't disobey orders, and ride off to--Godknows where--without some excuse. You'll have to tell me why. What's thematter? What's happening?"

"Byng-bahadur sent not one word to me when he sent this sword. To theehe said: 'Listen to Mahommed Gunga, even when he seems to lie!' Iknow that, for he told me he had said it. To me he said: 'Take charge, Mahommed Gunga, when the hour comes, and rub his innocent young nosehard as you like into the middle of the mess!' Ay, sahib, so said he. Itis now that I take charge. "

"But--"

"'But, ' said the nylghau, and the wolf-pack had him! 'But, ' said thetiger, and the trap door shut! 'But, ' said the Hindoo, and a priestbetrayed him! But--but--but--I never knew thy father make much use ofthat word!"

"Yes--but--I have my orders, Mahommed Gunga!"

"Sahib--this sword is a sword of honor--it stands for Byng-bahadur'shonor. I have it in my keeping. Mine own honor is a matter somewhatdear to me, and I have kept it clean these many years. Now I ask to keepthine honor, too, awhile--making three men's honor. If I fail, then thouand I and Byng-bahadur all go down together in good company. If I failnot, then, sahib--Allah is contented when his honor stands!"

Cunningham drew rein and looked him in the eyes. Gray eyes met brown andneither flinched; each read what men of mettle only can read when theysee it--the truth, the fearlessness, the thought they understand becauseit lives with them. Cunningham held out his hand. 

Some thirty minutes later Cunningham, Mahommed Gunga, and the five, witha much-diminished mule-train bumping in their wake, were headed westwardon a dry, hot trail, while the time-expired and convalescent escortplodded south. The escort carried word that Cunningham had heard oftrouble to the west, and had turned off to investigate it. 

CHAPTER XXIII

 Quoth little red jackal, famishing, "Lo, Yonder a priest and a soldier go; You can see farthest, and you ought to know, -- Which shall I wander with, carrion crow?" The crow cawed back at him, "Ignorant beast! Soldiers get glory, but none of the feast; Soldiers work hardest, and snaffle the least. Take my advice on it--Follow the priest!"

IT was two hours after sunrise on the second day that followedCunningham's desertion of his party when he and Mahommed Gunga firstcaught sight of a blue, baked rock rising sheer out of a fringe ofgreen on the dazzling horizon. It was a freak of nature--a point pushedthrough the level crust of bone-dry earth, and left to glitter therealone. 

"That is my cousin Alwa's place!" exclaimed Mahommed Gunga, and heseemed to draw a world of consolation from the fact. 

The sight loosed his tongue at last; he rode by Cunningham, and deignedan explanation now, at least, of what had led to what might happen. Hewasted little breath on prophecy, but he was eloquent in building upa basis from which Cunningham might draw his own deductions. They hadridden through the cool of the night in easy stages, and should havecamped at dawn; but Mahommed Gunga had insisted that the tired animalscould carry them for three hours longer. 

"A soldier's horse must rest at the other end sahib, " he had laughed. "Who knows that they have not sent from Abu to arrest both thee and me?"And he had not vouchsafed another word until, over the desert glare, hiscousin's aerie had blazed out, beating back the molten sun-rays. 

"It looks hotter than the horns of hell!" said Cunningham. 

"The horns of hell, sahib, are what we leave behind us! They grow hotnow! Thy countrymen--the men who hated thee so easily--heated them andsit now between them for their folly!"

"How d'you mean? 'Pon my soul and honor, Risaldar, you talk more riddlesin five minutes than I ever heard before in all my life!"

"There be many riddles I have not told yet--riddles of which I do notknow the answer. Read me this one. Why did the British Government annexthe state of Oudh? All the best native soldiers came from Oudh, ornearly all. They were loyal once; but can a man be fairly asked toside against his own? If Oudh should rise in rebellion, what would thesoldiers do?"

"Dunno, I'm sure, " said Cunningham. 

"Read me this one, then. By pacifying both Mohammedan and Hindoo and byletting both keep their religion, by sometimes playing one against theother and by being just, the British Government has become supremefrom the Himalayas to the ocean. Can you tell me why they now issuecartridges for the new rifles that are soaked in the fat of cows andpigs, thus insulting both Mohammedan and Hindoo?"

"I didn't know it was so. "

"Sahib, it is! These damned new cartridges and this new drill-sahib, I--I who am loyal to the marrow of my bones--would no more touch thosecartridges--nor bite them, as the drill decrees--than I would betraythee! Pig's fat! Ugh!"

He spat with Mohammedan eloquence and wiped his lips on his tunic sleevebefore resuming. 

"Then, like a flint and steel, to light the train that they have laid, they loose these missionaries, in a swarm, from one end of India to theother. Why? What say one and all? Mohammedan and Hindoo both say it is aplot, first to make them lose their own religion by defilement, thento make Christians of them! Foolishness to talk thus? Nay! It wasfoolishness to act thus!

"Sahib, peace follows in the wake of soldiers, as we know. Time and timeagain the peace of India has been ripped asunder at the whim of priests!These padre people, preaching new damnation everywhere, are the flintand steel for the tinder of the cartridge fat!"

"I never knew you to croak before, Mahommed Gunga. "

"Nor am I croaking. I am praising Allah, who has sent thee now to theplace whence the wind will come to fan the hell flames that presentlywill burn. The wind will blow hot or cold--for or against thegovernment--according as you and I and certain others act whenopportunity arrives! See yonder!"

They had been seen, evidently, for horsemen--looking like black ants onthe desert--seemed to have crawled from the bowels of the living rockand were galloping in their direction. 

"Friends?" asked Cunningham. 

"Friends, indeed! But they have yet to discover whether we are friends. They set me thinking, sahib. Alwa is well known on this country-side andnone dare raid his place; few would waste time trying. Therefore, it isall one to him who passes along this road; and he takes no trouble, asa rule, to send his men out in skirmishing order when a party comes inview. Why, then, does he trouble now?"

"Couldn't say. I don't know Alwa. "

"I am thinking, sahib, that the cloud has burst at last! A blood-redcloud! Alwa is neither scare-monger nor robber; when he sends out armedmen to inspect strangers on the sky-line, there is war! Sahib, I growyoung again! Had people listened to me--had they called me anything butfool when I warned them--thou and I would have been cooped up now inAgra, or in Delhi, or Lucknow, or Peshawur! Now we are free of theplains of Rajputana--within a ride of fifty of my blood-relations, and they each within reach of others! Ho! I can hear the thunder ofa squadron at my back again! I am young, sahib--young! My old jointsloosen! Allah send the cloud has burst at last--I bring to two thousandRangars a new Cunnigan-bahadur! Thy father's son shall learn whatCunnigan-bahadur taught!"

He lapsed into silence, watching the advancing horsemen, who swoopeddown on them in an ever-closing fan formation. His tired horse sensedthe thrill that tingled through its rider's veins, and pranced again, curving his neck and straining at the bit until Mahommed Gunga steadiedhim. The five behind--even the mule-drivers too--detected excitementin the air, and the little column closed in on its leaders. All eyeswatched the neck-and-neck approach of Alwa's men, until Cunningham atlast could see their turbans and make out that they were Rangars, notHindoos. Then he and the Risaldar drew rein. 

There were twenty who raced toward them, but no Alwa. 

"It is as I thought!" declared Mahommed Gunga. "It is war, sahib! He hassummoned men from his estates. As a rule, he can afford but ten men forthat fort of his, and he would not send all his men to meet us--he has agarrison up yonder!"

Like blown dust-devils the twenty raced to them, and drew up thunderingwithin a lance-length. A sword-armed Rangar with a little gold lace onhis sleeve laughed loud as he saluted, greeting Mahommed Gunga first. The Risaldar accepted his salute with iron dignity. 

"Forgive him, sahib!" he whispered to Cunningham. "The jungli knows nobetter! He will learn whom to salute first when Alwa has said his say!"

But Cunningham was in no mood just then to stand on military ceremony orright of precedence. He was too excited, too inquisitive, too occupiedwith the necessity for keeping calm in the face of what most surelylooked like the beginning of big happenings. These horsemen of Alwa'srode, and looked, and laughed like soldiers, new-stripped of the hobbleropes of peace, and their very seat in the untanned saddles--tight down, loose-swaying from the hips, and free--was confirmation of MahommedGunga's words. 

They wheeled in a cloud and led the way, opening a little in the centreto let the clouds of sand their horses kicked up blow to the right andleft of Cunningham and his men. Not a word was spoken--not a questionasked or a piece of news exchanged--until the whole party halted at thefoot of Alwa's fortress home--a great iron gate in front of them andgarden land on either side--watered by the splashing streamlet from theheights above. 

"Men of the house of Kachwaha have owned and held this place, sahib, since Allah made it!" whispered Mahommed Gunga. "Men say that Alwa hasno right to it; they lie! His father's father won the dower-right!"

He was interrupted by the rising of the iron gate. It seemed solid, without even an eyehole in it. It was wide enough to let four horsesunder side by side, and for all its weight it rose as suddenly andevenly as though a giant's hand had lifted it. Immediately behind it, like an actor waiting for the stage-curtain to rise, Alwa bestrode hiswar-horse in the middle of a roadway. He saluted with drawn sabre, andthis time Cunningham replied. 

Almost instantly the man who had led the gallopers and had salutedMahommed Gunga spurred his horse up close to Cunningham and whispered:

"Pardon, sahib! I did not know! Am I forgiven?"

"Yes, " said Cunningham, remembering then that a Rajput, and a Rangarmore particularly, thinks about points of etiquette before consideringwhat to eat. Alwa growled out a welcome, rammed his sabre home, andwheeled without another word, showing the way at a walk--which was alla wild goat could have accomplished--up a winding road, hewn out of thesolid mountain, that corkscrewed round and round upon itself until itgave onto the battlemented summit. There he dismounted, ordered his mento their quarters, and for the first time took notice of his cousin. 

"I have thy missionary and his daughter, three horses for thee, and thyman, " he smiled. 

"Did Ali Partab bring them?"

"Nay. It was I brought Ali Partab and the rest! My promise is redeemed!"

Mahommed Gunga thrust his sword-hilt out and smiled back at him. "I present Raff-Cunnigan-sahib--son of Pukka-Cunnigan-bahadur!" heannounced. 

Alwa drew himself up to his full height and eyed young Cunningham as abuyer eyes a war-horse, inch by inch. The youngster, who had long sincelearned to actually revel in the weird sensation of a hundred pairs ofeyes all fixed on him at once, felt this one man's gaze go over himas though he were being probed. He thanked his God he had no fat to bedetected, and that his legs were straight, and that his tunic fittedhim!

"Salaam, bahadur, " said Alwa slowly. "I knew thy father. So--thou--art--his--son. Welcome. There is room here always for a guest. I have other guests with whom you might care to speak. I will have aroom made ready. Have I leave to ask questions of my cousin here?"

Cunningham bowed in recognition of his courtesy, and walked away toa point whence he could look from the beetling parapet away and awayacross desert that shone hot and hazy-rimmed on every side. If this werea man on whom he must depend for following--if any of all the morethan hints dropped by the risaldar were true--it seemed to him that hisreception was a little too chilly to be hopeful. 

After a minute or two he turned his eyes away from the dazzling plainbelow and faced about to inspect the paved courtyard. Round it, onthree sides of a parallelogram, there ran a beautifully designed andwonderfully worked-out veranda-fronted building, broken here and thereby cobbled passages that evidently led to other buildings on the faredge of the rock. In the centre, covered by a roof like a temple-domein miniature, was the ice-cold spring, whose existence made the forttenable. Under the veranda, on a long, low lounge, was a sight thatarrested his attention--held him spell-bound--drew him, tingling ina way he could not have explained--drew him--drew him, slow-footed, awkward, red--across the courtyard. 

He heard Mahommed Gunga swear aloud; he recognized the wording of thebelly-growled Rangar oath; but it did not occur to him that whathe saw--what was drawing him--could be connected with it. He lookedstraight ahead and walked ahead--reached the edge of the veranda--tookhis helmet off--and stood still, feeling like an idiot, with the sunfull on his head. 

"I'd advise you to step into the shade, " said a voice that laughed moresweetly than the chuckling spring. "I don't know who you are, but I'mmore glad to see you than I ever was in my life to see anybody. I can'tget up, because I'm too stiff; the ride to here from Howrah City all butkilled me, and I'm only here still because I couldn't ride another yard. My father will be out in a moment. He's half-dead too. "

"My name is Cunningham. "

"I'm Miss McClean. My father was a missionary in Howrah. "

She nodded to a chair beside her, and Cunningham took it, feelingawkward, as men of his type usually do when they meet a woman in astrange place. 

"How in the world did you get in?" she asked him. "It's two days nowsince the Alwa-sahib told us that the whole country is in rebellion. Howis it that you managed to reach here? According to Alwa, no white man'slife is safe in the open, and he only told me today that he wouldn't letme go away even if I were well enough to ride. "

"First I've heard of rebellion!" said Cunningham aghast at the notion ofhearing news like that a second hand, and from a woman. 

"Hasn't Alwa told you?"

"He hasn't had time to, yet. "

"Then, you'd better ask him. If what he say is true--and I think hetells the truth--the natives mean to kill us all, or drive us out ofIndia. Of course they can't do it, but they mean to try. He has beenmore than kind--more than hospitable--more than chivalrous. Just becausehe gave his word to another Rangar, he risked his life about a dozentimes to get my father and me and Ali Partab out of Howrah. But, I don'tthink he quite liked doing it--and--this is in confidence--if I wereasked--and speaking just from intuition--I should say he is in sympathywith the rebellion!"

"How long have you been here?" asked Cunningham. 

"Several days--ten, I think. It seemed strange at first and rather awfulto be lodged on a rock like this in a section of a Rangar's harem!Yes, there are several women here behind the scenes, but I only see thewaiting-women. I've forgotten time; the news about rebellion seems tooawful to leave room for any other thought. "

"Who was the Rangar to whom Aliva gave his word? Not Mahommed Gunga, byany chance?"

"Yes, Mahommed Gunga. "

"Well, I'm--!" Cunningham clipped off the participle just in time. "There is something, then, in the talk about rebellion! That man's beentalking in riddles to me ever since I came to India, and it looks asthough he knew long in advance. "

He was about to cross-examine Miss McClean rigorously, even at the riskof seeming either rude or else frightened; but before his lips couldframe another question he caught sight of Mahommed Gunga making signalsto him. He affected to ignore the signals. He objected to being kept inthe dark so utterly, and wished to find out a little for himself beforelistening to what the Rangars had to say. But Mahommed Gunga startedover to him. 

He could not hear the remark Mahommed Gunga made to Alwa over hisshoulder as he came. 

"Had I remembered there was a woman of his own race here, I would haveplunged him straight into the fighting! Now there will be the devilfirst to pay!"

"He has decision in at least one thing!" grinned Alwa. 

"Something that I think thou lackest, cousin!" came the hot retort. 

Alwa turned his back with a shake of his head and a thin-lippedsmile--then disappeared through a green door in the side of what seemedlike solid rock. A moment later Mahommed Gunga stood near Cunningham, saluting. 

"We ask the favor of a consultation, sahib. "

Cunningham rose, a shade regretfully, and followed into the rock-walledcavern into which Alwa had preceded them. It was nearly square--a hollowbubble in the age-old lava--axe-trimmed many hundred years ago. Whatlight there was came in through three long slits that gave an archer'sview of the plain and of the zigzag roadway from the iron gate below. It was cool, for the rock roof was fifty or more feet thick, and thesilence of it seemed like the nestling-place of peace. 

They sat down on wooden benches round the walls, with their soldier legsstretched out in front of them. Alwa broke silence first, and it was ofanything but peace he spoke. 

"Now--now, let us see whose throats we are to slit!" he startedcheerfully. 

CHAPTER XXIV

 Achilles had a tender spot That even guarding gods forgot, When clothing him in armor; And I have proved this charge o' mine For fear, and sloth, and vice, and wine, But clear forgot the charmer!

THE Alwa-sahib knew more English than he was willing to admit. In thefirst place, he had the perfectly natural dislike of committing histhoughts to any language other than his own when anything seriouswas the subject of discussion; in the second place, he had little ofMahommed Gunga's last-ditch loyalty. Not that Alwa could be disloyal;he had not got it in him; but as yet he had seen no good reason forpledging himself and his to the British cause. 

So for more than ten minutes he chose to sit in apparent dudgeon, his hands folded in front of him on the hilt of his tremendous sabre, growling out a monologue in his own language for Mahommed Gunga'sbenefit. Then Mahommed Gunga silenced him with an uplifted hand, andturned to translate to Cunningham. 

"It would seem, sahib, that even while we rode to Abu the rebellion wasalready raging! It burst suddenly. They have mutinied at Berhampur, and slain their officers. Likewise at Meerut, and at all the places inbetween. At Kohat, in this province they have slain every white man, woman, and child, and also at Arjpur and Sohlat. The rebels are hurryingto Delhi, where they have proclaimed new rule, under the descendantsof the old-time kings. Word of all this came before dawn today, by amessenger from Maharajah Howrah to my cousin here. My cousin standspledged to uphold Howrah on his throne; Howrah is against the British;Jaimihr, his brother, is in arms against Howrah. "

"Why did the Alwa-sahib pledge himself to Howrah's cause?"

Mahommed Gunga--who knew quite well--saw fit to translate the question. With a little sign of irritation Alwa growled his answer. 

"He says, sahib, that for the safety of two Christian missionaries, forwhom he has no esteem at all, he was forced to swear allegiance to aHindoo whom he esteems even less. He says that his word is given!"

"Does he mean that he would like me and the missionaries to leave hishome at once--do we embarrass him?"

Again Mahommed Gunga--this time with a grin--saw fit to ask before heanswered. 

"He says, 'God forbid, ' sahib; 'a guest is guest!'"

Cunningham reflected for a moment, then leaned forward. 

"Tell him this!" he said slowly. "I am glad to be his guest, but, ifthis story of rebellion is true--"

"It is true, sahib! More than true! There is much more to be told!"

"Then, I can only accept his hospitality as the representative of mygovernment! I stay here officially, or not at all. It is for him toanswer!"

"Now, Allah be praised!" swore Mahommed Gunga. "I knew we had a man!That is well said, sahib!"

"The son of Cunnigan-bahadur is welcome here on any terms at all!"growled Alwa when Mahommed Gunga had translated. "All the rebels in allIndia, all trying at once, would fail to take this fort of mine, had I alarger garrison. But what Rangar on this countryside will risk his lifeand estates on behalf of a cause that is already lost? If they come tohold my fort for me, the rebels will burn their houses. The British Rajis doomed. We Rangars have to play for our own stake!"

Then Mahommed Gunga rose and paced the floor like a man in armor, tugging at his beard and kicking at his scabbard each time that heturned at either end. 

"What Rangar in this province would have had one yard of land to hisname but for this man's father?" he demanded. "In his day we fought, allof us, for what was right! We threw our weight behind him when he led, letting everything except obedience go where the devil wanted it! Whatcame of that? Good tithes, good report, good feeling, peace!"

"And then, the zemindary laws!" growled Alwa. "Then the laws that tookaway from us full two-thirds of our revenue!"

"We had had no revenue, except for Cunnigan-bahadur!"

It dawned on Cunningham exactly why and how he came to be there! Heunderstood now that Mahommed Gunga had told nothing less than truth whenhe declared it had been through his scheming, and no other man's, that he--Cunningham--whose sole thought was to be a soldier, had beenrelegated to oblivion and politics! He understood why Byng had signedthe transfer, and he knew--knew--knew--deep down inside him that hischance had come!

"It seems that another Cunningham is to have the honor of preservingRangars' titles for them, " he smiled. "How many horsemen could theAlwa-sahib raise?"

"That would depend!" Alwa was in no mood to commit himself. 

"At the most--at a pinch--in case of direst need, and for a cause thatall agreed on?"

"Two thousand. "

"Horsed and armed?"

"And ready!"

"And you, Alwa-sahib--are you pledged to fight against the British?"

"Not in so many words. I swore to uphold Howrah on his throne. He isagainst the British. "

"You swore to help smash his brother, Jaimihr?"

"If I were needed. "

"And Jaimihr too is against the British?"

"Jaimihr is for Jaimihr, and has a personal affair with me!"

"I must think, " said Cunningham, getting up. "I can think better alone. D'you mind if I go outside for a while, and come back later to tell youwhat I think?"

Alwa arose and held the door open for him--stood and watched him crossthe courtyard--then turned and laughed at Mahommed Gunga. 

"Straight over to the woman!" he grinned. "This leader of thine seems inleading-strings himself already!"

Mahommed Gunga cursed, and cursed again as his own eyes confirmed whatAlwa said. 

"I tried him all the ways there are, except that one way!" he declared. "May Allah forgive my oversight! I should have got him well entangledwith a woman before he reached Peshawur! He should have beenheart-broken by this time--rightly, he should have been desperate withunrequited love! Byng-bahadur could have managed it! Byng-bahadur wouldhave managed it, had I thought to advise him!"

He stood, looking over very gloomily at Cunningham, making a dozenwild plans for getting rid of Miss McClean--by no means forgettingpoison--and the height of Alwa's aerie from the plain below! He wouldhave been considerably calmer, could he have heard what Cunningham andMiss McClean were saying. 

The missionary was with her now--ill and exhausted from the combinedeffects of excitement, horror, and the unaccustomed ride acrossthe desert--most anxious for his daughter--worried, to the verge ofdesperation, by the ghastly news of the rebellion. 

"Mr. Cunningham, I hope you are the forerunner of a British force?" hehazarded. 

But Cunningham was too intent on cross-examination to waste time ongiving any information. 

"I want you to tell me, quite quietly and without hurry, all you canabout Howrah, " he said, sitting close to Miss McClean. "I want you tounderstand that I am the sole representative of my government in thewhole district, and that whatever can be done depends very largely onwhat information I can get. I have been talking to the Alwa-sahib, buthe seems too obsessed with his own predicament to be able to make thingsquite clear. Now, go ahead and tell me what you know about conditionsin the city. Remember, you are under orders! Try and consider yourselfa scout, reporting information to your officer. Tell me every singlething, however unimportant. "

On the far side of the courtyard Alwa and Mahommed Gunga had gone tolean over the parapet and watch something that seemed to interestboth of them intently. There were twenty or more men, lined roundthe ramparts on the lookout, and they all too seemed spellbound, butCunningham was too engrossed in Miss McClean's story of the happeningsin Howrah City to take notice. Now and then her father would help herout with an interjected comment; occasionally Cunningham would stop herwith a question, or would ask her to repeat some item; but, for morethan an hour she spun a clear-strung narrative that left very little toimagination and included practically all there was to know. 

"Do you think, " asked Cunningham "that this brute Jaimihr really wantsto make you Maharanee?"

"I couldn't say, " she shuddered. "You know, there have been severalinstances of European women having practically sold themselves to nativeprinces; there have been stories--I have heard them--of English womenmarrying Rajahs, and regretting it. There is no reason why he should notbe in earnest, and he certainly seemed to be. "

"And this treasure? Of course, I have heard tales about it, but Ithought they were just tales. "

"That treasure is really there, and its amount must be fabulous. Ihave been told that there are jewels there which would bring a Rajah'sransom, and gold enough to offset the taxes of the whole of India for ayear or two. I've no doubt the stories are exaggerated, but the treasureis real enough, and big enough to make the throne worth fighting for. Jaimihr counts on being able to break the power of the priests andbroach the treasure. "

"And Jaimihr is--er--in love with you!"

"He tried very hard to prove it, in his own objectionable way!"

"And Jaimihr wants the throne--and Howrah wants to send a force againstthe British, but dare not move because of Jaimihr--I have MahommedGunga and five or six men to depend on--the Rangars are sitting on thefence--and the government has its hands full! The lookout's bright! Ithink I see the way through!"

"You are forgetting me. " The missionary spread his broad stoopedshoulders. "I am a missionary first, but next to that I have mycountry's cause more at heart than anything. I place myself under yourorders, Mr. Cunningham. "

"I too, " said Miss McClean. She was looking at him keenly as he gazedaway into nothing through slightly narrowed eyes. Vaguely, his attitudereminded her of a picture she had once seen of the Duke of Wellington;there was the same mastery, the same far vision, the same poise ofself-contained power. His nose was not like the Iron Duke's, for youngCunningham's had rather more tolerance in its outline and less of Romanoverbearing; but the eyes, and the mouth, and the angle of the jaw wereso like Wellesley's as to force a smile. "A woman isn't likely to bemuch use in a case like this--but, one never knows. My country comesfirst. "

"Thanks, " he answered quietly. And as he turned his head to flash oneglance at each of them, she recognized what Mahommed Gunga had gloatedover from the first--the grim decision, that will sacrifice all--takefull responsibility--and use all means available for the one unflinchingpurpose of the game in hand. She knew that minute, and her father knew, that if she could be used--in any way at all--he would make use of her. 

"Go ahead!" she nodded. "I'll obey!"

"And I will not prevent!" said Duncan McClean, smiling and straighteninghis spectacles. 

Cunningham left them and walked over to the parapet, where the wholegarrison was bending excitedly now above the battlement. There were morethan forty men, most of them clustered near Alwa and Mahommed Gunga. Mahommed Gunga was busy counting. 

"Eight hundred!" he exclaimed, as Cunningham drew near. 

"Eight hundred what, Mahommed Gunga? Come and see, sahib. "

Cunningham leaned over, and beheld a mounted column, trailing along thedesert road in wonderfully good formation. 

"Where are they from?" he asked. 

"Jaimihr's men, from Howrah!"

"That means, " growled Alwa, "that the Hindoo pig Jaimihr has more thanhalf the city at his back. He has left behind ten men for every one hebrings with him--sufficient to hold Howrah in check. Otherwise hewould never have dared come here. He hopes to settle his little privatequarrel with me first, before dealing with his brother! Who told him, Iwonder, that I was pledged to Howrah?"

"He reckons he has caught thee napping in this fort of thine!" laughedMahommed Gunga. "He means to bottle up the Rangars' leader, and socheckmate all of them!"

The eight hundred horsemen on the plain below rode carelessly throughAlwa's gardens, leaving trampled confusion in their wake, and linedup--with Jaimihr at their head--immediately before the great irongate. A moment later four men rode closer and hammered on it with theirlance-ends. 

"Go down and speak to them!" commanded Alwa, and a man dropped down thezigzag roadway like a goat, taking short cuts from level to level, untilhe stood on a pinnacle of rock that overhung the gate. Ten minutes laterhe returned, breathing hard with the effort of his climb. 

"Jaimihr demands the missionaries--particularly the Miss-sahib--alsoquarters and food!" he reported. 

"Quarters and food he shall have!" swore Alwa, looking down at thePrince who sat his charger in the centre of the roadway. "Did he deign athreat?"

"He said that in fifteen minutes he will burst the gate in, unless he isfirst admitted!"

Duncan McClean walked over, limping painfully, and peered over theprecipice. 

"Unfriendly?" he asked, and Mahommed Gunga heard him. 

"Thy friend Jaimihr, sahib! His teeth are all but visible from here!"

"And--?"

"He demands admittance--also thee and thy daughter!"

"And--?"

"Sahib--art thou a priest?"

"I am. "

"One, then, who prays?"

"Yes. "

"For dead men, ever? For the dying?"

"Certainly. "

"Aloud?"

"On occasion, yes. "

"Then pray now! There will be many dead and dying on the plain belowin less than fifteen minutes! Hindoos, for all I know, would benefit byprayer. They have too many gods, and their gods are too busy fightingfor ascendancy to listen. Pray thou, a little!"

There came a long shout from the plain, and Alwa sent a man again tolisten. He came back with a message that Jaimihr granted amnesty toall who would surrender, and that he would be pleased to accept Alwa'sallegiance if offered to him. 

"I will offer the braggart something in the way of board and lodgingthat will astonish him!" growled Alwa. "Eight men to horse! The firsteight! That will do! Back to the battlement, the rest of you!"

They had raced for the right to loose themselves against eight hundred!

CHAPTER XXV

 OH, duck and run--the hornets come! Oh, jungli! Clear the way! The nest's ahum--the hornets come! The sharp-stinged, harp-winged hornets come! Nay, jungli! When the hornets come, It isn't well to stay!

ALWA ordered ten men down into the bowels of the rock itself, wheregreat wheels with a chain attached to them were forced round to lift thegate. Next he stationed a signaller with a cord in either hand, abovethe parapet, to notify the men below exactly when to set the simplemachinery in motion. His eight clattered out from the stables on the farside of the rock, and his own charger was brought to him, saddled. 

Then, in a second, it was evident why Raputs do not rule in Rajputana. 

"I ride too with my men!" declared Mahommed Gunga. 

"Nay! This is my affair--my private quarrel with Jaimihr!"

Mahommed Gunga turned to Ali Partab, who had been a shadow to him eversince he came. 

"Turn out my five, and bring my charger!" he commanded. 

"No, I say!" Alwa had his hand already on his sabre hilt. "There is roomfor eight and no more. Four following four abreast, and one aheadto lead them. I and my men know how to do this. I and my men have apersonal dispute with Jaimihr. Stay thou here!"

Mahommed Gunga's five and Ali Partab came clattering out so fast asto lead to the suspicion that their horses had been already saddled. Mahommed Gunga mounted. 

"Lead on, cousin!" he exclaimed. "I will follow thy lead, but I come!"

Then Alwa did what a native nearly always will do. He turned to a mannot of his own race, whom he believed he could trust to be impartial. 

"Sahib--have I no rights in my own house?"

"Certainly you have, " said Cunningham, who was wondering more thananything what weird, wild trick these horsemen meant to play. No man inhis senses would have dared to ride a horse at more than foot-pace downthe path. Was there another path? he wondered. At least, if eight menwere about to charge into eight hundred, it would be best to keep hisgood friend Mahommed Gunga out of it, he decided. 

"Risaldar!" The veteran was always most amenable to reason whenaddressed by his military title. "Who of us two is senior--thou or I?"

"By Allah, not I, sahib! I am thy servant!"

"I accept your service, and I order you to stay with your men up herewith me!"

Mahommed Gunga saluted and dismounted, and his six followed suit, looking as disappointed as children just deprived of a vacation. Alwawheeled his horse in front of Cunningham and saluted too. 

"For that service, sahib, I am thy friend!" he muttered. "That was rightand reasonable, and a judgement quickly given! Thy friend, bahadur!" Hespoke low on purpose, but Mahommed Gunga heard him, caught Cunningham'seye, and grinned. He saw a way to save his face, at all events. 

"That was a trick well turned, sahib!" he whispered, as Alwa moved away. "Alwa will listen in future when Cunnigan-bahadur speaks!"

"Go down and tell Jaimihr that I come in person!" ordered Alwa, and theman dropped down the cliff side for the third time; they could hear hisvoice, high-pitched, resounding off the rock, and they caught a faintmurmur of the answer. Below, Jaimihr could be seen waiting patiently, checking his restive war-horse with a long-cheeked bit, and waiting, ready to ride under the gate the moment it was opened. Rosemary McCleancame over; she and Cunningham and the missionary leaned together overthe battlement and watched. 

"We might do some execution with rifles from here, " Cunninghamsuggested; "I believe I'll send for mine. " But Mahommed Gunga overheardhim. 

"Nay, sahib! No shooting will be necessary. Watch!"

There was a clatter of hoofs, and they all looked up in time to see thetails of the last four chargers disappearing round the corner, downward. They had gone--full pelt--down a path that a man might hesitate to take!From where they stood, there was an archer's view of every inch of theonly rock-hewn road that led from the gate to the summit of the cliff;an enemy who had burst the gate in would have had to climb in the teethof a searching hail of missiles, with little chance of shooting back. 

They could see the gate itself, and Jaimihr on the other side. And, swooping--shooting--sliding down the trail like a storm-loosedavalanche, they could see the nine go, led by Alwa. No living creaturecould have looked away!

Below, entirely unconscious of the coming shock, the mounted sepoyswaited behind Jaimihr in four long, straight lines. Jaimihr himself, with a heavy-hilted cimeter held upward at the "carry, " was about fourcharger lengths beyond the iron screen, ready to spur through. Close byhim were a dozen, waiting to ram a big beam in and hold up the gatewhen it had opened. And, full-tilt down the gorge, flash-tipped likea thunderbolt, gray-turbaned, reckless, whirling death ripped down onthem. 

They caught sound of the hammering hoofs too late. Two gongs boomed inthe rock. The windlass creaked. Five seconds too late Jaimihr gatheredup his reins, spurred, wheeled, and shouted to the men behind him. The great gate rose, like the jaws of a hungry monster, andthe nine--streaking too fast down far too steep a slide to stopthemselves--burst straight out under it and struck, as a wind blastsmites a poppy-field. 

Jaimihr was borne backward--carried off his horse. Alwa and the firstfour rode him down, and crashed through the four-deep line beyond; thesecond four pounced on him, gathered him, and followed. Before the linescould form again the whole nine wheeled--as a wind-eddy spins on its ownaxis--and burst through back again, the horses racing neck and neck, andthe sabres cutting down a swath to screech and swear and gurgle in amongthe trampled garden stuff. 

They came back in a line, all eight abreast, Alwa leading only by alength. At the opening, four horses--two on either side--slid, rump tothe ground, until their noses touched the rock. Alwa and four dashedthrough and under; the rest recovered, spun on their haunches, andfollowed. The gongs boomed again down in the belly of the rock, and thegate clanged shut. 

"That was good, " said Mahommed Gunga quietly. "Now, watch again!"

Almost before the words had left his lips, a hail of lead barked outfrom twenty vantage-points, and the smoke showed where some forty menwere squinting down steel barrels, shooting as rapidly and as rottenlyas natives of India usually do. They did little execution; but beforeAlwa and his eight had climbed up the steep track to the summit, pattingtheir horses' necks and reviling Jaimihr as they came, the cavalry belowhad scampered out of range, leaving their dead and wounded where theylay. 

"How is that for a start, sahib?" demanded Mahommed Gunga exultantly, as two men deposited the dishevelled Jaimihr on his feet, and the Princeglared around him like a man awaking from a dream. "How is that for abeginning?"

"As bad as could be!" answered Cunningham. "It was wellexecuted--bold--clever--anything you like, Mahommed Gunga, but--if I'dbeen asked I'd have sooner made the devil prisoner! Jaimihr is no use atall to us in here. Outside, he'd be veritable godsend!"

CHAPTER XXVI

 There is war to the North should I risk and ride forth, And a fight to the South, too, I'm thinking; There is war in the East, and one battle at least In the West between eating and drinking. I'm allowed to rejoice in an excellent choice Of plans for a soldier of mettle, For all of them mean bloody war and rapine. So--on which should a gentleman settle?

WITH his muscles strained and twisted (for his Rangar capturers haddragged him none too gently) and with his jewelled pugree all awry, Jaimihr did not lack dignity. He held his chin high, although he gazedat the bubbling spring thirstily; and, thirsty though he must have been, he asked no favors. 

One of Alwa's men brought him a brass dipper full of water, afterwashing it out first thoroughly and ostentatiously. But Jaimihr smiled. His caste forbade. He waved away the offering much as Caesar may havewaved aside a crown, with an air of condescending mightiness too proudto know contempt. 

"Go, help thyself!" growled Alwa; and Jaimihr walked to the springwithout haste, knelt down, and dipped up water with his hand. 

"Now to a cell with him!" commanded Alwa, before the Prince had timeto slake a more than ordinary thirst. Jaimihr stood upright as four menclosed in on him, and looked straight in the eyes of every one in turn. Rosemary McClean stepped back, to hide herself behind Cunningham's broadshoulders, but Jaimihr saw her and his proud smile broadened to a laughof sheer amusement. He let his captors wait for him while he staredstraight at her, sparing her no fragment of embarrassment. 

"I slew a man once to save thee, sahiba!" he mocked. "Why slink away?Have I ever been thy enemy?"

Then he folded his arms and walked off between his guards, without evenan acknowledgment of Alwa's or any other man's existence on the earth. 

Alwa spat as he wiped blood from his long sabre. He imagined he wasdoing the necessary dirty work out of Miss McClean's sight; but, excepthospital nurses, there are few women who can see dry blood removed fromsteel without a qualm; she had looked at Alwa to escape Jaimihr's gaze;now she looked at Jaimihr's back to avoid the sight of what Alwa wasseeing fit to do. And with all the woman in her she pitied the prisoner, who had said no less than truth when he claimed to have killed a man forher. 

She knew that he would have killed a thousand men for her with equalgenerosity and equal disregard of what she thought was right, and shedid not doubt that he would think himself both justified and worthy ofrenown for doing it. She could have begged his release that minute, had she thought for an instant that Alwa would consent, and but forCunningham. She had grown aware of Cunningham's gray eyes, staringstraight at her--summing her up--reading her. And she became consciousof the fact that she had met a man whose leave she would like to askbefore deciding to act. 

The mental acknowledgment brought relief for a few seconds. She wastired. The woman in here went out to the man in Cunningham, and shewelcomed a protector. Then the Scots blood raced to the assistance ofthe woman, and she bridled instantly. Who, then, was this chance-metjackanapes, that she should lean on him or look to him for guidance?

The rebellion that had made her disobey her father back in HowrahCity--the spirit that had kept her in Howrah City and had given Jaimihrback cool stare for stare--rallied her to resist--to ridicule--to rivalCunningham's pretensions. He saw her flush beneath his gaze, and turnedaway to where Mahommed Gunga watched from the parapet. 

The leaders of Jaimihr's calvary were arguing. They could be seengathered together out of rifle-shot but in full view of Alwa's rock, andfrom their gestures they seemed to be considering the feasibility of anattack. 

But it needed no warrior--it needed less even than ordinaryintelligence--to know that as few as forty men could hold that fastnessagainst two thousand. Eight hundred would have no chance against it. Even two thousand would need engineers, and ordnance, as well as plans. 

Presently half of the little army rode away, back toward Howrah City, and the other half proceeded to bivouac where they could watch theiron-shuttered entrance and cut off the little garrison from allcommunication or assistance. 

"We might as well resume our conference, " suggested Alwa, with thecourtly air of a man just arisen from a chair. No one who had not seenhim ride would have dreamed that he was fresh from snatching a prisonerat the bottom of a neck-breaking defile. Cunningham nodded acquiescenceand followed him, turning to stare again at Miss McClean before hestrode away with long, even strides that had a reassuring effect on anyone who watched him. She bridled again, and blushed. But she experiencedthe weird sensation of being read right through before Mahommed Gungacontrived adroitly to step into the line of view and so let Cunningham'sattention fix itself on something else. The Risaldar had made up hismind that love was inopportune just then; and he was a man who left nostone unturned--no point unwatched--when he had sensed a danger. Thismight be danger and it might not be; so he watched. Cunningham wasconscious of the sudden interruption of a train of thought, but he wasnot conscious of deliberate interference. 

"That very young man is an old man, " said Duncan McClean, wiping hisspectacles as he walked beside his daughter to the deep veranda wheretheir chairs were side by side. "He is a grown man. He has come to man'sestate. Look at the set of that pair of shoulders. Mark his strength!"

"I expect any one of those Rajputs is physically stronger, " answeredRosemary, in no mood to praise any one. 

"I was thinking of the strength of character he expresses rather than ofhis actual muscles, " said McClean. 

"Bismillah!" Alwa was swearing behind the thick teak door that closedbehind him and Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga. "We have made a goodbeginning! With the wolf in a trap, what has the goat to dread? Howrahmay chuckle himself to sleep! And I--I, too, by the beard of God'sprophet!--I, too, may laugh, for, with Jaimihr under lock and key, whatneed is there to ride to the aid of a Hindoo Rajah? I am free again!"

"Alwa-sahib!"

Cunningham had fixed him with those calm gray eyes of his, and MahommedGunga sat down on the nearest bench contented. He could wait for whatwas coming now. He recognized the blossoming of the plant that he hadnursed through its growth so long. 

"I listen, " answered Alwa. 

"I represent the British Government. I am the only servant of theCompany within reach. Do you realize that?"

"Yes, sahib. "

"I have no orders which entitle me to deal with any crisis such as this. But, when my orders were given me, no such crisis was contemplated. Therefore, on behalf of the Company, I assume full authority until suchtime as some one senior to me turns up to relieve me. Is all that clearto you?"

"Yes, sahib. "

Mahommed Gunga went through considerable pantomime of being angry with afly. He found it necessary to conceal emotion in some way or other. Alwasat motionless and stared straight back at Cunningham. 

"I understand, sahib, " he repeated. 

"You are talking to me, then, on that understanding?"

"Most certainly, huzoor. "

"You can raise two thousand men?"

"Perhaps. "

"Say fifteen hundred?"

"Surely fifteen hundred. Not a sabre less. "

"All horsed and armed?"

"Surely, bahadur. Of what use would be a rabble? I was speaking in termsof men able to fight, as one soldier to another. "

"Will you raise those men?"

"Of a truth, I must, sahib!" Alwa laughed. "Jaimihr's thousands will bein no mind to lie leaderless and let Howrah ride rough-shod over them!They know his charity of old! They will be here to claim their Princewithin a day or two, and without my fifteen hundred how would I stand?Surely, bahadur, I will raise my fifteen hundred. "

"Very well. Now I will make you a proposal. On behalf of the Company Ioffer you and your men pay at the rate paid to all irregular cavalry ona war basis. In return, I demand your allegiance. "

"To whom, sahib? To you or to the Company?"

"To the Company, of course. "

"Nay! Not I! For the son of Cunnigan-bahadur I would slit the throats ofhalf Asia, and then of nine-tenths of the other half! But by the breathof God--by my spurs and this sabre here--I have had enough of pledging!I swore allegiance to Howrah. Being nearly free of that pledge byAllah's sending, shall I plunge into another, like a frightened birdfluttering from snare to snare? Nay, nay, bahadur! For thyself, for thyfather's sake, ask any favor. It is granted. But thy Company may stew inthe grease of its own cartridges for ought I care!"

Cunningham stood up and bowed very slightly--very stiffly--verypunctiliously. Mahommed Gunga leaped to his feet, and came to attentionwith a military clatter. Alwa stared, inclining his head a trifle inrecognition of the bow, but evidently taken by surprise. 

"Then, good-by, Alwa-sahib. "

Cunningham stretched out a hand. 

"I am much obliged to you for your hospitality, and regret exceedinglythat I cannot avail myself of it further, either for myself orfor Mahommed Gunga or for Mr. And Miss McClean. As the Company'srepresentative, they, of course, look to me for orders and protection, and I shall take them away at once. As things are, we can only be asource of embarrassment to you. "

"But--sahib--huzoor--it is impossible. You have seen the cavalry below. How can you--how could you get away?"

"Unless I am your prisoner I shall certainly leave this place at once. The only other condition on which I will stay here is that you pledgeyour allegiance to the Company and take my orders. "

"Sahib, this is--why--huzoor--"

Alwa looked over to Mahommed Gunga and raised his eyebrows eloquently. 

"I obey him! I go with him!" growled Mahommed Gunga. 

"Sahib, I would like time to think this over. "

"How much time? I thought you quick-witted when you made Jaimihrprisoner. Has that small success undermined your power of decision? Iknow my mind. Mahommed Gunga knows his, Alwa-sahib. "

"I ask an hour. There are many points I must consider. There is theprisoner for one thing. "

"You can hand him over to the custody of the first British column wecan get in touch with, Alwa-sahib. That will relieve you of furtherresponsibility to Howrah and will insure a fair trial of any issue theremay be between yourself and Jaimihr. "

Alwa scowled. No Rajput likes the thought of litigation where affairsof honor are concerned. He felt he would prefer to keep Jaimihr prisonerfor the present. 

"Also, sahib"--fresh facets of the situation kept appearing to him as hesparred for time--"with Jaimihr in a cage I can drive a bargain with hisbrother. While I keep him in the cage, Howrah must respect my wishes forfear lest otherwise I loose Jaimihr to be a thorn in his side anew. If Ihand him to the British, Howrah will know that he is safe and altogetherout of harm's way; then he will recall what he may choose to considerinsolence of mine; and then--"

"Oh, well--consider it!" said Cunningham, saluting him and making forthe door, close followed by Mahommed Gunga. The two went out and itleft Alwa to stride up and down alone--to wrestle between desire andcircumspection--to weigh uncomfortable fact with fact--and to curse hiswits that could not settle on the wisest and most creditable course. They turned into another chamber of the tunnelled rock, and there untillong after the hour of law allowed to Alwa they discussed the situationtoo. 

"The point was well taken, sahib, " said Mahommed Gunga, "but he shouldhave been handled rather less abruptly. "

"Eh?"

"Rather less abruptly, sahib. "

"Oh! Well--if his mind isn't clear as to which side he'll fight on, Idon't want him, and that's all!" said Cunningham. And Mahommed Gungabitted his impatience fiercely, praying the one God he believed in totouch the right scale of the two. Later, Cunningham strode out to pacethe courtyard in the dark, and the Rajput followed him. 

CHAPTER XXVII

 The trapped wolf bared his fangs and swore, "But set me this time free, And I will hunt thee never more! By ear and eye and jungle law, I'll starve--I'll faint--I'll die before I bury tooth in thee!"

WHILE Alwa raged alone, and while Mahommed Gunga talked to Cunninghamin a rock-room near at hand, Rosemary McClean saw fit to take a handin history. It was not her temperament to sit quite idle while othersshaped her destiny; nor was she given to mere brooding over wrongs. Whena wrong was being done that she could alter or alleviate it was her wayto tackle it at once without asking for permission or advice. 

From where her chair was placed under the long veranda she could see thepassage in the rock that led to Jaimihr's cell. She saw his captors takehim up the passage; she heard the door clang shut on him, and she sawthe men come back again. She heard them laugh, too, and she overheard afew words of a jest that seemed the reason for the laughter. 

In Rajputana, as in other portions of the East, men laugh with meaningas a rule, and seldom from mere amusement. Included in the laugh thereusually lies more than a hint of threat, or hate, or cruelty. And, inpartial confirmation of the jest she unintentionally overheard, she sawno servant go to the chuckling spring to fill a water-jar. She recalledthat Jaimihr only sipped as much as he could dip up in the hollow of hishand, and that physical exertion and suffering of the sort that he hadundergone produces prodigious thirst in that hot, dry atmosphere. 

She waited until dark for Cunninham, growing momentarily more restless. She recalled that she was a guest of Alwa's, and as such not free tointerfere with his arrangements or to suggest insinuations anent histreatment of prisoners. She recalled the pride of all Rajputs, and itsaccompanying corollary of insolence when offended. There would come nogood--she knew--from asking anybody whether Jaimihr was allowed to drinkor not. 

Cunningham, with that middle-aged air of authority laid over the fireand ability of youth, would be able, no doubt, to enforce his wishes inthe matter after finding out the truth about it. But Cunningham did notcome; and she remembered from a short experience of her own what thirstwas. 

The men-at-arms were all on the ramparts now, watching the leaderlesscavalry on the plain. They had even left the cell door unguarded, for itwas held shut by a heavy beam that could not be reached from the inside;and they were all too few, even all of them together, to hold that rockagainst eight hundred. It was characteristic, though, and Eastern of theEast, that they should omit to padlock the big beam. It pivoted at itscentre on a big bronze pin, and even a child could move it from theoutside; it was only from the inside that it was uncontrollable. Frominside one could have jerked at the door for a week and the big beamwould have lain still and efficient in its niche in the rock-wall; buta little pressure underneath one end would send it swinging in an arcuntil it hung bolt upright. Then the same child who had pushed it upcould have swung the teak door wide. 

Rosemary, growing momentarily thirstier herself as she thought of theprobable torture of the prisoner, walked down to the spring and filleda dipper, as she had done half a dozen times a day since she firstarrived. She had carried almost all her own and her father's water, for Joanna was generally sleeping somewhere out of view, and no otherbody-servant had been provided for her. There was a fairly big brasspitcher by the spring. She filled it. Nobody noticed her. 

Then she recalled that nobody would notice her if she were to carry thebrass pitcher in the direction of her room, for she had done that often. She picked it up, and she reached the end of the veranda with it withouthaving called attention to herself. She set it down then to make quitesure that she was unobserved. 

But some movement of the cavalry on the plain below was keeping the eyesof the garrison employed. Although a solitary lantern shone full on her, she reached the passage leading to the prisoner's cell unseen; and shewalked on down it, making no attempt to hide or hurry, remembering thatshe was acting out of mercy and had no need to be ashamed. If she wereto be discovered, then she would be, and that was all about it, exceptthat she would probably be able to appeal to Cunningham to save her fromunpleasant consequences. In any case, she reasoned, she would have donegood. She was quite ready to get herself and her own in trouble if bydoing it she could insure that a prisoner had water. 

But she was not seen. And no one saw her set the jar down by the door. No one except the prisoner inside heard her knock. 

"Have you water, Jaimihr-sahib?" she inquired. 

The East has a hundred florid epithets for one used in the West; andin a land where water is as scarce as gold and far more precious themention of water to a thirsty man calls forth a flood of thought suchas only music or perhaps religion can produce in luckier climes. Jaimihrwaxed eloquent; more eloquent than even water might have made him hadanother--had even another woman--brought it. He recognized her voice, and said things to her that roused all the anger that she knew. She hadnot come to be made love to. 

She thought, though, of his thirst. She remembered that within an houror two he might be raving for another reason and with other words. Thebig beam lifted on her hands with barely more effort than was neededto lift up the water-jar; the door opened a little way, and she tried, while she passed the water in, to peer through the darkness at theprisoner. But there were no windows to that cell, and such dim light asthere was came from behind her. 

"They have bound me, sahiba, in this corner, " groaned Jaimihr. "I cannotreach it. Take it away again! The certainty that it is there and out ofreach is too great torture!"

So she slipped in through the door, leaving it open a little way--bothher hands busy with the brass pitcher and both eyes straining theirutmost through the gloom--advancing step by step through mouldy strawthat might conceal a thousand horrors. 

"You wonder, perhaps, why I do not escape!" said a voice. And then sheheard the cell door close again gently. 

Now she could see Jaimihr, for he stood with his back against the door, and his head was between her and the little six-inch grating that wasall the ventilation or light a prisoner in that place was allowed. 

"So you lied to me, even when I brought you water?" she answered. Shewas not afraid. She had nerve enough left to pity him. 

"Yes. But I see that you did not lie. I am still thirsty, sahiba. "

He held out both hands, and she could see them dimly. There were nochains on them, and he was not bound in any way. She gave him the jar. 

"Let me pass out again before you drink, " she ordered. "It is not knownthat I am in here, and I would not have it known. "

She could have bitten out her tongue with mortification a momentafterward for letting any such admission escape her. She heard himchuckle as he drank--he choked from chuckling, and set the jar downto cough. Then, when he had recovered breath again, he answered almostpatronizingly. 

"Which would be least pleased with you, sahiba? The Rangars, or thyfather, or the other Englishman? But never mind, sahiba, we are friends. I have proved that we are friends. Never have I taken water from thehands of any man or any woman not of my own caste. I would have diedsooner. It was only thou, sahiba, who could make me set aside my caste. "

"Let me pass!"

She certainly was frightened now. It dawned on her, as it had at once onhim, that at the least commotion on his part or on hers a dozen Rangarswould be likely to come running. And just as he had done, she wonderedwhat explanation she would give in that case, and who would be likelyto believe it. To have been caught going to the cell would have been onething; to be caught in it would be another. He divined her thoughts. 

"Have no fear, sahiba. Thou and I are friends. "

She did not answer, for words would not come. Besides, she was beginningto realize that words would be of little help to her. A woman who willtell nothing but the truth under any circumstances and will surely keepher promises is at a disadvantage when conversing with a man who surelywill not tell the truth if he can help it and who regards his given wordwith almost equal disrespect. 

"I have no fear, sahiba. I am not afraid to open this door wide and makea bid for liberty. It would not be wise, that is all, and thou--and Imust deal in wisdom. "

His words came through the dark very evenly--spaced evenly--as thoughhe weighed each one of them before he voiced it. She gathered theimpression that he was thinking for his very life. She felt unable tothink for her own. She felt impelled to listen--incredulous, helpless, frightened, --not a little ashamed. She was thinking more of the awfulthings those Moslem gentlemen would say about her should they come anddiscover her in Jaimihr's cell. 

"Listen, sahiba! From end to end of India thy people are either dead, orelse face to face with death. There is no escape anywhere for any man orwoman--no hope, no chance. The British doom is sealed. So is the doom ofevery man who dared to side with them. "

She shuddered. But she had to listen. 

"There will be an army here within a day or two. My men--and I numberthem by thousands--will come and rip these Rangars from their roost. Those that are not crucified will be thrown down from the summit, andthere shall be a Hindoo shrine where they have worshipped their falsegod. Then, sahiba, if thou art here--perhaps--there might--yet--be away-perhaps, yes?--a way, still, to escape me?"

She was trembling. She could not help beginning to believe him. Whatevermight be true of what he said was certainly not comforting. 

"But, while my army comes in search of me, my brother Howrah will bemaking merry with my palace and belongings. There will be devastationand other things in my army's rear for which there is no need andfor which I have no stomach. I detest the thought of them, sahiba. Therefore, sahiba, I would drive a bargain. Notice, sahiba, I say notone word of love, though love such as mine is has seldom been offeredto a woman. I say no word of love--as yet. I say, help me to escape bynight, when I may make my way unseen back to my men: enable me to reachHowrah before my dear brother is aware of my trouble and before his mencan start plundering, and name your own terms, sahiba!"

Name her own terms--name her own terms--name her own terms! The wordsdinned through her head and she could grasp no other thought. She wasalone in a cell with Jaimihr, and she could get out of it if she wouldname her terms! She must name them--she must hurry--what were they? Whatwere her terms? She could not think. 

"Understand, sahiba. Certain things are sure. It is sure my men willcome. It is sure that every Rangar on this rock will meet a very farfrom pleasant death--"

He grinned, and though she could not see him grin, she knew that he wasdoing it. She knew that he was even then imagining a hundred horrorsthat the Rangars would endure before they died. She might name herterms. She could save them. 

"No!" she hissed hoarsely. "No! They are my terms! I name them! You mustspare them--spare the Rangars--spare every man on this hill, and theirs, and all they have!"

"Truly are those thy terms, sahiba?"

"Truly! What others can I ask?"

"They are granted, sahiba!"

"Oh, thank God!"

She knew that he was speaking at least half the truth. She knew hispower. She knew enough of Howrah City's politics to be convinced thathe would not be left at the mercy of a little band of Rangars. She knewthat there were not enough Rangars on the whole countryside to opposethe army that would surely come to his rescue. And whether he were deador living, she knew well enough that the vengeance would be wreaked onevery living body on the hill. Alwa might feel confident, not she. Shetrembled now with joy at the thought that she--she the most helpless anduseless of all of them--might save the lives of all. 

But then another phase of the problem daunted her. She might helpJaimihr go. He might escape unobserved with her aid. But then? Whatthen? What would the Rangars do to her? Had she sufficient courage toface that? It was not fear now that swept over her so much as wonder atherself. Jaimihr detected something different in her mental attitude, and, since almost any change means weakness to the Oriental mind, hewas quick to try to take advantage of it. He guessed right at the firstattempt. 

"And what wilt thou do here, sahiba? When I am gone, and there is nonehere to love thee--"

"Peace!" she commanded. "Peace! I have suffered enough--"

"Thou wilt suffer more, should the Rangars learn--"

"That is my business! Let me pass! I have bargained, and I will try tofulfil my part!"

She stepped toward the door, but he held out both his arms and she sawthem. She had no intention of being embraced by him, whatever theirconspiracy. 

"Stand back!" she ordered. 

"Nay, nay, sahiba! Listen! Escape with me! These Rangars will notbelieve without proof that thou hast saved their lives by bargaining. They will show thee short shrift indeed when my loss is discovered. Comenow and I will make thee Maharanee in a week!"

"I would be as safe with one as with the other!" she laughed, somethingof calm reflection returning to her. "And what proof have I in any casethat you will keep your word, Jaimihr-sahib. I will keep mine--but whowill keep yours, that has been so often broken?"

"Sahiba--"

"Show me a proof!"

"Here--now--in this place?"

"Convince me, if you can! I will give myself willingly if I can save myfather by it and these Rangars and Mr. Cunningham; but your bare word, Jaimihr-sahib, is worth that!"

She snapped her fingers, and he swore beneath his breath. Then heremembered his ambition and his present need, and words raced to hisaid--words, plans, oaths, treachery, and all the hundred and one tricksthat he was used to. He found himself consciously selecting from a dozendifferent plans for tricking her. 

"Sahiba"--he spoke slowly and convincingly. In the gloom she couldsee his brown eyes levelled straight at hers, and she saw they did notflinch--"there is none who knows better than thou knowest how my brotherand I stand to each other. " She shuddered at the reiterated secondperson singular, but he either did not notice it or else affected notto. "Thou know est that there is no love between him and me, and thatI would have his throne. The British could set me on that throne unlessthey were first overwhelmed. Wert thou my legal wife, and were I to aidthe British in this minute of their need, they would not be overwhelmed, and afterward they would surely set me on the throne. Therefore I pledgemy word to lead my men to the Company's aid, provided that these Rangarsride to my aid. My brother plans to overcome me first, and then takearms against the British. If the Rangars come to help me I will ridewith them to the Company's aid afterward. That is my given word!"

"Then the throne of Howrah is your price, Jaimihr-sahib?"

"Thou art the price and the prize, sahiba! For thee I would win thethrone!"

She actually laughed, and he winced palpably. There was no doubt that heloved her after a manner of his own, and her contempt hurt him. 

"I have said all I can say, " he told her. "I have promised all I canpromise. What more is there to say or offer? If I stay here, I swear onthe honor of a Rajput and a prince of royal blood, that every livingman and woman on this rock, excepting thee only, shall be dead within aweek. But if I escape by thy aid, and if, at thy instance, these Rangarsand their friends ride to my help against my brother, then I will throwall my weight--men and influence--in the scale on the British side. "

"And--?"

"And thou shalt be Maharanee!"

"Never!"

"But in case that the British should be beaten before we reach them, then, sahiba! Then in case of thy need!"

"Jaimihr-sahib, I will help you to escape tonight on the terms that youhave named--that you spare these Rangars and every living body on thishill. Then I will do my utmost to persuade the Rangars to ride to yourassistance on your condition, that you lead your men to help the Britishafterward. And if my action in helping you escape should make theRangars turn against me and my immediate friends, I shall claim yourprotection. Is that agreed?"

"Sahiba--absolutely!"

"Then let me pass!"

Reluctantly he stood aside. She slipped out and let the bar downunobserved. But she had not recovered all her self-possession when shereached the courtyard. 

"Evening, Miss McClean, " said Cunningham; and she all but fainted, shewas strained to such a pitch of nervousness. 

"Where have you come from, Miss McClean?" asked Cunningham. And she toldhim. She was not quite so stiff-chinned as she had been. 

"What were you doing there?"

She told him that, too. 

"Where is your father?"

"In his chair on the veranda, Mr. Cunningham. There, in that deepshadow. "

"Come to him, please. I want your explanation in his presence. "

She followed as obediently as a child. The sense of guilt--of fright--ofimpending judgment left her as she walked with him, and gave place to aglow of comfort that here should be a man on whom to lean. She did notfight the new sensation, for she was growing strangely weary of theother one. By the time that they had reached her father, and he wasstanding before Cunningham wiping his spectacles in his nervous way, shehad completely recovered her self-possession, although it is likely shewould not have given any reason for it to herself. 

Cunningham held a lantern up, so that he could study both their faces. His own face muscles were set rigidly, and he questioned them ashe might have cross-examined a spy caught in the act. His voice wasuncompromising, and his manner stern. 

"Do you both understand how serious this situation is?" he asked. 

"We naturally do, " said Duncan McClean. The Scotsman was beginning tobetray an inclination to bridle under the youngster's attitude, and toshow an equally pronounced desire not to appear to. "More so, probably, than anybody else!"

"Are you positive--both of you--you too, Mr. McClean--that all that talkabout treasure in Howrah City is not mere imagination and legend?"

"Absolutely positive!" They both answered him at once, both looking inhis eyes across the unsteady rays of the flickering, smoky lamp. "Theamount has been, of course, much exaggerated, " said McClean, "but I haveno doubt there is enough there to pay the taxes of all India for a yearor two. "

"Then I have another question to ask. Do you both--or do younot--place yourselves at the service of the Company? It is likely to bedangerous--a desperate service. But the Company needs all that it canmuster. "

"Of course we do!" Again both answered in one breath. 

"Do you understand that that involves taking my orders?"

This time Duncan McClean did the answering, and now it was he who seizedthe lamp. He held it high, and scanned Cunningham's face as though hewere reading a finely drawn map. 

"We are prepared--I speak for my daughter as well as for myself--to obeyany orders that you have a right to give, young man. "

"You misunderstand me, " answered Cunningham. "I am offering you theopportunity to serve the Company. As the Company's senior officer in theneighborhood, I am responsible to the Company for such orders as I seefit to give. I could not have my orders questioned. I don't mind tellingyou that I'm asking you, as British subjects, no more than I intend toask Alwa and his Rangars. You can do as much as they are going to beasked to do. You can't do more. But you can do less if you like. Youare being given the opportunity now to offer your servicesunconditionally--that is to say in the only manner in which I willaccept them. Otherwise you will remain non-combatants, and I shall takesuch measures for your safety as I see fit. Time presses. Your answer, please!"

"I will obey your legal orders, " said McClean, still making full use ofthe lantern. 

"I refuse to admit the qualification, " answered Cunningham promptly. "Either you will obey, or you will not. You are asked to say which, thatis all. "

"I will obey, " said Rosemary McClean quietly. She said it throughstraight lips and in a level voice that carried more assurance than astring of loud-voiced oaths. 

"And you, sir?"

"Since my daughter sees fit to--ah--capitulate, I have no option. "

"Be good enough to be explicit. "

"I agree to obey your orders. "

"Thank you. " He seemed to have finished with McClean. He turned awayfrom him and faced Rosemary, not troubling to examine her face closelyas he had done her father's, but seeming none the less to give her fullattention. "I understood you to say that you promised to help PrinceJaimihr to escape from his cell tonight?"

"WHAT?"

Duncan McClean could not have acted such amazement. Cunningham desiredno further evidence that he had not been accessory to his daughter'svisit to the prisoner. He silenced him with a gesture. And now his eyesseemed for the time being to have finished with both of them; in spiteof the darkness they both knew that he had resumed the far-away lookthat seemed able to see things finished. 

"Yes, " said Rosemary. "I promised. I had to. "

Her father gasped. But Cunningham appeared to follow an unbroken chainof thought, and she listened. 

"Well. You will both realize readily that we, as British subjects, areranged all together on one side opposed to treachery, as representedby the large majority of the natives. That means that our firstconsideration must be to keep our given word. What we say, --what wepromise--what we boast--must tally with what we undertake, and at theleast try, to do. You must keep your word to Jaimihr, Miss McClean!"

She stared back at Cunningham through wide, unfrightened eyes. Whateverthis man said to her, she seemed unable to feel fear while she had hisattention. Her father seemed utterly bewildered, and she held his handto reassure him. 

"On the other hand, we cannot be guilty of a breach of faith to ourfriend Alwa here. I must have a little talk with him before I issue anyorders. Please wait here and--ah--do nothing while I talk to Alwa. Didyou--ah--did you agree to marry Jaimihr, should he make you Maharanee?"

"No! I told him I would rather die!"

"Thank you. That makes matters easier. Now tell me over again fromthe beginning what you know about the political situation in Howrah. Quickly, please. Consider yourself a scout reporting to his officer. "

Ten minutes later Cunninham heard a commotion by the parapet, andstalked off to find Alwa, close followed by Mahommed Gunga. The grim oldRajput was grinning in his beard as he recognized the set of what mighthave been Cunningham the elder's shoulders. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

 Ye may go and lay your praise At a shrine of other days By the tomb of him who gat, and her who bore me; My plan is good--my way-- The sons of kings obey-- But, I'm reaping where another sowed before me. 

JAIDEV SINGH was a five-K man, with the hair, breeches, bangle, comb, and dagger that betoken him who has sworn the vow of Khanda ka Pahul. Every item of the Sikh ritual was devised with no other motive than topreserve the fighting character of the organization. The very name Singhmeans lion. The Sikh's long hair with the iron ring hidden underneathis meant as a protection against sword-cuts. And because their faithis rather spiritual than fanatical--based rather on the cause ofthings than on material effect--men of that creed take first rank amongfighting men. 

Jaidev Singh arrived soon after the moon had risen. The notice ofhis coming was the steady drumming footfall of his horse, that slowedoccasionally, and responded to the spur again immediately. 

Close to the big iron gate below Alwa's eyrie there were some ofJaimihr's cavalry nosing about among the trampled gardens for the deadand wounded they had left there earlier in the afternoon. They ceasedsearching, and formed up to intercept whoever it might be who rode insuch a hurry. Above them, on the overhanging ramparts, there was quickdiscussion, and one man left his post hurriedly. 

"A horseman from the West!" he announced, breaking in on Alwa's privacywithout ceremony. 

"One?"

"One only. "

"For us or them?"

"I know not, sahib. "

Alwa--glad enough of the relief from puzzling his brain--ran to therampart and looked long at the moving dot that was coming noisily towardhis fastness but that gave no sign of its identity or purpose. 

"Whoever he is can see them, " he vowed. "The moon shines full on them. Either he is a man of theirs or else a madman!"

He watched for five more minutes without speaking. Cunningham andMahommed Gunga, coming out at last in search of him, saw the strainedfigures of the garrison peering downward through the yellow moonrays, and took stand on either side of him to gaze, too, in spellboundsilence. 

"If he is their man, " said Alwa presently, "he will turn now. He willchange direction and ride for the main body of them yonder. He can seethem now easily. Yes. See. He is their man!"

On a horse that staggered gamely--silhouetted and beginning to showdetail in the yellow light--a man whose nationality or caste could notbe recognized rode straight for the bivouacking cavalry, and a swarm ofthem rode out at a walk to meet him. 

The tension on the ramparts was relaxed then. As a friend in direst needthe man would have been welcome. As one of enemy, with a message forthem, however urgent, he was no more than an incident. 

"By Allah!" roared Alwa suddenly. "That is no man of theirs! Quick! Tothe wheels! Man the wheels! Eight men to horse!"

He took the cord himself, to send the necessary signal down into thebelly of the rock. From his stables, where men and horses seemed tostand ready day and night, ten troopers cantered out, scatteringthe sparks, the whites of their horses' eyes and their drawn bladesgleaming; without another order they dipped down the breakneck gorge, to wait below. The oncoming rider had wheeled again; he had caught thecavalry, that rode to meet him, unawares. They were not yet certainwhether he was friend or foe, and they were milling in a bunch, shoutingorders to one another. He, spurring like a maniac, was heading straightfor the searching party, who had formed to cut him off. He seemed tohave thrown his heart over Alwa's iron gate and to be thundering onhell's own horse in quest of it again. 

Alwa's eight slipped down the defile as quickly as phantoms would havedared in that tricky moon-light. One of them shouted from below. Alwajerked the cord, and the great gate yawned, well-oiled and silent. The oncomer raced straight for the middle of the intercepting line ofhorsemen; they--knowing him by this time for no friend--started to meethim; and Alwa's eight, unannounced and unexpected, whirled into themfrom the rear. 

In a second there was shouting, blind confusion--eddying and tryingto reform. The lone galloper pulled clear, and Alwa's men drove hisopponents, crupper over headstall, into a body of the main contingentwho had raced up in pursuit. They rammed the charge home, and reeledthrough both detachments--then wheeled at the spur and cut their wayback again, catching up their man at the moment that his horse droppeddead beneath him. They seized him beneath the arms and bore him throughas the great gate dropped and cut his horse in halves. Then one man tookthe galloper up behind his saddle, and bore him up the hill unquestioneduntil he could dismount in front of Alwa. 

"Who art thou?" demanded the owner of the rock, recognizing a warriorby his trademarks, but in no way moderating the natural gruffness ofhis voice. Alwa considered that his inviolable hospitality should be toowell known and understood to call for any explanation or expression; hewould have considered it an insult to the Sikh's intelligence to havemouthed a welcome; he let it go for granted. 

"Jaidev Singh--galloper to Byng-bahadur. I bring a letter for theRisaldar Mahommed Gunga, or for Cunnigan-sahib, whichever I can findfirst. "

"They are both here. "

"Then my letter is for both of them. "

Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga each took one step forward, and the Sikhgave Cunningham a tiny, folded piece of paper, stuck together alongone edge with native gum. He tore it open, read it in the light ofa trooper's lantern, and then read it again aloud to Mahommed Gunga, pitching his voice high enough for Alwa to listen if he chose. 

"What are you two men doing?" ran the note. "The very worst hashappened. We all need men immediately, and I particularly need them. Onehundred troopers now would be better than a thousand men a month fromnow. Hurry, and send word by bearer. S. F. BYNG. "

"How soon can you start back?" asked Cunningham. 

"The minute I am provided with a horse, sahib. "

Cunningham turned to Alwa. 

"Will you be kind enough to feed him, Alwa-sahib?"

Alwa resented the imputation against his hospitality instantly. 

"Nay, I was waiting for his money in advance!" he laughed. "Food waits, thou. Thou art a Sikh--thou eatest meat--meat, then, is ready. "

The Sikh, or at least the true Sikh, is not hampered by a list of casterestrictions. All of his precepts, taken singly or collectively, bid himbe nothing but a man, and no law forbids him accept the hospitality ofsoldiers of another creed. So Jaidev Singh walked off to feed on curriedbeef that would have made a Hindoo know himself for damned. Cunninghamthen turned on Alwa. 

"Now is the time, Alwa-sahib, " he said in a level voice. "My party canstart off with this man and our answer, if your answer is no. If youranswer is yes, then the Sikh can bear that answer for us. "

"You would none of you ride half a mile alive!" laughed Alwa. 

"I none the less require an answer, Alwa-sahib. "

Alwa stared hard at him. That was the kind of talk that went straight tohis soldier heart. He loved a man who held to his point in the teeth ofodds. The odds, it seemed to him, were awfully against Cunningham. 

"So was thy father, " he said slowly. "My cousin said thou wast thyfather's son!"

"I require an answer by the time that the Sikh has finished eating, "said Cunningham. "Otherwise, Alwa-sabib, I shall regret the necessity offoregoing further hospitality at your hands. "

"Bismillah! Am I servant here or master?" wondered Alwa, loud enough forall his men to hear. Then he thought better of his dignity. "Sahib, "he insisted, "I will not talk here before my men. We will have anotherconference. "

"I concede you ten minutes, " said Cunningham, preparing to follow him, and followed in turn by Mohammed Gunga. 

"Now, swore the Risaldar into his beard, we shall see the reaching ofdecisions! Now, by the curse of the sack of Chitor we shall know who ison whose side, or I am no Rangar, nor the son of one!"

"I have a suggestion to make, sahib, " smiled Alwa, closing the door ofthe rock-hewn chamber on the three of them. 

"Hear mine first!" said Cunningham, with a hint of iron in his voice. 

"Ay! Hear his first! Hear Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur!" echoed MahommedGunga. "Let us hear a plan worth hearing!" And Alwa looked into a pairof steady eyes that seemed to see through him--past him--to the finishedwork beyond. 

"Speak, sahib. "

"You are pledged to uphold Howrah on his throne?"

"Ha, sahib. "

"Then, I guarantee you shall! You shall not go to the Company's aiduntil you have satisfactory guarantees that your homes and friends willnot be assailed behind your backs. "

"Guarantees to whose satisfaction, sahib?"

"Yours!"

"But with whom am I dealing?" Alwa seemed actually staggered. "Who makesthese promises? The Company?"

"I give you my solemn word of honor on it!"

"It is at least a man who speaks!" swore Alwa. 

"It is the son of Cunnigan-bahadur!" growled Mahommed Gunga, standingchin erect. He seemed in no doubt now of the outcome. He was merelywaiting for it with soldierly and ill-concealed impatience. 

"But, sahib--"

"Alwa-sahib, we have no time for argument. It is yes or no. I must sendan answer back by that Sikh. He must--he shall take my answer! Eitheryou are loyal to our cause or you are not. Are you?"

"By the breath of God, sahib, I am thinking you leave me little choice!"

"I still await an answer. I am calling on you for as many men as you canraise, and I have made you specific promises. Choose, Alwa-sahib. Yes orno?"

"The answer is yes--but--"

"Then I understand that you undertake to obey my orders withoutquestion until such time as a senior to me can be found to take over thecommand. "

"That is contingent on the agreement, " hesitated Alwa. 

"I would like your word of honor, Alwa-sahib. "

"I pledge that not lightly, sahib. "

"For that very good reason I am asking for it. I shall know how far totrust when I have your word of honor!"

"I knew thy father! Thou art his son! I trusted him for good reasonand with good result. I will trust thee also. My word is given, on thyconditions, sahib. First, the guarantees before we ride to the Britishaid!"

And you obey my orders?

"Yes. My word is given, sahib. The oath of a Rajput, of a Rangar, of asoldier, of a zemindar of the House of Kachwaha; the oath of a man toa man, sahib; the promise of thy father's friend to thy father's son!Bahadur"--he drew himself to his full height, and clicked his spurstogether--"I am thy servant!"

Cunningham saluted. All three men looked in each other's eyes and a bondwas sealed between them that nothing less than death could sever. 

"Thank you, " said Cunningham quite quietly. "And now, Alwa-sahib"--(hecould strike while the iron glowed, could this son of Cunnigan!)--"forthe plan. There is little time. Jaimihr must escape tonight!"

"Sahib, did I understand aright?"

Alwa's jaw had actually dropped. He looked as though he had been struck. Mahommed Gunga slammed his sabre ferule on the stone floor. He too, washard put to it to believe his ears. 

"Jaimihr is the key to the position. He is nothing but a nuisance wherehe is. Outside he can be made to help us. "

"Am I dreaming, or art thou, sahib?" Alwa stood with fists clinched onhis hips and his legs apart--incredulous. "Jaimihr to go free? Why thatHindoo pig is the source of all the trouble in the district!"

"We are neither of us dreaming, Alwa-sahib. Jaimihr is the dreamer. Lethim dream in Howrah City for a day or two, while we get ready. Let himlead his men away and leave the road clear for us to pass in and out. "

"But--"

"Oh, I know. He is your prisoner, and your honor is involved, and allthat kind of thing. I'm offering you, to set off against that, a muchgreater honor than you ever experienced in your whole life yet, and I'veput my order in the shape of a request for the sake of courtesy. I askyou again to let me arrange for Jaimihr to escape. "

"I was mad. But it seems that I have passed my word!" swore Alwa. 

"I give you your word back again, then. "

"Bismillah! I refuse it!"

"Then I do with Jaimihr as I like?"

"I gave my word, sahib. "

"Thanks. You'll be glad before we've finished. Now I've left the raisingof as many men as can be raised to you, Alwa-sahib. You will rememberthat you gave your promise on that count, too. "

"I will keep that promise, too, sahib. "

"Good. You shall have a road clear by tonight. "

He stepped back a pace, awaited their salute with the calm, assuredauthority of a general of division, returned it, and left the twoRajputs looking in each other's eyes. 

"What is this, cousin, that thou hast brought me to?" demanded Alwa. 

Mahommed Gunga laughed and shook his sabre, letting it rattle in itsscabbard. 

"This? This is the edge of the war that I promised thee a year ago!This is the service of which I spoke! This is the beginning of theblood-spilling! I have brought thee the leader of whom we spoke inHowrah City. Dost remember, cousin? I recall thy words!"

"Ay, I recall them. I said then that I would follow a second Cunnigan, could such be found. "

"And this is he!" vowed Mahommed Gunga. 

"Ho! But we Rangars have a leader! A man of men!"

"But this plan of his? This loosing of the trapped wolf--what of that?"

"I neither know nor care, as yet! I trust him! I am his man, as I washis father's! I have seen him; I have heard him; I have felt his pulsein the welter of the wrath of God. I know him. Whatever plans he makes, whatever way he leads, those are my plans, my road! I serve the son ofCunnigan!"

CHAPTER XXIX

 Did he swear with his leg in a spring-steel trap And a tongue dry-cracked from thirst? Or down on his knees at his lady's lap With the lady's lips to his own, mayhap, And his head and his heart aburst? Nay! I have listened to vows enough And never the oath could bind Save that, that a free man chose to take For his own good reputation's sake! They're qualified--they're tricks--they break-- They're words, the other kind!

MAHOMMED GUNGA had long ago determined to "go it blind" on Cunningham. He had known him longest and had the greatest right. Rosemary McClean, who knew him almost least of all, so far as length of time wasconcerned, was ready now to trust him as far as the Risaldar dared go;her limit was as long and as devil-daring as Mahommed Gunga's. WhateverScots reserve and caution may have acted as a brake on Duncan McClean'senthusiasm were offset by the fact that his word was given; so far ashe was concerned, he was now as much and as obedient a servant of theCompany as either of the others. Nor was his attitude astonishing. 

Alwa's was the point of view that was amazing, unexpected, brilliant, soldierly, unselfish--all the things, in fact, that no one had the leastright to expect it to turn out to be. Two or three thousand men lookedto him as their hereditary chieftain who alone could help them holdtheir chins high amid an overwhelming Hindoo population; his positionwas delicate, and he might have been excused for much hesitation, and even for a point-blank refusal to do what he might have preferredpersonally. He and his stood to lose all that they owned--theirhonor--and the honor of their wives and families, should they fight onthe wrong side. Even as a soldier who had passed his word, he might havebeen excused for a lot of wordy questioning of orders, for he had enoughat stake to make anybody cautious. 

Yet, having said his say and sworn a dozen God-invoking Rangar oathsbefore he pledged his word, and then having pledged it, he threw Rajputtradition and the odds against him into one bottomless discard andproceeded to show Cunningham exactly what his fealty meant. 

"By the boots and beard of Allah's Prophet!" he swore, growingfreer-tongued now that his liberty of action had been limited. "Here westand and talk like two old hags, Mahommed Gunga! My word is given. Letus find out now what this fledgling general of thine would have us do. If he is to release my prisoner, at least I would like to get amusementout of it!"

So he and Mahommed Gunga swaggered across the courtyard to whereCunningham had joined the McCleans again. 

"We come with aid and not objections, sahib, " he assured him. "If welisten, it may save explanations afterward. "

So at a sign from Cunningham they enlarged the circle, and the Eastand West--bearded and clean-shaven, priest and soldiers, Christian andMohammedan--stood in a ring, while almost the youngest of them--by farthe youngest man of them--laid down the law for all. His eyes were allfor Rosemary McClean, but his gestures included all of them, and theyall answered him with nods or grunts as each saw fit. 

"Send for the Sikh!" commanded Cunningham. 

Five minutes later, with a lump of native bread still in his fist, Jaidev Singh walked up and saluted. 

"Where is Byng-bahadur now?" asked Cunningham. 

"At Deeseera, sahib--not shut in altogether, but hard pressed. Therecame cholera, and Byng-bahadur camped outside the town. He has beenstriking, sahib, striking hard with all too few to help him. Hisirregulars, sahib, were disbanded at some one's orders just before thisoutbreak, but some of them came back at word from him. And there weresome of us Sikhs who knew him, and who would rather serve him and diethan fight against him and live. He has now two British regiments withhim, sadly thinned--some of my people, some Goorkhas, some men from theNorth--not very many more than two thousand men all told, having lostheavily in action and by disease. But word is going round from mouth tomouth that many sahibs have been superseded, and that only real sahibssuch as Byng-bahadur have commands in this hour. Byng-bahadur is a manof men. We who are with him begin to have courage in our bones again. Is the answer ready? Yet a little while? It is well, sahib, I will rest. Salaam!"

"You see, " said Cunningham, "the situation's desperate. We've got toact. Alwa here stands pledged to protect Howrah and you have promised toaid Jaimihr. Somebody's word has got to break, and you may take it fromme that it will be the word of the weakest man! I think that that manis Jaimihr, but I can't be sure in advance, and we've got to accept hispromise to begin with. Go to him, Miss McClean, and make a very carefulbargain with him along the line I mapped out for you. Alwa-sahib, I wantwitnesses, or rather overhearers. I want you and Mahommed Gunga to placeyourselves near Jaimihr's cell so that you can hear what he says. Therewon't be any doubt then about who has broken promises. Are you ready, Miss McClean?"

She was trembling, but from excitement and not fear. Both Rajputssaluted her as she started back for the cell, and whatever theirMohammedan ideas on women may have been, they chose to honor this one, who was so evidently one of them in the hour of danger. Duncan McCleanseemed to be praying softly, for his lips moved. 

When the cell-door creaked open, Alwa and Mahommed Gunga were crouchedone on either side, listening with the ears of soldiers that do not letmany sounds or words escape them. 

"Jaimihr-sahib!" she whispered. "Jaimihr-sahib!"

"Ha! Sahiba!" Then he called her by half a dozen names that made thelistening Rangars grin into their beards. 

"Jaimihr-sahib"--she raised her voice a little now--"if I help you toescape, will you promise me my safety under all conditions?"

"Surely, sahiba!"

"Do you swear to protect every living person on this hill, including theAlwa-sahib and Cunningham-sahib?"

"Surely, sahiba. "

"You swear it?"

"I swear it on my honor. There is no more sacred oath. "

"Then, listen. I can help you to escape now. I have a rope that islong enough to lower you over the parapet. I am prepared to risk theconsequences, but I want to bargain with you for aid for my Countrymen. "

Jaimihr did not answer. 

"The Alwa-sahib and his Rangars stand pledged to help your brother!"

"I guessed at least that much, " laughed Jaimihr. 

"They would not help you against him under any circumstances. But theywant to ride to the Company's aid, and they might be prepared to protectyou against him. They might guarantee the safety of your palace and yourmen's homes. They might exact a guarantee from Howrah. "

Jaimihr laughed aloud, careless of the risk of being overheard, andRosemary knew that Cunningham's little plan was useless even beforeit had been quite expounded. She felt herself trembling for theconsequences. 

"Sahiba, there is only one condition that would make me ride to theBritish aid with all my men. "

"Name it!"

"Thou art it!"

"I don't understand you, Jaimihr-sahib, " she whispered, understandingall too well. 

"Follow me. Come to me in Howrah. Then whatever these fool Rangarschoose to do, I swear by Siva and the Rites of Siva that I will hurry tothe Company's aid!"

Rosemary McClean shuddered, and he knew it. But that fact rather addedto his pleasure. The wolf prefers a cowering, frightened prey eventhough he dare fight on occasion. She was thinking against time. Throughthat one small, overburdened head, besides a splitting headache, therewas flashing the ghastly thought of what was happening to her countrymenand women--of what would happen unless she hurried to do something fortheir aid. All the burden of all warring India seemed to be resting onher shoulders, in a stifling cell; and Jaimihr seemed to be the onlyhelp in sight. 

"How many men could you summon to the Company's aid?" she asked him. 

He laughed. "Ten thousand!" he boasted. 

"Armed and drilled men--soldiers fit to fight?"

"Surely. "

"I think that is a lie, Jaimihr-sahib. There is not time enough to wasteon lies. Tell me the exact truth, please. "

He contrived to save his face, or, rather, he contrived to make himselfbelieve he did. 

"I would need some to guard my rear, " he answered. "I could lead fivethousand to the British aid. "

"Is that the truth?"

"On my honor, sahiba. "

"And you wish to marry me?"

"Sahiba--I--I have no other wish!"

"I agree to marry you provided you will lead five thousand men to theCompany's aid, but not until you have done so. "

"You will come to Howrah?"

She could feel his excitement. The cell walls seemed to throb. 

"Yes; but I shall come accompanied by my father, and Mr. Cunningham, andall the Rangars he can raise. And I shall hold you to your bargain. Youmust help the Company first. FIRST--d'you understand?"

"I understand. "

It was Jaimihr's turn now to lay the law down. She had let him see hereagerness to gain his aid for the Company, and he saw the weakness ofher case in an instant. He knew very well, too, that no woman of herbreed would have thought of consenting to marry him unless her hand wasforced. He decided immediately to force it further. 

"I understand, sahiba. I, too, will hold thee to thy promise! Thou wiltcome with an escort, as befits a prince's wife! But how should I knowthat the Rangars would prove friends of mine? How should I know that itis not all a trap?"

"You will have my promise to depend on. "

"Truly! And there will be how many hundred men to override the promiseof one woman? Nay! My word is good; my promise holds; but on my ownconditions! Help me to escape. Then follow me to Howrah City. Come inadvance of thy Rangar escort. By that I will know that the Rangars andthis Cunningham are my friends--otherwise they would not let thee come. The Rangars are to exact guarantees from my brother? How should I knowthat they do not come to help my brother crush me out of existence? Withthee in my camp as hostage I would risk agreement with them, but nototherwise. Escape with me now, or follow. But bring no Rangars, sahiba!Come alone!"

"I will not. I would not dare trust you. "

Jaimihr laughed. "I have been reckoning, sahiba, how many hours willpass before my army comes to rip this nest of Alwa's from its roots, anddefile the whole of it! If I am to spare the people on this rock, then Imust hurry! Should my men come here to carry me away, they will beless merciful than I! Choose, sahiba! Let me go, and I will spare theseRangars until such time as they earn punishment anew. Or let me go, andfollow me. Then fight with the Rangars and for the Company, with thee asthe price of my alliance. Or leave me in this cell until my men come torescue me. The last would be the simplest way! Or it would be enoughto help me escape and wait until I have done my share at conquering theBritish. Then I could come and claim thee! Choose, sahiba; there aremany ways, though they all end in one goal. "

"If I am the price of your allegiance, " said Rosemary, "then I will paythe price. Five thousand men for the British cause are dearer to me thanmy own happiness. I promise, Jaimihr-sahib, that I will come to you inHowrah. I shall come accompanied by one servant, named Joanna, and--Ithink--by my father; and the Rangars and Mr. Cunningham shall be atleast a day's ride behind me. I give my word on that. But--I can promiseyou, on Mr. Cunningham's behalf, and on the Alwa-sahib's, andMahommed Gunga's, that should you have made any attempt against myliberty--should you have offered me any insult or indignity--beforethey come--should you have tried to anticipate the terms of youragreement--then--then--there would be an end of bargaining andpromises, Jaimihr-sahib, and your life would be surely forfeit! Do youunderstand?"

"Surely, sahiba!"

"Do you agree?"

"I already have agreed. They are my terms. I named them!"

"I would like to hear you promise, on your honor. "

"I swear by all my gods and by my honor. I swear by my love, that isdearer to me than a throne, and by the name and the honor of a Rajput!"

"Be ready, then. I am going now to hide the rope in the shadow of thewall. It will take perhaps fifteen minutes. Be ready. "

He made a quick movement to embrace her, but she slipped out and escapedhim; and he thought better of his sudden plan to follow her, rememberingthat her word was likely to be good, whatever his might be. He electedto wait inside until she returned for him. He little knew that hemissed the downward swing of Alwa's sabre, that was waiting, poised andbalanced for him, in the darkness by the door. 

"Bismillah! I would have had a right to kill him had he followed herand broken faith so early in the business!" Alwa swore, excusing hisimpatience to Mahommed Gunga. "Have no fear, sahib!" he counselledCunningham a moment later, laying a heavy hand on the boy's arm. "Lether keep her promises. That Hindoo pig will not keep his! We willbe after her, and surely--surely we will find good cause for somethroat-slitting as well as the cancelling of marriage promises!"

"Do you understand, Alwa-sahib, that--if Jaimihr keeps his promise toher, she must keep hers to him? Do you realize that?"

"Allah! Listen to him! Yes, sahib. Truly, bahadur, I appreciate! I alsoknow that I have given certain promises which I, too, must fulfil! Sheis not the only bargainer! I am worrying more about those guaranteesthat Howrah was to give--I am anxious to see how, with fifteen hundred, we are to get the better of a Rajah and his brother and their total often thousand! I want to see those promises performed! Ay! The Miss-sahibhas done well. She has done her share. Let her continue. And do thou thyshare, bahadur! I am at thy back with my men, but give us action!"

Cunningham held up a lantern, and looked straight at Duncan McClean. The missionary had held his daughter's hand while she recounted what hadhappened in the cell. Whatever he may have thought, he had uttered noword of remonstrance. 

"Of course, we go to Howrah ahead of you, " he answered to Cunningham'sunspoken question. 

Cunningham held out his right hand, and the missionary shook it. 

"Hold the lamp, please, " said Cunningham, and Mahommed Gunga seized it. Then Cunningham took paper and a pencil and read aloud the answer thathe wrote to Byng-bahadur. He wrote it in Greek characters for fear lestit might fall into the enemy's hands and be too well understood. 

"I can be with you in one week, sir, and perhaps sooner. Unless we areall killed in the meantime we should number more than fifteen hundredwhen we come. Expect either all or none of us. The situation here iscritical, but our course seems clear, and we ought to pull through. Mahommed Gunga sends salaams. Your obedient servant, "RALPH CUNNINGHAM. "

"Would God I could see the clear course!" laughed Alwa. 

"Call the Sikh, please. "

The Sikh came running, and Cunningham gave him the folded note. 

"Have you a horse for him, Alwa-sahib?"

"That has been attended to, sahib, " the Sikh answered. "The Alwa-sahibhas given me a wonder of a horse. "

"Very well, then, Jaidev Singh. Watch your chance. Go to the parapet, and when you see by their lanterns that the cavalry below have riddenoff, then race for all you're worth with that news for Byng-bahadur!"

"Salaam, sahib!" said the Sikh. 

"Salaam, Jaidev Singh. And now hide, every-body! Don't let Jaimihr getthe impression that we're playing with him. "

A little later Miss McClean led Jaimihr through a passage in the rock, off which axe-hewn cells led on either side, to the far side of thesummit, where the parapet was higher but the wall was very much lesssheer. The Prince's arms were still too sore from the wrenching hereceived when they took him prisoner for him to dare trust himself handover hand on a rope; she had to make the rope fast beneath his armpits, and then lower him slowly, taking two turns with the rope round thewaist of a brass cannon. The Prince fended himself off the ragged wallwith hands and feet, and called up instructions to her as loudly as hedared. 

It was a tremendous drop. For the last fifty or more feet the wall rosestraight, overhung by a ridge that rasped the rope. And the rope provedfifteen feet or more too short. Rosemary paid out as much of it as shedared, and then made the end fast round the cannon, leaning over to seewhether Jaimihr would have sense enough or skill enough to cut himselffree and fall. But he hung where he was and spun, and it was fiveminutes before Rosemary remembered that his weapons had all been takenfrom him! It was scarcely likely that he could bite the thick ropethrough with his teeth!

She stood then for two or three more minutes wondering what to do, for she had no knife of her own, and she had made the ropefast--woman-wise--with a true landlubber's knot that tightened from thestrain until her struggling fingers could not make the least impressionon it. But Alwa walked up openly--drew his heavy sabre--and saved thesituation for her. 

"That may help to jog his recollection of the bargain!" he laughed, severing the rope with a swinging cut and peering over to see, if hecould, how Jaimihr landed. By a miracle the Prince landed on his feet. He sat down for a moment to recover from the shock, and then walked offawkwardly to where his cavalry were sleeping by their horses. 

He had some trouble in persuading the outposts who he really was, andthere was an argument that could be quite distinctly heard from thesummit of the rock, and made Alwa roar with laughter before, finally, the whole contingent formed and wheeled and moved away, ambling towardHowrah City at a pace that betokened no unwillingness. 

Five minutes later the Sikh's horse thundered out across the plain fromunder Alwa's iron gate, and the news, such as it was, was on its way toByng-bahadur. 

"A clear road at the price of a horse-hide rope!" laughed Alwa. "Now forsome real man's work!"

Rosemary stole off to argue with her father and her conscience, but Alwawent to his troopers' quarters and told off ten good men for the taskof manning the fortress in his absence. They were ten unwilling men; itneeded all his gruff authority, and now and then a threat, to make themstay behind. 

"I must leave ten men behind, " he insisted. "It takes four men, even ata pinch, to lift the gate. And who shall guard my women? Nay, I shouldleave twenty, and I must leave ten. Therefore I leave the ten best men Ihave, and they who stay behind may know by that that I consider them thebest!"

The remainder of his troopers he sent out one by one in differentdirections, with orders to rally every Rangar they could find, and ata certain point he named. Then he and Mahommed Gunga said good-by toCunningham and took a trail that led in the direction wheremost of the doubtfuls lived--the men who might need personalconvincing--rousing--awakening from lethargy. 

"You think I ought to stay behind?" asked Cunningham, who had alreadymade his mind up but chose to consult Alwa. 

"Surely, sahib. If for no other reason, then to make sure that thatpriest of thine and his daughter make tracks for Howrah City! While heis here he is a priest, and we Rangars have our own ideas on what theyare good for! When he is there he will be a man maneuvering to save hisown life and his daughter's reputation! See that he starts, sahib!"

He rode off then. But before Mahommed Gunga saw fit to follow him helegged his charger close to Cunningham for a final word or two. 

"Have no fear now, bahadur--no anxiety! Three days hence there will bea finer regiment to lead than ever thundered in thy father's wake--aregiment of men, sahib, for a man to lead and love!--a regiment thatwill trust thee, sahib! See thou to the guarantees! Rung Ho, bahadur!"

"Rung Ho! See you again, Mahommed Gunga!"

CHAPTER XXX

 Sabres and spurs and jingling bits-- (Ho! But the food to feed them!) Sinews and eyes and ears and wits-- (Hey! But the troopers need them!) Sahib, mount! Thy chargers fling Foam to the night--thy trumpets sing-- Thy lance-butts on the stirrups ring-- Mount, sahib! Blood them! Lead them!

IT was arranged that the McCleans, with old Joanna, should start at dawnfor Howrah City, and they were, both of them, too overcome with mingleddread and excitement to even try to sleep. Joanna, very much as usual, snoozed comfortably, curled in a blanket in a corner. 

They would run about a hundred different risks, not least of which wasthe chance of falling in with a party of Howrah's men. In fact, if theyshould encounter anybody before bringing up at Jaimihr's palace it waslikely that the whole plan would fizzle into nothing. 

Cunningham, after fossicking for a long time in Aliva's armory--thatcontained, besides weapons of the date, a motley assortment of thetools of war that would have done great credit to a museum ofantiquities--produced two pistols. He handed, one to the missionary andone to Miss McClean, advising her to hide hers underneath her clothing. "You know what they're for?" he asked. "No. You'd gain nothing byputting up a fight. They're loaded. All you've got to do is jerk thehammer back and pull the trigger, and the best way not to miss is tohold the muzzle underneath your chin--this way--keeping the butt wellout from you. You make sure when you do that. The only satisfactionyou'll have, if it comes to suicide as a last resource, will be thatyou've tried to do your duty and the knowledge that you'll be avenged. Ipromise that. But I don't think you'll have any need to do it--if I didthink it I'd have thought twice before sending you. "

"How does such a very young man as you come to have all thisresponsibility?" asked Rosemary, taking the pistol without a shudder. She laughed then as she noticed Cunningham's discomfort and recognizedthe decency that hates to talk about itself. 

"I suppose I know my own mind, " he answered. "These other awfully decentfellows don't, that's all--if you except Mahommed Gunga. That chap'sa wonder. 'Pon my soul, it seems he knew this was coming and pickedme from the start to take charge over here. Seems, owing to mydad's reputation, these Rangars think me a sort of reincarnation ofefficiency. I've got to try and live up to it, you know--same old gameof reaping what you didn't sow and hoping it'll all be over before youwake up! Won't you try and get some sleep before morning? No? Come andsit over by the parapet with me, then. "

He carried chairs for both of them to a point whence he could sit andwatch the track that led to Howrah and so help out the very meagregarrison. There, until the waning moon dipped down below the sky-line, they talked together--first about the task ahead of each of them; thenabout the sudden ghastliness of the rebellion, whose extent not one ofthem could really grasp as yet; last, and much longest, as familiaritygradually grew between them, of youthful reminiscences and home--of Etonand the Isle of Skye. 

In the darkness and the comparative coolness that came between thesetting of the moon and dawn Rosemary fell asleep, her head pillowed inher father's lap. For a while, then, seeing her only dimly through thenight, but conscious, as he could not help being, of her youth andcharm and of the act of self-sacrifice that she had undertaken withoutremonstrance, he felt ashamed. He began to wonder whether there mightnot have been some other way--whether he had any right, even for hiscountry's sake, to send a girl on such a mission. Misgiving began to saphis optimism, and there was no Mahommed Gunga to stir the soldier in himand encourage iron-willed pursuance of the game. He began to doubt; anddoubt bred silence. 

He was wakened from a revery by Duncan McClean, who raised his daughtertenderly and got up on his feet. 

"The dawn will be here soon, Mr. Cunningham. We had better get ready. Well--in case we never meet again--I'm glad I met you. "

"Better start before the sun gets up, " he answered, gripping themissionary's hand. He was a soldier again. He had had the answer tohis thoughts! If the man who was to sacrifice his daughter--or riskher sacrifice--was pleased to have met him, there was not much sense inharboring self-criticism! He shook it off, and squared his shoulders, beginning again to think of all that lay ahead. 

"Trust to the old woman to guide you and show you a place to rest at, if you must rest. You ought to reach Howrah at dusk tomorrow, for you'llfind it quite impossible to travel fast--you're both of you too stiff, for one thing. Lie up somewhere--Joanna will know of a place--until theold woman has taken in a message to Jaimihr, and wait until he sendsyou some men to escort you through the outskirts of the city. I've gotdisguises ready for you--a pugree for you, Mr. McClean, and a purdah foryour daughter--you'll travel as a Hindoo merchant and his wife. If youget stopped, say very little, but show this. "

He produced the letter written once by Maharajah Howrah to theAlwa-sahib and sent by galloper with the present of a horse. It wassigned, and at the bottom of it was the huge red royal seal. "Now go andput the disguise on, while I see to the horses; I'm going to pick outquiet ones, if possible, though I warn you they're rare in these parts. "

Some twenty minutes later he led their horses for them gingerly down theslippery rock gorge, and waited at the bottom while six men wound thegate up slowly. Rosemary McClean was quite unrecognizable, draped fromhead to foot in a travelling veil that might have been Mohammedan orHindoo, and gave no outward sign as to her caste, or rank. McClean, inthe full attire of a fairly prosperous Hindoo, but with no other markabout him to betoken that he might be worth robbing, rode in front ofher, high-perched on a native saddle. In front, on a desert pony, rodeJoanna, garbed as a man. 

"She ought to be travelling in a carriage of some kind, " admittedCunningham, "but we haven't got a single wheeled thing here. If any oneasks pertinent questions on the road, you'd better say that she had anekka, but that some Rangars took it from you. D'you think you know thelanguage well enough to pass muster?"

"It's a little late to ask me that!" laughed McClean. "Yes--I'm positiveI do. Good-by. "

They shook hands again and the three rode off, cantering presently, tomake the most of the coolness before the sun got up. Cunningham climbedslowly up the hill and then watched them from the parapet--wondering, wondering again--whether he was justified. As he put it to himself, itwas "the hell of a position for a man to find himself in!" He caughthimself wondering whether his thoughts would have been the same, andwhether his conscience would have racked him quite as much, had RosemaryMcClean been older, and less lovely, and a little more sour-tongued. 

He had to laugh presently at the absurdity of that notion, for Jaimihrwould never have bargained for possession of a sour-faced, elderlywoman. He came to the conclusion that the only thing he could do wasto congratulate the Raj because, at the right minute, the rightgood-looking woman had been on the spot! But he did not like thecircumstances any better; and before two hours had passed the lonelinessbegan to eat into his soul. 

Like any other man whose race and breed and training make himself-dependent, he could be alone for weeks on end and scarcely be awarethat he had nobody to talk to. But his training had never yet includedsending women off on dangerous missions any more than it had taught himto resist woman's attraction--the charm of a woman's voice, the lureof a woman's eyes. He did not know what was the matter with him, butsupposed that his liver must be out of order or else that the sun hadtouched him. 

Taking a chance on the liver diagnosis, he had out the attenuatedgarrison, and drilled it, both mounted and dismounted, first on thehilltop--where they made the walls re-echo to the clang of groundedbutts--and then on the plain below, with the gate wide open in theirrear and one man watching from the height above. When he had tiredthem thoroughly, and himself as well, he set two men on the lookoutand retired to sleep; nor did the droning and the wailing music of somewomen in the harem trouble him. 

They called him regularly when the guard was changed, but he slept thegreater part of that day and stood watch all night. The next day, andthe third day, he drilled the garrison again, growing horribly impatientand hourly more worried as to what Byng-bahadur might be doing, andthinking of him. 

It was evening of the fourth day when a Rangar woke him, squeezing athis foot and standing silent by the cot. 

"Huzoor--Mahommed Gunga comes!"

"Thank God!"

He ran to the parapet and watched in the fading light a little dustcloud that followed no visible track but headed straight toward themover desert. 

"How d'you know that's Mahommed Gunga?" he demanded. 

"Who else, huzoor? Who else would ride from that direction all alone andstraight for this nest of wasps? Who else but Alwa or Mahommed Gunga?Alwa said he would not come, but would wait yonder. "

"It might be one of Alwa's men. "

"We have many good men, sahib--and many good horses--but no man or horsewho could come at that pace after traversing those leagues of desert!That is Mahommed Gunga, unless a new fire-eater has been found. And whatnew man would know the way?"

Soon--staccato, like a drum-beat in the silence--came the welcome, thrilling cadence of the horse's hoofs--the steady thunder of ahorse hard-ridden but not foundered. The sun went down and blacknesssupervened, but the sound increased, as one lone rider raced with theevening wind, head on. 

It seemed like an hour before the lookout challenged from the crag thatoverhung the gate--before the would-be English words rang out; and allAsia and its jackals seemed to wait in silence for the answer. 

"Howt-uh! Hukkums-thar!"

"Ma--hommed--Gunga--hai!"

"Hurrah!"

The cheer broke bonds from the depth of Cunningham's being, and MahommedGunga heard it on the plain below. There was a rush to man the wheelsand sweat the gate up, and Cunningham started to run down the zigzagpathway. He thought better of it, though, and waited where the path gaveout onto the courtyard, giving the signal with the cords for the gate tolower away again. 

"Evening, Mahommed Gunga!" he said, almost casually, as the wearycharger's nose appeared above the rise. 

"Salaam, bahadur!"

He dismounted and saluted and then leaned against his horse. 

"I wonder, sahib, whether the horse or I be weariest! Of your favor, water, sahib!"

Cunningham brought him water in a dipper, and the Rajput washed hishorse's mouth out, then held out the dipper again to Cunningham forfresh charge for himself. 

"I would not ask the service, sahib, but for the moment my head reels. Imust rest before I ride again. "

"Is all well, Mahommed Gunga?"

"Ay, sahib! More than well!"

"The men are ready?"

"Horsed, armed, and waiting, they keep coming--there were many when Ileft--there will be three squadrons worthy of the name by the time weget there! Is all well at your end, sahib?"

"Yes, all's well. "

"Did the padre people go to Howrah?"

"They started and they have not returned. "

"Then, Allah be praised! Inshallah, I will grip that spectacled oldwoman of a priest by the hand before I die. He has a spark of manhood inhim! Send me this good horse to the stables, sahib; I am overweary. Havehim watered when the heat has left him, and then fed. Let them blankethim lightly. And, sahib, have his legs rubbed--that horse ever loved tohave his legs rubbed. Allah! I must sleep four hours before I ride! Andthe Miss-sahib--went she bravely?"

"Went as a woman of her race ought to go, Mahommed Gunga. "

"Ha! She met a man first of her own race, and he made her go! Would shehave gone if a coward asked her, think you? Sahib--women are good--atthe other end of things! We will ride and fetch her. Ha! I saw! My eyesare old, but they bear witness yet!--Now, food, sahib--for the love ofAllah, food, before my belt-plate and my backbone touch!"

"I wonder what the damned old infidel is dreaming of!" swore Cunningham, as Mahommed Gunga staggered to the chamber in the rock where aserving-man was already heaping victuals for him. 

"Have me called in four hours, sahib! In four hours I will be a managain!"

CHAPTER XXXI

 The freed wolf limped home to his lair, And lay to lick his sore. With wrinkled lip and fangs agnash-- With back-laid ear and eyes aflash-- "Twas something rather more than rash To turn me loose!" he swore. 

NOW Jaimihr fondly thought he held a few cards up his sleeve when hemade his bargain with Rosemary McClean and let himself be lowered fromthe Alwa-sahib's rock. He knew, better probably than any one except hisbrother and the priests, how desperate the British situation had becomethroughout all India at an instant's notice, and he made his termsaccordingly. 

He did not believe, in the first place, that there would be any Britishleft to succor by the time matters had been settled sufficiently inHowrah to enable him to dare leave the city at his rear. Afterward, should it seem wise, he would have no objection in the world to ridingto the aid of a Company that no longer existed. 

In the second place, he entertained no least compunction about breakinghis word completely in every particular. He knew that the members of thelittle band on Alwa's rock would keep their individual and collectiveword, and therefore that Rosemary McClean would come to him. Hesuspected, though, that there would prove to be a rider of some sort toher agreement as regarded marrying him, for he had young Cunningham inmind; and he knew enough of Englishmen from hearsay and deduction toguess that Cunningham would interject any obstacle his ingenuity coulddevise. 

Natives of India do not like Englishmen to marry their women. How muchless, then, would a stiff-necked member of a race of conquerors careto stand by while a woman of his own race became the wife of a nativeprince? He did not trust Cunningham, and he recalled that he had had nopromise from that gentleman. 

Therefore, he proposed to forestall Cunningham if possible, and, ifthat were inconvenient or rash, he meant to take other means of makingRosemary McClean his, beyond dispute, in any case. 

Next to Rosemary McClean he coveted most the throne of Howrah. Withregard to that he was shrewd enough not to conceal from himself for asecond the necessity for scotching the priests of Siva before he darebroach the Howrah treasure, and so make the throne worth his royalwhile. Nor did he omit from his calculations the public clamor thatwould probably be raised should he deal too roughly with the priests. And he intended to deal roughly with them. 

So the proposed allegiance of the Rangars suited him in more ways thanone. His army and his brother's were so evenly matched in numbers andequipment that he had been able to leave Howrah without fear for thesafety of his palace while his back was turned. The eight hundred whomhe had led on the unlucky forray to Alwa's were scarcely missed, and, even had the Maharajah known that he was absent with them, there werestill too many men behind for him to dare to start reprisals. TheMaharajah was too complete a coward to do anything much until he wasforced into it. 

The Rangars, he resolved, must be made to take the blame for thebroaching of the treasure. He proposed to go about the broaching evenbefore hostilities between himself and his brother had commenced, and heexpected to be able to trick the Rangars into seeming to be looting. Toappear to defend the treasure would probably not be difficult; and itwould be even less difficult to blame the Rangars afterward for thedeath of any priest who might succumb during the ensuing struggle. Hecounted on the populace, more than on his own organized forces, to makethe Rangars powerless when the time should come for them to try totake the upper hand. The mob would suffer in the process, but itsfanaticism--its religious prejudice and numbers--would surely win theday. 

As for Rosemary McClean, the more he considered her the more his browneyes glowed. He had promised to make her Maharanee. But he knew toothoroughly what that would mean not to entertain more than a passingdoubt as to the wisdom of the course. He was as ready to break his wordon that point as on any other. 

A woman of his own race, however wooed and won, would have been contentto accept the usual status of whisperer from behind the close-meshedscreens. Not so an Englishwoman, with no friends to keep her companyand with nothing in the world to do but think. She, he realized, wouldexpect to make something definite of her position, and that would suitneither his creed (which was altogether superficial), nor custom (whichwas iron-bound and to be feared), nor prejudice (which was prodigious), nor yet convenience (which counted most). 

He came to the conclusion that the fate in store for her was not such asshe would have selected had she had her choice. Nor were his conclusionsin regard to her such as would commend him in the eyes of honest men. 

But, after all, the throne was the fulcrum of his plotting; and thelever had to be the treasure, if his plans were to succeed beyondupsetting. He changed his plans a dozen times over before he arrived atlast at the audacious decision he was seeking. 

Like many another Hindoo in that hour of England's need, he did not losesight altogether of the distant if actual possibility that the Company'sservants might--by dint of luck and grit, and what the insurance papersterm the Act of God--pull through the crisis. Therefore, he decided thatunder no circumstances should Rosemary McClean be treated cavalierlyuntil the Rangars were out of the way and he could pose as her protectorif need be. 

He would be able to prove that Rosemary and her father had come tohim of their own free will. He would say that they had asked him forprotection from the Rangars. He had evidence that his brother Howrah hadbeen in communication with the Rangars. So, should the Company surviveand retain power enough to force an answer to unpleasant questions, he thought it would not be difficult to prove that he had been theCompany's friend all along. 

Under all the circumstances he considered it best to be false toeverybody and strike for no hand but his own, and with that reconsideredend in view he decided on a master-stroke. He sent word to his brother, the Maharajah, saying that the Rangars had accepted service with theCompany and purposed a raid on Howrah; therefore, he proposed that theyunite against the common enemy and set a trap for the Rangars. 

Howrah sent back to ask what proof he had of the Rangars' taking servicewith the British. Jaimihr answered that Cunningham and Mahommed Gungawere both on Alwa's crag. He also swore that as Alwa's prisoner he hadbeen able to over-hear the Rangars' plans. 

The Maharajah was bewildered, as Jaimihr had expected that he wouldbe. And with just as Eastern, just as muddle-headed, just as dishonestreasoning, he made up his mind to play a double game with everybody, too. He agreed to join Jaimihr in opposition to the Rangars. He agreedto send all his forces to meet Jaimihr's and together kill every Rangarwho should show himself inside the city. And he privately made plans toarrive on the scene too late, and smash Jaimihr's army after it had beenreduced in size and efficiency by its battle with Alwa's men. 

Jaimihr, unknowingly, fitted his plan into his brother's by determiningto get on the scene early enough to have first crack at the treasure. Hemeant to get away with that, leave his brother to deal with Alwa's men, circle round, and then attack his brother from the rear. 

Finally, he made up his mind once and for all that Rosemary McClean mustremain inviolate until he was quite certain that the English had beendriven out of India. He expected that good news within a week. 

He was delighted when Joanna, dressed as a man, turned up at hispalace-gates and cajoled her way in past the guards. To be asked foran escort to bring the McCleans into Howrah fitted in with his roleof protector as a key might fit a lock. Now they could neverpretend--nobody could ever pretend--that he had seized them. He sent acarriage out for them, and when they arrived placed a whole wing of hispalace at their disposal, treating them like royalty. He made no attemptto molest or interfere with either of them, except that he preventedthem from going in and out; and he told off plenty of witnesses whowould be able to swear subsequently that they had seen how well hisguests were treated. He was taking no unnecessary chances at that stageof the game he played. 

There were others, though, who plotted besides Jaimihr. There were, forinstance, Siva's priests. It is not to be forgotten that in that partof India the priests had been foremost in fomenting the rebellion. Theyurged Howrah constantly to take the field against the British, and itwas only the sure knowledge of his brother's intention to strike for thethrone that prevented the Maharajah from doing what the priests urged. 

He knew that Alwa and the Rangars would not help him unless Jaimihrfirst attacked him, for Alwa would be sure to stand on the strict letterof his oath. And he was afraid of the Rangars. He feared that they mightprotect him and depose him afterward. He reasoned that that, too, might be construed into a strict interpretation of the terms of Alwa'spromise!

He consented to collect his army. He kept it under arms. He even paid itsomething on account of arrears of wages and served out rations. But, to the disgust of the priests who asked nothing better than dissensionbetween the brothers, he jumped at the idea of uniting with Jaimihr todefeat Alwa's men. He knew--just as the priests feared--that once hecould trick and defeat Jaimihr he could treat the troublesome priests ascavalierly as he chose. 

So the priests made a third knot in the tangle and tried desperately atthe last moment to recreate dissension between the rival royal camps. 

"Jaimihr is getting ready to attack you!" they assured Howrah. "Attackhim first!"

"I will wait until he does attack, " the Maharajah answered. "For themoment we are friends and have a cause in common. "

"Howrah's men will desert to you the moment you make a move to win thethrone, " they assured Jaimihr. 

"Wait!" answered Jaimihr. "Wait but a day or two. I will move fast as Isee fit when I am ready. For the present my cause and my brother's causeare one. "

Spies brought in news to Maharajah, Prince, and priest of the hurriedraising of a Rangar army. The Maharajah and the Prince laughed up theirsleeves and the priests swore horribly; the interjection of anotherelement--another creed--into the complication did not suit the priestly"book. " They were the only men who were really worried about Alwa. 

And another spy--Joanna--disappeared. No longer garbed as a man, she hadhung about the palace, and--known to nearly all the sweepers--she hadoverheard things. Garbed as a man again, she suddenly evaporated in thinair, and Rosemary McClean was left without a servant or any means ofcommunication with the outside world. 

CHAPTER XXXII

 The ringed wolf glared the circle round Through baleful, blue-lit eye, Not unforgetful of his debt. "Now, heed ye how ye draw the net. " Quoth he: "I'll do some damage yet Or ere my turn to die!"

THE mare that had been a present from Mahommed Gunga was brought out andsaddled, together with a fresh horse for the Risaldar. The veteran hadneeded no summoning, for with a soldier's instinct he had wakened atthe moment his self-allotted four hours had expired. He mounted a littlestiffly, and tried his horse's paces up and down the courtyard once ortwice before nodding to Cunningham. 

"All ready, sahib. "

"Ready, Mahommed Gunga. "

But there was one other matter, after all, that needed attention first. 

"That horse of mine that brought me hither"--the Risaldar picked outthe man who waited with the gong cord in his hand--"is left in thyparticular charge. Dost thou hear me? I will tell the Alwa-sahib what Inow tell thee--that horse will be required of thee fit, good-tempered, light-mouthed, not spur-marked, and thoroughly well groomed. There willbe a reward in the one case, but in the other--I would not stand in thyshoes! It is a trust!"

"Come along, Risaldar!" called Cunningham. "We're wasting an awful lotof time!"

"Nay, sahib, but a good horse is like a woman, to be loved and treatedfaithfully! Neither horse nor woman should be sacrificed for less thanduty! Lead on, bahadur--I will join thee at the gate. "

He had several directions to give for the horse's better care, andCunningham was forced to wait at least five minutes for him at the footof the steep descent. Then for another minute the two sat their horsesside by side, while the great gate rose slowly, grudgingly, crankedupward by four men. 

"If we two ever ride under here again, bahadur, we shall ride with honorthick on us, " remarked Mahommed Gunga. "God knows what thy plan maybe; but I know that from now on there will be no peace for either ofus until we have helped rip it with our blades from the very belly ofrebellion. Ride!"

The gate clanged down behind them as--untouched by heel orspur--the two spring-limbed chargers raced for their bitsacross the sand. They went like shadows, casting othershadows--moon-made--wind-driven--knee-to-knee. 

"Now, sahib!"

The Risaldar broke silence after fifteen minutes. Neither he norCunningham were of the type that chatters when the time has come toloosen sabres and sit tight. 

"In the matter of what lies ahead--as I said, neither I nor any manknows what this plan of thine may be, but I and the others have acceptedthy bare word. These men who await thee--and they are many, and allsoldiers, good, seasoned horsemen--have been told that the son ofCunnigan will lead them. Alwa has given his word, and I mine, that inthe matter of a leader there is nothing left to be desired. And my fivemen have told them of certain happenings that they have seen. Therefore, thou art awaited with no little keenness. They will be all eyes andears. It might be well, then, to set the pace a little slower, for a manlooks better on a fresh horse than on a weary one!"

"I'm thinking, Mahommed Gunga, of the two McCleans and of General Byng, who is expecting us. There is little time to lose. "

"I, too, consider them, sahib. It is we Rangars who must do the sabrework. ALL, sahib--ALL--depends now on the impression created on the menawaiting thee! Rein in a little. Thy father's name, thine own, and mineand Alwa's weigh for much on thy side; but have a sound horse betweenthy legs and a trumpet in thy throat when we get there! I have seen morethan one officer have to fight up-hill for the hearts of his troopersbecause his tired horse stumbled or looked shabby on the first parade. Draw rein a little, sahib. "

So Cunningham, still saying nothing, drew back into an easy canter. Hewas conscious of something, not at all like a trumpet, in his throatthat was nearly choking him. He did not care to let Mahommed Gunga knowthat what was being mistaken for masterly silence was really emotion! Hedid not speak because he did not trust his voice. 

"There are three squadrons, sahib--each of about five hundred men. Alwahas the right wing, I the left. Take thou the centre and command thewhole. The horses are as good as any in this part of India, for eachman has brought his best to do thee honor. Each man carries four days'rations in his saddle-bag and two days' rations for his horse. Morehorse feed is collecting, and they are bringing wagons, to follow whenwe give the word. But we thought there would be little sense in orderingwagons to follow us to Howrah City, knowing that thy plan would surelyentail action. If we are to ride to the aid of Byng-bahadur it seemedbetter to pick up the wagons on the journey back again. That is all, sahib. There will be no time, of course, to waste on talk or drill. Takecharge the moment that we get there--issue thy orders--and trust to themen understanding each command. Lead off without delay. "

"All right, " said Cunningham--two English words that went much furtherto allay the Risaldar's anxiety than any amount of rhetoric would havedone. "But--d'you mean to tell me that the men don't understand words ofcommand?"

"All of them do, sahib--but to many of them the English words are new. They all understand formations, and those who know the English words areteaching the others while they wait for us. There is not one man amongthem but has couched a lance or swung a sabre in some force or other?"

"Good. Have they all got lances?"

"All the front-rank men are armed with lance and sabre--the rear rankshave sabres only. "

"Good. "

After two hours of steady cantering the going changed and became a quicksuccession of ever-deepening gorges cleft in sandstone. Far away in thedistance to the left there rose a glow that showed where Howrah Citykept uneasy vigil, doubtless with watch-fires at every street corner. Itlooked almost as though the distant city were in flames. 

Ahead of them lay the gloom of hell mouth and the silence of the spacebeyond the stars. 

It was with that strange, unclassified, unnamed sixth sense thatsoldiers, savages, and certain hunters have that Cunningham became awareof life ahead of him--massed, strong-breathing, ready--waiting life, spring-bent in the quivering blackness. A little farther, and he caughtthe ring of a curb-chain. Then a horse whinnied and a hoarse voice sworelow at a restive charger. His own mare neighed, throwing her head high, and some one challenged through the dead-black night. 

"How-ut! Hukkums--thar!"

A horseman appeared suddenly from nowhere, and examined them at closequarters instead of waiting for their answer. He peered curiously atCunningham--glanced at Mahommed Gunga--then wheeled, spinning his horseas the dust eddies twist in the sudden hot-wind gusts. 

"Sahib-bahadur hai!" he shouted, racing back. 

The night was instantly alive with jingling movement, as line afterline of quite invisible light-horse-men--self-disciplined and eager toobey--took up their dressing. The overhanging cliff of sandstone hid themoon, but here and there there was a gleam of eyeballs in the dark--nowman's, now horse's--and a sheen that was the hint of steel heldvertical. No human being could have guessed the length of the gorgenor the number of the men who waited in it, for the restless chargersstamped in inch-deep sand that deadened sound without seeming to lessenits quantity. 

"Salaam, bahadur!"

It was Alwa, saluting with drawn sabre, reining back a pedigreed mare toget all the spectacular emotion out of the encounter that he could. 

"Here are fifteen hundred eight and fifty, sahib--all Rangars--truebelievers--all true men--all pledged to see thee unsinged through theflames of hell! Do them the honor of a quick inspection, sahib!"

"Certainly!" smiled Cunningham. 

"I have told them, sahib, that their homes, their women, theirpossessions, and their honor are all guaranteed them. Also pay. Theymake no other terms. "

"I guarantee them all of that, " said Cunningham, loud enough for atleast the nearest ranks to hear. 

"On thine own honor, sahib?"

"On my word of honor!"

"The promise is enough! Will you inspect them, sahib?"

"I'll take their salute first, " said Cunningham. 

"Pardon, bahadur!"

Alwa filled his lungs and faced the unseen lines. 

"Rangars!" he roared. "Your leader! To Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur--son ofPukka-Cunnigan whom we all knew--general--salute--present--sabres!"

There was sudden movement--the ring of whipped-out metal--a bird'swing-beat--as fifteen hundred hilts rose all together to as manylips--and a sharp intake of breath all down the line. 

It wasn't bad. Not bad at all, thought Cunningham. It was not doneas regulars would have worked it. There was the little matter of thelances, that he could make out dimly here and there, and he could detecteven in that gloom that half of the men had been caught wondering howto salute with lance and sabre both. But that was not their fault;the effort--the respect behind the effort--the desire to actaltogether--were all there and striving. He drew his own mare back alittle, and returned their salute with full military dignity. 

"Reeeecee--turn--sabres!" ordered Alwa, and that movement wasaccomplished better. 

He rode once, slowly, down the long front rank, letting each man lookhim over--then back again along the rear rank, risking a kick or two, for there was little room between them and the cliff. He was not chokingnow. The soldier instinct, that is born in a man like statesmanshipor poetry, but that never can be taught, had full command over all hisother senses, and when he spurred out to the front again his voice rangloud and clear, like a trumpet through the night. 

With fifty ground scouts scattered out ahead of them, they drummed outof the gorge and thundered by squadrons on the plain beyond--straight, as the jackal runs, for Howrah City. Alwa, leaving his own squadron, to canter at Cunningham's side, gave him all the new intelligence thatmattered. 

"Last evening I sent word on ahead to them of our coming, sahib! I sentone messenger to the Maharajah and one to Jaimihr, warning each that weride to keep our plighted word. At the worst, we shall find both partiesready for us! We shall know before we reach the city who is our friend!News reached me, too, sahib, that the Maharajah and his brother haveunited against us--that Howrah will eat his promises and play mefalse. God send he does! I would like to have my hands in that Hindoo'streasure-chests! We none of us know yet, bahadur, what is this plan ofthine--"

"You've been guessing awfully close to it, I think" laughed Cunningham. 

"Aha! The treasure-chests, then! But--is there--have you information, sahib? Who knows, then--who has told where they are? Neither I nor mymen know!"

"Send for Mahommed Gunga. "

Mahommed Gunga left his squadron, too, to canter beside Alwa. 

"I am all ears, sahib!" he asserted, reining his horse until his stridewas equal to the others. 

"The key to the situation is that treasure, " asserted Cunningham. "Howrah wants it. Jaimihr wants it. The priests want it. I know thatmuch for certain, from the McCleans. All right. We're a new factor inthe problem, and they all mistrust us nearly as much, if not more, thanthey mistrust one another. Good. They'll be all of them watching thattreasure. It'll be near where they are, and I'm going to snaffle it orbreak my neck--and all your necks--in the deuced desperate attempt. Isthat clear? Where the carcass is, there wheel the kites and there thejackals fight, as your proverb says. The easiest part will be findingthe treasure. Then--"

They legged in closer to him, hanging on his words and too busylistening to speak. 

"If Howrah thinks we're after the treasure and decides to fight withoutprevious argument, that absolves you from your promise, doesn't it, Alwa-sahib?"

"Surely, sahib, provided our intention is not to evade the promise. "

"Our intention is to prevent Howrah and his brother from fighting, toinsure peace and protection on this whole countryside, and, if possible, to ride away with Jaimihr's army to the Company's aid. "

"Good, sahib. "

It seemed to occur to none of the three that fifteen hundred mounted menwere somewhat few with which to accomplish such a marvel. 

"If they are fighting already, we must interfere. "

"We are ready, bahadur. Fighting is our trade!"

"But, before all things, we must keep our eyes well skinned for ahint of treachery on Jaimihr's part. I would rather quarrel with thatgentleman than be his friend, but he happens to hold our promise. We've got to keep our promise, provided he keeps his. I think our firstobjective is the treasure. "

"That, sahib, is an acrobat of a plan, " said Alwa; "much jumping fromone proposition to another!"

"It is no plan at all, " said Cunningham. "It is a mere rehearsal of thecircumstances. A plan is something quickly seized at the rightsecond and then acted on--like your capture of Jaimihr. Wait awhile, Alwa-sahib!"

"Ay, wait awhile!" growled Mahommed Gunga. "Did I bring thee a leader toask plans of thee, or a man of men for thee to follow? Which?"

"All the same, " said Alwa, "I would rather halt and make a good plan. Itwould be wiser. I do not understand this one. "

"I follow Cunnigan-bahadur!" said Mahommed Gunga; and he spurred offto his squadron. Alwa could see nothing better than to follow suit, forCunningham closed his lips tight in a manner unmistakable. And whateverAlwa's misgivings might have been, he had the sense and the soldierlydetermination not to hint at them to his men. 

As dawn rose pale-yellow in the eastern sky they thundered into viewof Howrah City and drew rein to breathe their horses. The sun was highbefore they had trotted near enough to make out details. But, longbefore details could be seen, it was evident that an army was formedup to meet them on the tree-lined maidan that lay between them and thetwo-mile-long palace-wall. Beyond all doubt it was Jaimihr's army, forhis elephants were not so gaudily harnessed as Howrah's, and his menwere not so brilliantly dressed. 

As they dipped into the last depression between them and the wall andhalted for a minute's consultation, a khaki-clad, shrivelled figure ofa man leaped up from behind a sand-ridge, and raced toward Cunningham, shouting to him in a dialect he had no knowledge of and gesticulatingwildly. A trooper spurred down on him, brought him up all standing withan intercepted lance, examined him through puckered eyes, and then, roaring with laughter, picked him up and carried him to Cunningham. 

"A woman, sahib! By the beard of Abraham, a woman!"

"Joanna!"

"Ha, sahib! Ha, sahib!"

She babbled to him, word overtaking word and choking all together ina dust-dry throat. Cunningham gave her water and then set her on theground. 

"Translate, somebody!" he ordered. "I can't understand a word she says. "

Babbled and hurried and a little vague it might be, but Joanna had thenews of the minute pat. 

"Jaimihr is looting the treasure now, sahib. He has tricked his brother. They were to join, and both fight against you, but Jaimihr tried to getthe treasure out before either you or his brother came. He is tryingnow, sahib!"

"Miss McClean! Ask her where Miss McClean is! Ask for Miss Maklin, sahib!"

"Jaimihr has told her that thou and Alwa and Mahommed Gunga are alldead, and the British overwhelmed throughout all India! He has her withhim in a carriage, under guard, for all his men are with him and hecould spare no great guard for his palace. See! Look, sahib! Jaimihr'spalace is in flames!"

Alwa all but fell from his charger, laughing volcanically. The Rajput, who never can agree, can always see the humor in other Rajputs'disagreement. 

"Ho, but they are playing a great game with each other!" he shouted. ButCunningham decided he had wasted time enough. He shouted his orders, andin less than thirty seconds his three squadrons were thundering in thedirection of Jaimihr's army and the palace-wall. They drew rein againwithin a quarter of a mile of it, to discover with amazed military eyesthat Jaimihr had no artillery. 

It was then, at the moment when they halted, that Jaimihr reached aquick decision and the wrong one. He knew by now that his brother hadwon the first trick in the game of treachery, for he could see the smokeand flames of his burning palace from where he sat his horse. Hedecided at once that Alwa and his Rangars must have taken sides with theMaharajah, for how, otherwise, he reasoned, could the Maharajah darelet the Rangars approach unwatched and unmolested. It was evident to himthat the Rangars were acting as part of a concerted movement. 

He made up his mind to attack and beat off the new arrivals withoutfurther ceremony. He out-numbered them by four or five to one, and wason his own ground. Whatever their intentions, at least he would beable to pretend afterward that he had acted in defence of the sacredtreasure; and then, with the treasure in his possession, he would soonbe able to recompense himself for a mere burned and looted palace!

So he opened fire without notice, argument, or parley, and an ill-aimedvolley shrieked over the heads of Cunningham's three squadrons. 

Cunningham, unruffled and undecided still, made out through puckeredeyes the six-horse carriage in which Miss McClean evidently was; it wasdrawn up close beside the wall, and two regiments were between it andhis squadron. He was recalling the terms of the agreement made withJaimihr; he remembered it included the sparing of all of Alwa's men, andnot the firing on them. 

A thousand of Jaimihr's cavalry swooped from the shelter of theinfantry, opened out a very little, and, mistaking Cunningham's delayfor fear, bore down with a cheer and something very like determination. 

They were met some ten yards their side of the half-way mark byCunningham's three squadrons, loosed and led by Cunningham himself. Outridden, outfought, outgeneralled, they were smashed through, riddendown, and whirled back reeling in confusion. About a hundred of themreached the shelter of the infantry in a formed-up body; many of therest charged through it in a mob and threw it into confusion. 

Too late Jaimihr decided on more reasonable tactics. Too late he gaveorders to his infantry that no such confused body could obey. Beforehe could ride to rally them, the Rangars were in them, at them, throughthem, over them. The whole was disintegrating in retreat, endeavoring torally and reform in different places, each subdivision shouting ordersto its nearest neighbor and losing heart as its appeals for help weredisregarded. 

Back came Cunningham's close-formed squadrons, straight through thewrithing mass again; and now the whole of Jaimihr's army took to itsheels, just as part of the five-feet-thick stone palace-wall succumbedto the attacks of crowbars and crashed down in the roadway, disclosing adark vault on the other side. 

Jaimihr made a rush for the six-horse carriage, and tried vainly toget it started. Cunningham shouted to him to surrender, but he took nonotice of the challenge; he escaped being made prisoner by the narrowestof margins, as the position next him was cut down. The other postilionswere un-horsed, and six Rangars changed mounts and seized the reins. ThePrince ran one man through the middle, and then spurred off to try andovertake his routed army, some of which showed a disposition to form upagain. 

"Sit quiet!" called Cunningham through the latticed carriage window. "You're safe!"

The heavy, swaying carriage rumbled round, and the horses plunged inanswer to the Rangars' heels. A moment later it was moving at a gallop;two minutes later it was backed against the wall, and Rosemary McCleanstepped out behind three protecting squadrons that had not sufferedperceptibly from what they would have scorned to call a battle. 

"Now all together!" shouted Cunningham, whose theories on the valueof seconds when tackling reforming infantry were worthy of the Duke ofWellington, or any other officer who knew his business; and again he ledhis men at a breakneck charge. This time Jaimihr's disheartened littlearmy did not wait for him, but broke into wild confusion and scatteredright and left, leaving their elephants to be captured. There were onlya few men killed. The lance-tipped, roaring whirlwind loosed itselffor the most part against nothing, and reformed uninjured to trot backagain. Cunningham told off two troops to pursue fugitives and keep theireyes open for the Prince before he rode back to examine the breach inthe wall that Jaimihr had been to so much trouble about making. 

He had halted to peer through the break in the age-old masonry whenMahommed Gunga spurred up close to him, touched his arm, and pointed. 

"Look, sahib! Look!"

Jaimihr--and no one but a wizard could have told how he had managed toget to where he was unobserved--was riding as a man rides at a tent-peg, crouching low, full-pelt for Rosemary McClean!

Cunningham's spurs went home before the word was out of Mahommed Gunga'smouth, and Mahommed Gunga raced behind him; but Jaimihr had the startof them. Duncan McClean, looking ill and weak and helpless, crowded hisdaughter to the wall, standing between her and the Prince; but Jaimihraimed a swinging sabre at him, and the missionary fell. His daughterstooped to bend over him, and Jaimihr seized her below the arms. Asecond later he had hoisted her to his saddle-bow and was spurringhell-bent-for-leather for the open country. 

Two things prevented him from making his escape. Five of Alwa's men, returning from pursuing fugitives, cut off his flight in one direction, and the extra weight on his horse prevented him from getting clear bymeans of speed alone--as he might have done otherwise, for Cunningham'smare was growing tired. 

Jaimihr rode for two minutes with the frenzy of a savage before he sawthe futility of it. It was Cunningham's mare, gaining on him strideover stride, that warned him he would be cut down like a dog from behindunless he surrendered or let go his prize. 

So he laughed and threw the girl to the ground. For a moment more hespurted, spurring like a fiend, then wheeled and charged at Cunningham. He guessed that but for Cunningham that number of Rangars would neverhave agreed on a given plan. He knew that it was he, and not Cunninghamor Alwa or Rosemary McClean, who had broken faith. He had broken it inthought, and word, and action. And he had lost his prospect of a throne. So he came on like a man who has nothing to gain by considering hissafety. He came like a real man at last. And Cunningham, on a tiredmare, met him point to point. 

They fought over a quarter of a mile of ground, for Jaimihr proved tobe as useful with his weapon as Mahommed Gunga's teaching had madeCunningham. There was plenty of time for the reformed squadrons to seewhat was happening--plenty of time for Alwa, who considered that he hadan account of his own to settle with the Prince, to leave his squadronand come thundering up to help. Mahommed Gunga dodged and reined andspurred, watching his opportunity on one side and Alwa on the other. Itwould have suited neither of them to have their leader killed at thatstage of the game, but the fighting was too quick for either man tointerfere. 

Jaimihr charged Cunningham for the dozenth time and missed, chargedpast, to wheel and charge again, then closed with the most vindictiverush of all. Again Cunningham met him point to point. The two bladeslocked, and bent like springs as they wrenched at them. Cunningham'sblade snapped. He snatched at his mare and spun her before Jaimihr couldrecover, then rammed both spurs in and bore down on the Prince with halfa sabre. He had him on the near side at a disadvantage. Jaimihr spurredand tried to maneuver for position, and the half sabre went home justbelow his ribs. He dropped bleeding in the dust at the second that Alwaand Mahommed Gunga each saw an opportunity and rushed in, to rein backface to face, grinning in each other's faces, their horses' breastspressed tight against the charger that Jaimihr rode. The horse screamedas the shock crushed the wind out of him. 

"You robbed me of my man, sahib, by about a sabre's breadth!" laughedAlwa. 

"And you left your squadron leaderless without my permission!" answeredCunningham. "You too! Mahommed Gunga!"

"But, sahib!"

"Do you prefer to argue or obey?"

Mahommed Gunga flushed and rode back. Alwa grinned and started afterhim. Cunningham, without another glance at the dead Prince, rode up toRosemary McClean, who was picking herself up and looking bewildered;she had watched the duel in speechless silence, lying full length in thedust, and she still could not speak when he reached her. 

"Put your foot on mine, " he said reassuringly; "then swing yourself upbehind me if you can. If you can't, I'll pick you up in front. "

She tried hard, but she failed; so he put both arms under hers andlifted her. 

"Am I welcome?" he asked. And she nodded. 

Fresh from killing a man--with a man's blood on his broken sword and thesweat of fighting not yet dry on him--he held a woman in his arms forthe first time in his life. His hand had been steady when it struck theblow under Jaimihr's ribs, but now it trembled. His eyes had been sternand blazing less than two minutes before; now they looked down intonothing more dangerous than a woman's eyes and grew strangely softerall at once. His mouth had been a hard, tight line under a scrubby upperlip, but his lips had parted now a little and his smile was a boy's--notnervous or mischievous--a happy boy's. 

She smiled, too. Most people did smile when young Cunningham lookedpleased with them; but she smiled differently. And he, with that bloodstill wet on him, bent down and kissed her on the lips. Her answer wasas characteristic as his action. 

"You look like a blackguard, " she said--"but you came, and I knew youwould! I told Jaimihr you would, and he laughed at me. I told God youwould, and you came! How long is it since you shaved? Your chin is allprickly!"

They were interrupted by a roar from the three waiting squadrons. He hadridden without caring where he went, and his mare had borne the two ofthem to where the squadrons were drawn up with their rear to the greatgap in the wall. The situation suited every Rangar of them! That was, indeed, the way a man should win his woman! They cheered him, andcheered again, and he grinned back, knowing that their hearts were inthe cheering and their good will won. Red, then, as a boiled beet, herode over to the six-horse carriage and dismounted by her father--pickedhim up--called two troopers--and lifted him on to the rear seat of thegreat old-fashioned coach. 

"Get inside beside him!" he ordered Rosemary, examining the missionary'shead as he spoke. "It's a scalp wound, and he's stunned--no more. He'sleft off bleeding already. Nurse him!" He was off, then, without anotherword or a backward glance for her--off to his men and the gap in thewall that waited an investigation. 

The amazing was discovered then. The treasure--the fabled, fabulous, enormous Howrah treasure was no fable. It was there, behind that wall!The jewels and the bullion in marketable bars that could have boughtan army or a kingdom--the sacred, secret treasure of twenty troubledgenerations, that was guarded in the front by fifty doors and fiftycorridors and three times fifty locks--the door of whose secret vaultwas guarded by a cannon, set to explode at the slightest touch--washidden from the public road at its other side, its rear, by nothingbetter than a five-foot wall of ill-cemented stone! Cunningham steppedinside over the dismantled masonry and sat down on a chest that heldmore money's worth than all the Cunninghams in all the world had everowned, or spent, or owed, or used, or dreamed of!

"Ask Alwa and Mahommed Gunga to come to me here!" he called; and aminute later they stood at attention in front of him. 

"Send a hundred men, each with a flag of truce on his lance, to gallopthrough the city and call on Jaimihr's men to rally to me, if they wishprotection against Howrah!"

"Good, sahib! Good!" swore Alwa. "Howrah is the next danger! Make readyto fight Howrah!"

"Attend to my orders, please!" smiled Cunningham, and Alwa did as he wastold. Within an hour Jaimihr's men were streaming from the four quartersof the compass, hurrying to be on the winning side, and forming intocompanies as they were ordered. 

Then Cunningham gave another order. 

"Alwa-sahib, will you take another flag of truce, please, and ride withnot more than two men to Maharajah Howrah. Tell him that I want him hereat once to settle about this treasure. "

Alwa stared. His mouth opened a little, and he stood like a man bereftof reason by the unexpected. 

"Are you not still pledged to support Howrah on his throne?"

"I am, bahadur. "

"Would plundering his treasure be in keeping with your promise to him?"

"Nay, sahib. But--"

"Be good enough to take my message to him. Assure him that he may comewith ten men without fear of molestation, but guarantee to him that ifhe comes with more than ten--and with however many more--I will fight, and keep his treasure, both!"

CHAPTER XXXIII

 Friends I have sought me of varying nations, Men of all ranks and of different stations; Some are in jail now, and some are deceased. Two, though, I found to be experts at sundering Me from my revenue, leaving me wondering Which was the costlier--soldier or priest. 

A LITTLE more than one hour later, Howrah--sulky and disgruntled, butdoing his level best to appear at Ease--faced young Cunningham acrossa table in the treasure-vault. Outside was a row of wagons, drawnby horses and closely guarded by a squadron of the Rangars. BehindCunningham stood Alwa and Mahommed Gunga; behind the Maharajah weretwo of his court officials. There were pen and ink and the royal sealbetween them on the table. 

"So, Maharajah-sahib. They are all scaled, and each chest is marked onthe outside with its contents; I'm sorry there was no time to weigh thegold, but the number of the ingots ought to be enough. And, ofcourse, you'll understand it wasn't possible to count all those unsetstones--that 'ud take a week; but your seal is on that big chest, too, so you'll know if it's been opened. You are certain you can preserve thepeace of your state with the army you have?"

"Yes, " said Howrah curtly. 

"Don't want me to leave a squadron of my men to help you out?"

"No!" He said that even more abruptly. 

"Good. Of course, since you won't have to spare men to guard thetreasure now, you'll have all the more to keep peace in the districtwith, won't you? Let me repeat the terms of our bargain--they're writtenhere, but let's be sure there is no mistake. I agree to deliver yourtreasure into safe keeping until the rebellion is over, and to report tomy government that you are friendly disposed toward us. You, in return, guarantee to protect the families and property of all these gentlemenwho ride with me. It is mutually agreed that any damage done to theirhomes during their absence shall be made good out of your treasure, butthat should you keep your part of the agreement the treasure shall behanded back to you intact. Is that correct?"

"Yes, " said Howrah shifting in his seat uneasily. 

"Is there anything else?"

"One other thing. I am outmaneuvered, and I have surrendered with thebest grace possible. That agreement stands in my name, and no otherman's?"

"Certainly. "

"The priests of Siva are not parties to it?"

"I've had nothing whatever to do with them, " said Cunningham. 

"That is all, then, sahib. I am satisfied. "

"While we're about it, Maharajah-sahib, let's scotch those priestsaltogether! McClean-sahib has told me that suttee has been practisedhere as a regular thing. That's got to stop, and we may as well stop itnow. Of course, I shall keep my word about the treasure, and you'll getit back if you live up to the bargain you have made; but my governmentwill know now where it is, and they'll be likely to impose a quiteconsiderable fine on you when the rebellion's over unless this suttee'sput an end to. Besides, you couldn't think of a better way of scoringoff the priests than by enforcing the law and abolishing the practice. Think that over, Maharajah-sahib. "

Howrah swore into his beard, as any ruling potentate might well do atbeing dictated to by a boy of twenty-two. 

"I will do my best, sahib, " he answered. "I am with the British--notagainst them. "

"Good for you!--er, I mean, that's right!" He turned to Alwa, and lookedstraight into his eyes. "Are you satisfied with the guarantee?" heasked. 

"Sahib, I am more than satisfied!"

"Good! Oh, and--Maharajah-sahib--since we've fought your battle foryou--and lost a few men--and are going to guard your treasure for you, and be your friends, and all that kind of thing--don't you think you'dlike to do something for us--not much, but just a little thing?"

"I am in your power. You have but to command. "

"Oh, no. I don't want to force anything. We're friends--talking asfriends. I ask a favor. "

"It is granted, sahib. "

"A horse or two, that's all. "

"How many horses, sahib?"

"Oh, not more than one each. "

The Maharajah pulled a wry face, but bowed assent. It would emptyhis stables very nearly, but he knew when he could not help himself. Mahommed Gunga clapped a hand to his mouth and left the vault hurriedly. 

"You understand this is not a demand, Maharajah-sahib. I take it thatyou offer me these horses as an act of royal courtesy and as additionalproof of friendliness?"

"Surely, sahib. "

"My men will be very grateful to you. This will enable them to reachthe scene of action with their own horses in good shape. I'm sure it'sawfully good of you to have offered them!"

Outside, where the late afternoon sun was gradually letting things cooldown, Mahommed Gunga leaned against the wall and roared with laughter, as he explained a few details to the admiring troopers. 

"A horse or two, says he! How many? Oh, just a horse or two, Maharajah-sahib--merely a horse apiece! Fifteen hundred horses! A horseor two! Oh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ho! Allah! But that boy will make a bettersoldier than his father! As a favor, he asked them--no compulsion, mind you--just as a favor! Allah! What is he asking now, I wonder!Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ho-ho-ho!"

And inside, with a perfectly straight face and almost ghastlygenerosity, young Cunningham proceeded to impose on Howrah thetransferred, unwelcome, perilous allegiance of Jaimihr's reassemblingarmy. The mere keeping of it in subjection, it was realized by donor andrecipient alike, would keep the Maharajah's hands full. 

"Are you satisfied that your homes will be safe, now?" he asked Alwa. And Alwa looked him in the eyes and grinned. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

 Now, fifteen hundred, horse and man, Reel at the word of one! Loosed by the brazen trumpet's peal-- Knee to knee and toe on heel-- Troop on troop the squadrons wheel Outbrazening the sun!

WITHIN a fortnight of the outbreak of the mutiny, men spoke with batedbreath about the Act of God. It burst at the moment when India's reinswere in the hands of some of the worst incompetents in history. A weekfound strong men in control of things--the right men, with the righthandful behind them. 

Some of the men in charge went mad, and were relieved. Some threwup their commands. Some of the worst incompetents were killed by themutineers, and more than one man who could have changed the courseof history for the worse were taken sick and died. Instead of findingthemselves faced by spineless nincompoops, the rebels reeled beforethe sudden, well-timed tactics of real officers with eyes and earsand brains. The mask was off on both sides, and the sudden, strippedefficiency of one was no less disconcerting than the unexpectedrebellion of the other. 

Byng-bahadur--"Byng the Brigadier"--was in command of a force againwithin three days of the news of the first massacre; and because he wasByng, with Byng's record, and Byng's ability to handle loyal natives, the men who succeeded to the reins packed him off at once with a freehand, and with no other orders than to hit, hit hard, and keep onhitting. 

"Go for them, Byng, old man. Live off the country, keep moving, anddon't let 'em guess once what your next move's going to be!"

So Byng recruited as he went, and struck like a brain-controlled tornadoat whatever crossed his path. But irreparable damage had been donebefore the old school was relieved, and Byng--like others--was terriblyshort of men. Many of his own irregulars were so enraged at having beendisbanded at a moment's notice that they refused to return to him. Theirhonor, as they saw it, had been outraged. Only two British regimentscould be spared him, and they were both thinned by sickness from thefirst. They were Sikhs, who formed the bulk of his headquarterlessbrigade, and many of them were last-minute friends, who came to himunorganized and almost utterly undrilled. 

But Byng was a man of genius, and his bare reputation was enough tooffset much in the way of unpreparedness. He coaxed and licked andpraised his new men into shape as he went along; within a week he hadstormed Deeseera, blowing up their greatest reserve of ammunition andmomentarily stunning the rebellion's leaders. But cholera took charge inthe city, and two days later found him hurrying out again, to campwhere there was uncontaminated water, on rising ground that gave him thecommand of three main roads. It was there that the rebels cornered him. 

They blew up a hundred-yard-long bridge behind him at the one pointwhere a swiftly running river could be crossed, and from two other sidesat once mutinied native regiments and thousands from the countrysideflocked, hurrying to take a hand in what seemed destined to be Byng'slast action. The fact that so many swaggering soldier Sikhs werecornered with him was sufficient in itself to bring out Hindoo andMohammedan alike. 

The mutinous regiments had all been drilled and taught by Britishofficers until they were as nearly perfect as the military knowledge ofthe day could make them; the fact that they had killed their officersonly served to make them savage without detracting much from theirefficiency. They had native officers quite capable of taking charge, andsense enough to retain their discipline. 

So Byng intrenched himself on the gradual rise, and sent out as manymessengers as he could spare to bring reinforcements from whateversource obtainable. Then, when almost none came, he got ready to diewhere he stood, using all the soldier gift he had to put courage intothe last-ditch loyalists who offered to die with him. He had countedmost on aid from Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga, but that source seemedto have failed him; and he gave up hope of their arrival when a bodyof several thousand rebels took up position on his flank and cut offapproach from the direction whence Cunningham should come. 

The sun blazed down like molten hell on sick and wounded. Rottingcarcasses of horses and cattle, killed by the rebels' artillery-fire, lay stenching here and there, and there was no possibility of disposingof them. A day came very soon, indeed, when horse, or occasionaltransport bullock, was all there was to eat, and a night came whenGovind Singh, the leader of the Sikhs, came to him and remonstrated. 

The old man had to be carried to Byng's tent, for a round shot haddisabled him, and he had himself set down by the tent-door, where theGeneral sat on a camp-stool. 

"General-sahib, I have not been asked for advice; I am here to offerit. "

The huge black dome of heaven was punctuated by a billion dots of steelywhite that looked like pin-pricks. All the light there was came from thefitful watch-fires, where even the wagons were being burned now thatthe meagre supply of rough timber was giving out. The rebels, too, wereburning everything on which they could lay their hands, and from betweenthe spaced-out glow of their bonfires came ever and again the spurt ofcannon-flame. 

"Speak, Govind Singh!"

"Sahib, we have no artillery with which to answer them. We have no food;and the supply of ammunition wanes. Shall we die here like cattle in aslaughter-house?"

"This is as good as any other place" said Byng. 

"Nay, sahib!" "How, then?"

"In their lines is a better place! Here is nothing better than ashambles, with none but our men falling. They know that our food isgiving out--they know that we lose heavily--they wait. They will waitfor days yet before they close in to finish what their guns have butbegun, and--then--how many will there be to die desperately, as isfitting?"

"We might get reinforcements in the morning, Govind Singh. "

"And again, we might not, sahib!"

"I sent a number of messengers before we were shut in. "

"Yes, sahib--and to whom? To men who would ask you to reinforce them ifthey could get word to you! Tomorrow our rear will be surrounded, too;they have laid planks across the little streams behind us, and arepreparing to drag guns to that side, too. Now, sahib, we have fire leftin us. We can smite yet, and do damage while we die. Tomorrow nightmay find us decimated and without heart for the finish. I advise you toadvance at dawn, sahib!"

That advice came as a great relief to Byng-bahadur. He had been thefirst to see the hopelessness of the position, and every instinct thathe had told him to finish matters, not in the last reeking ditch, butahead, where the enemy would suffer fearfully while a desperate chargeroared into them, to peter out when the last man went down fighting. Surrender was unthinkable, and in any event would have been no good, for the mutineers would be sure to butcher all their prisoners; his onlyother chance had been to hold out until relief came, and that hope wasnow forlorn. 

A Mohammedan stepped out of blackness and saluted him--a native officer, in charge of a handful of irregular cavalry, whose horses had all beenshot. 

"Well--what is it?"

"This, sahib. Do we die here? I and my men would prefer to die yonder, where a mutineer or two would pay the price!"

A Ghoorka officer--small as a Japanese and sturdy-looking came up next. The whole thing was evidently preconcerted. 

"My men ask leave to show the way into the ranks ahead, General-sahib!They are overweary of this shambles!"

"We will advance at dawn!" said Byng. "Egan--" He turned to a Britishofficer, who was very nearly all the staff he had. "Drag that table up. Let's have some paper here and a pencil, and we'll work out the bestplan possible. "

He sent for the commanding officers of the British regiments--both ofthem captains, but the seniors surviving--and a weird scene followedround the lamp set on the tiny table. British, Sikh, Mohammedan, andGhoorka clustered close to him, and watched as his pencil tracedthe different positions and showed the movement that was to make themorrow's finish, their faces outlined in the lamp's yellow glow andtheir breath coming deep and slow as they agreed on how the greatestdamage could be done the enemy before the last man died. 

As he finished, and assigned each leader to his share in the lastassault that any one of them would take a part in, a streak of lightblazed suddenly across the sky. A shooting-star swept in a wide parabolato the horizon. A murmur went up from the wakeful lines, and the silenceof the graveyard followed. 

"There is our sign, sahib!" laughed the Mohammedan. The old Sikh noddedand the Ghoorka grinned. "It is the end!" he said, without a trace ofdiscouragement. 

"Nonsense!" said Byng, his face, too, turned upward. 

"What, then, does it mean, sahib?"

"That--it means that God Almighty has relieved a picket! We're thepicket. We're relieved! We advance at dawn, and we'll get throughsomehow! Join your commands, gentlemen, and explain the detailscarefully to your men--let's have no misunderstandings. "

The dawn rose gold and beautiful upon a sleepless camp that reeked andsteamed with hell-hot suffering. It showed the rebels stationary, stillin swarming lines, but scouts reported several thousand of them movingin a body from the flank toward the British rear. 

"What proportion of the rebel force?" asked Byng. "New arrivals, or someof the old ones taking up a new position?"

"The same crowd, sir. They're just moving round to hem us incompletely. "

"So much the better for us, then! That leaves fewer for us to deal within front. "

As he spoke another man came running to report the arrival of fivegallopers, coming hell-bent-for leather, one by one and scattered, with the evident purpose of allowing one man to get through, whateverhappened. 

"That'll be relief at last!" said Byng-bahadur. And, instead of orderingthe advance immediately, he waited, scouring the sky-line with hisglasses. 

"Yes--dust--lance-heads--one--two--three divisions, coming in a hurry. "

Being on rising ground, he saw the distant relieving force much soonerthan the rebels did, and he knew that it was help for him on the waysome time before the first of the five gallopers careered into the camp, and shouted:

"Cunnigan-bahadur comes with fifteen hundred!"

"Fifteen hundred, " muttered Byng. "That merely serves to postpone thefinish by an hour or two!"

But he waited; and presently the rebel scouts brought word, and theirleaders, too, became aware of reinforcements on the way for somebody. They made the mistake, though, of refusing to believe that any helpcould be coming for the British, and by the time that messengers hadhurried from the direction of the British rear, to tell of gallopers whohad ridden past them and been swallowed by the shouting British lines, three squadrons on fresh horses were close enough to be reckoneddangerous. 

"Is that a gun they've got with them?" wondered Byng. "By the lordHarry, no, --it's a coach and six! They're flogging it along like atwelve-pounder! And what the devil's in those wagons?"

But he had no time for guesswork. The desultory thunder of the rebelordnance ceased, and the whole mass that hemmed him in began to revolvewithin itself, and present a new front to the approaching cavalry. 

"Caught on the hop, by God! The whole line will advance! Trumpeter!"

One trumpet-call blared out and a dozen echoed it. In a second more aroar went up that is only heard on battle-fields. It has none of theexultant shout of joy or of the rage that a mob throws up to heaven;it is not even anger, as the cities know it, or the men who riotfor advantage. It is a welcome ironically offered up toDeath--full-throated, and more freighted with moral effect on an enemythan a dozen salvoes of artillery. 

The thousands ahead tried hard to turn again and face two attacks atonce; but, though the units were efficiently controlled, there were nonewho could swing the whole. Byng's decimated, forward-rushing fragmentof a mixed brigade, tight-reined and working like a piece of mechanism, struck home into a mass of men who writhed, and fell away, and shoutedto each other. A third of them was out of reach, beyond the Britishrear; fully another third was camped too far away to bring assistance atthe first wild onslaught. Messengers were sent to bring them up, but themessengers were overtaken by a horde who ran. 

Then, like arrows driven by the bows of death, three squadrons took themon the flank as Cunningham changed direction suddenly and loosed hisfull weight at the guns. Instead of standing and serving grape, therebel gunners tried to get their ordnance away--facing about again toolate, when the squadrons were almost on them. Then they died gamely, when gameness served no further purpose. The Rangars rode them down andbutchered them, capturing every single gun, and leaving them while theycharged again at the rallying hordes ahead. 

The strange assortment of horsed wagons and the lumbering six-horsecoach took full advantage of the momentary confusion to make at a gallopfor the British rear, where they drew up in line behind the Sikhs, whowere volleying at short range in the centre. 

Byng detached two companies of British soldiers to do their amateurdamnedest with the guns, and, for infantry, they did good service withthem; fifteen or twenty minutes after the first onslaught the enemy waswrithing under the withering attention of his own abandoned ordnance. But the odds were still tremendous, and the weight of numbers made theultimate outcome of the battle seem a foregone conclusion. 

From the British rear heads appeared above the rising ground; thedeserted camp was rushed and set alight. The tents blazed like a beaconlight, and a moment later the Ghoorkas retaliated by setting fire tosuch of the rebel camp as had fallen into British hands. 

It was those two fires that saved the day. From the sky-line to therebel rear came the thunder of a salvo of artillery. It was the shortbark of twelve-pounders loaded up with blank--a signal--and the rebelsdid not wait to see whether this was friend or foe. Help from oneunexpected source had reached the British; this, they argued, wasprobably another column moving to the relief, and they drew off inreasonably decent order--harried, pestered, stung, as they attemptedto recover camp-equipment or get away with stores and wagons, byCunningham, Alwa, and Mahommed Gunga. 

In another hour the rebel army was a black swarm spreading on theeastern sky-line, and on the far horizon to the north there shone theglint of bayonets and helmet spikes, the dancing gleam of lance-tips, and the dazzle from the long, polished bodies of a dozen guns. Agalloper spurred up with a message for Byng. 

"You are to join my command, " it ran, "for a raid in force on Howrah, where the rebels are supposed to have been concentrating for monthspast. The idea is to paralyze the vitals of the movement beforeconcentrating somewhere on the road to Delhi, where the rebels are sureto make a most determined stand. "

As he read it Mahommed Gunga galloped up to him, grinning like a boy. 

"Cunnigan-sahib's respects, General-sahib! He asks leave to call his menoff, saying that he has done all the damage possible with only fifteenhundred. "

"Yes. Call 'em off and send Cunningham to me. How did he shape?"

"Like a son of Cunnigan-bahadur! General-sahib-salaam!"

"No. Here, you old ruffian--shake hands, will you? Now send Cunninghamto me. "

Cunningham came up fifteen minutes later, with a Rangar orderly behindhim, and did his best to salute as though it were nothing more than anordinary meeting. 

"Oh! Here you are. 'Gratulate you, Cunningham! You came in the nick oftime. What kept you?"

"That 'ud take a long time to tell, sir. I've fifteen hundred horsesabout ten miles from here, sir, left in charge of native levies, andI'd like permission to go and fetch them before the levies make off withthem. "

"Splendid! Yes, you'd better go for them. What's in the wagons. "

"The Howrah treasure, sir!"

"What?"

"The whole of the Howrah treasure, sir! It's held as security. Howrahguarantees to keep the peace and protect the homes of my men. Iguaranteed to hand him back the treasure when the show's over, lessdeductions for damage done!"

"Well, I'm--Who thought of that? You or Mahommed Gunga?"

"Oh, I expect we cooked it up between us, sir. "

"H-rrrr-umph! And what's in the six-horse coach?"

"A lady and her father. "

"The deuce they are!"

Byng rode up to the lumbering vehicle, signing to Cunningham to followhim. 

"General Byng, " said Cunningham. "Miss McClean, sir. "

A very much dishevelled and very weary-looking young woman with awealth of chestnut hair leaned through the window and smiled, not at theGeneral but at Cunningham. Byng stared--looked from one to the other ofthem--and said "Hu-rrrr-umph!" again. 

"It was she who made the whole thing possible, sir. "

"The very deuce it was!" It began to be evident that Byng was not aladies' man!

"This is Mr. McClean, sir--Rosemary's father. He helped her put thewhole scheme through. "

Byng nodded to the missionary and looked back at Rosemary McClean--thenfrom her to Cunningham again. 

"Hu-rrrr-umph! Christian names already! More 'gratulations, eh?"

Rosemary's head and shoulders disappeared and Cunningham looked foolish. 

"Well! Send Mahommed Gunga for the horses. Ride over there to where yousee General Evans's column and tell him the whole story. Take a smallescort and the treasure with you. And--ah--er--lemme see--take thiscarriage, too. Oh, by the bye--you'd better ask General Evans to makesome arrangements for Miss McClean. Leave her over there with thetreasure. I want you back with my brigade, and I want you to be somesort of use. Can't have love-making with the brigade, Mr. Cunningham!"

The Brigadier rode off with a very perfunctory salute. 

"Isn't he a rather curmudgeony sort of officer?" asked Rosemary themoment that his back was turned. 

"Oh, no!" laughed Cunningham. "That's Byng-bahadur's little way, that'sall. He's quite likely to insist on being best man or something of thatsort when the show's all over! Wait here while I fetch the escort. "

 END