initial commit of ebook 5153HEADmain

1 files changed, 10579 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/5153.txt b/5153.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2a01ab5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/5153.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10579 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rung Ho!, by Talbot Mundy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rung Ho!
+
+Author: Talbot Mundy
+
+Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5153]
+Posting Date: June 2, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUNG HO! ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by M.R.J.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 wandering
+unprotected. Rosemary McClean knew it; the old woman, of the sweeper
+caste, that is no caste at all,--the hag with the flat breasts and
+wrinkled skin, who followed her dogwise, and was no more protection
+than a toothless dog,--knew it well, and growled about it in incessant
+undertones 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 of
+evil--some that she had seen to happen, some that she imagined, and not
+any part of which was in the least improbable.
+
+As the girl passed through the stenching, many-hued bazaar, the
+roar would cease for a second and then rise again. Turbaned and
+pugreed--Mohammedan and Hindoo--men of all grades of color, language,
+and belief, but with only one theory on women, would stare first at the
+pony that she rode, then at her, and then at the ancient grandmother who
+trotted in her wake. Low jests would greet the grandmother, and then the
+trading and the gambling would resume, together with the under-thread of
+restlessness that was so evidently there and yet so hard to lay a finger
+on.
+
+The sun beat down pitilessly--brass--like the din of cymbals. Beneath
+the sun helmet that sat so squarely and straightforwardly on the tidy
+chestnut curls, her face was pale. She smiled as she guided her pony
+in and out amid the roaring throng, and carefully refused to see the
+scowls, her brave little shoulders seconded a pair of quiet, brave gray
+eyes 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 had
+another of secret anxiety.
+
+Neither had fear. She did not believe in it. She was there to help her
+father 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 a
+hundred thousand aliens. And, least of all, had the man who followed
+her at a little distance the slightest sense of fear. He was far more
+conversant with it than she, but--unlike her, and far more than the
+seething crowd--he knew the trend of events, and just what likelihood
+there was of insult or injury to Rosemary McClean being avenged in a
+generation.
+
+He caused more comment than she, and of a different kind. His rose-pink
+pugree, with the egret and the diamond brooch to hold the egret in its
+place--his jeweled sabre--his swaggering, almost ruffianly air--were
+no more meant to escape attention than his charger that clattered and
+kicked among the crowd, or his following, who cleared a way for him with
+the butt ends of their lances. He rode ahead, but every other minute a
+mounted sepoy would reach out past him and drive his lance-end into the
+ribs of some one in the way.
+
+There would follow much deep salaaming; more than one head would bow
+very low indeed; and in many languages, by the names of many gods, he
+would 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 were
+fixed incessantly on Rosemary McClean's back. Whenever she turned a
+corner in the crowded maze of streets, he would spur on in a hurry until
+she was in sight again, and then his handsome, swarthy face would light
+with pleasure--wicked pleasure--self-assertive, certain, cruel. He would
+rein 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 species
+of caravansary--low-roofed, divided into many lockable partitions, and
+packed tight with babbling humanity--she caught sight of a pair of long,
+black thigh boots, silver-spurred, and of a polished scabbard that moved
+spasmodically, as though its owner were impatient.
+
+"Mahommed Gunga!" she muttered to herself. "I wonder whether he
+would come to my assistance if I needed him. He fought once--or so he
+says--for the British; he might be loyal still. I wonder what he is
+doing here, and what--Oh, I wonder!"
+
+She was very careful not to seem to look sideways, or seek acquaintance
+with the wearer of the boots; had she done so, she would have gained
+nothing, for the moment that he caught sight of her through the opened
+door he drew back into a shadow, and swore lustily. What he said to
+himself would have been little comfort to her.
+
+"By the breath of God!" he growled. "These preachers of new creeds are
+the last straw, if one were wanting! They choose the one soft place
+where Mohammedan and Hindoo think alike, and smite! If I wanted to raise
+hell from end to end of Hind, I too would preach a new creed, and turn
+good-looking women loose to wander on the country-side!--Ah!" He drew
+back even further, as he spied the egret and the sabre and the stallion
+cavorting down the street--then thought better of it and strode
+swaggering to the doorway, and stood, crimson-coated, in the sunlight,
+stroking upward insolently at his black, fierce-barbered beard. There
+was a row of medal ribbons on his left breast that bore out something at
+least of his contention; he had been loyal to the British once, whether
+he was so now or not.
+
+The man on the charger eyed him sideways and passed on. Mahommed Gunga
+waited. One of the prince's followers rode close to him--leaned low from
+the 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 of
+his left hip--one that needed no explanation; the other legged his
+horse away, and rode on, grinning nastily. To reassure himself of his
+superiority over everybody but his master, he spun his horse presently
+so that its rump struck against a tented stall, and upset tent and
+goods. Then he spent two full minutes in outrageous execration of the
+men who struggled underneath the gaudy cloth, before cantering away,
+looking, feeling, riding like a fearless man again. Mahommed Gunga
+sneered after him, and spat, and turned his back on the sunshine and the
+street.
+
+"I had a mind to teach that Hindoo who his betters are!" he growled.
+
+"Come in, risaldar-sahib!" said a voice persuasively. "By your own
+showing the hour is not yet--why spill blood before the hour?"
+
+The Rajput swaggered to the dark door, spurs jingling, looking back
+across his shoulder once or twice, as though he half-regretted leaving
+the 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 were
+a big, red, black-legged devil reassimilated in the brewing broth of
+trouble; but his voice boomed deep and loud after he had disappeared
+from view.
+
+"When their road and my road lie together, we will travel all feet
+foremost!" he asserted.
+
+Ten turnings further away by that time, Rosemary McClean pressed on
+through the hot, dinning swarm of humanity, missing no opportunity to
+slip her pony through an opening, but trying, too, to seem unaware that
+she was followed. She chose narrow, winding ways, where the awnings
+almost met above the middle of the street, and where a cavalcade of
+horsemen would not be likely to follow her--only to hear a roar behind
+her, as the prince's escort started slashing at the awnings with their
+swords.
+
+There was a rush and a din of shouting beside her and ahead, as the
+frightened merchants scurried to pull down their awnings before
+the ruthless horse-men could ride down on them; the narrow street
+transformed itself almost on the instant into a undraped, cleared defile
+between two walls. And after that she kept to the broader streets, where
+there was room in the middle for a troop to follow, four abreast, should
+it choose. She had no mind to seek her own safety at the expense of men
+whose souls her father was laboring so hard to save.
+
+She got no credit, though, for consideration--only blame for what the
+swordsmen had already done. One man--a Maharati trader--half-naked,
+his black hair coiled into a shaggy rope and twisted up above his
+neck--followed her, side-tracking through the mazy byways of the
+bewildering mart, and coming out ahead of her--or lurking beside bales
+of merchandise and waiting his opportunity to leap from shadow into
+shadow unobserved.
+
+He followed her until she reached the open, where a double row of trees
+on each side marked the edge of a big square, large enough for the
+drilling of an army. Along one side of the square there ran the
+high brick wall, topped with a kind of battlement, that guarded the
+Maharajah's palace grounds from the eyes of men.
+
+Just as she turned, just as she was starting to canter her pony beside
+the long wall, he leaped out at her and seized her reins. The old woman
+screamed, 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 to
+be 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 of
+dust, topped by a rose-pink pugree, a steel blade swooped down on her
+and him. A surge of brown and pink and cream, and a dozen rainbow tints
+flashed past her; a long boot brushed her saddle on the off side. There
+was a sickening sound, as something hard swished and whicked home;
+her pony reeled from the shock of a horse's shoulder, and--none too
+gently--none too modestly--the prince with the egret and the handsome
+face reined in on his horse's haunches and saluted her.
+
+There was blood, becoming dull-brown in the dust between them. He shook
+his 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 let
+her pass, but twisting with his sword-hand at his waxed mustache and
+smiling darkly.
+
+She looked down between them at the thing that but a minute since had
+lived, and loved perhaps as well as hated.
+
+"Shame on you, Jaimihr-sahib!" she said, shuddering. A year ago she
+would have fallen from her pony in a swoon, but one year of Howrah and
+its daily horrors had so hardened her that she could look and loathe
+without the saving grace of losing consciousness.
+
+"The shame would have been easier to realize, had I taken more than
+one stroke!" he answered irritably, still blocking the way on his great
+horse, still twisting at his mustache point, still looking down at her
+through eyes that blazed a dozen accumulated centuries' store of lawless
+ambition. He was proud of that back-handed swipe of his that would
+cleave a man each time at one blow from shoulder-joint to ribs, severing
+the backbone. A woman of his own race would have been singing songs in
+praise of him and his skill in swordsman-ship already; but no woman of
+his 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 charger
+with her little whip, and slipped past him.
+
+He swore, deep and fiercely, as he spurred and wheeled, and cantered
+after her. His great stallion could overhaul her pony in a minute, going
+stride for stride; the wall was more than two miles long with no break
+in it other than locked gates; there was no hurry. He watched her
+through half-closed, glowering, appraising eyes as he cantered in her
+wake, admiring the frail, slight figure in the gray cotton habit, and
+bridling his desire to make her--seize her reins, and halt, and make
+her--admit him master of the situation.
+
+As he reached her stirrup, she reined in and faced him, after a hurried
+glance that told her her duenna had failed her. The old woman was
+invisible.
+
+"Will you leave that body to lie there in the dust and sun?" she asked
+indignantly.
+
+"I am no vulture, or jackal, or hyena, sahiba!" he smiled. "I do not eat
+carrion!" He seemed to think that that was a very good retort, for he
+showed his wonderful white teeth until his handsome face was the epitome
+of self-satisfied amusement. His horse blocked the way again, and all
+retreat was cut off, for his escort were behind her, and three of them
+had ridden to the right, outside the row of trees, to cut off possible
+escape 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 no
+caste--?"
+
+"Than to see blood spilt--than to be beholden to a murderer? Infinitely
+better! 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 would
+either of them quell his ardor, she had things reversed. The less she
+behaved as a native woman would have done--the more she flouted him--the
+more enthusiastic he became.
+
+"Sahiba!"--he trotted beside her, his great horse keeping up easily with
+her pony's canter--"I have told you oftener than once that I make a good
+friend and a bad enemy!"
+
+"And I have answered oftener than once that I do not need your
+friendship, and am not afraid of you! You forget that the British
+Government will hold your royal brother liable for my safety and my
+father's!"
+
+"You, too, overlook certain things, sahiba." He spoke evenly, with a
+little space between each word. With the dark look that accompanied it,
+with the blood barely dry yet on the dusty road behind, his speech
+was 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 your
+brother to your knees if you harm a British woman!" she retorted. "You
+forget--when the British Government gives leave to missionaries to go
+into 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 been
+stronger, he would have slain me long ago. The British are--" He checked
+himself and trotted beside her in silence for a minute. She affected
+complete indifference; it was as though she had not heard him; if she
+could not be rid of him, she at least knew how to show him his utter
+unimportance in her estimation.
+
+"Have you heard, sahiba, of the Howrah treasure? Of the rubies? Of the
+pearls? Of the emeralds? Of the bars of gold? It is foolishness, of
+course; we who are modern-minded see the crime of hoarding all that
+wealth, and adding to it, for twenty generations. Have you heard of it,
+sahiba?"
+
+"Yes!" she answered savagely, swishing at his charger again to make him
+keep his distance. "You have told me of it twice. You have told me that
+you know where it is, and you have offered to show it to me. You have
+told me that you and your brother Maharajah Howrah and the priests
+of Siva are the only men who know where it is, and you lust for that
+treasure! I can see you lust! You think that I lust too, and you make a
+great 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 your
+treasure exactly that!" She hit his charger with all her might, and
+at the sting of the little whip he shied clear of the road before the
+Rajah's brother could rein him in.
+
+Again her effort to destroy his admiration for her had directly the
+opposite 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 this
+one, who dared flout him with her riding-whip before his men!
+
+"Sahiba!" he said, sidling close to her again, and bowing in the saddle
+in mock cavalier humility. "The time will come when your government
+and my brother, who--at present--is Maharajah Howrah--will be of little
+service to you. Then, perhaps, you may care to recall my promise to load
+all 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 and
+faced him--pale-trembling a little--looking very small and frail beside
+him on his great war-horse, but not flinching under his gaze for a
+single second.
+
+"Or else, sahiba--I think you saw me slay the Maharati? Do you think
+that 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 be
+for a pledge between us--for a sign--or a token of my oath that on the
+day I am Maharajah Howrah, you are Maharanee--mistress of all the jewels
+in the treasure-house!"
+
+She shuddered. She did not look to find the blood; she took his word for
+that, if for nothing else.
+
+"I wonder you dare tell me that you plot against your brother!" That was
+more 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 was
+true. 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 would
+arrest her promptly, glad of the excuse to vent his hatred of Christian
+missionaries. Jaimihr would attempt a rescue; it was common knowledge
+that he plotted for the throne. There would be instant civil war,
+in which the British Government would perforce back up the alleged
+protector of a defenseless woman. There would be a new Maharajah; then,
+in a little while, and in all likelihood, she would have disappeared
+forever while the war raged. There would be, no doubt, a circumstantial
+story 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 better
+than a grave!" Then he wheeled like a sudden dust-devil and decamped
+in a cloud of dust, followed at full pelt by his clattering escort. She
+watched their horses leap one after the other the corpse of the Maharati
+that lay by the corner where it fell, and she saw the last of them go
+clattering, whirling up the street through the bazaar. The old hag rose
+out 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 place
+where her father tried to din the alphabet into a dozen low-caste
+fosterlings.
+
+"Father!" she cried, and she all but fell out of the saddle into his
+arms as the tall, lean Scotsman came to the door to meet her and stood
+blinking in the sunlight. "Father, I've seen another man killed! I've
+had another scene with Jaimihr! I can't endure it! I--I--Oh, why did I
+ever 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 other
+Rajputs and Mahommed Gunga--all six, according to their turbans,
+followers of Islam--discussed matters that appeared to bring them little
+satisfaction.
+
+They sat together in a dark, low-ceilinged room; its open door--it was
+far too hot to close anything that admitted air--gave straight onto the
+street, and the one big window opened on a courtyard, where a pair of
+game-cocks fought in and out between the restless legs of horses, while
+a yelling horde betted on them. On a heap of grass fodder in a corner
+of the yard an all-but-naked expert in inharmony thumped a skin tom-tom
+with his knuckles, while at his feet the own-blood brother to the
+screech-owls wailed of hell's torments on a wind instrument.
+
+Din--glamour--stink--incessant movement--interblended poverty and riches
+rubbing shoulders--noisy self-interest side by side with introspective
+revery, where stray priests nodded in among the traders,--many-peopled
+India surged in miniature between the four hot walls and through the
+passage to the overflowing street; changeable and unexplainable, in
+ever-moving flux, but more conservative in spite of it than the very
+rocks she rests on--India who is sister to Aholibah and mother of all
+fascination.
+
+In that room with the long window, low-growled, the one thin thread of
+clear-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 with
+blazing dark-brown eyes from one man to the other.
+
+"What good ever came of listening to priests?" he asked. "All priests
+are alike--ours, and theirs, and padre-sahibs! They all preach peace and
+goad the lust that breeds war and massacre! Does a priest serve any but
+himself? Since when? There will come this rising that the priests speak
+of--yes! Of a truth, there will, for the priests will see to it! There
+is a padre-sahib here in Howrah now for the Hindoo priests to whet their
+hate on. You saw the woman ride past here a half-hour gone? There is a
+pile 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 leg
+above the other with a clink of spurs and scabbard. He had no objection
+to 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 his
+thoughts. "Sit still and say nothing is my advice; we will be all ready
+to help ourselves when the hour comes!"
+
+"It is this way," said Mahommed Gunga, standing straddle-legged to face
+all five of them, with his back to the window. He stroked his
+black beard upward with one hand and fingered with the other at his
+sabre-hilt. "Without aid when the hour does come, the English will
+be smashed--worn down--starved out--surrounded--stamped
+out--annihilated--so!" He stamped with his heel descriptively on the
+hard earth floor. "And then, what?"
+
+"Then, the plunder!" said Alwa, showing a double row of wonderful white
+teeth. The other four grinned like his reflections. "Ay, there will be
+plunder--for the priests! And we Rajputs will have new masters over us!
+Now, as things are, we have honorable men. They are fools, for any
+man is a fool who will not see and understand the signs. But they are
+honest. They ride straight! They look us straight between the eyes, and
+speak truth, and fear nobody! Will the Hindoo priests, who will rule
+India afterward, be thus? Nay! Here is one sword for the British when
+the hour comes!"
+
+"I have yet to see a Hindoo priest rule me or plunder me!" said Alwa
+with a grin.
+
+"You will live to see it!" said Mahommed Gunga. "Truly, you will live to
+see it, unless you throw your weight into the other scale! What are we
+Rajputs without a leader whom we all trust? What have we ever been?"
+He swung on his heels suddenly--angrily--and began to pace the floor
+again--then stopped.
+
+"Divided, and again subdivided--one-fifth Mohammedan and four-fifths
+Hindoo--clan within clan, and each against the other. Do we own
+Rajputana? Nay! Do we rule it? Nay! What were we until Cunnigan-bahadur
+came?"
+
+"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 mine
+ride at his back!" said Alwa. "Not all the English are like Cunnigan!
+A Cunnigan could have five thousand men the minute that he asked for
+them!"
+
+"Am I a wizard?--Can I cast spells and bring dead men's spirits from
+the dead again? I know of no man to take his place," said Mahommed Gunga
+sadly.
+
+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 are
+first gentlemen, then soldiers, and last--least of all--and only as a
+last resource, landed proprietors. The British, for whom they had often
+fought because that way honor seemed to lie, had impoverished
+them afterward by passing and enforcing zemindary laws that lifted
+nine-tenths of the burden from the necks of starving tenants. The new
+law was just, as the Rajputs grudgingly admitted, but it pinched their
+pockets sadly; like the old-time English squires, they would give their
+best blood and their last rack-rent-wrung rupee for the cause that
+they believed in, but they resented interference with the rack-rents!
+Mahommed Gunga had had influence enough with these five landlord
+relations of his to persuade them to come and meet him in Howrah City to
+discuss matters; the mere fact that he had thought it worth his while
+to leave his own little holding in the north had satisfied them that he
+would be well worth listening to--for no man rode six hundred miles on
+an empty errand. But they needed something more than words before they
+pledged the word that no Rajput gentleman will ever break.
+
+"Find us a Cunnigan--bring him to us--prove him to us--and if a blade
+worth having from end to end of Rajputana is not at his service, I
+myself will gut the Hindoo owner of it! That is my given word!" said
+Alwa.
+
+"He had a son," said Mahommed Gunga quietly.
+
+"True. Are all sons like their fathers? Take Maharajah Howrah here; his
+father 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 between
+love for the treasure-chests he dare not broach and fear of a brother
+whom he dare not kill. He is priest-ridden, priest-taught, and fit to be
+nothing but a priest. Who knows how young Cunnigan will shape? Where is
+he? Overseas yet! He must prove himself, as his father did, before he
+can hope to lead a free regiment of horse!"
+
+"Then Cunnigan-bahadur's watch-word 'For the peace of India,' is
+dead-died with him?" asked Mahommed Gunga. "We are each for our own
+again?"
+
+"I have spoken!" answered Alwa. As the biggest clan-chief left on all
+that countryside, he had a right to speak before the others, and he
+knew that what he said would carry weight when they had all ridden home
+again, and the report had gone abroad in ever-widening rings. "If the
+English can hold India, let them! I will not fight against them, for
+they are honest men for all their madness. If they cannot, then I am for
+Rajputana, not India--India may burn or rot or burst to pieces, so long
+as Rajputana stands! But--" He paused a moment, and looked at each man
+in turn, and tapped his sabre-hilt, "--if a Cunnigan-bahadur were among
+us--a man whom I could trust to lead me and mine and every man--I would
+lend him my sword for the sheer honor of helping him hack truth out of
+corruption! I have nothing more to say!"
+
+"One word more, cousin!" said Mahommed Gunga. "I was risaldar in
+Cunnigan-bahadur's regiment of horse. There was more than mere
+discipline between us. I ate his salt. Once--when he might have saved
+himself the trouble without any daring to reproach him--he risked his
+own life, and a troop, and his reputation to save a woman of my family
+from capture, and something worse. There was never a Rajput or any other
+native 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 do
+nothing in the matter, yet--were he in my shoes, and she a native woman
+at the mercy of the troops--Cunnigan-bahadur would have assigned a guard
+for her."
+
+"Ho! So I am thy sepoy?" sneered Alwa, standing sideways--looking
+sideways--and throwing out his chest. "I am to do thy bidding, guarding
+stray padres" (he spoke the word as though it were a bad taste he was
+spitting from his mouth), "and herding women without purdah, while thou
+ridest 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 is
+nothing to me--the padre-sahib less. It is because of the debt I owe to
+Cunnigan that I ask this favor."
+
+"Oh. It is granted! Should she appeal to me, I will rip Howrah into
+rags 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 the
+slightest change in his expression.
+
+"The word is sufficient, cousin!"
+
+Alwa returned his salute, and raised his voice in a gruff command. A
+saice outside the window woke as though struck by a stick--sprang to his
+feet--and passed the order on. A dozen horses clattered in the courtyard
+and 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 noise
+as though they owned the whole of India, the five rode off, each on his
+separate way, through the scattering crowd.
+
+Then Mahommed Gunga called for his own horse and the lone armed man of
+his 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, he
+would have wakened slowly."
+
+"Thou art no idiot!" said Mahommed Gunga. "Wait here until I return, and
+lie a few lies if any ask thee why we six came together, and of what we
+spoke!"
+
+Then he mounted and rode off slowly, picking his way through the throng
+much more cautiously and considerately than his relatives had done,
+though not, apparently, because he loved the crowd. He used some
+singularly biting insults to help clear the way, and frowned as though
+every other man he looked at were either an assassin or--what a good
+Mohammedan considers worse--an infidel. He reached the long brick wall
+at last--broke into a canter--scattered the pariah dogs that were nosing
+and quarreling about the corpse of the Maharati, and drew rein fifteen
+minutes later by the door of the tiny school place that Miss McClean had
+entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+For service truly rendered, and for duty dumbly done--For men who
+neither tremble nor forget--There is due reward, my henchman. There is
+honor to be won. There is watch and ward and sterner duty yet.
+
+No sound came, from within the schoolhouse. The little building, coaxed
+from a grudging Maharajah, seemed to strain for light and air between
+two overlapping, high-walled brick warehouses. Before the door, in a
+spot where the scorching sun-rays came but fitfully between a mesh of
+fast-decaying thatch, the old hag who had followed Rosemary McClean lay
+snoozing, muttering to herself, and blinking every now and then as a
+street dog blinks at the passers-by. She took no notice of Mahommed
+Gunga until he swore at her.
+
+"Miss-sahib hai?" he growled; and the woman jumped up in a hurry and
+went inside. A moment later Rosemary McClean stood framed in the doorway
+still in her cotton riding-habit, very pale--evidently frightened at
+the summons--but strangely, almost ethereally, beautiful. Her wealth of
+chestnut hair was loosely coiled above her neck, as though she had been
+caught in the act of dressing it. She looked like the wan, wasted spirit
+of human pity--he like a great, grim war-god.
+
+"Salaam, Miss Maklin-sahib!"
+
+He dismounted as he spoke and stood at attention, then stared
+truculently, too inherently chivalrous to deny her civility--he would
+have cut his throat as soon as address her from horseback while she
+stood--and too contemptuous of her father's calling to be more civil
+than he deemed in keeping with his honor.
+
+"Salaam, Mohammed Gunga!" She seemed very much relieved, although
+doubtful yet. "Not letters again?"
+
+"No, Miss-sahib. I am no mail-carrier! I brought those letters as a
+favor to Franklin-sahib at Peshawur; I was coming hither, and he had
+no man to send. I will take letters, since I am now going, if there are
+letters ready; I ride to-night."
+
+"Thank you, Mahommed Gunga. I have letters for England. They are not yet
+sealed. 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 between
+here 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 asked
+him.
+
+He glanced down at them, and his expression changed a trifle; it was
+scarcely perceptible, but underneath his fierce mustache the muscles of
+his mouth stiffened.
+
+"They are medal ribbons--for campaigns," he answered.
+
+"Three-four-five! Then, you were a soldier a long time? Did you--did you
+desert 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 here
+for 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 will
+give 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. He
+was too much of a soldier to admit himself at a loss what to say, yet
+he 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 now
+to fight for them--one reason, at least--" he said gruffly, "is that
+hitherto they have not meddled with our religions. It is not safe! It
+would 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 your
+account!"
+
+"You forget, I think," she answered him gently, "that we had permission
+from the British Government to come here; it has not been withdrawn. We
+are doing no harm here--trying only to do good. There is always danger
+when--"
+
+"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 at
+present he will dare do nothing. The Maharajah dare do nothing either,
+yet. Should either of them make a move to interfere with you, it would
+not be safe to appeal to the other one. You will not understand, but
+it is so. In that event, there is a way to safety of which I would warn
+you."
+
+"Thank you, Mahommed Gunga. What is it?"
+
+"There are men more than a day's ride away from here who are to be
+depended on--by you, at least--under all circumstances. Is that old
+woman 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, to
+speak with her."
+
+At a word from Miss McClean the old hag came out into the sun again and
+blinked at the Rajput, very much afraid of him. Mahommed Gunga saluted
+Miss McClean--swore at the old woman--pointed a wordless order with his
+right arm--watched her shuffle half a hundred yards up-street--followed
+her, and growled at her for about five minutes, while she nodded.
+Finally, he drew from the pocket of his crimson coat a small handful
+of gold mohurs--fat, dignified coins that glittered--and held them out
+toward her with an air as though they meant nothing to him--positively
+nothing--Her eyes gleamed. He let her take a good look at the money
+before replacing it, then tossed her a silver quarter-rupee piece,
+saluted Miss McClean again--for she was watching the pantomime from the
+doorway still--and mounted and rode off, his back looking like the back
+of 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 me
+another 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 in
+the dialect which left no room for doubt as to his meaning; it was to
+be a different servant--a substitute for the squire he had already. The
+squire bowed his head in disciplined obedience and led the horse away.
+
+An hour later--evening was drawing on--he came back, followed by a
+somewhat ruffianly-looking half-breed Rajput-Punjaubi. The new man was
+rather ragged and lacked one eye, but with the single eye he had he
+looked 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 as
+though he were calling his master's attention to a horse that was for
+sale. "I have seen his family; I have inquired about him; and I have
+explained to him that unless he serves at thee faithfully his wife and
+his 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 a
+sword."
+
+"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 return
+here."
+
+The squire was back again within five minutes and stood before Mahommed
+Gunga 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 gold
+mohurs and divided it into two equal portions; one he handed to the
+squire.
+
+"Stay here. Be always either in the caravansary or else at call. Should
+the old woman who serves Miss Maklin-sahib, the padre-sahib's daughter
+come and ask thy aid, then saddle swiftly the three horses I will leave
+with thee, and bear Miss Maklin-sahib and her father to my cousin Alwa's
+place. Present two of the gold mohurs to the hag, should that happen."
+
+"But sahib--two mohurs? I could buy ten such hags outright for the
+price!"
+
+"She has my word in the matter! It is best to have her eager to win
+great reward. The hag will stay awake, but see to it that thou sleepest
+not!"
+
+"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 had
+promised to deliver; and at one hour after sunset, when the heat of the
+earth had begun to rise and throw back a hot blast to the darkened sky
+and the little eddies of luke-warm surface wind made movement for horse
+and man less like a fight with scorching death, he rode off, with his
+new servant, on the two horses left to him of the five with which he
+came.
+
+A six-hundred-mile ride without spare horses, in the heat of northern
+India, was an undertaking to have made any strong man flinch. The
+stronger the man, and the more soldierly, the better able he would be to
+realize the effort it would call for. But Mahommed Gunga rode as though
+he were starting on a visit to a near-by friend; he was not given
+to crossing bridges before he reached them, nor to letting prospects
+influence his peace of mind. He was a soldier. He took precautions
+first, when and where such were possible, then rode and looked fate in
+the eye.
+
+He appeared to take no more notice of the glowering looks that
+followed him from stuffy balconies and dense-packed corners than of the
+mosquitoes to and the heat. Without hurry he picked his way through
+the thronged streets, where already men lay in thousands to escape the
+breathlessness of walled interiors; the gutters seemed like trenches
+where the dead of a devastated city had been laid; the murmur was like
+the voice of storm-winds gathering, and the little lights along the
+housetops 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 considered
+duty. He could feel the long-kept peace of India disintegrating all
+around him, and he knew--he was certain--as sometimes a brave man can
+see what cleverer men all overlook--that the right touch by the right
+man at the right moment, when the last taut-held thread should break,
+would very likely swing the balance in favor of peace again, instead of
+individual self seeking anarchy.
+
+He knew what "Cunnigan-bahadur" would have done. He swore by
+Cunnigan-bahadur. And the memory of that same dead, desperately honest
+Cunningham he swore that no personal profit or convenience or safety
+should be allowed to stand between him and what was honorable and right!
+Mahommed Gunga had no secrets from himself; nor lack of imagination. He
+knew that he was riding--not to preserve the peace of India, for that
+was as good as gone--but to make possible the winning back of it. And he
+rode with a smile on his thin lips, as the crusaders once rode on a less
+self-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--more
+full 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. He
+averaged a little less than twenty miles a day, and through an Indian
+hot-weather, and with no spare horse, none but a born horseman--a man
+of light weight and absolute control of temper--could have accomplished
+that for thirty days on end.
+
+Wherever he rode there was the same unrest. Here and there were new
+complaints he had not yet heard of, imaginary some of them, and some
+only too well founded. Wherever there were Rajputs--and that race of
+fighting men is scattered all about the north--there was ill-suppressed
+impatience for the bursting of the wrath to come. They bore no grudge
+against the English, but they did bear more than grudge against the
+money-lenders and the fat, litigious traders who had fattened under
+British rule. At least at the beginning it was evident that all the
+interest of all the Rajputs lay in letting the British get the worst
+of it; even should the British suddenly wake up and look about them and
+take steps--or should the British hold their own with native aid, and
+so save India from anarchy, and afterward reward the men who helped--the
+Rajputs would stand to gain less individually, or even collectively,
+than if they let the English be driven to the sea, and then reverted to
+the age-old state of feudal lawlessness that once had made them rich.
+
+Many of the Hindoo element among them were almost openly disloyal. The
+ryots--the little one and two acre farmers--were the least unsettled;
+they, when he asked them--and he asked often--disclaimed the least
+desire to change a rule that gave them safe holdings and but one
+tax-collection a year; they were frankly for their individual
+selves--not even for one another, for the ryots as a class.
+
+Nobody seemed to be for India, except Mahommed Gunga; and he said
+little, but asked ever-repeated questions as he rode. There were men who
+would like to weld Rajputana into one again, and over-ride the rest
+of India; and there were other men who planned to do the same for the
+Punjaub; there were plots within plots, not many of which he learned in
+anything like detail, but none of which were more than skin-deep below
+the surface. All men looked to the sudden, swift, easy whelming of the
+British Raj, and then to the plundering of India; each man expected to
+be rich when the whelming came, and each man waited with ill-controlled
+impatience for the priests' word that would let loose the
+hundred-million flood of anarchy.
+
+"And one man--one real man whom they trusted--one leader--one man who
+had 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 no
+Cunnigan. And who would follow me? They would pull my beard, tell me I
+was scheming for my own ends!--I, who was taught by Cunnigan, and would
+serve only India!"
+
+He would ride before dawn and when the evening breeze had come to cool
+the hot earth a little through the blazing afternoons he would lie in
+the place of honor by some open window, where he could watch a hireling
+flick the flies off his lean, road-hardened horse, and listen to
+the plotting and the carried tales of plots, pretending always to be
+sympathetic or else open to conviction.
+
+"A soldier? Hah! A soldier fights for the side that can best reward
+him!" 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 always
+wore. "The British gave me those for fighting against the northern
+tribes beyond the Himalayas," he would tell them. "The southern
+tribes--Bengalis of the south and east--would give better picking than
+mere medal ribbons!"
+
+They were not all sure of him. They were not all satisfied why he
+should ride on to Peshawur, and decline to stay with them and talk good
+sedition.
+
+"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 leader
+to have kept among them, until he--too--became too powerful and would
+have to be deposed in turn.
+
+His own holding was a long way from Peshawur, and he was no rich man
+who could afford at a mere whim to ride two long days' march beyond his
+goal. 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 letters
+to where they could be included in the Government mail-bag. Yet he
+left the road that would have led him homeward to his left, and carried
+on--quickening his pace as he neared the frontier garrison town, and
+wasting, then, no time at all on seeking information. Nobody supposed
+that the Pathans and the other frontier tribes were anything but openly
+rebellious, and he would have been an idiot to ask questions about their
+loyalty.
+
+Because of their disloyalty, and the ever-present danger that they
+were, the biggest British garrison in India had to be kept cooped up
+in Peshawur, to rot with fever and ague and the other ninety Indian
+plagues.
+
+He wanted to see that garrison again, and estimate it, and make up his
+mind what exactly, or probably, the garrison would do in the event of
+the rebellion blazing out. And he wanted to try once more to warn some
+one in authority, and make him see the smouldering fire beneath the
+outer covering of sullen silence.
+
+He received thanks for the letters. He received an invitation to take
+tea on the veranda of an officer so high in the British service
+that many a staff major would have given a month's pay for a like
+opportunity. But he was laughed at for the advice he had to give.
+
+"Mahommed Gunga, you're like me, you're getting old!" said the high
+official.
+
+"Not so very old, sahib. I was a young man when Cunnigan-bahadur raised
+a regiment and licked the half of Rajputana into shape with it. Not too
+old, 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 way
+out here via the Cape of Good Hope. He should be here in three or four
+months at the outside."
+
+"You mean that, sahib?"
+
+"Wish I didn't! The puppy will arrive here with altogether swollen
+notions of his own importance and what is due his father's son. He's
+been captain of his college at home, and that won't lessen his sense of
+self-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 a
+wool-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 his
+salt."
+
+"If you'll teach him to be properly respectful to his betters I'll be
+grateful 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 from
+cutting his eye-teeth on his seniors' convenience, that's all!"
+
+Mahommed Gunga wasted no time after that on talking, nor did he wait to
+specify the nature of the latitude he would expect to be allowed him; he
+knew better. And he knew now that the one chance that he sought had been
+given him.
+
+Like all observant natives, he was perfectly aware that the British
+weakness mostly lay in the age of the senior officers and the slowness
+of promotion. There were majors of over fifty years of age, and if a
+man were a general at seventy he was considered fortunate and young. The
+jealousy with which younger men were regarded would have been humorous
+had 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 sadly
+attenuated rent-roll and a very sadly thinned-down company of servants
+waited his coming. There, through fourteen hurried, excited days, he
+made certain arrangements about the disposition of his affairs during
+an even longer absence; he made certain sales--pledged the rent of fifty
+acres for ten years, in return for an advance--and on the fifteenth day
+rode southward, at the head of a five-man escort that, for quality, was
+worthy of a prince.
+
+A little less than three months later he arrived at Bombay, and by dint
+of 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 his
+own. Then, fretful at every added day that strained his fast-diminishing
+resources, he settled down to wait until the ship should come that
+brought 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 subalterns
+and civil officers, cramped, storm-tossed, snubbed, and then disgorged
+from a sailing-ship into a port that made no secret of its absolute
+contempt for new arrivals.
+
+There were liners of a kind on the Red Sea route, and the only seniors
+who chose the long passage round the Cape were men returning after
+sick-leave--none too sweet-tempered individuals, and none too prone
+to give the young idea a good conceit of himself. He and the other
+youngsters landed with a crushed-in notion that India would treat
+them very cavalierly before she took them to herself. And all, save
+Cunningham, were right.
+
+The other men, all homesick and lonely and bewildered, were met by
+bankers' agents, or, in cases, only by a hotel servant armed with a
+letter of instructions. Here and there a bored, tired-eyed European had
+found time, for somebody-or-other's sake, to pounce on a new arrival
+and bear him away to breakfast and a tawdry imitation of the real
+hospitality of northern India; but for the most part the beardless boys
+lounged in the red-hot customs shed (where they were to be mulcted for
+the privilege of serving their country) and envied young Cunningham.
+
+He--as pale as they, as unexpectant as they were of anything approaching
+welcome--was first amazed, then suspicious, then pleased, then proud, in
+turn. The different emotions followed one another across his clean-lined
+face as plainly as a dawn vista changes; then, as the dawn leaves a
+landscape finally, true and what it is for all to see, true dignity was
+left and the look of a man who stands in armor.
+
+"His father's son!" growled Mahommed Gunga; and the big, black-bearded
+warriors 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 had
+raised and led a regiment and licked peace into a warring countryside;
+and though he was that much bigger than his father had been, they dubbed
+him "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 no
+superior on earth. He did not know yet that these men had come, at one
+man's private cost, all down the length of India to meet him. Nobody had
+told him that the feudal spirit dies harder in northern Hindustan than
+it ever did in England, or that the Rajput clans cohere more tightly
+than the Scots. The Rajput belief that honest service--unselfishly
+given--is the greatest gift that any man may bring--that one who has
+received what he considers favors will serve the giver's son--was an
+unknown creed to him as yet.
+
+But he stood and looked those six men in the eye, and liked them. And
+they, before they had as much as heard him speak, knew him for a soldier
+and loved him as he stood.
+
+They hung sickly scented garlands round his neck, and kissed his hand
+in turn, and spoke to him thereafter as man to man. They had found their
+goal 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 they
+pay themselves. No other of the homesick subalterns drove away with a
+six-man escort to clear the way and scatter sparks!
+
+They careered round through the narrow gate of the hotel courtyard as
+though a Viceroy at least were in the trap behind them; and Mahommed
+Gunga--six medaled, strapping feet of him--dismounted and held out an
+arm for him to take when he alighted. The hotel people understood at
+once that Somebody from Somewhere had arrived.
+
+Young Cunningham had never yet been somebody. The men who give their
+lives 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, had
+he felt the feel of homage and the subtle flattery that undermines a
+bad man's character; at schools in England they confer honors but take
+simultaneous precautions. He was green to the dangerous influence of
+feudal loyalty, but he quitted himself well, with reserve and dignity.
+
+"He is good! He will do!" swore Mahommed Gunga fiercely, for the other
+emotions 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 a
+black-bearded soldier of the five.
+
+"He is a man who knows by instinct!" said Mahommed Gunga. "See to it
+that thy accounting is correct, and overpay no man!"
+
+Deep-throated as a bull, erect as a lance, and pleased as a little
+child, Mahommed Gunga came to him alone that evening to talk, and to
+hear 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 and
+chain of the hundred-guinea kind that nowadays are only found among
+the heirlooms. Young Cunningham looked at it, and recognized the heavy
+old-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, and
+on the inside a portrait of his mother.
+
+"Thy father died in these two arms, bahadur! Thy father said: 'Look
+after him, Mahommed Gunga, when the time is ripe for him to be a
+soldier.' And I said: 'Ha, huzoor!' So! Then here is India!"
+
+He waved one hand grandiloquently, as though he were presenting the
+throne of India to his protege!
+
+"Here, sahib, is a servant--blood of my own blood."
+
+He clapped his hands, and a man who looked like the big, black-ended
+spirit 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 for
+it! Feed him and clothe him, sahib, but pay him very little--to serve
+well is sufficient recompense."
+
+Young Cunningham gave his keys at once to the silent servant, as a tacit
+sign that from that moment he was trusted utterly; and Mahommed Gunga
+nodded grim approval.
+
+"Thy father saw fit to bequeath me much in the hour when death came on
+him, sahib. I am no boaster, as he knew. Remember, then, to tell me if I
+fail 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 realized
+that he ought at once to show his appreciation of the high plane of the
+service offered.
+
+"There is one way in which you could help me almost at once, Mahommed
+Gunga," he answered.
+
+"Command me, sahib."
+
+"I need your advice--the advice of a man who really knows. I need
+horses, and--at first at least--I would rather trust your judgment than
+my own. Will you help me buy them?"
+
+The Raiput's eyes blazed pleasure. On war, and wine, and women, and a
+horse are the four points to ask a man's advice and win his approval by
+the 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 for
+the journey; and in Rajputana I have horses waiting for thee--seven,
+all told--sufficient for a young officer. Six of them are
+country-bred-sand-weaned--a little wild perhaps, but strong, and up to
+thy weight. The seventh is a mare, got by thy father's stallion Aga
+Khan (him that made more than a hundred miles within a day under a
+fifteen-stone burden, with neither food nor water, and survived!). A
+good mare, sahib--indeed a mare of mares--fit for thy father's son. That
+mare I give thee. It is little, sahib, but my best; I am a poor man. The
+other six I bought--there is the account. I bought them cheaply, paying
+less than half the price demanded in each case--but I had to borrow and
+must pay back."
+
+Young Cunningham was hard put to it to keep his voice steady as he
+answered. This man was a stranger to him. He had a hazy recollection
+of a dozen or more bearded giants who formed a moving background to his
+dreams of infancy, and he had expected some sort of welcome from one or
+two perhaps, of his father's men when he reached the north. But to have
+men borrow money that they might serve him, and have horses ready for
+him, and to be met like this at the gate of India by a man who admitted
+he was poor, was a little more than his self-control had been trained as
+yet 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 in
+much promising! I was his servant, and will serve him still by serving
+thee. The honor is mine, sahib, and the advantage shall be where thy
+father wished it."
+
+"My father would never have had me--"
+
+"Sahib, forgive the interruption, but a mistake is better checked. Thy
+father would have flung thee ungrudged, into a hell of bayonets, me,
+too, and would have followed after, if by so doing he could have served
+the cause he held in trust. He bred thee, fed thee, and sent thee
+oversea to grow, that in the end India might gain! Thou and I are
+but servants of the peace, as he was. If I serve thee, and thou the
+Raj--though the two of us were weaned on the milk of war and get our
+bread by war--we will none the less serve peace! Aie! For what is honor
+if 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 at
+last!"
+
+He saluted and backed out through the swinging door. He had come in his
+uniform of risaldar of the elder Cunningham's now disbanded regiment,
+so he had not removed his boots as another native--and he himself if
+in mufti--would have done. Young Cunningham heard him go swaggering and
+clanking and spur-jingling down the corridor as though he had half a
+troop 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 bring
+the real man to the surface. He had been no Cunningham unless his sense
+of duty had been very near the surface--no Englishman, had he not been
+proud that men of a foreign, conquered race should think him worthy of
+all that honor; and no man at all if his eye had been quite dry when
+the veteran light-horseman swaggered out at last and left him to his own
+reflections.
+
+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 distant
+relatives between the intervals of school. He felt lonely, in spite of
+his reception--a little like a baby on the edge of all things new and
+wonderful. 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 had
+imagination. He could dream. The good things he was tasting were a
+presage only of the better things to come, and that is a wholesome point
+of view. He was proud--as who would not be?--to step straight into the
+tracks of such a father; and with that thought came another--just as
+good for him, and for India, that made him feel as though he were a
+robber yet, a thief in another's cornfield, gathering what he did not
+sow. It came over him in a flood that he must pay the price of all this
+homage.
+
+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 these
+gentle-men, who took him at his face value, by proving to them that
+they had made no very great mistake. The thought thrilled him instead
+of frightening--brought out every generous instinct that he had and made
+him thank the God of All Good Soldiers that at least he would have a
+chance to die in the attempt. There was nothing much the matter with
+young 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 the
+price of fealty there was more of the receiving of it still in store
+for him, and he found himself very hard put to it, indeed, to keep
+overboiling spirits from becoming exultation of the type that nauseates.
+
+None of the other subalterns had influence, nor had they hereditary
+anchors in the far northwest that would be likely to draw them on to
+active service early in their career. They had already been made to
+surrender their boyhood dreams of quick promotion; now, standing in
+little groups and asking hesitating questions, they discovered that
+their destination--Fort William--was about the least desirable of all
+the awful holes in India.
+
+They were told that a subaltern was lucky who could mount one step of
+the promotion ladder in his first ten years; that a major at fifty, a
+colonel at sixty, and a general at seventy were quite the usual thing.
+And they realized that the pay they would receive would be a mere
+beggar's pittance in a neighborhood so expensive as Calcutta, and that
+their little private means would be eaten up by the mere, necessities
+of life. They showed their chagrin and it was not very easy for young
+Cunningham, watching Mahommed Gunga's lordly preparations for the long
+up-country journey, to strike just the right attitude of pleasure at the
+prospect without seeming to flaunt his better fortune.
+
+Mahommed Gunga interlarded his hoarse orders to the mule-drivers with
+descriptions in stateliest English, thrown out at random to the world at
+large, of the glories of the manlier north--of the plains, where a man
+might gallop while a horse could last, and of the mountains up beyond
+the plains. He sniffed at the fetid Bombay reek, and spoke of the clean
+air sweeping from the snow-topped Himalayas, that put life and courage
+into the lungs of men who rode like centaurs! And the other subalterns
+looked wistful, eying the bullock-carts that would take their baggage by
+another route.
+
+Fully the half of what Mahommed Gunga said was due to pride of race
+and country. But the rest was all deliberately calculated to rouse the
+wicked 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 to
+something worth his while. To quote his own north-country metaphor, he
+meant to "make the colt come up the bit." He meant that "Chota" Cunnigan
+should have a proper sense of his own importance, and should chafe at
+restraint, to the end that when his chance did come to prove himself he
+would jump at it. Envy, he calculated--the unrighteous envy of men less
+fortunately placed--would make a good beginning. And it did, though
+hardly in the way he calculated.
+
+Young Cunningham, tight-lipped to keep himself from grinning like a
+child, determined to prove himself worthy of the better fortune; and
+Mahommed Gunga would have cursed into his black beard in disgust had
+he known of the private resolutions being formed to obey orders to the
+letter and obtain the good will of his seniors. The one thing that the
+grim old Rajput wished for his protege was jealousy! He wanted him so
+well hated by the "nabobs" who had grown crusty and incompetent in high
+command that life for him in any northern garrison would be impossible.
+
+Throughout the two months' journey to the north Mahommed Gunga never
+left a stone unturned to make Cunningham believe himself much more than
+ordinary clay. All along the trunk road, that trails by many thousand
+towns and listens to a hundred languages, whatever good there was was
+Cunningham's. Whichever room was best in each dak-bungalow, whichever
+chicken the kansamah least desired to kill, whoever were the stoutest
+dhoolee-bearers in the village, whichever horse had the easiest
+paces--all were Cunningham's. Respect were his, and homage and
+obeisance, for the Rajput saw to it.
+
+Of evenings, while they rested, but before the sun went down, the old
+risaldar would come with his naked sabre and defy "Chota" Cunnigan to
+try to touch him. For five long weeks he tried each evening, the Rajput
+never doing anything but parry,--changing his sabre often to the other
+hand and grinning at the schoolboy swordsmanship--until one evening, at
+the end of a more than usually hard-fought bout, the youngster pricked
+him, lunged, and missed slitting his jugular by the merest fraction of
+an inch.
+
+"Ho!" laughed Mahommed Gunga later, as he sluiced out the cut while his
+own 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 poor
+one, until he knows the way."
+
+"Leave him to me! I will show him the way, and we will see what we will
+see. If he is to disgrace his father's memory and us, he shall do it
+where there are few to see and none to talk of it. When Alwa and the
+others ask me, as they will ask, 'Is he a man?' I will give them a true
+answer! I think he is a man, but I need to test him in all ways possible
+before I pledge my word on it."
+
+But after that little accident the old risaldar had sword-sticks
+fashioned at a village near the road, and ran no more risks of being
+killed by the stripling he would teach; and before many more days of
+the road had ribboned out, young Cunningham--bareback or from the
+saddle--could beat him to the ground, and could hold his own on foot
+afterward with either hand.
+
+"The hand and eye are good!" said Mahommed Gunga. "It is time now for
+another test."
+
+So he made a plausible excuse about the horses, and they halted for four
+days at a roadside dak-bungalow about a mile from where a foul-mouthed
+fakir sat and took tribute at a crossroads. It was a strangely chosen
+place to rest at.
+
+Deep down in a hollow, where the trunk road took advantage of a winding
+gorge between the hills--screened on nearly all sides by green
+jungle whose brown edges wilted in the heat which the inner steam
+defied--stuffy, smelly, comfortless, it stood like a last left
+rear-guard of a white-man's city, swamped by the deathless, ceaselessly
+advancing tide of green. It was tucked between mammoth trees that
+had been left there when the space for it was cleared a hundred
+years before, and that now stood like grim giant guardians with arms
+out-stretched to hold the verdure back.
+
+The little tribe of camp-followers chased at least a dozen snakes out
+of corners, and slew them in the open, as a preliminary to further
+investigation. There were kas-kas mats on the foursquare floors, and
+each of these, when lifted, disclosed a swarm of scorpions that had to
+be exterminated before a man dared move his possessions in. The once
+white calico ceilings moved suggestively where rats and snakes chased
+one another, or else hunted some third species of vermin; and there was
+a smell and a many-voiced weird whispering that hinted at corruption and
+war to the death behind skirting boards and underneath the floor.
+
+It had evidently not been occupied for many years; the kansamah looked
+like a gray-bearded skeleton compressed within a tightened shroud of
+parchment skin that shone where a coffin or a tomb had touched it. He
+seemed to have forgotten what the bungalow was for, or that a sahib
+needed things to eat, until the ex-risaldar enlightened him, and then he
+complained wheezily.
+
+The stables--rather the patch-and-hole-covered desolation that once had
+been stables--were altogether too snake-defiled and smelly to be worth
+repairing; the string of horses was quartered cleanly and snugly under
+tents, and Mahommed Gunga went to enormous trouble in arranging a ring
+of watch-fires at even distances.
+
+"Are there thieves here, then?" asked Cunningham, and the Rajput nodded
+but said nothing. He seemed satisfied, though, that the man he had
+brought safely thus far at so much trouble would be well enough housed
+in the creaky wreck of the bungalow, and he took no precautions of any
+kind as to guarding its approaches.
+
+Cunningham watched the preparations for his supper with ill-concealed
+disgust--saw the customary chase of a rubber-muscled chicken, heard its
+death gurgles, saw the guts removed, to make sure that the kansamah did
+not cook it with that part of its anatomy intact, as he surely would do
+unless watched--and then strolled ahead a little way along the road.
+
+The fakir was squatting in the distance, on a big white stone, and in
+the quiet of the gloaming Cunningham could hear his coarse, lewd voice
+tossing crumbs of abuse and mockery to the seven or eight villagers
+who squatted near him--half-amused, half-frightened, and altogether
+credulous.
+
+Even as he drew nearer Cunningham could not understand a word of what
+the fakir said, but the pantomime was obvious. His was the voice and
+the manner of the professional beggar who has no more need to whine
+but still would ingratiate. It was the bullying, brazen swagger and
+the voice that traffics in filth and impudence instead of wit; and, in
+payment for his evening bellyful he was pouring out abuse of Cunningham
+that grew viler and yet viler as Cunningham came nearer and the fakir
+realized that his subject could not understand a word of it.
+
+The villagers looked leery and eyed Cunningham sideways at each fresh
+sally. The fakir grew bolder, until one of his listeners smothered
+an open laugh in both hands and rolled over sideways. Cunningham came
+closer yet, half-enamoured of the weird scene, half-curious to discover
+what the stone could be on which the fakir sat.
+
+The fakir grew nervous. Perhaps, after all, this was one of those
+hatefully clever sahibs who know enough to pretend they do not know!
+The abuse and vile innuendo changed to more obsequious, less obviously
+filthy references to other things than Cunningham's religion, likes,
+and pedigree, and the little crowd of men who had tacitly encouraged him
+before got ready now to stand at a distance and take sides against him
+should the white man turn out to have understood.
+
+But Cunningham happened to catch sight of a cloud of paroquets that
+swept in a screaming ellipse for a better branch to nest in and added
+the one touch of gorgeous color needed to make the whole scene utterly
+unearthly and unlike anything he had ever dreamed of, or had seen in
+pictures, or had had described to him. He stood at gaze--forgetful of
+the stone that had attracted him and of the fakir--spellbound by the
+wonder-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 new
+ribaldry, until some one suddenly shot out from behind Cunningham, and
+before he had recovered from his surprise he saw the fakir sprawling on
+his back, howling for mercy, while Mahommed Gunga beat the blood out of
+him with a whalebone riding-whip.
+
+The sun went down with Indian suddenness and shut off the scene
+of upraised lash and squirming, naked, ash-smeared devil, as a
+magic-lantern picture; disappears. Only the creature's screams
+reverberated through the jungle, like a belated echo to the restless
+paroquets.
+
+"He will sleep less easily for a week or two!" hazarded Mahommed Gunga,
+stepping back toward Cunningham. In the sudden darkness the white
+breeches showed and the whites of his eyes, but little else; his voice
+growled 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 alone
+he had been beaten! What he said was but the babbling of priests. All
+priests are alike. They have a common jargon--a common disrespect for
+what 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 a
+trumpet and bellowed through them in a high-pitched, nasal, ululating
+order to somebody behind:
+
+"Oh-h-h--Battee-lao!"
+
+The black, dark roadside echoed it and a dot of light leapt up as a man
+came running with what gradually grew into a lamp.
+
+Mahommed Gunga seized the lamp, bent for a few seconds over the still
+sprawling 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 his
+voice that was probably intentional--designed to make Cunningham at
+least aware of the existence of emotion before he looked--he let the
+light 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, in
+curves, across the stone; but it was too dark--the light was too fitful;
+the marks themselves were too faint from the constant squatting of
+roadside wanderers.
+
+Mahommed Gunga set the lamp down on the stone, and he and the attendant
+took little sticks, sharp-pointed, with which they began to dig
+hurriedly, scratching and scraping at what presently showed, even in
+that rising and falling light, as Roman lettering. Soon Cunningham
+himself began to lend a hand. He made out a date first, and he could
+feel it with his fingers before his eyes deciphered it. Gradually,
+letter by letter--word by word--he read it off, feeling a strange new
+thrill run through him, as each line followed, like a voice from the
+haunted 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 and
+the heavy breathing of the three as Cunningham gazed down at the very
+crudely carved, stained, often-desecrated slab below which lay the first
+of the Anglo-Indian Cunninghams.
+
+This man--these crumbled bones that lay under a forgotten piece of
+rock--had made all of their share of history. They had begotten "Pukka"
+Cunningham, who had hacked the name deeper yet in the crisscrossed
+annals of a land of war. It was strange--it was queer--uncanny--for the
+third 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 caught
+himself 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 neither
+Mahommed Gunga nor the other men would say a word until he spoke. They
+were 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 of
+them.
+
+Yet there was no hurry--no earthly hurry. He felt sure of it. In
+the silence and the blackness--in the tense, steamy atmosphere of
+expectancy--he felt perfectly at ease, although he knew, too, that there
+was superstition to be reckoned with--and that is something which a
+white man finds hard to weigh and cope with, as a rule.
+
+The sweat ran down his face in little streams a the prickly heat began
+to move across his skin, like a fiery-footed centiped beneath his
+undershirt, but he noticed, neither. He began to be unconscious anything
+except the knowledge that the bones of his grandsire lay underneath
+him and that Mahommed Gunga waited for the word that would fit into the
+scheme and solve a problem.
+
+"Are there any tigers here now?" he asked presently, in a perfectly
+normal voice. He spoke as he had done when his servant asked him which
+suit he would wear.
+
+"Ha, sahib! Many."
+
+"Man-eaters, by any chance?"
+
+Mahommed Gunga and the other man exchanged quick glances, but Cunningham
+did not look up. He did not see the quick-flashed whites as their eyes
+met and looked down again.
+
+"There is one, sahib--so say the kansamah and the head man--a full-grown
+tiger, in his prime."
+
+"I will shoot him." Four words, said quietly--not "Do you think," or "I
+would like to," or "Perhaps." They were perfectly definite and without a
+trace of excitement; yet this man had never seen a tiger.
+
+"Very good, sahib." That, too, was spoken in a level voice, but Mahommed
+Gunga'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 enough
+to 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 we
+need to know is where he is and how to get there--will you attend to
+that?"
+
+"Ha, sahib."
+
+"Thanks. I wonder if my supper's ready."
+
+He turned and walked away, with a little salute-like movement of his
+hand that was reminiscent of his father. The two Rajputs watched him
+in heavy-breathing silence until the little group of lights, where the
+horse-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 must
+be a greater test. There must be no doubt--no littlest doubt. Alwa and
+the others will ask me on my honor, and I will answer on my honor, yes
+or no."
+
+It was an hour before the two of them returned, and looked the horses
+over and strolled up to bid Cunningham good night; and in the meanwhile
+they 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 in
+pitch darkness to his own devices, with a parting admonition to keep his
+slippers on for the floor, in the dark, would be the prowling-place of
+venomed death.
+
+It was he who set the lamp on the little table by his bedside, for his
+servant--for the first time on that journey--was not at hand to execute
+his thoughts almost before he had spoken them. Mahommed Gunga had
+explained that the man was sick; and that seemed strange, for he had
+been well enough, and more than usually efficient, but an hour before.
+
+But there were stranger things and far more irritating ones to interfere
+with the peaceful passage of the night. There were sounds that were
+unaccountable; there was the memory of the wayside tombstone and the
+train of thought that it engendered. Added to the hell-hot, baking
+stuffiness that radiated from the walls, there came the squeaking of a
+punka rope pulled out of time--the piece of piping in the mud-brick wall
+through which the rope passed had become clogged and rusted, and the
+villager pressed into service had forgotten how to pull; he jerked at
+the cord between nods as the heat of the veranda and the unaccustomed
+night duty combined to make him sleepy.
+
+Soon the squeaking became intolerable, and Cunningham swore at him--in
+English, because he spoke little of any native language yet, and had not
+the 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 rifle
+and pistols for lack of anything better to keep him from going mad.
+Then, suddenly, the pulling ceased altogether. Silence and hell heat
+shut down on him like a coffin lid. Even the lamp flame close beside him
+seemed to grow dim; the weight of black night that was suffocating him
+seemed to crush light out of the flame as well.
+
+No living mortal could endure that, he imagined. He swore aloud, but
+there was no answer, so he got up, after crashing his rifle-butt down
+on 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 on
+the 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 him
+the way back to bed again. Besides, he was too unaccustomed to the joy
+of owning the last new thing in sporting rifles to hesitate for long
+about 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 tents
+stood, so he judged that even the accustomed natives had found the added
+heat of Mahommed Gunga's watch-fires intolerable and had raked them
+out; but from where he imagined that the village must be came the
+dum-tu-dum-tu-dum of tom-toms, like fever blood pulsating in the veins
+of devils of the night.
+
+The punka-wallah slept. He could just make out the man's blurred
+shape--a shadow in the shadows--dog-curled, with the punkah rope looped
+round his foot. He kicked him gently, and the man stirred, but
+fell asleep again. He kicked him harder. The man sat up and stared,
+terrified; the whites of his eyes were distinctly visible. He seemed to
+have 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 more
+instantaneous. Clutching his twisted rag of a turban in one hand,
+and kicking his leg free, he ran for it--leaped the veranda rail, and
+vanished--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 into
+a 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 marriage
+feast, or perhaps an orgy; he had paid out what would seem to the
+villagers a lot of money, and it might be that they were celebrating the
+occasion. It was strange, though, that he could see no lights where the
+village ought to be.
+
+For a moment he had a half-formed intention to shout for Mahommed
+Gunga; but he checked that, reasoning that the Rajput might think he
+was afraid. Then his eye caught sight of something blacker than
+the shadows--something long and thin and creepy that moved, and he
+remembered that bed, where the pans of water would protect him, was the
+only safe place.
+
+So he returned into the hot, black silence where the tiny lamp-flame
+guttered and threw shadows. He wondered why it guttered. It seemed to
+be actually short of air. There were four rooms, he remembered, to the
+bungalow, all connected and each opening outward by a door that faced
+one of the four sides; he wondered whether the outer doors were opened
+to admit a draught, and started to investigate.
+
+Two of them were shut tight, and he could not kick them open; the
+dried-out teak and the heavy iron bolts held as though they had been
+built to resist a siege; the noise that he made as he rattled at them
+frightened a swarm of unseen things--unguessed-at shapes--that scurried
+away. He thought he could see beady little eyes that looked and
+disappeared and circled round and stopped to look again. He could hear
+creepy movements in the stillness. It seemed better to leave those doors
+alone.
+
+One other door, which faced that of his own room, was open wide, and he
+could feel the forest through it; there was nothing to be seen, but the
+stillness moved. The velvet blackness was deeper by a shade, and the
+heat, uprising to get even with the sky, bore up a stench with it. There
+was no draught, no movement except upward. Earth was panting-in time, it
+seemed, to the hellish thunder of the tom-toms.
+
+He went back and lay on the bed again, leaning the rifle against the
+cot-frame, and trying by sheer will-power to prevent the blood from
+bursting his veins. He realized before long that he was parched with
+thirst, 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 swimming
+round and round in rings in the water. In a fit of horror he threw the
+thing away and smashed it into a dozen fragments in a corner. He saw a
+dozen rats, at least, scamper to drink before the water could evaporate
+or filter through the floor; and when they were gone there was no
+half-drowned crawling thing either. They had eaten it.
+
+He clutched his rifle to him. The barrel was hot, but the feel of it
+gave him a sense of companionship. And then, as he lay back on the bed
+again, the lamp went out. He groped for it and shook it. There was no
+oil.
+
+Now, what had been hot horror turned to fear that passed all
+understanding--to the hate that does not reason--to the cold sweat
+breaking on the roasted skin. Where the four walls had been there was
+blackness of immeasurable space. He could hear the thousand-footed
+cannibals of night creep nearer--driven in toward him by the dinning of
+the tom-toms. He felt that his bed was up above a scrambling swarm of
+black-legged things that fought.
+
+He had no idea how long he lay stock-still, for fear of calling
+attention to himself, and hated his servant and Mahommed Gunga and all
+India. Once--twice--he thought he heard another sound, almost like the
+footfall of a man on the veranda near him. Once he thought that a man
+breathed within ten paces of him, and for a moment there was a distinct
+sensation of not being alone. He hoped it was true; he could deal with
+an assassin. That would be something tangible to hate and hit. Manhood
+came to his assistance--the spirit of the soldier that will bow to
+nothing that has shape; but it died away again as the creeping silence
+once more shut down on him.
+
+And then the thunder of the tom-toms ceased. Then even the venomed
+crawlers that he knew were near him faded into nothing that really
+mattered, compared to the greater, stealthy horror that he knew was
+coming, born of the shuddersome, shut silence that ensued. There
+was neither air nor view--no sense of time or space--nothing but
+the coal-black pit of terror yawning--cold sweat in the heat, and a
+footfall--an undoubted footfall--followed by another one, too heavy for
+a man's.
+
+Where heavy feet were there was something tangible. His veins tingled
+and the cold sweat dried. Excitement began to reawaken all his soldier
+senses, and the wish to challenge seized him--the soldierly intent to
+warn 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 he
+could clear his throat or wet his lips his eye caught something lighter
+than the night--two things--ten--twelve paces off--two things that
+glowed or sheened as though there were light inside them--too big and
+too far apart to be owl's eyes, but singularly like them. They moved, a
+little sideways and toward him; and again he heard the heavy, stealthy
+footfall.
+
+They stayed still then for what may have been a minute, and another
+sense--smell--warned him and stirred up the man in him. He had never
+smelled it in his life; it must have been instinct that assured him of
+an enemy behind the strange, unpleasant, rather musky reek that filled
+the room. His right hand brought the rifle to his shoulder without
+sound, and almost without conscious effort on his part.
+
+He forgot the heat now and the silence and discomfort. He lay still on
+his side, squinting down the rifle barrel at a spot he judged was midway
+between a pair of eyes that glowed, and wondering where his foresight
+might be. It struck him all at once that it was quite impossible to see
+the foresight--that he must actually touch what he would hit if he would
+be at all sure of hitting it. He remembered, too, in that instant--as a
+born soldier does remember things--that in the dark an attacking enemy
+is probably more frightened than his foe. His father had told it him
+when he was a little lad afraid of bogies; he in turn had told it to the
+other boys at school, and they had passed it on until in that school it
+had become rule number one of school-boy lore--just as rule number two
+in 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 of
+him--white-nightshirted and unexpected--sudden enough to scare the
+wits out of anything that had them. He was met by a snarl. The two eyes
+narrowed, and then blazed. They lowered, as though their owner gathered
+up his weight to spring. He fired between them. The flash and the
+smoke blinded him; the burst of the discharge within four echoing walls
+deadened his cars, and he was aware of nothing but a voice beside him
+that 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 accustomed
+to the flare and he could see the tiger at his feet, less than a yard
+away--dead, bleeding, wide-eyed, obviously taken by surprise and shot as
+he 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 there
+were 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 dawn
+and was driven off his kill; he was not likely to be an easy mark for an
+untried 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 my
+hat 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 order
+on, and the tom-tom thundering began again as a dozen villagers pattered
+in to take away the tiger.
+
+"Tell them, please," commanded Cunningham, "that that racket is to
+cease. 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. The
+drumming 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 the
+dark. I'll be glad to see you after breakfast as usual--ah--without your
+shoes, unless you come in uniform. Good night."
+
+The Rajput signed to the others and withdrew with dignity. Cunningham
+reloaded his rifle in the dark and lay down. Within five minutes
+the swinging of the punka and the squeaking of the rope resumed, but
+regularly this time; Mahommed Gunga had apparently unearthed a man who
+understood the business. Reaction, the intermittent coolth, as the
+mat fan swung above his face, the steady, evenly timed squeak and
+movement--not least, the calm of well-asserted dignity--all joined to
+have one way, and Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur slept, to dream of fire-eyed
+tigers dancing on tombstones laid on the roof of hell, and of a
+grandfather in full general's uniform, who said: "Well done, bahadur!"
+
+But outside, by a remade camp-fire, Mahommed Gunga sat and chuckled to
+himself, and every now and then grew eloquent to the bearded men who sat
+beside him.
+
+"Aie! Did you hear him reprimand me? By the beard of God's prophet, that
+is a man of men! So was his father! Now I will tell Alwa and the others
+that I bring a man to them! By the teeth of God and my own honor I will
+swear 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 a
+cage--no lamp--no help at hand, or so he thought until it was all
+over. 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 circumstance
+to test the pluck and decision and reliability of Cunningham at almost
+every resting-place along the Grand Trunk Road, the armed squire he had
+left behind with a little handful of gold mohurs and three horses was
+finding time heavy on his hands.
+
+Like his master, Ali Partab was a man of action, to whom the purlieus
+of a caravansary were well enough on rare occasions. He could ruffle
+it with the best of them; like any of his race, he could lounge
+with dignity and listen to the tales that hum wherever many horsemen
+congregate; and he was no mean raconteur--he had a tale or two to tell
+himself, of women and the chase and of the laugh that he, too, had flung
+in the teeth of fear when opportunity arose.
+
+But each new story of the paid taletellers, who squat and drone and
+reach a climax, and then pass the begging bowl before they finish
+it--each merrily related jest brought in by members of the constantly
+arriving trading parties--each neigh of his three chargers--every new
+phase of the kaleidoscopic life he watched stirred new ambition in
+him to be up, and away, and doing. Many a dozen times he had to remind
+himself that "there had been a trust imposed."
+
+He exercised the horses daily, riding each in turn until he was as lean
+and lithe and hard beneath the skin as they were. They were Mahommed
+Gunga's horses--he Mahommed Gunga's man; therefore, his honor was
+involved. He reasoned, when he took the trouble to, along the good clean
+feudal line that lays down clearly what service is: there is no honor,
+says that argument, in serving any one who is content with half a
+service, and the honor is the only thing that counts.
+
+As day succeeded ever sultrier, ever longer-drawn-out day--as each night
+came that saw him peg the horses out wherever what little breezes moved
+might fan them--as he sat among the courtyard groups and listened in the
+heavy heat, the fact grew more apparent to him that this trust of his
+was 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 in
+metaphor--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 and
+speak openly of a grim day coming for the British; he would be checked
+instantly by wiser men, but not before Ali Partab had heard enough to
+add to his private store of information.
+
+Priests came from a dozen cities to the eastward, all nominally after
+pilgrims for the sacred places, but all strangely indifferent to their
+quest. They preferred, it would seem, to sit in rings with chance-met
+ruffians--with believers and unbelievers alike--even with men of no
+caste at all--and talk of other things than pilgrimages.
+
+"Next year, one hundred years ago the English conquered India. Remember
+ye the prophecy? One hundred years they had! This, then, is the last
+year. Whom the gods would whelm they first deprive of reason; mark ye
+this! The cartridges they serve out to the sepoys now are smeared with
+the blended fat of cows and pigs. Knowing that we Hindoos hold the cow
+a sacred beast, they do this sacrilege--and why? They would make us bite
+the cartridges and lose our caste. And why again? Because they would
+make us Christians! That is the truth! Else why are the Christian
+missionaries here in Howrah?"
+
+The listeners would nod while the little red fires glowed and purred
+above the pipes, and others not included in the circle strained forward
+through the dark to listen.
+
+"The gods get ready now! Are ye ready?"
+
+Elsewhere, a hadji--green-turbaned from the pilgrimage to Mecca--would
+hold out to a throng of true believers.
+
+"Ay! Pig's fat on the cartridges! The new drill is that the sepoy bites
+the cartridge first, to spill a little powder and make priming. Which
+true believer wishes to defile himself with pig's fat? Why do they
+this? Why are the Christian missionaries here? Ask both riddles with one
+breath, for both two are one!"
+
+"Slay, then!"
+
+"Up now, and slay!"
+
+There would be an instant, eager restlessness, while Ali Partab would
+glance over to where the horses stood, and would wonder why the
+word that loosed him was so long in coming. The hadji would calm his
+listeners 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-nine
+and a portion have yet run. Wait for the hour!"
+
+Then, for perhaps the hundredth time, Ali Partab would pretend that
+movement alone could save one or other of his horses from heat apoplexy.
+He would mount, and ride at a walking pace through the streets that
+seemed like a night view of a stricken battle-field, turn down by the
+palace wall, and then canter to the schoolhouse, where the hag--wiser
+than 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 that
+he had no lance with him with which to prod her in the ribs--scratch
+herself a time or two like a stray dog half awakened--and then leer
+knowingly.
+
+"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 that
+she could look at them without the opportunity to snatch.
+
+"There is no word yet," she would answer, when her eyes had feasted on
+them 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 to
+bring 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 and
+gibber in the road and curl again on to her blanket in the blackest
+corner by the door.
+
+Once, on an expedition of that kind, he encountered Duncan McClean
+himself. The lean, tall Scotsman, gray-headed from the cares he had
+taken on himself, a little bowed from heat and hopelessness, but showing
+no least symptom of surrender in the kind, strong lines of a rugged
+face, stood, eyes upward, in the moonlight. The moon, at least, looked
+cool. It was at the full, like a disk of silver, and he seemed to drink
+in the beams that bathed him.
+
+"Does he worship it?" wondered Ali Partab, reining from an amble to a
+walk and watching half-reverently. The followers of Mohammed are most
+superstitious about the moon. The feeling that he had for this man of
+peace 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 word
+spoken or a deed seen done, that this would be a wielder of cold steel
+to be reckoned should he ever slough the robes of peace and take it into
+his silvered head to fight. The Rajput, that respects decision above all
+other virtues, perhaps because it is the one that he most lacks, could
+sense 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 as
+Mahommed Gunga is polite in recognition of the trust. He leaned,
+then, against the horse's withers, wondering how far he ought to let
+politeness go and whether his honor bade him show contempt for the
+Christian's creed.
+
+"Is there any way, I wonder," asked the Scotsman, the clean-clipped
+suspicion of Scots dialect betraying itself even through the Hindustanee
+that 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 his
+viewpoint 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 the
+proper 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, once
+of the Rajput Horse, who very kindly carried letters for me. Perhaps you
+know of some other gentleman of your race about to travel northward? He
+could earn, at least, gratitude."
+
+"So-ho!" thought Ali Partab to himself. "I have known men of his race
+who would have offered money, to be spat on!--Not now, sahib," he
+answered 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 many
+are there, I wonder, in India who have such things said of them when
+their backs are turned?"
+
+"More than a few, sahib! I would draw steel for the good name of more
+than 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, as
+a 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 in
+this horse of mine."
+
+"Well, tell me, since you won't stay, have you any notion who the man
+was whom Mahommed Gunga sent to get my letters? My daughter handed them
+to him one evening, late, at this door."
+
+"I am he, sahib."
+
+"Then--I understood--perhaps I was mistaken--I thought it was his man
+who came?"
+
+"Praised be Allah, I am his man, sahib!"
+
+"Oh! I wonder whether my servants praise God for the privilege!" McClean
+made the remark only half-aloud and in English. Ali Partab could not
+have understood the words, but he may have caught their meaning, for he
+glanced sideways at the old hag mumbling in the shadow and grinned into
+his beard. "Are you in communication with him? Could you get a letter to
+him?"
+
+"I have no slightest notion where he is, sahib."
+
+"If my letters could once reach him, wherever he might be, I would feel
+confident of their arriving at their destination."
+
+"I, too, sahib!"
+
+"I sent one letter--to a government official. It cannot have reached
+him, for there should have been an answer and none has come. It had
+reference to this terrible suttee business. Suttee is against the law
+as well as against all dictates of reason and humanity; yet the Hindoos
+make a constant practice of it here under our very eyes. These native
+states are under treaty to observe the law. I intend to do all in my
+power to put a stop to their ghoulish practices, and Maharajah Howrah
+knows what my intentions are. It must be a Mohammedan, this time, to
+whom I intrust my correspondence on suttee!"
+
+Now, a Rangar is a man whose ancestors were Hindoos but who
+became converts to Islam. Like all proselytes, they adhere more
+enthusiastically to their religion than do the men whose mother creed
+it is; and the fact that the Rangars originally became converts under
+duress is often thrown in their teeth by the Hindoos, who gain nothing
+in the way of brotherly regard in the process. A Rangar hates a Hindoo
+as enthusiastically as he loves a fight. Ali Partab began to drum his
+fingers on his teeth and to exhibit less impatience to be off.
+
+"There is no knowing, sahib. I, too, am no advocate of superstitious
+practices involving cruelty. I might get a letter through. My commission
+from the risaldar-sahib would include all honorable matters not
+obstructive 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 my
+business is accomplished. It would be necessary first to assure me on
+that point. My honor is involved in that matter. To whom, and of what
+nature, would the letter be?"
+
+"A letter to the Company's Resident at Abu, reporting to him that Hindoo
+widows are still compelled in this city to burn themselves to death
+above 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 find
+a 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 darkness
+his 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 occasional
+long poles of men who prodded at the embers. Ululating through the din
+of tom-toms he could catch the wails of women. He shuddered, prayed a
+little, and went in.
+
+That day even the little bazaar fosterlings, whom he had begged, and
+coaxed, and taught, had all deserted to be present at the burning of
+three widows. Even the lepers in the tiny hospital that he had started
+had limped out for a distant view. He had watched a year's work
+all 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 been
+hard-bitten in his youth and trained in a hard, grim school. In the Isle
+of Skye he had seen the little cabin where his mother lived pulled down
+to make more room for a fifty-thousand-acre deer-forest. He had seen his
+mother beg.
+
+He had worked his way to Edinburgh, toiled at starvation wages for the
+sake of leave to learn at night, burned midnight oil, and failed at the
+end of it, through ill health, to pass for his degree.
+
+He had loved as only hard-hammered men can love, and had married after
+a struggle the very thought of which would have melted the courage of an
+ordinary man, only to see his wife die when her child was born. And even
+then, in that awful hour, he had not felt the utterness of misery such
+as came to him when he saw that his work in Howrah was undone. He had
+given of his best, and all his best, and it seemed that he had given it
+for nothing.
+
+"Who was that man, father?" asked a very weary voice through which
+courage seemed to live yet, as the tiniest suspicion of a sweet refrain
+still 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 on
+this awful business to the Resident at Abu."
+
+"Father, listen! Listen, please!" Rosemary McClean drew a chair for him
+and knelt beside him. Youth saved her face from being drawn as his, but
+the 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 wraith
+shall be unlovely. She had tried the personal appeal with him a hundred
+times, and argument a thousand; now, she used both in a concentrated,
+earnest effort to prevail over his stubborn will. Her will was as strong
+as his, and yielded place to nothing but her sense of loyalty. There
+were not only Rajputs, as the Rajputs knew, who could be true to a high
+ideal. "I am sure that whoever that man is he must be the link between
+us and the safety Mahommed Gunga spoke of. Otherwise, why does he stay
+behind? 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 have
+let my selfish pleasure in having you near me overcome my sense of
+duty--that, and my faithless fear that you would not be properly
+provided for. I think, too, that I have never quite induced myself
+to trust natives sufficiently--even native gentlemen. You shall go,
+Rosemary. You shall go as soon as I can get word to Mahommed Gunga's
+man. Call that old woman in."
+
+"Father, I will not go without you, and you know it! My place is with
+you, and I have quite made up my mind. If you stay, I stay! My presence
+here has saved your life a hundred times over. No, I don't mean just
+when you were ill; I mean that they dare not lay a finger on me! They
+know that a nation which respects their women would strike hard and
+swiftly to avenge a woman of its own! If I were to go away and leave
+you they would poison you or stab you within a day, and then hold a mock
+trial and hang some innocent or other to blind the British Government. I
+would 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 said
+sadly. "But I did not know--I would never have believed." Then wrath
+took hold of him--the awful, cold anger of the Puritan that hates evil
+as a concrete thing, to be ripped apart with steel. "God's wrath shall
+burst 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 the
+Resident! Here, give me my writing things--where are they?"
+
+He pushed her aside, none too gently, for the fire of a Covenanter's
+anger was blazing in his eyes.
+
+"There are forty thousand British soldiers standing still, and
+wrong--black, shameful wrong--is being done! For a matter of gold--for
+fear of the cost in filthy lucre--they refrain from hurling wrong-doers
+in the dust! For the sake of dishonorable peace they leave these native
+states to misgovern themselves and stink to high heaven! Will God allow
+what they do? The shame and the sin is on England's head! Her statesmen
+shut their eyes and cry 'Peace, peace!' where there is no peace. Her
+queen sits idle on the throne while widows burn, screaming, in the
+flames of superstitious priests. Men tell her, 'All is well; there is
+British rule in India!' They are too busy robbing widows in the
+Isle of Skye to lend an ear to the cries of India's widows!
+Corruption--superstition--murder--lies--black wrong--black
+selfishness--all growing rank beneath the shadow of the British
+rule--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 the
+rankling 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 and
+down 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 would
+fall above his writing pad, she left the room and went to stand at the
+street-door, where the sluggish night air was a degree less stifling
+than in the mud-plastered, low-ceilinged room. As she stood there, one
+hand on either door-post to remind her she was living in a concrete
+world, not a charred whisp swaying in the heat, a black thing rose out
+of the blackness, and the toothless hag held out a bony hand and touched
+her.
+
+"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 little
+mission house. The flea-bitten gray pony was saddled by a sleepy saice,
+and brought round from his open-sided thatch stable in the rear. The
+violet and mauve, that precede the aching yellow glare of day were
+fading; a coppersmith began his everlasting bong-bong-bong, apparently
+reverberating from every direction; the last, almost indetectable, warm
+whiff of night wind moved and died away, and the monkeys in the near-by
+baobab chattered it a requiem. Almost on the stroke of sunrise Rosemary
+McClean stepped out--settled her sun-helmet, with a moue above the
+chin-strap that was wasted on flat-bosomed, black grandmotherdom and
+sulky groom--and mounted.
+
+She needed no help. The pony stood as though he knew that the hot wind
+would soon dry the life out of him; and, though dark rings beneath dark
+eyes betrayed the work of heat and sleepless worry on a girl who should
+have graced the cool, sweet, rain-swept hills of Scotland, she had
+spirit left yet and an unspent store of youth. The saice seemed more
+weathered than the twenty-year-old girl, for he limped back into the
+smelly shelter of the servants' quarters to cook his breakfast and
+mumble about dogs and sahibs who prefer the sun.
+
+She looked shrunk inside the riding-habit--not shrivelled, for she sat
+too straight, but as though the cotton jacket had been made for a larger
+woman. If she seemed tired, and if a stranger might have guessed that
+her head ached until the chestnut curls were too heavy for it, she was
+still supple. And, as she whipped the pony into an unwilling trot and
+old mission-named Joanna broke into a jog behind, revolt--no longer
+impatience, or discontent, or sorrow, but reckless rebellion--rode with
+her.
+
+It was there, plain for the world to see, in the firm lines of a little
+Puritan mouth, in the angle of a high-held chin in the set of a gallant
+little pair of shoulders. The pony felt it, and leaned forward to a
+canter. Joanna scented, smelt, or sensed in some manner known to Eastern
+old 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 customary
+tricks of corner-cutting and rest-snatching under eaves; she tucked her
+head down and jogged forward in the dust, more like a dog than ever. It
+was a dog's silent, striving determination to be there when the finish
+came--a dog's disregard of all object or objective but his master's--but
+a long-thrown stride, and a crafty, beady eye that promised more
+usefulness than a dog's when called on.
+
+The first word spoken was when Rosemary drew rein a little more than
+half-way along the palace wall.
+
+"Are you tired yet, Joanna?"
+
+"Uh-uh!" the woman answered, shaking her head violently and pointing at
+the sun that mounted every minute higher. The argument was obvious; in
+less than twenty minutes the whole horizon would be shimmering again
+like shaken plates of brass; wherever the other end might be, a rest
+would be better there than here! Her mistress nodded, and rode on again,
+faster yet; she had learned long ago that Joanna could show a dusty
+pair of heels to almost anything that ran, and she had never yet
+known distance tire her; it had been the thought of distance and speed
+combined that made her pause and ask.
+
+She did not stop again until they had cantered up through the awakening
+bazaar, where unclean-looking merchants and their underlings rinsed out
+their teeth noisily above the gutters, and the pariah dogs had started
+nosing in among the muck for things unthinkable to eat. The sun had
+shortened up the shadows and begun to beat down through the gaps; the
+advance-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 arch
+of the caravansary, where Mahommed Gunga's boots and spurs had caught
+her eye once.
+
+"Now, Joanna!" She leaned back from the saddle and spoke low, but with
+a certain thrill. "Go in there, find me Mahommed Gunga-sahib's man, and
+bring 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 in
+by myself!"
+
+The old woman looked at her piercingly with eyes that gleamed from amid
+a bunch of wrinkles, then motioned with a skinny arm in the direction of
+an 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 taken
+shelter.
+
+Fifteen minutes later she emerged with Ali Partab, who looked sleepy,
+but still more ashamed of his unmilitary dishabille. Rosemary McClean
+glanced left and right--forgot about the awning and the custom which
+decrees aloofness--ignored the old woman's waving arm and Ali Partab's
+frown, and rode toward him eagerly.
+
+"Did Mahommed Gunga-sahib leave you here with any orders relative to
+me?" she asked.
+
+The Rajput bowed.
+
+"Before he went away, he spoke to me of safety, and told me he would
+leave a link between me and men whom I may trust."
+
+The Rajput bowed again. Neither of them saw an elbow laid on the
+window-ledge of a room above the arch; it disappeared, and very gingerly
+a bared black head replaced it. Then the head too disappeared.
+
+The girl's eyes sparkled as the reassurance came that at least one good
+fighting man was waiting to do nothing but assist her. For the moment
+she threw caution to the winds and remembered nothing but her plight and
+her 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 the
+words 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 who
+are to be trusted?"
+
+Ali Partab grinned and then drew himself up with a movement of polite
+dissent. 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 to
+keep strictly to the letter of his orders.
+
+"Miss-sahib, I cannot do that. So said Mahommed Gunga: 'When the hag
+brings word, then take three horses and bear the Miss-sahib and her
+father to my cousin Alwa's place.' I stand ready to obey, but the
+padre-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 to
+some British residency."
+
+"That would be for Alwa, should he see fit. He has men and horses, and
+a fort that is impregnable. The Miss-sahib would be safe there under all
+circumstances."
+
+"But--but, supposing I declined to accept that invitation? Supposing I
+preferred 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 you
+changed your mind, or until Mahommed Gunga by letter or by word of mouth
+relieved 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 disappeared
+below the ledge furtively, and none of the three were aware of it.
+For that matter, the old woman was gazing intently at Ali Partab and
+listening eagerly; he stood almost underneath the arch, and Miss McClean
+was staring at him frowning with the effort to translate her thoughts
+into a language that is very far from easy. They would none of them have
+seen the roof descending on them.
+
+"And--and won't you under any circumstances take us, say, to the
+Resident 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 order
+without good reason for it; but beyond that he chose me, because he said
+the 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 carried
+out; suspicions, fears are nothing unless they stand in the way of
+accomplishment. I await your word. I am ready. The horses are here--good
+horses--lean and hard. The order is that you must ask me."
+
+"Thank you--er--Ali what?--thank you, Ali Partab." The disappointment in
+her voice was scarcely more noticeable than the despondency her drooping
+figure showed. The little shoulders that had sat so square and gallantly
+seemed to have lost their strength, and there was none of the determined
+ring left in the words she hesitated for. "I--hope you will understand
+that 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 close
+at 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 back
+at little more than a walking pace--a dejected wraith of a girl on a
+dejected-looking pony, too overcome by the upsetting of her rebellious
+scheme to care or even think whether Joanna dropped out of sight or
+not. Ali Partab watched her down the street with a face that betrayed no
+emotion and no suspicion of what his thoughts might be. When she was out
+of 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 his
+place--glanced down the street once in the direction that Rosemary had
+taken--and then darted up-street as fast as his shaking paunch would
+let him. He had been gone at the least ten minutes, when Joanna, also
+furtive, also in a hurry, dodged here and there among the commencing
+surge of traffic and approached the arch again.
+
+It would be useless to try to read her mind, or to translate the glitter
+of her beady eyes into thoughts intelligible to any but an Oriental.
+It was quite clear, though, that she wished not to be noticed, that she
+feared the occupants of the caravansary, and that she had returned for
+word with Ali Partab. He, least of all, would have doubted her intention
+of demanding the two gold mohurs, for it was she who had brought the
+word that Miss McClean wanted him. But what relation that intention
+had to her loyalty or treachery, or whether she were capable of
+either--capable of anything except greed, and obedience for the sake of
+pay--were problems no man living could have guessed.
+
+She asked the lounging sweeper by the arch whether Ali Partab had ridden
+out as yet. He jeered back outrageous improprieties, suggestive of
+impossible ambition on the hag's part. She called him "sahib," dubbed
+him "father of a dozen stalwart sons," returned a few of his immodest
+compliments with a flattering laugh, and learned that Ali Partab was
+still busy in the caravansary. Then she proceeded to make herself
+very inconspicuous beside a two-wheeled wagon, up-ended in the gutter
+opposite the arch, and waited with eastern patience for the horseman to
+ride out.
+
+She saw the fat Hindoo come back, in no particular hurry now, and seat
+himself not far from her. Later she saw eight horsemen ride down the
+street, pass the arch, wheel, and halt. She noticed that they were
+not Maharajah Howrah's men but a portion of his brother Jaimihr's
+body-guard, then took no further notice of them. If they chose to wait
+there, it was no affair of hers, and to appear inquisitive would be to
+invite 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 showing
+symptoms of "brushing" lately. Joanna rose instantly to cross the street
+and intercept him; and she recoiled in the nick of time to save herself
+from being ridden down.
+
+At a sign from the fat Hindoo the eight horsemen spurred, and swooped
+up-street with the speed and certainty of sparrow-hawks and the noise of
+devastation. They rode down Ali Partab--unhorsed him--bound him--threw
+him on his horse again--and galloped off before any but the Hindoo had
+time to realize that he was their objective. He was gone--snatched
+like a chicken from the coop. Noise and dust were all the trace or
+explanation that he left. The mazy streets swallowed him; the Hindoo
+waddled over to the arch and disappeared without a smile on his face to
+show 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 him
+anywhere again. Then, by a trail that no one would have guessed at and
+few could have followed, she made her way to Jaimihr's palace--three
+miles away from Howrah's--where a dozen sulky-looking sepoys lolled,
+dismounted, by the wooden gate. There was neither sight nor sound of
+mounted men, and the gate was shut; but in the middle of the roadway
+there was smoking dung, and there was a suspicion of overacting about
+the indifference of the guardians of the entrance.
+
+There was no overacting, though, in what Joanna did. Nobody would have
+dreamed that she was playing any kind of part, or interested in anything
+at all except the coppers that she begged for. She squatted in
+the roadway, ink-black and clear-cut in the now blazing sunlight,
+alternately flattering them and pretending to a knowledge of
+unguessed-at witchcraft.
+
+She was there still at midday when they changed the guard. She was
+there when night fell, still squatting in the roadway, still exchanging
+repartee and hints at the supernatural with armed men who shuddered now
+and then between their bursts of mockery. The sore, suffering dogs that
+sniff through the night for worse eyesores than themselves whimpered and
+watched her. The guard changed and the moon paled, but she stayed
+on; and whatever her purpose, or whatever information she obtained in
+fragments amid the raillery, she did not return to the mission house.
+
+It was not until Rosemary McClean returned and dismounted by the door
+that she realized Joanna had not kept pace. Even then she thought little
+of it; the old woman often lingered on the homeward way when the chance
+of her being needed was remote. Two or three hours passed before the
+suspicion rose that anything might have happened to Joanna, and even
+then she might not have been remembered had not Duncan McClean asked for
+her.
+
+"I have changed my mind," he said, calling Rosemary into the long, low
+living-room. It was darkened to exclude the hot wind and the glare, and
+he looked like a ghost as he rose to meet her. "I have decided that my
+duty is to get away from this place for your sake and for the sake of
+the cause I have at heart. We are doing no good here. I can do most by
+going to the Resident, or even to somebody higher up than he, and laying
+my case before him personally. Send for Joanna, and tell her to go and
+bring Mahommed Gunga's man."
+
+It was then that they missed Joanna and began to search for her. But no
+Joanna came. It was then that Rosemary McClean rehearsed with her father
+her former conversation with Mahommed Gunga and part, at least, of her
+recent one with Ali Partab, and the missionary started off himself to
+find the horseman whom Mahommed Gunga had so thoughtfully left behind.
+
+But he very naturally found no Ali Partab. What he did discover was that
+he was followed--that a guard, unarmed but obvious, was placed around
+the mission house--that his servants deserted one by one--that no more
+children 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 him
+horses on any terms at all. He did his best to get a letter through to
+anywhere where there were British, but nobody would take it. And then
+Jaimihr came, swaggering with his escort, to offer him and his daughter
+the hospitality of his palace.
+
+He declined that offer a little testily, for the insolence behind the
+offer was less than half concealed. Jaimihr sneered as he rode away.
+
+"Perhaps a month or two of undisturbed enjoyment will induce the
+padre-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 with
+Cunningham's nervous system he was anxious to say the least of it; and
+that is only another way of saying that he was irritable. He watched the
+Englishman at breakfast, on the dak-bungalow veranda, with a sideways
+restless glance that gave the lie a dozen times over to his assumed air
+of irascible authority.
+
+"We will see now what we will see," he muttered to himself. "These who
+know such a lot imagine that the test is made. They forget that there
+be many brave men of whom but a few are fit to lead. Now--now--we will
+see!" And he kept on repeating that assurance to himself, with the
+air of a man who would like to be assured, but is not, while he
+ostentatiously found fault with every single thing on which his eyes
+lit.
+
+"One would think that the Risaldar-sahib were afraid of consequences!"
+whispered the youngest of his followers, stung to the quick by a quite
+unmerited 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 gauge
+proportions accurately; so there was nothing really ridiculous in the
+suggestion. A young white man who has had his temper worked up to
+the boiling-point, his nerves deliberately racked, and then has been
+subjected to the visit of a driven tiger, may be confidently expected to
+exhibit all the faults of which his character is capable.
+
+To make the situation even more ticklish, Cunningham's servant, in
+his zeal for his master's comfort, had forgotten to sham sickness, and
+instead of limping was in abominably active evidence. He was even doing
+more than was expected of him. Ralph Cunningham had said nothing to
+him--had not needed to; every single thing that a pampered sahib could
+imagine that he needed was done for him in the proper order, without
+noise or awkwardness, and the Risaldar cursed as he watched the
+clockwork-perfect service. He had hoped for a lapse that might call
+forth some pointer, either by way of irritation or amusement, as to how
+young 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 he
+had 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 with
+so little interest, that no deductions could be drawn from it. He was
+neither 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 wished
+to give audience. Then his eyes lit for the first time on the tiger-skin
+that 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 skin
+without a sign to Mahommed Gunga, counted the claws one by one to
+make sure that no superstitious native had purloined any of them, and
+returned 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 good
+enough to--"
+
+The Risaldar heard the order, and was on his way to the veranda before
+the servant started to convey the message. He took no chances on a
+reprimand about his shoes, for he swaggered up in riding-boots, which
+no 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 which
+he 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 creaked
+again 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 mind
+obliging me now and then, do you?"
+
+The youngster leaned forward confidentially, one elbow on his knee, and
+looked half-serious, as though what he had to ask were more important
+than 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 you
+want to kennel a tiger in my bedroom, d'you mind giving me notice in
+advance? It's not the stink I mind, nor being waked up; it's the deuced
+awful risk of hurting somebody. Besides--look how I spoilt that tiger's
+mask! The skins I've always admired at home had been shot where it
+didn't show so badly."
+
+There was not even the symptom of a smile on Cunningham's face. He
+looked straight into Mahommed Gunga's eyes, and spoke as one man talking
+calm common sense to another. He raised his hand as the Rajput began to
+stammer 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 there
+o' nights, I'd have chosen another room, that's all--some room where
+I couldn't smell him, and where I shouldn't run the risk of killing an
+inoffensive man. Why, I might have shot you! Think how sorry I'd have
+been!"
+
+The Risaldar did not quite know what to say; so, wiser than most, he
+said 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 sick
+without giving me notice, and without putting oil in my lamp, I'll have
+him fed to the tiger before he's brought into my room? Just tell him
+that quietly, will you? Say it slowly so that it sinks in. Thanks."
+
+Straight-faced as Cunningham himself, the Risaldar tongue-lashed
+the servant with harsh, tooth-rasping words that brought him up to
+attention. Whether he interpreted or not the exact meaning of what
+Cunningham had said, he at least produced the desired effect;
+the servant mumbled apologetic nothings and slunk off the veranda
+backward--to go away and hold his sides with laughter at the back of the
+dak-bungalow. There Mahommed Gunga found him afterward and administered
+a thrashing--not, as he was careful to explain, for disobedience, but
+for having dared to be amused at the Risaldar's discomfiture.
+
+But there was still one point that weighed heavily on Mahommed Gunga's
+mind as the servant shuffled off and left him alone face to face with
+Cunningham. There is as a very general rule not more than one man-eating
+tiger in a neighborhood, and not even the greenest specimen of subaltern
+new 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 that
+very morning. He hesitated--said nothing for the moment--and wondered
+whether his best course would be to go ahead and pretend to beat out the
+jungle and tell some lie or other about the tiger having got away. But
+Ralph Cunningham, with serious gray eyes fixed full on his, saved him
+the trouble of deciding.
+
+"If it's all one to you, Mahommed Gunga," he said, the corner of his
+mouth just flickering, "we'll move on from here at once. This is a
+beastly old bungalow to sleep in, and shooting tigers don't seem so
+terribly exciting to me. Besides, the climate here must be rotten for
+the horses."
+
+"As you wish, sahib."
+
+"Very well--if the choice rests with me, I wish it. It might--ah--save
+the villagers a lot of hard work beating through the jungle, mightn't
+it--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 or
+two later Cunningham's ears caught the sound of a riding-switch, lustily
+applied, and of muffled groans. He suspected readily enough what was
+going on, particularly since his servant was not in evidence, but he
+dared not laugh on the veranda. He went inside, and made believe to be
+busy with his bag before he relaxed the muscles of his face.
+
+"Now, I wonder whether I handled that situation rightly?" he asked
+himself between chuckles. "One thing I know--if that old ruffian plays
+another trick on me--one more of any kind--Ill show my teeth. There's a
+thing known as the limit!"
+
+He would not have wondered, though, if he could have overheard Mahommed
+Gunga less than an hour later. The Risaldar had stayed behind to make
+sure nothing had been forgotten, and one of his men remained with him.
+
+"There be sahibs and then sahibs," said Mahommed Gunga. "Two kinds are
+the worst--those who strike readily in anger and use bad language when
+annoyed, and those whose lips are thin and who save their vengeance to
+be wreaked later on. They are worse, either of them, than the sahib who
+is usually drunk."
+
+"And Cunnigan?"
+
+"Is altogether otherwise. As his father was, and as a few other sahibs I
+have met, he understands what is not spoken--concedes dignity to him who
+is caught napping, as one who having disarmed his adversary, allows him
+to recover his weapon--and--"
+
+"And?"
+
+"Proves himself a man worth following! I myself will slit the throat of
+any man I catch disparaging the name of Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur! By
+the blood of God--by my medals, my own honor, and the good name of
+Pukka-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's
+orders--the villagers had decked with sickly scented forest flowers, and
+as they passed they both saluted it in silence. The fakir of the night
+before, sitting not very far away from it, mimicked them. He sprang on
+the stone as soon as they were out of sight, scattering the flowers all
+about him, and calling down the vengeance of a hundred gods on the heads
+of 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 tigers
+to his gun, and that in itself would have been sufficient to damn him in
+the eyes of more than half of the men who held commands there. Jealousy
+in those days of slow promotion and intrenched influence had eaten
+into the very understanding of men whose only excuse for rule over a
+conquered people ought to have been understanding.
+
+It was not considered decent for a boy of twenty-one to do much more
+than dare to be alive. For any man at all to offer advice or information
+to his senior was rank presumption. Criticism was high treason. Sport,
+such as tiger-shooting, was for those whose age and apoplectic temper
+rendered 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 the
+youngster whom he had trained for months now in the belief that India
+had nothing much to do except reverence him. He laughed aloud, when he
+could get away to do it, at the flush of indignation on his protege's
+face. Tall, lean-limbed, full of health and spirits, he had paid his
+duty call on a General of Division; with the boyish enthusiasm that says
+so plainly, "Laugh with me, for the world is mine!" he had boasted
+his good luck on the road, only to be snubbed thoroughly and told that
+tiger-shooting was not what he came for.
+
+He took the snub like a man and made no complaint to anybody; he did
+not even mention it to the other subalterns, who, most of them, made no
+secret of their dissatisfaction and its hundred causes. He listened,
+and it was not very long before it dawned on him that, had not Mahommed
+Gunga gone with him to pay a call as well, the General Division would
+not have so much as interviewed him.
+
+Mahommed Gunga soon became the bane of his existence. The veteran seemed
+in no hurry to go back to his estate that must have been in serious need
+of management by this time, but would ride off on mysterious errands and
+return with a dozen or more black-bearded horsemen each time. He would
+introduce them to Cunningham in public whenever possible under the eyes
+of outraged seniors who would swear and, fume and ride away disgust
+at the reverence paid to "a mere boy, sir--a bally, ignorant young
+jackanapes!"
+
+Had Cunningham been other than a born soldier with his soldier senses
+all on edge and sleepless, he would have fallen foul of disgrace within
+a month. He was unattached as yet, and that fact gave opportunity to
+the men who looked for it to try to "take the conceit out of the cub, by
+gad."
+
+"They "--everybody spoke of them as "they"--conceived the brilliant idea
+of confronting the youngster with conditions which he lacked experience
+to cope with. They set him to deal with circumstances which had long
+ago proved too difficult for themselves, and awaited confidently the
+outcome--the crass mistake, or oversight, or mere misfortune that, with
+the aid of a possible court martial, would reduce him to a proper state
+of humbleness.
+
+Peshawur, the greatest garrison in northern India, was there on
+sufferance, apparently. For lack of energetic men in authority to deal
+with them, the border robbers plundered while the troops remained cooped
+up within the unhealthiest station on the list. The government itself,
+with several thousand troops to back it up, was paying blackmail to the
+border thieves! There was not a government bungalow in all Peshawur that
+did not have its "watchman," hired from over the border, well paid to
+sleep on the veranda lest his friends should come and take tribute in an
+even more unseemly manner.
+
+The younger men, whose sense of fitness had not yet been rotted by
+climate and system and prerogative, swore at the condition; there were
+one or two men higher up, destined to make history, whose voices, raised
+in emphatic protest, were drowned in the drone of "Peace! Peace is the
+thing to work for. Compromise, consideration, courtesy, these three are
+the keys of rule." They failed to realize that cowardice was their
+real keynote, and that the threefold method that they vaunted was quite
+useless without a stiffening of courage.
+
+So brave men, who had more courtesy in each of their fingers than
+most of the seniors had all put together, had to bow to a scandalous
+condition that made England's rule a laughing-stock within a stone's
+throw of the city limits. And they had to submit to the indecency of
+seeing a new, inexperienced arrival picked for the task of commanding a
+body of irregulars, for no other reason than because it was considered
+wise to make an exhibition of him.
+
+Cunningham became half policeman, half soldier, in charge of a small
+special force of mounted men engaged for the purpose of patrol. He had
+nothing to do with the selection of them; that business was attended
+to perfunctorily by a man very high up in departmental service, who
+considered Cunningham a nuisance. He was a gentleman who did not know
+Mahommed Gunga; another thing he did not know was the comfortable feel
+of work well done; so he was more than pleased when Mahommed Gunga
+dropped in from nowhere in particular--paid him scandalously untrue
+compliments without a blush or a smile and offered to produce the
+required number of men at once.
+
+Only fifty were required. Mahommed Gunga brought three hundred to select
+from, and, when asked to do so in order to save time and trouble, picked
+out the fifty best.
+
+"There are your men!" said the Personage off-handedly, when they had
+been sworn in in a group. "Be good enough to remember, Mr. Cunningham,
+that you are now responsible for their behavior, and for the proper
+night patrolling of the city limits."
+
+That was a tall order, and in spite of all of youth's enthusiasm was
+enough to make any young fellow nervous. But Mahommed Gunga met him in
+the street, saluted him with almost sacrilegious ceremony, and drew him
+to one side.
+
+"Have courage, now, bahadur! I ride away to visit my estates (he spoke
+of them always in the plural, as though he owned a county or two). You
+have under you the best eyes and the keenest blades along the border for
+I 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 none
+in any case! Work! Work for what is coming!"
+
+"You speak as though the fate of a continent were hanging in the
+balance," laughed Cunningham, shaking hands with him.
+
+"I speak truth!" said Mahommed Gunga, riding off and leaving the
+youngster 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 control
+were such because circumstance had blinded them. There was not a man
+among the highly placed ones even who would have deliberately placed his
+own 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 could
+recognize as strong-armed justice.
+
+The root of the trouble lay in centralization of authority, and rigid
+adherence to the rule of seniority. Combined, these two processes had
+served to bring about a state of things that is nearly unbelievable when
+viewed in the light of modern love for efficiency. Young men, with the
+fire of ambition burning in them and a proper scorn for mere superficial
+ceremony, had to sweat their tempers and bow down beneath the yoke of
+senile pompousness.
+
+Strong, savage, powder-weaned Hill-tribesmen--inheritors of egoistic
+independence and a love of loot--laughed loud and long and openly at
+System that prevented officers from taking arms against them until
+authority could come by delegate from somebody who slept. By that time
+they would be across the border, quarrelling among themselves about
+division of the plunder!
+
+They had respect in plenty for the youth and virile middle age that
+dealt with them on the rare occasions when a timely blow was loosed.
+Then they had proof that from that strange, mad country overseas there
+came men who could lead men--men who could strike, and who knew enough
+to hold their hands when the sudden blow had told--just men, who could
+keep their plighted word. No border thief pretended that the British
+could not rule him; to a man, they laughed because the possible was not
+imposed. And to the last bold, ruffianly iconoclast they stole when,
+where, and what they dared.
+
+Things altered strangely soon after Ralph Cunningham, with the
+diffidence of youth but the blood of a line of soldiers leaping in
+him, took charge of his tiny force of nondescripts. They were neither
+soldiers nor police. Nominally, he was everybody's dog, and so were
+they; actually he found himself at the head of a tiny department of
+his own, because it was nobody's affair to give him orders. They had
+deliberately turned him loose "to hang himself," and their hope that he
+might get his head into a noose of trouble as soon as possible--the very
+liberty they gave him, on purpose for his quick damnation--was the means
+of making reputation for him.
+
+Nobody advised him; so with singularly British phlegm and not more
+than ordinary common sense he devised a method of his own for scotching
+night-prowlers. He stationed his men at well-considered vantage-points,
+and trusted them. With a party of ten, he patrolled the city ceaselessly
+himself and whipped every "watchman" he caught sleeping. One by one, the
+blackmailing brigade began to see the discomfort of a job that called
+for real wakefulness, and deserted over the Hills to urge the resumption
+of raids in force. One by one, the night-prowling fraternity were
+shot as they sneaked past sentries. One by one, the tale of robberies
+diminished. It was merely a question of one man, and he awake,
+having power to act without first submitting a request to somebody in
+triplicate on blue-form B.
+
+The time came, after a month or two, when even natives dared to leave
+their houses after dark. The time came very soon, indeed, when the
+nearest tribes began to hold war councils and inveigh against the
+falling off of the supply of plunder. Cunningham was complimented
+openly. He was even praised by one of "Them." So it was perfectly
+natural, and quite in keeping with tradition, that he should shortly
+be relieved, and that a senior to him should be placed in charge of his
+little force, with orders to "organize" it.
+
+The organization process lasted about twelve hours; at the end of that
+time every single man had deserted, horse and arms! Two nights later,
+the prowling and plundering was once more in full swing, and Cunningham
+was blamed for it; it was obvious to any man of curry-and-port-wine
+proclivities that his method, or lack of it, had completely undermined
+his men's loyalty!
+
+A whole committee of gray-headed gentlemen took trouble to point out
+to him his utter failure; but a brigadier, who was not a member of that
+committee, and who was considered something of an upstart, asked that
+he might be appointed to a troop of irregular cavalry that had recently
+been raised. With glee--with a sigh of relief so heartfelt and unanimous
+that it could be heard across the street--the committee leaped at the
+suggestion. The proper person was induced without difficulty to put
+his signature to the required paper, and Cunningham found himself
+transferred to irregular oblivion. Incidentally he found himself
+commanding few less than a hundred men, so many of whose first names
+were Mahommed or Mohammed that the muster-roll looked like a list of
+Allah'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 long
+black military boot and silver spur, and half-recognized the up-and-down
+movement of the crossed leg long before he reached the tent. It was
+like father and son meeting, almost, as the Rajput rose to greet him
+and waited respectfully until he had paid his compliments to his new
+commander. Cunningham felt throat-bound, and could scarcely more than
+stammer his introduction of himself.
+
+"I know who you are and all about you," said the Brigadier. "Used to
+know your father well. I applied to have you in my command partly for
+your father's sake, but principally because Risaldar Mahommed Gunga
+spake so highly of you. He tells me he has had an eye on you from the
+start, and that you shape well. Remember, this is irregular cavalry, and
+in many respects quite unlike regulars. You'll need tact and a firm hand
+combined, and you mustn't ever forget that the men whom you will lead
+are gentlemen."
+
+Cunningham reported to his Colonel, only to discover that he, too, knew
+all about him. The Colonel was less inclined to be restricted as to
+topic, and less mindful of discretion than the Brigadier.
+
+"I hear they couldn't stand you in Peshawur. That's hopeful! If you'd
+come with a recommendation from that quarter, I'd have packed you off
+back again. I never in my life would have believed that a dozen men
+could 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. He
+did not look them over. When he reached the lines, they came out in a
+swarm--passed him one by one, eyed him, as traders eye a horse--and then
+saluted him a second time, with the greeting:
+
+"Salaam, Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur!"
+
+"Yes! You're in disgrace!" said his Colonel, noticing the color rising
+to 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 the
+appetites of the hungry crowd beyond the border. Those closest to
+Peshawur, who had always done the looting, were not the ultimate
+consignees by any means; there were other tribes who bought from
+them--others yet to whom they paid tribute in the shape of stolen
+rifles. Cunningham's administration had upset the whole modus vivendi of
+the 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 compensated
+for. The tribes at the rear were clamorous and would not listen to
+argument or explanation; they had collected in hundreds, led by the
+notorious Khumel Khan, preparatory to raiding in real earnest and with
+sufficient force to carry all before them at the first surprise attack.
+
+They were disappointed when the pilfering resumed, for a tribal Hillman
+would generally rather fight than eat, and would always prefer his
+dinner 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 case
+and listening to the intricately detailed information brought by the
+deserting watchmen. And as they discussed things, but before they had
+time to decide on any plan, the Brigadier commanding the Irregulars got
+wind of them.
+
+He was a man who did not worry about the feelings of senile heads of
+red-tape-bound departments; nor was he particularly hidebound by respect
+for the laws of evidence. When he knew a thing, he knew it; then he
+either acted or did not act, as the circumstances might dictate. And
+when the deed was done or left undone, and was quite beyond the reach of
+criticism, he would send in a verbose, voluminous report, written out in
+several colored inks, on all the special forms he could get hold of. The
+heads of departments would be too busy for the next twelvemonth trying
+to get the form of the report straightened out to be able to give any
+attention to the details of it; and then it would be too late. But he
+was a brigadier, and what he could do with impunity and quiet amusement
+would have brought down the whole Anglo-Indian Government in awful wrath
+on the head of a subordinate.
+
+He heard of the tribesmen under Khumel Khan one evening. At dawn his
+tents stood empty and the horse-lines were long bands of brown on the
+green grass. The pegs were up; only the burying beetles labored where
+the stamping chargers had neighed overnight.
+
+The hunger-making wind that sweeps down, snow-sweetened, from the
+Himalayas bore with it intermittent thunder from four thousand hoofs
+as, split in three and swooping from three different directions, the
+squadrons viewed, gave tongue, and launched themselves, roaring, at the
+half-awakened plotters of the night before.
+
+There was a battle, of a kind, in a bowlder-lined valley where the early
+morning sun had not yet reached to lift the chill. Long lances--devils'
+antennae--searched out the crevices where rock-bred mountain-men sought
+cover; too suddenly for clumsy-fingered Hillmen to reload, the reformed
+troops charged wedgewise into rallying detachments. In an hour, or less,
+there were prisoners being herded like cattle in the valley bottom, and
+a sting had been drawn from the border wasp that would not grow again
+for a year or two to come.
+
+But Khumel Khan was missing. Khumel Khan, the tulwar man--he whose boast
+it was that he could hew through two men's necks at one whistling sweep
+of his notched, curved cimeter--had broken through with a dozen at his
+back. He had burst through the half-troop guarding the upper end of
+the defile, had left them red and reeling to count their dead, and the
+overfolding hill-spurs swallowed him.
+
+"Mr. Cunningham! Take your troop, please, and find their chief! Hunt him
+out, ride him down, and get him! Don't come back until you do!"
+
+The real thing! The real red thing within a year! A lone
+command--and that is the only thing a subaltern of spunk may pray
+for!--eighty-and-eight hawk-eyed troopers asking only for the
+opportunity to show their worth--lean, hungry hills to hunt in, no
+commissariat, fair law to the quarry, and a fight--as sure as God made
+mountains, a fight at the other end! There are men here and there who
+think that the day when they pass down a crowded aisle with Her is the
+great one, other great days are all as gas-jets to the sun. And there
+are others. There are men, like Cunningham, who have heard the drumming
+of the hoofs behind them as they led their first un-apron-stringed unit
+out into the unknown. The one kind of man has tasted honey, but the
+other knows what fed, and feeds, the roaring sportsmen in Valhalla.
+
+There were crisscross trails, where low-hung clouds swept curtainwise to
+make the compass seem like a lie-begotten trick. There were
+gorges, hewn when the Titans needed dirt to build the awful
+Himalayas--shadow-darkened--sheer as the edge of Nemesis. Long-reaching,
+pile on pile, the over-lapping spurs leaned over them. The wind blew
+through them amid silence that swallowed and made nothing of the din
+which rides with armed men.
+
+But, with eyes that were made for hunting, on horses that seemed part
+of them, they tracked and trailed--and viewed at last. Their shout gave
+Khumel 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. His
+companions scattered much as a charge of shrapnel shrieks through the
+rocks, but Khumel Khan knew well enough that he was the quarry--his was
+the head that by no conceivable chance would be allowed to plan
+fresh villainies. He might have run yet a little way, but he saw the
+uselessness, and stood.
+
+The troop, lined out knee to knee, could come within a hundred paces of
+him without breaking; it formed a base, then, to a triangle from which
+the 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 the
+demand into stately Pashtu, and for answer the hill chieftain mounted
+his stolen horse and shook his tulwar. He had pistols at his belt, but
+he 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 there
+was an eighty-ninth, a lad of not yet twenty-two, whom Indian chivalry
+desired to honor. The troop had heard but the troop had not yet seen.
+
+"Ride in and take him!" ordered Cunningham and there was a
+thoroughly well acted make-believe of fear, while every eye watched
+"Cunnigan-bahadur," and the horses, spurred and reined at once, pranced
+at 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 a
+silent, tight-lipped vow that he would prove himself. Green though he
+was yet, he knew that the troop had found for him--had rounded up for
+him--had made him his opportunity; so he took it, right under their
+eyes, straight in the teeth of the stoutest tulwar man of the lower
+Himalayas.
+
+He, too, had pistols at his belt, but there was no shot fired. There
+was nothing but a spur-loosed rush and a shock--a spark-lit, swirling,
+slashing, stamping, snorting melee--a stallion and a mare up-ended--two
+strips of lightning steel that slit the wind--and a thud, as a lifeless
+border robber took the turf.
+
+There was silence then--the grim, good silence of Mohammedan
+approval--while a native officer closed up a sword-cut with his fingers
+and tore ten-yard strips from his own turban to bind the youngster's
+head. They rode back without boast or noise and camped without
+advertisement. There was no demonstration made; only-a colonel said,
+"I like things done that way, quickly, without fuss," and a brigadier
+remarked, "Hrrrumph! 'Gratulate you, Mr. Cunningham!"
+
+Later, when they camped again outside Peshawur, a reward of three
+thousand rupees that had been offered on the border outlaw's head was
+paid to Cunningham in person--a very appreciable sum to a subaltern,
+whose pay is barely sufficient for his mess bills. So, although no
+public comment was made on the matter, it was considered "decent of him"
+to contribute the whole amount to a pension fund for the dependents of
+the regiment's dead.
+
+"You know, that's your money," said his Colonel. "You can keep every
+anna of it if you choose."
+
+"I suppose I needn't be an officer unless I choose?" suggested
+Cunningham.
+
+"I don't know, youngster! I can't guess what your troop would do if you
+tried to desert it!"
+
+That was, of course, merely a diplomatic recognition of the fact that
+Cunningham had done his duty in making his men like him, and was not
+intended seriously. Nobody--not even the Brigadier--had any notion that
+the troop would very shortly have to dispense with its leader's services
+whether it wanted to or not.
+
+But it so happened that one troop at a time was requisitioned to be
+ornamental body-guard to such as were entitled to one in the frontier
+city; and the turn arrived when Cunningham was sent. None liked the
+duty. No soldier, and particularly no irregular, likes to consider
+himself 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 had
+jockeyed him away because they were jealous of him. The white scar that
+ran now like a chin-strap mark from the corner of his eye to the angle
+of his jaw would blaze red often at some deliberately thought-out,
+not fancied, insult from men who should have been too big to more than
+notice 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 that
+must have included half the zemindars on the countryside as well as
+his own small retinue. Glittering on his own account like a regiment of
+horse, and with all but a regiment clattering behind him, he chose
+the occasion to meet Cunningham when the youngster was fuming with
+impatience opposite the club veranda, waiting to escort a general.
+
+On the veranda sat a dozen men who had been at considerable pains to
+put and keep the officer of the escort in his place. If the jingle and
+glitter of the approaching cavalcade had not been sufficient to attract
+their notice, they could have stopped their cars and yet have been
+forced to hear the greeting.
+
+"Aha! Salaam sahib! Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur, bohut salaam! Thy father's
+son! Sahib, I am much honored!"
+
+The white scar blazed, but Mahommed Gunga affected not to notice the
+discomfort of his victim. Many more than a hundred sabred gentlemen
+pressed round to "do themselves the honor," as they expressed it, of
+paying Cunningham a compliment. They rode up like knights in armor in
+the 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 club
+veranda sat unhonored, while a boy of twenty-two received obeisance from
+men whose respect a king might envy. No Rajput ever lived who was not
+sure that his salute was worth more than tribute; he can be polite on
+all occasions, and what he thinks mere politeness would be considered
+overacting in the West, but his respect and his salute he keeps for his
+equals or his betters--and they must be men indeed.
+
+The coterie of high officials sat indignation-bound for ten palpitating
+minutes, until the General remembered that it was his escort that was
+waiting for him. He had ordered it an hour too soon, for the express
+sweet purpose of keeping Cunningham waiting in the sun, but it dawned
+now on his apoplectic consciousness that his engagement was most urgent.
+He descended in a pompous hurry, mounted and demanded why--by all the
+gods of India--the escort was not lined up to receive him. A minute
+later, after a loudly administered reprimand that was meant as much for
+the swarm of Rajputs as for the indignant Cunningham, he rode off with
+the escort clattering behind him.
+
+But on the club veranda, when the Rajputs with Mahommed Gunga had
+dispersed, the big wigs sat and talked the matter over very thoroughly.
+
+"It's no use blinking matters," said the senior man present, using a
+huge handkerchief to wave the flies away from the polished dome which
+rose between two side wisps of gray hair. "They're going to lionize him
+while 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 needs
+a man badly to go to Howrah and act resident there--says he hasn't heard
+from the missionaries and isn't satisfied--wants a man without too much
+authority to go there and keep an eye on things in general. Howrah's a
+hell 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. The
+trouble is the cub has done too dashed well. We've got to promote him if
+we want to be rid of him."
+
+They talked it over for an hour, and at the end of it decided Cunningham
+should go to Howrah, provided a brigadier could be induced without too
+much argument to see reason.
+
+"The Brigadier probably wants to keep him, and his Colonel will raise
+all the different kinds of Cain there are!" suggested the man who had
+begun the discussion.
+
+"I've seen brigadiers before now reduced to a proper sense of their
+own unimportance!" remarked another man. And he was connected with the
+Treasury. He knew.
+
+But a week later, when the papers were sent to the Brigadier for
+signature, he amazed everybody by consenting without the least
+objection. Nobody but he knew who his visitor had been the night before.
+
+"How did you know about it, Mahommed Gunga?" he demanded, as the veteran
+sat and faced him over the tent candle, his one lean leg swaying up and
+down, 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 his
+command when that subaltern is worth his salt.
+
+"Let him go, sahib! You have seen how we Rangars honor him--you may
+guess what difference he might make in a crisis. Sign, sahib--let him
+go!"
+
+"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 told
+tales about him, making him out better than even he is. Third, I made
+sure that all those in authority at Peshawur should hate him. That
+would have been impossible if he had been a fool, or a weak man, or
+an incompetent; but any good man can be hated easily. Fourth, sahib, I
+sent, by the hand of a man of mine, a message to Everton-sahib at Abu
+reporting to him that it was not in Howrah as it should be, and warning
+him that a sahib should be sent there. I knew that he would listen to a
+hint from me, and I knew that he had no one in his office whom he could
+send. Then, sahib, I brought matters to a head by bringing every man of
+merit whom I could raise to salute him and make an outrageous exhibition
+of 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 war
+first."
+
+"I know there will be war," said the Brigadier. "I only wish I could
+make 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 time
+to 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 in
+Howrah, not under physical restraint, and yet not able to communicate
+with any one who could render them assistance. It was the case, though,
+and not by any means an isolated case. The policy of the British
+Government, once established in India, was and always has been not to
+occupy an inch of extra territory until compelled by circumstances.
+
+The native states, then, while forbidden to contract alliances with
+one another or the world outside, and obliged by the letter of written
+treaties to observe certain fundamental laws imposed on them by the
+Anglo-Indian Government, were left at liberty to govern themselves. And
+it was largely the fact that they could and did keep secret what was
+going on within their borders that enabled the so-called Sepoy Rebellion
+to get such a smouldering foothold before it burst into a blaze. The
+sepoys were the tools of the men behind the movement; and the men behind
+were priests and others who were feeling nothing but their own ambition.
+
+No man knows even now how long the fire rebellion had been burning
+underground before showed through the surface; but it is quite obvious
+that, in spite of the heroism shown by British and loyal native alike
+when the crash did come, the rebels must have won--and have won easily
+sheer weight of numbers--had they only used the amazing system solely
+for the broad, comprehensive purpose for which it was devised.
+
+But the sense of power that its ramifications and extent gave birth to
+also whetted the desires individuals. Each man of any influence at all
+began to scheme to use the system for the furtherance of his individual
+ambition. Instead of bending all their energy and craft to the one
+great object of hurling an unloved conqueror back whence he came, each
+reigning prince strove to scheme himself head and shoulders above the
+rest; and each man who wanted to be prince began to plot harder than
+ever to be one.
+
+So in Howrah the Maharajah's brother, Jaimihr, with a large following
+and organization of his own, began to use the secret system of which he
+by right formed an integral part and to set wheels working within the
+wheels which in course of time should spew him up on the ledge which his
+brother now occupied. Long before the rebellion was ready he had all
+his preparations made and waited only for the general conflagration to
+strike for his own hand. And was so certain of success that he dared
+make plans as well for Rosemary McClean's fate.
+
+There is a blindness, too, quite unexplainable that comes over whole
+nations sometimes. It is almost like a plague in its mysterious arrival
+and departure. As before the French Revolution there were almost none of
+the ruling classes who could read the writing on the wall, so it was in
+India in the spring of '57. Men saw the signs and could not read their
+meaning. As in France, so in India, there were a few who understood, but
+they were scoffed at; the rest--the vast majority who held the reins of
+power--were blind.
+
+Rosemary McClean discovered that her pony had gone lame, and was angry
+with the groom. The groom ran away, and she put that down to native
+senselessness. Duncan McClean sent one after another of the little
+native 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 to
+the devil, who would seem to have reclaimed them.
+
+Both of them saw the watchers, posted at every vantage-point, insolently
+wakeful; both of them knew that Jaimihr had placed them there. But
+neither of them looked one inch deeper than the surface, nor supposed
+that their presence betokened anything but the prince's unreachable
+ambition. Neither of them thought for an instant that the day could
+possibly have come when Britain would be unable to protect a woman of
+its own race, or when a native--however powerful--would dare to do more
+than threaten.
+
+Joanna disappeared, and that led to a chain of thought which was not
+creditable to any one concerned. They reasoned this way: Rosemary had
+seen Mahommed Gunga hold out a handful of gold coins for the old
+woman's eyes to glitter at, therefore it was fair to presume that he
+had promised her a reward for bringing word to the man whom, it was
+now known, he had left behind. She had brought word to him and had
+disappeared. What more obvious than to reason that the man had gladly
+paid her, and had just as gladly ridden off, rejoicing at the thought
+that he could escape doing service?
+
+"So much," they argued, "for native constancy! So much for Mahommed
+Gunga's boast that he knew of men who could be trusted! And so much for
+Joanna's gratitude!"
+
+The old woman had been saved by Rosemary McClean from the long-drawn-out
+hell 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, and
+run sometimes behind the pony--a task which came as easily to her as
+did the other less active parts of her employment. Her desertion,
+particularly at a crisis, made Rosemary McClean cry, and set her father
+to 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 quoting
+the appropriate dirge when sorrow shows itself. The Book of
+Lamentations--Shakespeare's sadder lines--roll off their tongues
+majestically and seem to give them consolation--as it were to lay a
+sound, unjoyous basis for the proper enjoyment of the songs of Robbie
+Burns.
+
+The poor old king of the poet's imagining, declaiming up above the
+cliffs of Dover, could have put no more pathos into those immortal lines
+than did Duncan McClean as he paced up and down between the hot wars
+of the darkened room. The dry air parched his throat, and his ambition
+seemed to shrivel in him as he saw the brave little woman who was all he
+had sobbing with her head between her hands.
+
+He turned to the Bible, but he could find no precedent in any of its
+pages for abandoning a quest like his in the teeth of disaster or
+adversity. He read it for hour after crackling hour, moistening
+his throat from time to time with warm, unappetizing water from the
+improvised jar filter; but when the oven blast that makes the Indian
+summer day a hell on earth had waned and died away, he had found nothing
+but admonishment to stand firm. There had been women, too, whose
+deeds were worthy of record in that book, and he found no argument
+for deserting his post on his daughter's account either. In the Bible
+account, as he read it, it had always been the devil who fled when
+things got too uncomfortable for him, and he was conscious of a
+tight-lipped, stern contempt for the devil.
+
+He had about made up his mind what line to take with his daughter, when
+she ceased her sobbing and looked up through swollen eyes to relieve him
+of the necessity for talking her over to his point view. What she said
+amazed him, but not be cause it came to him as a new idea. She said, in
+different words, exactly what was passing in his own mind, and it was as
+though her tears and his search of the Scriptures had brought them both
+to one clear-cut conclusion.
+
+"Why are we here, father?" she asked him suddenly; and because she took
+him by surprise he did not answer her at once. "We are here to do
+good aren't we?" That was no question; it was beginning of a line of
+argument. Her father held his tongue, and laid his Bible down, and
+listened on. "How much good have we done yet?"
+
+She paused, but the pause was rhetorical, and he knew it; he could see
+the light behind her eyes that was more than visionary; it was the light
+of practical Scots enthusiasm, unquenched and undiscouraged after a
+battle with fear itself. She began to be beautiful again as the spirit
+of unconquerable courage won its way.
+
+"Have we won one convert? Is there one, of those you have taught who is
+with us still?"
+
+The answer was self-evident. There was none. But there was no sting for
+him in what she asked. Rather her words came as a relief, for he could
+feel 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 she
+knew, how hard the two of them had tried. There was nothing to apologize
+for.
+
+"Have we undermined the power of the Hindoo priests? Have we removed one
+trace 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 that
+shone from under dark, wet lashes, and deep spoke unto deep. Scotsman
+recognized Scotswoman, and the bond between them tightened.
+
+"It seems to me"--there was a new thrill in her voice--"that here is
+our opportunity! Either Jaimihr wants to frighten us away or he is in
+earnest with his impudent attentions to me. In either case let us make
+no attempt to go away. Let us refuse to go away. Let us stay here at all
+costs. If he wishes us to go away, then he must have a reason and will
+show it, or else try to force us. If he is really trying to make love
+to me, then let him try; if he has pluck enough, let him seize me. In
+either case we shall force his hand. I am willing to be the bait. The
+moment that he harms either you or me, the government will have to
+interfere. If he kills us so much the better, for that would mean swift
+vengeance 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 us
+in his grasp. Let him think it! Let him go ahead! Sooner or later the
+government must find out that we are missing Then--!" Her eyes blazed at
+the thought of what would happen then.
+
+Her father looked at her for about a minute, sadness and pride in her
+fighting in him for the mastery. Then he rose and crossed the little
+space between them.
+
+"Lassie!" he said. "Lassie!"
+
+She took his hand--the one little touch of human sentiment lacking to
+disturb his emotional balance. The Scots will talk readily enough of
+sorrow, but at showing it they are a grudging race of men. Unless a
+Scotsman thinks he can gain something for his cause by showing what
+emotion racks him, he will swallow down the choking flood of grief, and
+keep a straight face to the world and his own as well. Duncan McClean
+turned from her--drew his hand away--and walked to open the slit
+shutters. A moment later he came back, once more master of himself.
+
+"As things are, dear," he said gently, "how would it be possible for us
+to 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 our
+hands. We must wait, and watch, and see. If opportunity should come
+to us to make our escape, we will seize it. Should it not come--should
+Jaimihr, or some other of them, make occasion to molest us--it may
+be--it might be that--surely the day of martyrs is not past--it might
+be that--well, well, in either case we will eventually win. Should they
+kill 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 a
+week or two--even a day or two, who knows?--and the last suttee will
+have been performed!"
+
+He stood and stroked her head--then stooped and kissed it--an unusual
+betrayal of emotion from him.
+
+"Ye're a brave lassie," he said, leaving the room hurriedly, to escape
+the shame of letting her see tears welling from his eyes--salt tears
+that scalded as they broke their hot-wind-wearied bounds.
+
+Five minutes later she arose, dry-eyed, and went to stand in the
+doorway, where an eddy or two of lukewarm evening breeze might possibly
+be stirring. But a dirtily clad Hindoo, lounging on a raised, railless
+store veranda opposite, leered at her impudently, and she came inside
+again--to pass the evening and the sultry, black, breathless night out
+of 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 under
+big brick arches--in an age-old courtyard, three sides of which were
+stone-carved splendor and the fourth a typically Eastern mess of
+stables, servants' quarters, litter, stink, and noisy confusion--a
+stone door, slab-hewn, gave back the aching glitter of the sun. Its only
+opening--a narrow slit quite near the top--was barred. A man--his face
+close-pressed against them--peered through the interwoven iron rods from
+within.
+
+Jaimihr, in a rose-pink pugree still, but not at all the swaggering
+cavalier who pranced, high-booted, through the streets--a down-at-heel
+prince, looking slovenly and heavy-eyed from too much opium--sat in
+a long chair under the cloister which faced the barred stone door. He
+swished with a rhino riding-whip at the stone column beside him, and the
+much-swathed individual of the plethoric paunch who stood and spoke with
+him kept a very leery eye on it; he seemed to expect the binding swish
+of it across his own shins, and the thought seemed tantalizing.
+
+"It is not to be done," said Jaimihr, speaking in a dialect peculiar
+to Howrah. "That--of all the idiotic notions I have listened to--is the
+least worth while! Thy brains are in thy belly and are lost amid the
+fat! If my brother Howrah only had such counsellors as thou--such monkey
+folk to make his plans for him--the jackals would have finished with him
+long 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 pig
+Mahommed Gunga's man; therefore, there' is nothing more sure than that
+Mahommed Gunga will be here, sooner or later, to look for him--Mahommed
+Gunga, with the half of a Hindoo name, the whole of a Moslem's fire, and
+the 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 has
+first happened. But this rising that is planned hangs fire. Were I
+Maharajah I would like to see the Rangar who dare flout me or ask
+questions! I would like but to set eyes on that Rangar once! But I
+am 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 I
+grown fat?"
+
+"Ay, at whose cost? I should have kept thee slim, on prison diet, and
+saved myself a world of useless problems! Cease prattling! Get away from
+me! If I have to poison this Ali Partab, or wring his casteless neck, I
+will make thee do it, and give thee to Mahommed Gunga to wreak vengeance
+on. Leave me to think!"
+
+The fat former occupant of the room above the arch of the caravansary
+waddled 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 his
+cane. 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 irascible
+ex-Risaldar was capable of going to any lengths, and was known,
+moreover, to be trusted by the British. Nobody seemed to know whether or
+not Mahommed Gunga reciprocated the British regard, and nobody had cared
+to ask him except his own intimates; and they, like he, were men of
+close counsel.
+
+The Prince had given no orders for the capture of Ali Partab; that had
+been carried out by his men in a fit of ill-advised officiousness. But
+the Prince had to solve the serious problem caused by the presence of
+Ali Partab within a stone-walled cell.
+
+Should he let the fellow go, a report would be certain to reach Mahommed
+Gunga 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 would
+be sure to follow purely Eastern lines, and would be complicated; it
+would no doubt take the form of siding in some way or other with his
+brother the Maharajah. There would be instant, active doings, for
+that 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 the
+Prince's plan (for he knew well enough that Mahommed Gunga had left a
+man behind) to allow the escape to start; then it would have been an
+easy matter to arrange an ambush--to kill Ali Partab--and to pretend to
+ride to the rescue. Once rescued, Miss McClean and her father would be
+almost completely at his mercy, for they would not be able to accuse him
+of anything but friendliness, and would be obliged to return to whatever
+haven of safety he cared to offer them. Once in his palace of their own
+consent, they would have had to stay there until the rising of the
+whole of India put an end to any chance of interference from the British
+Government.
+
+But now there was no Ali Partab outside to try to escort them to
+some place of safety; therefore, there was little chance that the
+missionaries would try to make a bolt. Instead of being in the position
+of 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 first
+move. Over and over again he cursed the men who had made Ali Partab
+prisoner, and over and over again: he wondered how--by all the gods of
+all the multitudinous Hindoo mythology--how, when, and by what stroke
+of genius he could make use of the stiff-chinned Rangar and convert him
+from being a rankling thorn into a useful aid.
+
+He dared not poison him--yet. For the same reason he dared not put him
+to the torture, to discover, or try to discover, what Mahommed Gunga's
+real leanings were in the matter of loyalty to the Raj or otherwise. He
+dared not let the man go, for forgiveness is not one of the virtues
+held in high esteem by men of Ali Partab's race, and wrongful arrest is
+considered ground enough for a feud to the death. It seemed he did not
+dare do anything!
+
+He racked his opium-dulled brain for a suspicion of a plan that
+might help solve the difficulty, until his eye--wandering around the
+courtyard--fell on the black shape of a woman. She was old and bent and
+she was busied, with a handful of dry twigs, pretending to sweep around
+the stables.
+
+"Who is that mother of corruption?" demanded Jaimihr; and a man came
+running 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 pretended
+to a power of telling fortunes--which it would seem she does possess in
+some degree. It was thought better that she should use her gift in here,
+for our advantage, than outside to our disadvantage. So she was brought
+in 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 this
+Rangar--next a sweeper hag--what follows? What bring you next? Go, fetch
+the street dogs in!"
+
+"Highness, she is useful and costs nothing but the measure or two of
+meal she eats."
+
+"A horse eats little more!" the angry Prince retorted, perfectly
+accustomed to being argued with by his own servants. That is the
+time-honored custom of the East; obedience is one thing--argument
+another--both in their way are good, and both have their innings. "Bring
+her to me--nay!--keep her at a decent distance--so!--am I dirt for her
+broom?"
+
+He sat and scowled at her, and the old woman tried to hide more of her
+protruding 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 the
+lie direct to her shrinking attitude of fear. But he had taken too much
+opium overnight, and was in no mood to notice little distinctions.
+He was satisfied that she should seem properly afraid of him, and he
+scowled angrily when one of his retainers--in slovenly undress--crossed
+the courtyard to him. The man's evident intention, made obvious by his
+manner 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 in
+the dust."
+
+"What does she here, then?"
+
+"Ask her!" grinned the trooper. "Unless she comes to look for Ali
+Partab, I know not."
+
+He made the last part of his remark in a hurried undertone, too low for
+the old woman to hear.
+
+"Let her earn her meal around the stables," said the Prince. A sudden
+light dawned on him. Here was a means, at least, of trying to make use
+of Ali Partab. "Go--do thy sweeping!" he commanded, and the hag slunk
+off.
+
+For ten minutes longer, Jaimihr sat still and flicked at the stone
+column with his whip,--then he sent for his master of the horse, whose
+mistaken sense of loyalty had been the direct cause of Ali Partab's
+capture. He had acted instantly when the fat Hindoo brought him word,
+and he had expected to be praised for quick decision and rewarded; he
+was plainly in high dudgeon as he swaggered out of a dark door near the
+stables and advanced sulkily toward his master.
+
+"Remove the prisoner from that cell, taking great care that the hag
+yonder sees what you do--yes, that hag--the new one; she is a spy. Bring
+the prisoner in to me, where I will talk with him; afterward place him
+in a different cell--put him where we kept the bear that died--there is
+a dark comer beside it, where a man might hide; hide a man there when
+it grows dark. And give the hag access. Say nothing to her; let her come
+and go as she will; watch, and listen."
+
+Without another word, the Prince got up and shuffled in his decorated
+slippers to a door at one end of the cloister. Five minutes later Ali
+Partab--high-chinned, but looking miserable--was led between two men
+through the same door, while the old woman went on very ostentatiously
+with her sweeping about the yard. She even turned her back, to prove how
+little she was interested.
+
+Ali Partab was hustled forward into a high-ceilinged room, whose light
+came filtered through a scrollwork mesh of chiselled stone where the
+wall and ceiling joined. There were no windows, but six doors opened
+from it, and every one of them was barred, as though they opened into
+treasure-vaults. The Prince sat restlessly in a high, carved wooden
+chair; there was no other furniture at all, and Ali Partab was left
+standing between his guards. The Prince drew a pistol from inside his
+clothing.
+
+"Leave us alone!" he ordered; and the guards went out, closing the door
+behind 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 their
+position slightly, and it took no expert in physiognomy to read that
+questions 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 swift
+death 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 treasure
+of 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 legal
+line of pretending to know far more than he really did.
+
+"I am told by one who overheard you speak that you were to take the
+missionary and his daughter to Alwa's place. How much is my brother
+Howrah paying for Mahommed Gunga's services in this matter? It is well
+known that he and Alwa between them could call out all the Rangars in
+the district for whichever side they chose. Since they are not on my
+side, they must be for Howrah. How much does he pay? I might offer
+more."
+
+"I know not," said Ali Partab, perfectly ready to admit anything that
+was 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 Howrah
+dare take possession of her?"
+
+"That is not my business," answered Ali Partab, with the air of a man
+who knew all of the secret details but would not admit it. Jaimihr began
+to 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 rendered
+Jaimihr's brain very dull indeed; he considered himself clever, and
+overlooked 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 their
+enemies; the truth is a valuable thing, to be shared cautiously among
+friends.
+
+"If Mahommed Gunga is at Alwa's," reasoned Jaimihr, "then he is much
+too close at hand to take any chances with. I must keep this man close
+confined." He raised his voice in a high-pitched command, and the guards
+opened the door instantly; at a sign from the Prince they seized Ali
+Partab by the wrists.
+
+"I will send a message to Mahommed Gunga for thee," said Jaimihr. "On
+his answer will depend your release or otherwise." He nodded. The guards
+took their prisoner out between them--led him past the wrinkled old
+woman in the courtyard--and halted him in a far corner, where an
+evil-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 woman
+and made her sweep out the cell a little; then he drove her away with
+a fierce injunction not to let herself be caught anywhere near the cell
+again unless ordered. Following the line of eastern reasoning, had he
+not given that order he would not have known what her object could be
+should she make her way toward the cell; but now, if she risked his
+wrath by disobeying, he would know beyond the least shadow of a doubt
+that she had a message to deliver to the prisoner--the man who was
+hidden in the dark corner need entertain no hope of keeping the secret
+to himself for purposes of sale or blackmail!
+
+They trust each other wonderfully--with an almost childlike
+confidence--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 the
+whereabouts of Mahommed Gunga. It had been reported to Maharajah Howrah,
+by his spies, that the redoubtable ex-Risaldar of horse had visited his
+relatives in Howrah City, and, though he had not been able to ascertain
+a word of what had passed, he was none the less anxious.
+
+He knew, of course--for every soul in Howrah knew--that Jaimihr was
+plotting for the throne. He knew, too, that the priests of Siva,
+who with himself were joint keepers of the wickedly won, tax-swollen
+treasure, had sounded Jaimihr; they had tentatively hinted that they
+might espouse his cause, provided that an equitable division of the
+treasure were arranged beforehand. The question uppermost in Maharajah
+Howrah's mind was whether the Rangars--the Moslem descendants of once
+Hindoo Rajputs, who formed such a small but valuable proportion of the
+local population--could or could not be induced to throw in their lot
+with him.
+
+No man on the whole tax-ridden countryside believed or considered it as
+a distant possibility that the Rangars would strike for any hand except
+their own; they were known, on the other hand, to be more or less
+cohesive, and it was considered certain that, whichever way they swung,
+when the priest-pulled string let loose the flood of revolution, they
+would swing all together. The question, then, was how to win the favor
+of the Rangars. It was not at all an easy question, for the love lost
+between Hindoos and Mohammedans is less than that between dark-skinned
+men and white--a lot less.
+
+Within two hours of its happening he had been told of the capture of
+Ali Partab; and he knew--for that was another thing his spies had told
+him--that Ali Partab was Mahommed Gunga's man. Apparently, then, Ali
+Partab--a prisoner in Jaimihr's palace-yard--was the only connecting
+link 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 naturally
+wished to come out of the turmoil high and dry himself, and he was,
+therefore, ready to consider the protection of individual British
+subjects 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 Howrah
+and to have left his trusted man behind. Miss McClean was known to have
+conversed with the retainer, immediately after which the man had been
+seized and carried off by Jaimihr's men. Jaimihr was known to have
+placed watchers round the mission house and--once--to have killed a man
+in Miss McClean's defense. The deduction was not too far-fetched
+that the retainer had been left as a protection against Jaimihr, and
+consequently that the Rangars, at the behest of Mahommed Gunga, had
+decided--on at least the white girl's safety.
+
+Therefore, he argued, if he now proceeded to protect the McCleans, he
+would, at all events, not incur the Rangars' enmity.
+
+It was a serious decision that he had to make, for, for one thing, he
+dared not yet make any move likely to incite his strongly supported
+brother to open rebellion; he dared not, therefore, interfere at
+present with the watchers near the mission house. To openly befriend the
+Christian priests would be to set the whole Hindoo population against
+himself, for it had been mainly against suttee and its kindred horrors
+that 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 and
+gold-leaf, came and went through the carved entrance-gates. Occasionally
+camels, loaded too until their legs all but buckled underneath them,
+strutted with their weird, mixed air of foolishness and dignity, to be
+disburdened of great cases that eight men could scarcely lift; on the
+outside the cases were marked "Hardware," but a horde of armed and
+waiting malcontents scattered about the countryside could have given a
+more 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--sunned
+themselves, or waited in the shade until they could have audience; no
+priest of any Hindoo temple had to wait long to be admitted to that
+Rajah's presence, and there was an everlasting chain of them, each with
+his axe to grind, coming and going by day and night.
+
+Color rioted in the blazing sun and deep, dark shadows lurked in all
+the thousand places where the sun could never penetrate. It was India
+in essence--noise and blaze and flouted splendor, with a back-ground and
+underground of mystery. Any but the purblind British could have told at
+half a glance, merely by the attitude of Howrah's armed sepoys, that a
+concerted movement of some kind was afoot--that there was a tight-held
+thread of plan running through the whole confusion; but no man--not
+even a native--could have guessed what secret plotting might be going on
+within the acres of the straggling palace.
+
+From the courtyard there was no least hint obtainable even of the
+building's size; its shape could only have been marked down from a
+bird's-eye view aloft. Even the roof was so uneven, and so subdivided by
+traced and deep-carved walls and ramparts, that a sentry posted at one
+end could not have seen the next man to him, perhaps some twenty feet
+away. Building had been piled on building--other buildings had been
+added end to end and crisscrosswise--and each extension had been walled
+in as new centuries saw new additions, until the many acres were a maze
+of bricks and stone and fountain-decorated gardens that no lifelong
+palace denizen could have learned to know in their entirety.
+
+Within--one story up above the courtyard din--in a spacious, richly
+decorated room that gave on to a gorgeous roof-garden, the Maharajah sat
+and let himself be fanned by women, who were purchasable for perhaps a
+tenth of what any of the fans had cost. Another woman, younger than the
+rest, played wild minor music to him on an instrument not much unlike
+a flute; they were melancholy notes--beautiful--but sad enough to sow
+pessimism's seed in any one who listened.
+
+His divan--carved, inlaid, and gilded--faced the wide, awning-hung
+opening to the garden. Round him on all three sides was a carved stone
+screen through whose interstices came rustlings and whisperings that
+told of the hidden life which sees and is not seen. The women with the
+fans and flute were mere court accessories; the real nerves of Asia--the
+veiled intriguers whom none may know but whose secret power any man may
+feel--could be heard like caged birds crowding on their perches.
+
+Now and then glass bracelets tinkled from behind the screen; ever and
+again the music stopped, until another girl appeared to play another
+melancholy air. But the even purring of the fans went on incessantly,
+and the poor, priest-ridden fool who owned it all scowled straight in
+front of him, his brows lined deep in thought.
+
+It is a strange malady, that which seizes men whom fate has elevated to
+a throne. It acts as certain Indian drugs are known to do--deprives its
+victim of the power to act, but intensifies his ability to think, and
+theorize, and feel. Howrah, with untold treasure in his vaults, with an
+army of five thousand men, with the authority and backing that a hundred
+generations give, could long for more--could fear the loss of what he
+did have--but could not act.
+
+The priests held him fear-bound. His brother held him hate-bound. His
+women--and not even he knew, probably, how many of them languished in
+the secret warren inside those palace walls--kept him restless in a net
+of this-and-that-way-tugged intrigue. Flattery--and that is by far the
+subtlest poison of the East--blinded him utterly to his own best course,
+and kept him blind. Luxury unmanned him; he who had once held the
+straightest spear in western India, and for the love of feeling red
+blood racing in his veins had ridden down panthers on the maidan,
+was flabby now; deep, dark rings underlined his eyes and the once
+steel-sinewed wrist trembled.
+
+His brother Jaimihr in his place, unsapped yet by decadent delights,
+would have loosed his five thousand on the countryside--butchered any
+who opposed him--pressed into service those who merely lagged--and would
+have plunged India in a welter of blood before the priests had time
+to mature their plans and arrange to keep all the power and plunder to
+themselves. But Jaimihr had to stalk lesser game and content himself
+with pricking at the ever-growing hate that gradually rendered the
+Maharajah decisionless and sorry only for himself.
+
+A first glimpse at Howrah, particularly in the shaded room, showed a
+handsome man, black-bearded, lean, and lithe; a second look, undazzled
+by his jewelry or by the studied magnificence of each apparently
+unstudied movement, betrayed a man whose lightest word was law, but who
+feared to give the word. Where muscles had been were unfilled folds of
+skin that shook; where a firm if selfish mouth had once smiled merrily
+beneath a pointed black mustache, a mouth still smiled, but meanly; the
+selfishness 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 without
+pitying him, and no man in his senses would have accepted their owner's
+word on any point at all. A man looks as he did when the fire of a
+burning velt has circled him and there is no way out. There was fear
+behind 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. In
+another courtyard was a big, square tank with a weedy, slippery stone
+ramp at one end; in the tank were alligators; down the ramp other of the
+Rajah's enemies, tight-bound, would scream and struggle and slide from
+time 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 to
+their use.
+
+Below, in damp, unlit dungeons, there were silken cords suspended from
+stone ceilings; their ends were noosed, and the nooses hung ten feet
+above the floor; those told only, though, of the fate of women who had
+schemed unwisely--favorites of a week, perhaps, who had dared to sulk,
+listeners through screens who had forgotten to forget. No men died ever
+by the silken cord, and no tales ever reached the outside world of who
+did die down in the echoing brick cellars; there was a path that led
+underground to the alligator tank and a trap-door that opened just
+above the water edge. Night, and the fungus-fouled long jaws, and slimy,
+weed-filled water--the creak of rusty hinges--a splash--the bang of
+a falling trap--a swirl in the moonlit water, and ring after heavy,
+widening ring that lapped at last against the stone would write
+conclusion to a tragedy. There would be no record kept.
+
+Howrah was childless. That, of all the hell-sent troubles that beset
+him, was the worst. That alone was worse than the hoarded treasure whose
+secret he and his brother and the priests of Siva shared. Only in India
+could it happen that a line of Rajahs, drag-net-armed--oblivious to the
+duties of a king and greedy only of the royal right to tax--could pile
+up, century by century, a hoard of gold an jewels--to be looked at. The
+secret of that treasure made the throne worth plotting for--gave the
+priests, who shared the secret, more than nine tenths of their power for
+blackmail, pressure, and intrigue--and grew, like a cancer, into each
+succeeding Rajah's mind until, from a man with a soul inside him he
+became in turn a heartless, fear ridden miser.
+
+Any childless king is liable to feel the insolent expectancy betrayed by
+the heir apparent. But Jaimihr--who had no sons either--was an heir who
+understood all of the Indian arts whereby a man of brain may hasten the
+succession. Worry, artfully stirred up, is the greatest weapon of them
+all, and never a day passed but some cleverly concocted tale would reach
+the Rajah, calculated to set his guessing faculties at work.
+
+Either of the brothers, when he happened to be thirsty, would call his
+least-trusted counsellor to drink first from the jewelled cup, and would
+watch the man afterward for at least ten minutes before daring to slake
+his 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 use
+them? Of what use was a waiting countryside, armed if not drilled, if he
+was not sure that his brother had not won every man's allegiance? Being
+Hindoo, priest-reared, priest-fooled, and priest-flattered, he knew, or
+thought he knew, to an anna the value he might set on Hindoo loyalty
+or on the loyalty of any man who did not stand to gain in pocket by
+remaining 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 India
+means of another race, practically-wondering whether he could not make
+use of them against his own.
+
+Like every other Rajah of his line, he longed to have sole control
+of that wonderful treasure that had eaten out his very manhood. Miser
+though he was, he was prepared at least to bargain with outsiders with
+the promise of a portion of it, if that would give him possession of it
+all. He had learned from the priests who took such full advantage of him
+an absolute contempt for Mohammedans; and their teaching, as well as his
+own trend of character, made him quite indifferent to promises he might
+make, for the sake of diplomacy, to men of another creed. It began to be
+obvious to him that he would lose nothing by courting the favor of the
+Rangars, and of Alwa in particular, and that he might win security by
+coaxing them to take his part. Of one thing he was certain: the Rangars
+would do anything at all, if by doing it they could harm the Hindoo
+priests.
+
+But, being of the East Eastern, and at that Hindoo, he could not have
+brought himself to make overtures direct and go straight to the real
+issue. He had to feel his way gingerly. The thousand horses in his
+stables, he reflected, would mount a thousand of the Rangars and place
+at his disposal a regiment of cavalry which would be difficult to beat;
+but a thousand mounted Mohammedans might be a worse thorn in his side
+than even his brother or the priests. He decided to write to Alwa, but
+to open negotiations with a very thin and delicately inserted wedge.
+
+He could write. The priests had overlooked that opportunity, and had
+taught him in his boyhood; in that one thing he was their equal. But the
+other 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 his
+feet--listened meekly to the stern command to secrecy--and took the
+letter from dictation.
+
+Alwa was informed, quite briefly, that in view of certain happenings in
+Howrah City His Highness the Maharajah had considered it expedient
+to set a guard over the Christian missionaries in the city, for their
+safety. The accompanying horse was a gift to the Alwa-sahib. The
+Alwa-sahib himself would be a welcome guest whenever he might care to
+come.
+
+The document was placed in a silver tube and scaled. Within the space of
+half an hour a horseman was kicking up the desert dust, riding as though
+he carried news of life-and-death importance, and with another man and a
+led horse galloping behind him. Five minutes after the man had started,
+in a cell below the temple, of Siva, the court official who had taken
+down the letter was repeating it word for word to a congeries of
+priests. And one hour later still, in a room up near the roof of
+Jaimihr's palace, one of the priests--panting from having come so
+fast--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 other
+priests an exact account of the Prince's every word, and movement, and
+expression.
+
+"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 was
+a dark, low corner space in which at one time and another sacks and
+useless impedimenta had been tossed, to become rat-eaten and decayed. In
+among all the rubbish, cross-legged like the idol of the underworld, a
+nearly naked Hindoo sat, prick-eared. He was quite invisible long before
+the sun went down, for that was the dingiest corner of the yard; when
+twilight came, he could not have been seen from a dozen feet away.
+
+Joanna, sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, in the courtyard, with her back
+very nearly always turned toward the cage, appeared to take no notice
+of the falling darkness; unlike the other menials, who hurried to their
+rest and evening meal, she went on working, accomplishing very little
+but seeming to be very much in earnest about it all. Very, very
+gradually she drew nearer to the cage. When night fell, she was within
+ten 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 said
+nothing; it was very dark inside the cage, and even the sharp-eyed
+old woman could not possibly have seen his gestures; when he stood,
+tight-pressed, against the bars she might have made out his dark shape
+dimly, but unless he chose to speak no signal could possibly have passed
+from him to her. He said nothing, though, and she-still sweeping, with
+her back toward him--passed by the cage, and stooped to scratch at some
+hard-caked dirt or other close to the rubbish hole where the Hindoo
+waited. Still scratching, still working with her twig broom, still
+with her back toward the rubbish hole, she approached until the darkest
+shadow 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 lesser
+darkness, he lost sight of her for a second as she backed into the
+deepest shadow unexpectedly. Before he could become accustomed to the
+altered focus and the deeper black, her beady eyes picked out the whites
+of his. Before he could move she was on him--at his throat, tearing it
+with thin, steel fingers. Before he could utter a sound, or move, she
+had drawn a short knife from her clothing and had driven it to the hilt
+below his ear. He dropped without a gurgle, and without a sound she
+gathered 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 until
+Mahommed 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 get
+outside!"'
+
+"Mother of corruption! Listen! Alwa must know! Canst thou escape from
+here? Canst thou reach the Alwa-sahib?"
+
+"If the price were four mohurs, there might be many things that I could
+do."
+
+"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 bargained
+for him!--Quick!"
+
+"I am black, sahib, and the night is black. I am old, and none would
+believe me active. They watch the gates, but the bats fly in and out."
+
+"Find out, then, what has happened to my horses, left at the
+caravansary; give that information to the Alwa-sahib. Tell the
+Miss-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 of
+the prophet, and servant of the Risaldar Mahommed Gunga--is in need and
+asks his instant aid. Say also to the Alwa-sahib that it may be well to
+rescue the Miss-sahib first, before he looks for me, but of that matter
+I am no judge, being imprisoned and unable to ascertain the truth. Hast
+thou 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--lay
+still once, breathless, while a man walked almost over her--reached the
+outer wall, and felt her way along it until she reached low eaves that
+reached down like a jagged saw from utter blackness. Less than a minute
+later she was crawling monkeywise along a roof; before another five had
+passed she had dropped on all fours in the dust of the outer road and
+was running like a black ghost--head down--an end of her loin-cloth
+between her teeth--one arm held tight to her side and the other crooked
+outward, swinging--striding, panting, boring through the blackness.
+
+She wasted little time at the caravansary. The gate was shut and a
+sleepy watchman cursed her for breaking into his revery.
+
+"Horses? Belonging to a Rangar? Fool! Does not the Maharajah-sahib
+impound 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, she
+dropped panting on the door-step of the little mission house. She
+was panting now from fright as well as sheer exhaustion. There were
+watchers--two sets of them. One man stood, with his back turned within
+ten 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 not
+guarded.
+
+She had tried the back door first, but that was locked, and she had
+rapped on it gently until she remembered that of evenings the missionary
+and his daughter occupied the front room always and that they would not
+have heard her had she hammered. She tapped now, very gently, with her
+fingers on the lower panel of the door, quaking and trembling in every
+limb, but taking care to make her little noise unevenly, in a way
+that would be certain to attract attention inside. Tap-tap-tap. Pause.
+Tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap. The door opened
+suddenly. Both watchers turned and gazed straight into the lamplight
+that streamed out past the tall form of Duncan McClean. He stared at
+them and they stared back again. Joanna slunk into the deep shadow at
+one side of the steps.
+
+"Is it necessary for you to annoy me by rapping on my door as well as by
+spying on me?" asked the missionary in a tone of weary remonstrance.
+
+The guards laughed and turned their backs with added insolence. In that
+second Joanna shot like a black spirit of the night straight past the
+missionary'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 or
+else guided by instinct.
+
+"Joanna!" he exclaimed, holding up a lamp above her. "You, Joanna!"
+
+At the name, Rosemary McClean came running out--looked for an
+instant--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 bent
+down above the ancient, shrivelled, sorry-looking mummy of a woman--drew
+the wrinkled head into her lap--stroked the drawn face--and wept over
+her. The spent, age-weakened, dried-out widow had fainted; there was no
+wakened self-consciousness of black and white to interfere. This was a
+friend--one lone friend of her own sex amid all the waste of smouldering
+hate--some one surely to be wept over and made much of and caressed.
+The poor old hag recovered consciousness with her head pillowed on a
+European lap, and Duncan McClean--no stickler for convention and no
+believer in a line too tightly drawn--saw fit to remonstrate as he laid
+the jar of water down beside them.
+
+"Why," she answered, looking up at him, "father, I'd have kissed a dog
+that got lost and came back again like this!"
+
+They picked her up between them, after they had let her drink, and
+carried her between them to the long, low sitting-room, where she told
+them--after considerable make-believe of being more spent than she
+really was--after about a tenth "sip" at the brandy flask and when
+another had been laughingly refused--all about Ali Partab and what his
+orders to her were.
+
+"I wonder what it all can mean?" McClean sat back and tried to summarize
+his experiences of months and fit them into what Joanna said.
+
+"What does that mean?" asked his daughter, leaning forward. She was
+staring at Joanna's forearm and from that to a dull-red patch on the
+woman'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 in
+little flakes when he rubbed it. But not a word could they coax out
+of Joanna to explain it, until Rosemary--drawing the old woman to
+her--espied the handle of her knife projecting by an inch above the
+waist-fold of her cloth. Too late Joanna tried to hide it. Rosemary held
+her and drew it out. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, there was blood on
+the blade still, and on the wooden hilt, and caked in the clumsy joint
+between 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 and
+cross-examined her. But he could get no admission from her--nothing but
+the 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 forbidden
+foods troubled her; she ate whatever came her way, Hindoo food, or
+Mohammedan, or Christian,--and reached for more--and finished, as hyenas
+finish, by breaking bones to get the marrow out. At midnight they left
+her, curled dogwise on a mat in the hall, to sleep; and at dawn, when
+they came to wake her, she was gone again--gone utterly, without a trace
+or 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 from
+cellar up to roof, and turned all their small possessions over, they
+could not find (and they were utterly glad of it) that she had stolen
+anything.
+
+"Thank God for that!" said the missionary.
+
+"I've finished disbelieving in Joanna!" said his daughter with a grimace
+that went always with irrevocable decision.
+
+"I've come to the conclusion," said McClean, "that there are more than
+just Joanna to be trusted. There is Ali Partab, and--who knows how
+many?"
+
+
+
+
+
+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 very
+quick succession, brought about a climax, forcing the hand of Howrah
+and his brother and for the moment drawing the McCleans, father and
+daughter, into the toothed wheel of Indian action. As usual in India,
+the usual brought about the unexpected, and the unexpected fitted
+strangely into the complex, mysteriously worked-out whole.
+
+Two days after Joanna left the mission house, through a hole made in the
+thatch, the spirit of revolt took hold of Rosemary McClean again. The
+stuffy, narrow quarters--the insolent, doubled, unexplained, but very
+obvious, guard that lounged outside--the sense of rank injustice
+and helplessness--the weird feeling of impending horror added onto
+stale-grown ghastliness--youth, chafing at the lack of liberty--stirred
+her to action.
+
+Without a word to her father, who was writing reports that seemed
+endless at the little desk by the shaded window, she left the
+house--drew with a physical effort on all her reserve of strength and
+health--faced the scorching afternoon wind, as though it were a foe that
+could shrink away before her courage, and walked, since she had no pony
+now, in any direction in which chance or her momentary whim might care
+to lead her.
+
+"I won't cry again--and I won't submit--and I'll see what happens!" she
+told herself; and the four who followed her at a none-too-respectful
+distance--two of the Maharajah's men in uniform and two shabby-looking
+ruffians of Jaimihr's--grinned as they scented action. Like their
+masters they bore no love for one another; they were there now, in fact,
+as much to watch one another as the missionaries; they detected the
+possibility of an excuse to be at one another's throats, and gloated
+as they saw two messengers, one of either side, run off in a hurry to
+inform the rival camps.
+
+It was neither plan nor conscious selection that led Rosemary McClean
+toward the far end of the maidan, where the sluggish, narrow, winding
+Howrah River sucked slimily beside the burning ghats. When she realized
+where her footsteps were leading her she would have turned in horror and
+retreated, for even a legitimately roasting corpse that died before the
+Hindoo priests had opportunity to introduce it to the flames is no sight
+for eyes that are civilized.
+
+But, when she turned her head, the sight of her hurrying escort
+perspiring in her wake--(few natives like the heat and wind one whit
+better than their conquerors)--filled her with an unexpected, probably
+unjustifiable, determination not to let them see her flinch at any kind
+of horror. That was the spirit of sahibdom that is not always quite
+commendable; it is the spirit that takes Anglo-Saxon women to the
+seething, stenching plains and holds them there high-chinned to stiffen
+their men-folk by courageous example, but it leads, too, to things not
+quite so womanly and good.
+
+"I'll show them!" muttered Rosemary McClean, wiping the blown dust from
+her eyes and facing the wind again that now began to carry with it the
+unspread taint--the awful, sickening, soul-revolting smell inseparable
+from Hindoo funeral rites. There were three pyres, low-smouldering,
+close by the river-bank, and men stirred with long poles among the ashes
+to make sure that the incineration started the evening before should be
+complete; there was one pyre that looked as though it had been lit long
+after dawn--another newly lit--and there were two pyres building.
+
+It was those two new ones that held her attention, and finally
+decided her to hold her course. She wanted to make sure. The smell of
+burning--the unoutlined, only guessed-at ghastliness--would probably
+have 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 to
+draw birds on, by merely being snakes, and with red-rimmed eyes smarting
+from smoke as well as wind she pressed forward.
+
+The ghats were deserted-looking, for the funeral rites of those who
+burned were practically over until the time should come to scatter ashes
+on the river-surface; only a few attendants hovered close to the fires
+to prod them and occasionally throw on extra logs. Only round the
+two new pyres not yet quite finished was anything approaching a crowd
+assembled, and there a priest was officiously directing the laying of
+the logs. It was the manner of their laying and the careful building
+of a scaffold on each side of either pyre that held Rosemary
+McClean's attention--called all the rebellious womanhood within her to
+interfere--and drew her nearer.
+
+Soon the priest noticed her--a cotton-skirted wraith amid the smoke--and
+shouted to the guards behind; one of them answered, laughing coarsely,
+and Rosemary understood enough of the dialect he used to grit her teeth
+with shame and anger. The men left off building, and, directed by the
+priest, came toward her in a ragged line to cut her off from closer
+approach; she stood, then--examined the new pyres as carefully as she
+could--walked to another vantage-point and viewed them sideways--then
+turned her back.
+
+"Oh, the brutes!" she ejaculated. There were tears in her voice, as well
+as helpless anger. "There is not one devil, there are a million, and
+they 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 the
+loathsome rite he represented. In two actual words, she cursed him.
+It was the first time she had ever cursed anybody in her life, and the
+wickedness 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 that
+had been quivering grew calm again, and she turned to hurry home with an
+unexpected sense of having pulled some lever in the mechanism that would
+bring about results. She neither knew nor cared what results, nor how
+they were to happen; she felt that that curse of hers, her first, had
+landed on the mark!
+
+But she had come further than she thought. Distance, hot wind, and
+emotion had exhausted her far more, too, than she had had time to
+realize. Before a mile of the homeward journey had been accomplished,
+she was forced against her stubborn Scots will to sit down on a big
+stone by the roadside and rest, while the four that followed came up
+close, grinning and passing remarks in anything but under-tones. If
+the meaning of the words escaped her, their gestures left little to
+be misunderstood. A crowd of stragglers drew together near the
+four--laughed with them--took sides in the coarse-worded argument about
+Jaimihr's known ambition--and shamed her into pressing on homeward.
+
+But she was forced to rest again, and then again. Physical sickness
+prevented her from obeying instinct, reason, will, that all three urged
+her 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 do
+whatever 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 vitality
+died down. It was sundown when she reached the mission house, and she
+could hear the rising, falling, intermittent din of drums before she saw
+her father in the doorway.
+
+"Father!" She ran to him, and he caught her in his arms to save her from
+falling headlong. "Father, there is going to be a suttee tonight! Hear
+the drums, father! Hear the drums! It'll be tonight! That's to stop the
+screams from being heard! Listen to them, father--two suttees, side
+by side--I've seen the pyres and the scaffolds--do they jump into the
+flames, father, from the scaffolds?--tell me! No-don't tell me--I won't
+listen! Take me away from here--away--away--away--take me away, d'you
+hear!"
+
+He carried her inside, and laid her on the caned couch in the
+living-room, looking like a great, big, helpless, gray-haired baby, as
+any man is prone to do when he has hysteria to deal with in a woman whom
+he loves.
+
+"I cursed a man, father! I cursed a man! I did! I said 'Damn you!' I'm
+glad!"
+
+"Don't, little girl--don't! Lassie mine, don't! Never mind what you saw
+or what you said--be calm now--there is something we must do; we must
+act; I have determined we must act. We must act tonight. But we can't do
+anything with you in this state."
+
+Slowly, gradually he calmed her--or probably she grew calm, in spite of
+his attentions, for he was too upset himself to exercise much soothing
+sway 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 peace
+herself, bathing the universe in blessings. And each month, when the
+full moon rose above the carved dome of Siva's temple, there was a
+ceremony gone through that commemorated cruelty, greed, poisoning,
+throat-slitting, hate, and all the hell-invented infamy that suckles
+always at the breast of stagnant treasure.
+
+Since history has forgotten when, at each full moon, the priests of Siva
+had gone with circumstantial ceremony to view the hoarded wealth tied up
+by jealousy and guarded jealously in Howrah's palace. With them, as
+the custom that was stronger than a thousand laws dictated, went the
+Maharajah and his brother Jaimihr--joint owners with the priests.
+
+There had not been one Maharajah, since the first of that long line, who
+would not have given the lives of ten thousand men for leave to broach
+that treasure; nor, since the first heir apparent shared the secret with
+the priests and the holder of the throne, had there been one prince in
+line-son-brother-cousin--who would not have drenched the throne with his
+relation's blood with that same purpose.
+
+Heir after heir could have agreed with Maharajah, but the priests had
+stood between. That treasure was their fulcrum; the legacy, dictated by
+a dead, misguided hand, intended as a war reserve to stay the throne of
+Howrah in its need, and trebly locked to guard against profligacy, had
+placed the priests of Siva in the position of dictators of Howrah's
+destiny. A word from them, and a prince would slay his father--only
+to discover that the promises of Siva's priests were something less to
+build on than the hope of loot. There would be another heir apparent
+to be let into the secret--another man to scheme and hunger for the
+throne--another party to the bloody three-angled intrigue which kept the
+Siva-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 they
+chose--even the soldiers, loyal enough to their masters under ordinary
+circumstances, would have rebelled at as much as a hint from holy Siva.
+It was the priests who made it possible for Jaimihr to dare take
+his part in the ceremony; without them he would not have entered his
+brother's palace-yard unless five thousand men at least were there to
+guard his back--but, if there was danger where the priests were, there
+was safety too.
+
+As the custom was, he rode to the temple of Siva first with a ten-man
+guard; there, when the priests had finished droning age-old anthems to
+the echoing roof, when his brother, the Maharajah, also with a ten-man
+guard, had joined him, and the two had submitted to the sanctifying
+rites prescribed, eleven priests would walk with them in solemn mummery
+to the palace-entrance--censer-swinging, chanting, blasphemously acting
+duty to their gods and state.
+
+The moon--and that, too, was custom-rested with her lower rim one full
+hand's breadth above the temple dome as viewed from the palace-gate,
+when a gong clanged resonantly, died to silence, music of pipes and
+cymbals broke on the evening quiet, and the strange procession started
+from the temple door, the Maharajah leading.
+
+Generally it passed uninterrupted over the intervening street to the
+palace-entrance, between the ranks of a salaaming, silent crowd, and
+disappeared from view. This time, though, for the first time in living
+memory, and possibly for the first time in all history, the unforeseen,
+amazing happened. The procession stopped. Moon-bathed, between the
+carved posts of the palace-gate, two people blocked the way.
+
+The music ceased. The sudden silence framed itself against the distant
+thunder of a hundred drums. The crowd--all heads bowed, as decreed--drew
+in its breath and held it. A sea of pugrees moved as brown eyes looked
+up surreptitiously--stared--memorized--and then looked down again. There
+was no precedent for this happening, and even the Maharajah and the
+priests were at a momentary loss--stood waiting, staring--and said
+nothing.
+
+"Maharajah-sahib!--I must interrupt your ceremony. I must have word with
+you at once!"
+
+It was Duncan McClean, bareheaded, holding his daughter's hand. They
+had no weapons; they were messengers of peace, protesting, or so they
+looked. No longer timid, but resigned to what might happen--they held
+each other's hands, and blocked the way of Siva's votaries--Siva's
+tools--and Siva's ritual.
+
+Jaimihr whispered to his brother--the first time he had dared one
+word to him in person for years--the high priest of the temple pressed
+forward angrily, saying nothing, but trying to combine rage and dignity
+with an attempt to turn the incident to priestly advantage. Surely this
+was a crisis out of which the priests must come triumphant; they held
+all the cards--knew how and when rebellion was timed, and could compare,
+as the principals themselves could not do, Howrah's strength with
+Jaimihr'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 possibly
+occasion--spurred desire to act of his own initiative and keep the high
+priest in his place--impelled the Maharajah in that minute. Men said
+afterward that Jaimihr had whispered to him advice which he knew was
+barbed because it was his brother whispering, and that he promptly did
+the opposite; but, whatever the motive, he drew himself up in all his
+jewelled splendor and demanded: "What do you people wish?"
+
+The McCleans were given no time to reply. The priests did not see fit
+to 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 sacred
+rites!"
+
+There were no Mohammedans among that crowd to take delight in seeing
+Hindoo priests discomfited and Hindoo ritual disturbed. There came no
+counter-shout. The crowd did not, as so often happens, turn and rend
+itself; and yet, though a surge from behind pressed forward, the men in
+front pressed back.
+
+"Slay them! Slay the sacrilegious foreigners!" The yell grew louder and
+more widely voiced, but no man in the front ranks moved.
+
+The Maharajah looked from the company of guards that lined the
+palace-steps to the priests and his brother and the crowd--and then to
+the McCleans again.
+
+He remembered Alwa and his Rangars, thought of the messenger whom he had
+sent, remembered that a regiment of lance-armed horsemen would be worth
+a risk or two to win over to his side, and made decision.
+
+"You are in danger," he asserted, using a pronoun not intended to convey
+politeness, but--Eastern of the East--counteracting that by courtesy of
+manner. "Do you ask my aid?"
+
+"Yes, among other things," Duncan McClean answered him. "I wish also
+to speak about a Rangar, who I know is held prisoner in a cage in the
+Jaimihr-sahib's palace."
+
+"Speak of that later," answered Howrah. "Guard!"
+
+He made a sign. A spoken word might have told the priests too much, and
+have set them busy fore-stalling him. The guards rushed down the
+steps, seized both McCleans, and half-carried, half-hustled them up the
+palace-steps, through the great carved doors, and presently returned
+without 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 the
+kind of treatment meted out to prisoners, partly informed of what was
+preparing for the British all through India, the crowd never doubted
+for an instant but that grizzly vengeance awaited the Christians who
+had dared to remonstrate against time-honored custom. It looked for the
+moment as though the high priest's word had moved the Maharajah to
+order the arrest, and the high priest realized it. By skilful play and
+well-used dignity he might contrive to snatch all the credit yet. He
+ordered; the pipes and cymbals started up again at once; and, one by
+one--Maharajah, Jaimihr, high priest, then royal guard, Jaimihr's guard,
+priest again--the procession wound ahead, jewelled and egretted, sabred
+and spurred, priest-robed, representative of all the many cancers eating
+at the heart of India.
+
+Chanting, clanging, wailing minor dirges to the night, it circled all
+the front projections of the palace, turned where a small door opened on
+a 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 a
+yet-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 water
+from the rock-lined depths of mother earth gushed out through a fissure
+near the Summit, and round that spring had been built, in bygone
+centuries, a battlemented nest to breed and turn out warriors.
+Alwa's grandfather had come by it through complicated bargaining and
+dowry-contracts, and Alwa now held it as the rallying-point for the
+Rangars thereabout.
+
+But its defensibility was practically all the crag fort had to offer by
+way of attraction. Down at its foot, where the stream of rushing water
+splashed in a series of cascades to the thirsty, sandy earth, there were
+an acre or two of cultivation--sufficient, in time of peace, to
+support an attenuated garrison and its horses. But for his revenues the
+Alwa-sahib had to look many a long day's march afield. Leagues of desert
+lay between him and the nearest farm he owned, and since--more in the
+East than anywhere--a landlord's chief absorption is the watching of his
+rents, it followed that he spent the greater part of his existence in
+the 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 was
+narrow, and the horsemen whose mounts ambled tirelessly behind Alwa's
+plain-bred Arab pressed on past him, to curse the hag and bid her make
+horse-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 only
+mumbled, and displayed her swollen tongue, and held her hands in
+an attitude of pitiful supplication. Then Alwa cantered up--rode
+past--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 poured
+lukewarm water from a bottle down her tortured throat. He held it high
+and let the water splash, for fear his dignity might suffer should he or
+the bottle touch her. Strictly speaking, Rangars have no caste, but they
+retain by instinct and tradition many of the Hindoo prejudices. Alwa
+himself 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 to
+it! Now, speak! Hast thou a message? Who is it sends a rat to bring me
+news?"
+
+"Ali Partab."
+
+"Soho! And who is Ali Partab? He needs to learn manners. He has come to
+a stern school for them!"
+
+"Sahib--great one--Prince of swordsmen!--Ali Partab is Mahommed
+Gunga-sahib's man. He bid me say that he is held a prisoner in a
+bear-cage in Jaimihr's palace and needs aid."
+
+Alwa's black beard dropped onto his chest as he frowned in thought. He
+had nine men with him. Jaimihr had by this time, perhaps, as many as
+nine thousand, for no one knew but Jaimihr and the priests how many
+in the district waited to espouse his cause. The odds seemed about as
+stupendous as any that a man of his word had ever been called upon to
+take.
+
+A moment more, and without consulting any one, he bade one of his men
+dismount.
+
+"Put that hag on thy horse!" he commanded. "Mount thou behind another!"
+
+The order was obeyed. Another Rangar took the led horse, and Joanna
+found herself, perched like a monkey on a horse that objected to the
+change of riders, between two troopers whose iron-thewed legs squeezed
+hers into the saddle.
+
+"To Howrah City!" ordered Alwa, starting off at an easy, desert-eating
+amble; and without a word of comment, but with downward glances at their
+swords and a little back-stiffening which was all of excitement that
+they 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 of
+his arranging that on that one night of the month Jaimihr and his most
+trusted body-guard should go with the priests and the Maharajah to
+inspect the treasure. Alwa was a soldier, born to take instant advantage
+of chance--sent opportunity; Jaimihr was a schemer, born to indecision
+and 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 web
+and watch the intentions of the crowd unfold, Jaimihr had turned out
+every retainer to his name, and had scattered them about the city, with
+orders, if they were needed, to rally on a certain point.
+
+He did think that at any minute a disturbance might break out which
+would lead to civil war, and he saw the necessity for watchfulness at
+every point; but he did not see the rather obvious necessity for
+leaving more than twenty men on guard inside his palace. Not even
+the thoughtfulness of Siva's priests could have anticipated that ten
+horse-men would be riding out of nowhere, with the spirit in them that
+ignores side issues and leads them only straight to their objective.
+
+Alwa, as a soldier, knew exactly where fresh horses could be borrowed
+while his tired ones rested. A little way beyond the outskirts of the
+city lived a man who was neither Mohammedan nor Hindoo--a fearful man,
+who took no sides, but paid his taxes, carried on his business, and
+behaved--a Jew, who dealt in horses and in any other animal or thing
+that could be bought to show a profit.
+
+Alwa had an utterly complete contempt for Jews, as was right and proper
+in a Rangar of the blood. He had not met many of them, and those he had
+had borne away the memory of most outrageous insult gratuitously offered
+and rubbed home. But this particular Jew was a money-lender on occasion,
+and his rates had proved as reasonable as his acceptance of Alwa's
+unwritten promise had been prompt. A man who holds his given word as
+sacred as did Alwa respects, in the teeth of custom or religion, the man
+who accepts that word; so, when the chance had offered, Alwa had done
+the Jew occasional favors and had won his gratitude. He now counted on
+the Jew for fresh horses.
+
+To reach him, he had to wade the Howrah River, less than a mile from
+where the burning ghats glowed dull crimson against the sky; the crowd
+around the ghats was the first intimation he received that the
+streets might prove less densely thronged than usual. It was the Jew,
+beard-scrabbling and fidgeting among his horses, who reminded him that
+when the full moon shone most of the populace, and most of Jaimihr's and
+Howrah'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 turned
+loose, to sneak into any rat-hole that she chose. Then, with their
+swords drawn--for if trouble came it would be certain to come
+suddenly--he and his nine made a wide-ringed circuit of the city, to a
+point where the main street passing Jaimihr's palace ended in a rune
+of wind-piled desert sand. From the moment when they reached that point
+they did not waste a second; action trod on the heel of thought and
+thought 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, and
+no one followed them. A few frightened night-wanderers ran at sight of
+them, hiding down side streets, but when they brought up at last outside
+Jaimihr's palace-gate they had so far escaped recognition. And that
+meant that no one would carry word to Jaimihr or his men.
+
+It was death-dark outside the bronze-hinged double gate; only a dim lamp
+hung above from chains, to show how dark it was, and the moon--cut off
+by trees and houses on a bluff of rising ground--lent nothing to the
+gloom.
+
+"Open! The jaimihr-sahib comes!" shouted Alwa and one of his horsemen
+legged up close beside the gate.
+
+Some one moved inside, for his footsteps could be heard; whoever he was
+appeared to listen cautiously.
+
+"Open for the Jaimihr-sahib!" repeated Alwa.
+
+Evidently that was not the usual command, or otherwise the gates would
+have swung open on the instant. Instead, one gate moved inward by a
+fraction of a foot, and a pureed head peered cautiously between the gap.
+That, though, was sufficient. With a laugh, the man up closest drove
+his sword-hilt straight between the Hindoo's eyes, driving his horse's
+shoulder up against the gate; three others spurred and shoved beside
+him. Not thirty seconds later Alwa and his nine were striking hoof
+sparks on the stone of Jaimihr's courtyard, and the gates--that could
+have easily withstood a hundred-man assault with battering-rams--had
+clanged behind them, bolted tight against their owner.
+
+"Where is the bear cage?" demanded Alwa. "It is a bear I need, not
+blood!"
+
+The dozen left inside to guard the palace had recovered quickly enough
+from 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 was
+barely probable that Jaimihr's temper would permit them the privilege
+of dying quickly should he come and find his palace looted; a Rangar's
+sword 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 up
+the 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 reached
+agreement.
+
+"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 palace
+burns, 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 indignity
+enough. Go thou!"
+
+The captain of the guard obeyed. Two minutes later Ali Partab stood
+before Alwa and saluted.
+
+"Sahib, my master's thanks!"
+
+"They are accepted," answered Alwa, with almost regal dignity. "Bring a
+lamp!" he ordered.
+
+One of the guard brought a hand-lantern, and by its light Alwa examined
+Ali Partab closely. He was filthy, and his clothing reeked of the
+disgusting 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-forward
+movement, made terrifying by the darkness--each man knew well enough
+that the men they were bullying could fight; success, should they have
+to force it at the sword-point, would depend largely on which side took
+the other by surprise.
+
+"It is done, sahib," said the leader of the guard, and one man hurried
+off to execute the order. Ten minutes later--they were ten impatient
+minutes, during which the horses sensed the fever of anxiety and could
+be hardly made to stand--Ali Partab stood arrayed in clean, new khaki
+that fitted him reasonably well.
+
+"A sword, now!" demanded Alwa. "Thy sword! This man had a sword when he
+was taken! Give him thine, unless there is a better to be had."
+
+There was nothing for it but obedience, for few things were more certain
+than that Alwa was not there to waste time asking for anything he would
+not 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 search
+the stables and bring out the three best chargers of the twenty and
+more reserved for Jaimihr's private use. They were wonders of horses,
+half-Arab and half-native-bred, clean-limbed and firm--worth more, each
+one 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 for
+a sight of firearms, but could see none. He guessed--and he was
+right--that the guard had taken full advantage of their master's
+absence, and had been gambling in a corner while their rifles rested
+under cover somewhere else. For a second he hesitated, dallying with the
+notion of disarming the guard before he left, then decided that a fight
+was scarcely worth the risking now, and with ten good men behind him he
+wheeled and scooted through the wide-flung gates into outer gloom.
+
+He galloped none too fast, for his party was barely out of range before
+a ragged volley ripped from the palace-wall; one of his men, hampered
+and delayed by a led horse that was trying to break away from him, was
+actually hit, and begged Alwa to ride back and burn the palace after
+all. He was grumbling still about the honor of a Rangar, when Alwa
+called a halt in the shelter of a deserted side street in order to
+question Ali Partab further.
+
+Ali Partab protested that he did not know what to say or think about the
+missionaries. He explained his orders and vowed that his honor held him
+there in Howrah until Miss McClean should consent to come away. He did
+not mention the father; he was a mere side issue--it was Alwa who asked
+after 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-man
+troop proceeded to obey. They had reached the main street again, and
+were wheeling into it, when Joanna sprang from gutter darkness and
+intercepted them. She was all but ridden down before Ali Partab
+recognized her.
+
+"The mohurs, sahib!" she demanded. "Three golden mohurs!"
+
+"Ay, three!" said Ali Partab, giving her a hand and yanking her off the
+ground. She sprang across his horse's rump behind him, and he seemed to
+have 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 the
+Miss-sahib and her father are in Howrah's palace!"
+
+They halted, all together in a cluster in the middle of the street--shut
+in 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 she
+chose--had sneaked, down alleys and over roof-tops, straight for the
+mission house. She found there nothing but a desultory guard and an
+impression, rather than the traces, of an empty cage. About two
+minutes of cautious questioning of neighbors satisfied her where the
+missionaries were; nothing short of death seemed able to deprive her of
+ability to flit like a black bat through the shadows, and the distance
+to 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. Before
+Alwa had thundered on Jaimihr's gate Joanna had mingled in the crowd
+outside the palace and was shrewdly questioning again.
+
+She arrived too late to see McClean and his daughter seized; what she
+did hear was that they were prisoners, and that the Maharajah, Jaimihr,
+and the priests were all of them engaged in the secret ceremony
+whose beginning was a monthly spectacle but whose subsequent
+developments--supposed to be somewhere in the bowels of the earth--were
+known only to the men who held the key.
+
+Like a rat running in the wainscot holes, she tried to follow the
+procession; like everybody else, she knew the way it took from the
+palace gate, and--as few others were--she was aware of a scaling-place
+on the outer wall where a huge baobab drooped century-scarred branches
+nearly to the ground on either side. The sacred monkeys used that route
+and where they went Joanna could contrive to follow.
+
+It was another member of the sweeper caste, lurking in the darkness
+of an inner courtyard, who pointed out the bronze-barred door to her
+through which the treasure guardians had chanted on their way; it was
+he, too, who told her that Rosemary McClean and her father had been
+rushed into the palace through the main entrance. Also, he informed her
+that there was no way--positively no way practicable even for a monkey
+or a bird--of following further. He was a sweeper-intimate acquaintance
+of creeper ladders, trap-doors, gutters drains, and byways; she realized
+at once that there would be no wisdom in attempting to find within an
+hour 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, had
+seen the whole play from its first beginning and could judge at least
+that 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 he
+planned to seize Miss McClean when the moment should be propitious--and
+her Eastern wisdom warned her that Jaimihr, foiled, would stop at
+nothing to contrive vengeance. If he could not seize Miss McClean, he
+would be likely to use every means within his power to bring about her
+death 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 loathed
+the Christian missionaries; and it was common knowledge that the
+Maharajah was cross-hobbled by the priests. The Maharajah was a fearful
+man, and, unless the priests and Jaimihr threatened him with a show
+of combination, there was a slight chance that he might dread British
+vengeance too much to dare permit violence to the McCleans. Possibly he
+might hold out against the priests alone; but before an open alliance
+between Jaimihr and the priests he would surrender for his own throne's
+sake.
+
+So far Joanna could reason readily enough, for there was a vast fund of
+wisdom stored beneath her wrinkled ugliness. But her Eastern limitation
+stopped 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 at
+once. She decided that at all costs Jaimihr must be out of the way so
+that the Maharaja might be left to argue with the priests alone. For the
+moment no other thought occurred to her.
+
+The means seemed ready to her hand. A peculiarity of the East, which is
+democratic in most ways under the veneer of swaggering autocracy, that
+servants of the very lowest caste may speak, and argue on occasion, with
+men who would shudder at the prospect of defilement from their touch.
+There was nothing in the least outrageous in the proposition that the
+sweeper, waiting in a corner for the procession to emerge again so that
+he might curl on his mat and sleep undisturbed when it had gone, should
+dare to approach Jaimihr and address him. He would run no small risk
+of being beaten by the guards; but, on the other hand, should he catch
+jaimihr's ear and interest him, he would be safe.
+
+"Wouldst thou win Jaimihr's favor?" asked Joanna, creeping up beside
+him, 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 his
+palace--looted--and prepared to burn. Bid him hurry back with all the
+men 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 not
+trouble sufficient for one man? Who bears bad news to a prince, or to
+any but his enemy? I--with these two eyes--I saw what happened to the
+men who bore bad news to Howrah once. I--with this broom of mine--I
+helped clean up the mess. Deliver thine own message!"
+
+"Nay. Afterward I will say this--to the Jaimihr-sahib in person. There
+is one, I will tell him, a sweeper in the palace, who refused to bear
+tidings when the need was great."
+
+"If his palace is burned and his wealth all ashes, who cares what
+Jaimihr hears?"
+
+"There is no glow yet in the sky," said Joanna looking up. "The palace
+is 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 beneath
+an elephant--ay--glad, indeed."
+
+"The reward, were the Jaimihr-sahib warned in time, would be a great
+one."
+
+"Then, why waitest thou not to have word with him. Art thou above
+rewards?"
+
+"Have no fear! He will know in good time who it was brought thee the
+news."
+
+They argued for ten minutes, Joanna threatening and coaxing and
+promising rewards, until at last the man consented. It was the thought,
+thoroughly encouraged by Joanna, that the penalty for not speaking would
+be greater than the beating he might get for bearing evil news that
+at last convinced him; and it was not until she had won him over and
+assured herself that he would not fail that it dawned on Joanna just
+what 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 do
+anything for the McCleans!
+
+That thought sent her scooting over housetops, diving down dark
+alleyways, racing, dodging, hiding, dashing on again, and brought her
+in the nick of time to a ditch, from whose shelter she sprang and seized
+the hand of Ali Partab. That incident, and her intimation that the
+missionaries were in Howrah's palace, took Alwa back up the black, blind
+side street; and before he emerged from it he saw Jaimihr and his ten go
+thundering past, their eyes on the sky-line for a hint of conflagration,
+and their horses--belly-to-the-earth--racing as only fear, or
+enthusiasm, or grim desperation in their riders' minds can make them
+race.
+
+A little later, in groups and scattered fours, and one by one, his
+heavy-breathing troopers followed, cursing the order that had sent
+them abroad with-out their horses, damning--as none but a dismounted
+cavalryman can damn--the earth's unevenness, their swords, their luck,
+their priests, the night, their boots, and Jaimihr. Forewarned, Alwa
+held on down the pitch-dark side street, into whose steep-sided chasm
+the moon's rays would not reach for an hour or two to come, and once
+again he led his party in a sweeping, wide-swung circle, loose-reined
+and 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--however
+little real authority they have, or however much their power is
+undermined by men behind the throne--they must be accorded dignity. They
+must be, on the face of things, obeyed.
+
+
+Inspection of the treasure finished and an hour-long mummery of rites
+performed, the thirty wound their way, chanting, in single file back
+again. The bronze-enforced door, that was only first of half a hundred
+barriers between approach and the semi-sacred hoard, at last clanged
+shut and was locked with three locks, each of whose individual keys was
+in the keeping of a separate member of the three--Maharajah, Prince, and
+priest. The same keys fitted every door of the maze--made passages, but
+no one door would open without all three.
+
+Speaking like an omen from the deepest shadow, the sweeper called to
+Jaimihr.
+
+"Sahib, thy palace burns! Sahib, thy prisoner runs! Haste, sahib! Call
+thy 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 news
+from utter blackness into nerve-strung tension. No one member of the
+thirty but was on the alert for friction or sudden treachery; the were
+all eyes for each other, and the croaking fell on ears strained to the
+aching point. He had time to repeat his warning before one of Jaimihr's
+men stepped into the darkness where he hid and dragged him out.
+
+"Sahib, a woman came but now and brought the news. It was from the
+captain of the guard. The Rangars came to take their man away. They
+broke in. They burn. They loot. They--"
+
+But Jaimihr did not wait another instant to hear the rest. To him this
+seemed like the scheming of his brother. Now he imagined he could read
+between the lines! That letter sent to Alwa had been misreported to
+him, and had been really a call to come and free the prisoner and wreak
+Rangar vengeance! He understood! But first he must save his palace, if
+it could be saved. The priests must have deceived him, so he wasted no
+time in arguing with them; he ran, with his guards behind him, to the
+outer wall of Siva's temple where the horses waited, each with a saice
+squatting at his head. The saices were sent scattering among the crowd
+to give the alarm and send the rest of his contingent hurrying back;
+Jaimihr and his ten drove home their spurs, and streaked, as the
+frightened 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 the
+gods in which to think. Jaimihr--one facet of the problem and
+perhaps the sharpest--would have his hands full for a while, and the
+priests--wish how they would--would never dare omit the after-ritual in
+Siva's temple. He--untrammelled for an hour to come--might study out a
+course to take and hold with those embarrassing prisoners of his.
+
+He turned--updrawn in regal stateliness--and intimated to the high
+priest that the ceremony might proceed without him. When the priests
+demurred and murmured, he informed them that he would be pleased to give
+them audience when the ritual was over, and without deigning another
+argument he turned through a side door into the palace.
+
+Within ten minutes he was seated in his throne-room. One minute later
+his prisoners stood in front of him, still holding each other's hands,
+and the guard withdrew. The great doors opening on the marble outer hall
+clanged tight, and in this room there were no carved screens through
+which a hidden, rustling world might listen. There was gold-incrusted
+splendor--there were glittering, hanging ornaments that far outdid the
+peacocks' feathers of the canopy above the throne; but the walls were
+solid, and the marble floor rang hard and true.
+
+There was no nook or corner anywhere that could conceal a man. For a
+minute, still bejewelled in his robes of state and glittering as the
+diamonds in his head-dress caught the light from half a dozen hanging
+lamps, the Maharajah sat and gazed at them, his chin resting on one hand
+and 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 be
+bearded now in his gold-bespattered den, and fear gripped her.
+
+"Maharajah-sahib, when I came here with letters from the government of
+India and asked you for a mission house in which to live and work, I
+told you that I came as a friend--as a respectful sympathizer. I told
+you I would not incite rebellion against you, and that I would not
+interfere with native custom or your authority so long as acquiescence
+and obedience by me did not run counter to the overriding law of the
+British Government."
+
+Howrah did not even move his head in token that he listened, but his
+tired 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 practice
+of suttee was and is illegal. My knowledge of Sanskrit is only slight,
+but there are others of my race who have had opportunity to translate
+the Sanskrit Vedas, and I have in writing what they found in them. I
+warned you, when that information reached me, that your priests have
+been deliberately lying to you--that the Vedas say: 'Thrice-blessed is
+she 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 government
+frequently, in writing, but for reasons which I do not profess to
+understand they have made no move as yet. For that reason, and for no
+other, I have tried to be a thorn in your side, and will continue to try
+to be until this suttee ceases!"
+
+"Why," demanded Howrah, "since you are a foreigner with neither
+influence nor right, do you stay here and behold what you cannot
+change? Does a snake lie sleeping on an ant-hill? Does a woman watch the
+butchering of lambs? Yet, do ant-hills cease to be, and are lambs not
+butchered? Look the other way! Sleep softer in another place!"
+
+"I am a prisoner. For months past my daughter and I have been prisoners
+to all intents and purposes, and you, Maharajah-sahib, have known it
+well. Now, the one man who was left to be our escort to another place is
+a prisoner, too. You know that, too. And you ask me why I stay! Suppose
+you answer?"
+
+Rosemary squeezed his hand again, this time less to restrain him than
+herself. She was torn between an inclination to laugh at the daring or
+shiver at the indiscretion of taking to task a man whose one word could
+place them at the mercy of the priests of Siva, or the mob. But
+Duncan McClean, a little bowed about the shoulders, peered through
+his spectacles and waited--quite unawed by all the splendor--for the
+Maharajah's answer.
+
+"Of what man do you speak?" asked Howrah, still undecided what to do
+with them, and anxious above all things to disguise his thoughts. "What
+man is a prisoner, and how do you know it?"
+
+Before McClean had time to answer him, a spear haft rang on the great
+teak double door. There was a pause, and the clang repeated--another
+pause--a third reverberating, humming metal notice of an interruption,
+and the doors swung wide. A Hindoo, salaaming low so that the expression
+of his face could not be seen, called out down the long length of the
+hall.
+
+"The Alwa-sahib waits, demanding audience!" There was no change apparent
+on Howrah's face. His fingers tightened on the jewelled cimeter that
+protruded, silk-sashed, from his middle, but neither voice nor eyes nor
+lips betrayed the least emotion. It was the McCleans whose eyes blazed
+with 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 afterward
+admit 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 was
+obviously futile. Still holding his daughter's hand, the missionary let
+himself be led to the outer hall and down a corridor, where, presently,
+a six-inch door shut prisoners and guards even from sound of what
+transpired beyond.
+
+Alwa, swaggering until his long spurs jingled like a bunch of keys
+each time his boot-heels struck the marble floor, strode straight as
+a soldier up to the raised throne dais--took no notice whatever of
+the sudden slamming of the door behind him--looked knife-keenly into
+Howrah's eyes--and saluted with a flourish.
+
+"I come from bursting open Jaimihr's buzzard roost!" he intimated
+mildly. "He held a man of mine. I have the man."
+
+Merely to speak first was insolence; but that breach of etiquette was
+nothing to his manner and his voice. It appeared that he was so utterly
+confident of his own prowess that he could afford to speak casually; he
+did 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. "I
+await the answer."
+
+Alwa's eyes changed, and his attention stiffened. Not having been
+at home, he knew nothing of the letter, but he did not choose to
+acknowledge the fact. The principle that one only shares the truth with
+friends is good, when taken by surprise.
+
+"I preferred to have confirmation of the matter from the Maharajah's
+lips in person, so--since I had this other matter to attend to--I
+combined two visits in one trip."
+
+He lied, as he walked and fought, like a soldier, and the weary man who
+watched him from the throne detected no false ring.
+
+"I informed you that I had extended my protection to the two
+missionaries, man and daughter."
+
+"You did. Also, you did well." He tossed that piece of comfort to the
+despot as a man might throw table scraps to a starveling dog! "I have
+come 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! I
+know, too, how deep the love lies between thee and thy brother, king of
+Howrah! I am here to remind you that many more than ten men would
+race their horses to a stand-still to answer my summons--brave men,
+Maharajah-sahib--men whose blades are keen, and straightly held, and
+true. They who would rally round me against Jaimihr would--"
+
+"Would fight for me?"
+
+"I have not yet said so." There was a little, barely accentuated
+emphasis on the one word "yet." The Maharajah thought a minute before he
+answered.
+
+"How many mounted troopers could you raise?"
+
+"Who knows? A thousand--three thousand--according to the soreness of the
+need."
+
+"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 cousin
+of yours--Mahommed Gunga--is interested for the British. So--so I am
+interested 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 men
+who wondered what the light of day was like, having long ago forgotten!"
+
+"Make me prisoner!" laughed Alwa. "Count then the hours until three
+thousand blades join Jaimihr and help him grease the dungeon hinges with
+thy 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 side
+when 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 on
+this throne."
+
+"Against whom?"
+
+"Against all comers."
+
+"If I refuse, what then?"
+
+"Jaimihr--who by this time must surely be thy very warmest
+friend!--shall attack thee unmolested. Pledge thy word--take thy
+missionary 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 only
+weakly guarded. Then I would act. If he goes with few, how can he take
+thy 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's
+hand!"
+
+Howrah glared for a moment, but thought better of the hot retort that
+rose to his lips. Instead he struck a silver gong, and when the doors
+swung open ordered the prisoners to be produced.
+
+"Escape through the palace-grounds," he advised Alwa. "A man of mine
+will show the way."
+
+"Remember!" said Alwa across his shoulder with more than royal
+insolence, "I swore to help thee against Jaimihr and to support thee on
+thy 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 in
+Howrah City's history. The inevitable--the foiled rage of the priests
+and Jaimihr's impudent insistence that the missionaries should be handed
+over to him--the Maharajah's answer--all combined to set the murmurings
+afoot. Men said that the threatened rebellion against the rule of
+Britain had broken loose at last, and a dozen other quite as false and
+equally probable things.
+
+Jaimihr, finding that his palace was intact, and that only the prisoner
+and three horses from his stable were missing, placed the whole guard
+under arrest--stormed futilely, while his hurrying swarm flocked to him
+through the dinning streets--and then, mad-angry and made reckless by
+his rage, rode with a hundred at his back to Howrah's palace, scattering
+the bee-swarm of inquisitive but so far peaceful citizens right and
+left.
+
+With little ceremony, he sent in word to Howrah that he wanted Alwa and
+the missionaries; he stated that his private honor was at stake, and
+that he would stop at nothing to wreak vengeance. He wanted the man who
+had dared invade his palace--the man whom he had released--and the
+two who were the prime cause of the outrage. And with just as little
+ceremony word came out that the Maharajah would please himself as to
+what he did with prisoners.
+
+That message was followed almost instantly by the high priest of Siva
+in person, angry as a turkey-gobbler and blasphemously vindictive. He
+it was who told Jaimihr of the unexpected departure through the
+palace-grounds.
+
+"Ride, Jaimihr-sahib! Ride!" he advised him.
+
+"How many have you? A hundred? Plenty! Ride and cut him off! There is
+but one road to Alwa's place; he must pass by the northern ford through
+Howrah River. Ride and cut him off!"
+
+So, loose-reined, foam-flecked, breathing vengeance, Jaimihr and his
+hundred thundered through the dark hot night, making a bee-line for the
+point where Alwa's band must pass in order to take the shortest route to
+safety.
+
+It was his word to the Jew that saved Alwa's neck. He and his men were
+riding borrowed horses, and he had promised to return them and reclaim
+his own. They had moved at a walk through winding, dark palace-alleys,
+led by a palace attendant, and debouched through a narrow door that gave
+barely horse-room into the road where Jaimihr had once killed a Maharati
+trader who molested Rosemary McClean. The missionary and his daughter
+were mounted on the horses seized in Jaimihr's stable; Joanna, moaning
+about "three gold mohurs, sahib--three, where are they?" was up behind
+Ali Partab, tossed like a pea on a drum-skin by the lunging movements of
+the wonder of a horse.
+
+Instead of heading straight for home, in which case--although he did not
+know it--he would have been surely overhauled and brought to bay, he led
+at a stiff hand gallop to the Jew's, changed horses, crossed the ford by
+the burning ghats, and swooped in a wide half-circle for the sandy trail
+that would take him homeward. He made the home road miles beyond the
+point where Jaimihr waited for him--drew rein into the long-striding
+amble that desert-taught horses love--and led on, laughing.
+
+"Ho!" He laughed. "Ho-ho! Here, then, is the end of Mahommed Gunga's
+scheming! Now, when he comes with arguments to make me fight on the
+British side, what a tale I have for him! Ho! What a swearing there will
+be! I will give him his missionary people, and say, 'There, Mahommed
+Gunga, cousin mine, there is my word redeemed--there is thy man into the
+bargain--there are three horses for thee--and I--I am at Howrah's beck
+and call!' Allah! What a swearing there will be!"
+
+There was swearing, viler and more blasphemous than any of which
+Mahommed Gunga might be capable, where Jaimihr waited in the dark. He
+waited until the yellow dawn broke up the first dim streaks of violet
+before he realized that Alwa had given him the slip; and he cursed even
+the high priest of Siva when that worthy accosted him and asked what
+tidings.
+
+"Another trick!" swore Jaimihr. "So, thou and thy temple rats saw fit to
+send me packing for the night! What devils' tricks have been hatched out
+in my absence?"
+
+The high priest started to protest, but Jaimihr silenced him with
+coarse-mouthed threats.
+
+"I, too, can play double when occasion calls for it!" he swore. And with
+that hint at coming trouble he clattered on home to his palace.
+
+To begin with, when he reached home, he had the guard beaten all but
+unconscious for having dared let raiders in during the night before;
+then he sent them, waterless and thirsty, back to the dungeon. He felt
+better then, and called for ink and paper.
+
+For hours he thought and wrote alternately, tearing up letter after
+letter. Then, at last, he read over a composition that satisfied him and
+set his seal at the foot. He placed the whole in a silver tube, poured
+wax into the joint, and called for the fat man who had been responsible
+for Ali Partab's capture.
+
+"Dog!" he snarled. "Interfering fool! All this was thy doing! Didst thou
+see the guard beaten awhile ago?"
+
+"I did. It was a lordly beating. The men are all but dead but will live
+for 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 British
+officer above the rank of major. It calls for a receipt. Do not dare
+come back, or be caught in Howrah City, without a receipt for that tube
+and its contents intact!"
+
+"If Alwa and Mahommed Gunga are in league with my brother," muttered
+Jaimihr to himself when the fat Hindoo had gone, "then the sooner the
+British quarrel with both of them the better. Howrah alone I can dispose
+of easily enough, and there is yet time before rebellion starts for the
+British to spike the guns of the other two. By the time that is done, I
+will be Maharajah!"
+
+It was less than three days later when the word came mysteriously
+through the undiscoverable "underground" route of India for all men to
+be ready.
+
+"By the next full moon," went the message, from the priests alone knew
+where, "all India will be waiting. When the full moon rises then the
+hour is come!"
+
+"And when that full moon rises," thought Jaimihr to himself, "my
+brother's funeral rites will be past history!"
+
+For the present, though, he made believe to regret his recent rage, and
+was courteous to priest and Maharajah alike--even sending to his brother
+to 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 the
+Brigadier) with more feeling of regret and disappointment than he cared
+to show. A born soldier, he did his hard-mouthed utmost to refrain
+from whining; he even pretended that a political appointment was
+a recognizable advance along the road to sure success--or, rather,
+pretended that he thought it was; and the Brigadier, who knew men, and
+particularly young men, detected instantly the telltale expression
+of 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 the
+shoulder. "You're making a good, game effort to hide chagrin, and you're
+a good, game ass for your pains. There isn't one man in all India who
+has half your luck at this minute, if you only knew it; but go ahead
+and find out for yourself! Go to Abu and report, but waste no more time
+there than you can help. Hurry on to Howrah, and once you're there, if
+Mahommed 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 to
+visit 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 expected
+to look out for yourself. The escort is made up of details travelling
+down-country; they'll leave you at Abu Road."
+
+So, still unbelieving--still wondering why the Brigadier should go
+to all that trouble to convince him that politics in a half-forgotten
+native state were fair meat for a soldier--Cunningham rode off at the
+head of a variously made-up travelling party, grudging every step of
+that wonderful mare Mahommed Gunga had given him, that bore him away
+from the breeze-swept north--away from the mist-draped hills he had
+already learned to love--ever down, down, down into the hell-baked
+plains.
+
+Each rest-house where he spent a night was but another brooding-place
+of discontent and regret, each little petty detail connected with the
+command 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 ago
+had thundered at his back.
+
+More than any other thing, Mahommed Gunga's cheerfulness amazed him. He
+resented it. He did not see why the man who had expressed such interest
+in the good fortune of his father's son should not be sympathetic now
+that his soldier career had been nipped so early in the bud. He began to
+lose faith in Mahommed Gunga's wisdom, and was glad when the ex-Risaldar
+chose to bring up the rear of the procession instead of riding by his
+side.
+
+But behind, in Peshawur, there was one man at least who knew Mahommed
+Gunga and his worth, and who refused to let himself be blinded by any
+sort of circumstantial evidence. The evidence was black--in black on
+white--written by a black-hearted schemer, and delivered by a big, fat
+black man, who was utterly road-weary, to the commissioner in person.
+
+The sepoy mutiny that had been planned so carefully had started to take
+charge too soon. News had arrived of native regiments whose officers
+had been obliged against their will to disarm and disband them, and the
+loyalty of other regiments was seriously called in question.
+
+But the men whose blindness was responsible for the possibility of
+mutiny were only made blinder by the evidence of coming trouble. With
+a dozen courses open to them, any one of which might have saved
+the situation, they deliberately chose a thirteenth--two-forked
+toboggan-slide into destruction. To prove their misjudged confidence in
+the native army, they actually disbanded the irregulars led by Byng
+the Brigadier--removed the European soldiers wherever possible
+from ammunition-magazine guard-duty, replacing them with native
+companies--and reprimanded the men whose clear sight showed them how
+events were shaping.
+
+They reprimanded Byng, as though depriving him of his command were not
+enough. When he protested, as he had a right to do, they showed him
+Jaimihr's letter.
+
+"Mahommed Gunga told you, did he? Look at this!"
+
+The letter, most concisely and pointedly written, considering the
+indirect phraseology and caution of the East, deliberately accused
+Mahommed Gunga and a certain Alwa, together with all the Rangars of
+a whole province, of scheming with Maharajah Howrah to overthrow the
+British rule. It recommended the immediate arrest of Mahommed Gunga and
+stern 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 the
+proper quarter, and no doubt the story will be investigated. There have
+been all kinds of stories about suttee being practised in Howrah, and it
+very likely won't be difficult to find a plausible excuse for deposing
+the Maharajah and putting Jaimihr in his place. In the meantime, if
+Mahommed Gunga shows himself in these parts he'll be arrested."
+
+Byng did then the sort of thing that was fortunately characteristic of
+the men who rose in the nick of time to seize the reins. He hurried to
+his quarters, packed in its case the sword of honor that had once been
+given him by his Queen, and despatched it without a written line of
+comment to Mahommed Gunga. The native who took it was ordered to ride
+like the devil, overtake Mahommed Gunga on the road to Abu, present the
+sword without explanation, and return.
+
+Cunningham, in spite of himself, had travelled swiftly. The moon lacked
+two nights of being full and two more days would have seen him climbing
+up 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 up
+Mahommed Gunga, who was riding, as usual, in the rear, and handed him
+the sword. He held it out with both hands. Mahommed Gunga seized it by
+the middle, and neither said a word for the moment.
+
+In silence Mahommed Gunga drew the blade--saw Byng's name engraved close
+to the hilt--recognized the sword, and knew the sender--thought--and
+mistook the meaning.
+
+"Was there no word?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Then take this word back. 'I will return the sword, with honor added to
+it, 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 repeated
+twice, leaning back from the saddle for a last look at the man of his
+own race whom Byng had chosen to exalt. He felt himself honored merely
+to have carried the sword. Mahommed Gunga removed his own great sabre
+and handed it to one of his own five whom he overtook; then he buckled
+on the sword of honor and spurred until he rode abreast of Cunningham, a
+hundred yards or more ahead of the procession.
+
+"Sahib," he asked, "did Byng-bahadur say a word or two about listening
+to me?"
+
+"He did. Why?"
+
+"Because I will now say things!"
+
+The fact that the Brigadier had sent no message other than the sword
+was probably the Rajput's chief reason for talking in riddles still
+to Cunningham. The silence went straight to his Oriental heart--so
+to speak, set the key for him to play to. But he knew, too, that
+Cunningham's youth would be a handicap should it come to argument; what
+he was looking for was not a counsellor or some one to make plans, for
+the plans had all been laid and cross-laid by the enemy, and Mahommed
+Gunga knew it. He needed a man of decision--to be flung blindfold into
+unexpected and unexpecting hell wrath, who would lead, take charge,
+decide on the instant, and lead the way out again, with men behind him
+who would recognize decision when they saw it. So he spoke darkly.
+He understood that the sword meant "Things have started," so with a
+soldier's courage he proceeded to head Cunningham toward the spot where
+hell was loose.
+
+"Say ahead!" smiled Cunningham.
+
+"Yonder, sahib, lies Abu. Yonder to the right lies thy road now, not
+forward."
+
+"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, "by
+offering the wrong advice?"
+
+"I can't imagine so."
+
+"I advise, now, that we--thou and I, sahib, and my five turn off
+here--yonder, where the other trail runs--letting the party proceed to
+Abu without us."
+
+"But why, Mahommed Gunga?"
+
+"There is need of haste, sahib. At Abu there will be delay--much talk
+with Everton-sahib, and who knows?--perhaps cancellation of the plan to
+send 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 on
+the sword-hilt, and realized that the Rajput's usual plain, workmanlike
+weapon 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 the
+hour to act is come!"
+
+"But--"
+
+"Sahib--this sending thee to Howrah is my doing? Since the day when I
+first heard that the son of Pukka Cunnigan-bahadur was on his way I have
+schemed and planned and contrived to this end. It was at word from me
+that Byng-bahadur signed the transfer papers--otherwise he would have
+kept thee by him. There are owls--old women--men whom Allah has deprived
+of judgment--drunkards--fools--in charge at Peshawur and in other
+places; but there are certain men who know. Byng-bahadur knows. I
+know--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 for
+fun?"
+
+"But what's the idea? I can't disobey orders, and ride off to--God
+knows where--without some excuse. You'll have to tell me why. What's the
+matter? What's happening?"
+
+"Byng-bahadur sent not one word to me when he sent this sword. To thee
+he said: 'Listen to Mahommed Gunga, even when he seems to lie!' I
+know 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 nose
+hard as you like into the middle of the mess!' Ay, sahib, so said he. It
+is now that I take charge."
+
+"But--"
+
+"'But,' said the nylghau, and the wolf-pack had him! 'But,' said the
+tiger, and the trap door shut! 'But,' said the Hindoo, and a priest
+betrayed him! But--but--but--I never knew thy father make much use of
+that word!"
+
+"Yes--but--I have my orders, Mahommed Gunga!"
+
+"Sahib--this sword is a sword of honor--it stands for Byng-bahadur's
+honor. I have it in my keeping. Mine own honor is a matter somewhat
+dear to me, and I have kept it clean these many years. Now I ask to keep
+thine honor, too, awhile--making three men's honor. If I fail, then thou
+and I and Byng-bahadur all go down together in good company. If I fail
+not, then, sahib--Allah is contented when his honor stands!"
+
+Cunningham drew rein and looked him in the eyes. Gray eyes met brown and
+neither flinched; each read what men of mettle only can read when they
+see it--the truth, the fearlessness, the thought they understand because
+it lives with them. Cunningham held out his hand.
+
+Some thirty minutes later Cunningham, Mahommed Gunga, and the five, with
+a much-diminished mule-train bumping in their wake, were headed westward
+on a dry, hot trail, while the time-expired and convalescent escort
+plodded south. The escort carried word that Cunningham had heard of
+trouble 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 followed
+Cunningham's desertion of his party when he and Mahommed Gunga first
+caught sight of a blue, baked rock rising sheer out of a fringe of
+green on the dazzling horizon. It was a freak of nature--a point pushed
+through the level crust of bone-dry earth, and left to glitter there
+alone.
+
+"That is my cousin Alwa's place!" exclaimed Mahommed Gunga, and he
+seemed to draw a world of consolation from the fact.
+
+The sight loosed his tongue at last; he rode by Cunningham, and deigned
+an explanation now, at least, of what had led to what might happen. He
+wasted little breath on prophecy, but he was eloquent in building up
+a basis from which Cunningham might draw his own deductions. They had
+ridden through the cool of the night in easy stages, and should have
+camped at dawn; but Mahommed Gunga had insisted that the tired animals
+could 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, his
+cousin'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 hot
+now! Thy countrymen--the men who hated thee so easily--heated them and
+sit now between them for their folly!"
+
+"How d'you mean? 'Pon my soul and honor, Risaldar, you talk more riddles
+in 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 not
+know the answer. Read me this one. Why did the British Government annex
+the state of Oudh? All the best native soldiers came from Oudh, or
+nearly all. They were loyal once; but can a man be fairly asked to
+side against his own? If Oudh should rise in rebellion, what would the
+soldiers do?"
+
+"Dunno, I'm sure," said Cunningham.
+
+"Read me this one, then. By pacifying both Mohammedan and Hindoo and by
+letting both keep their religion, by sometimes playing one against the
+other and by being just, the British Government has become supreme
+from the Himalayas to the ocean. Can you tell me why they now issue
+cartridges for the new rifles that are soaked in the fat of cows and
+pigs, 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 those
+cartridges--nor bite them, as the drill decrees--than I would betray
+thee! Pig's fat! Ugh!"
+
+He spat with Mohammedan eloquence and wiped his lips on his tunic sleeve
+before 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 the
+other. Why? What say one and all? Mohammedan and Hindoo both say it is a
+plot, first to make them lose their own religion by defilement, then
+to make Christians of them! Foolishness to talk thus? Nay! It was
+foolishness to act thus!
+
+"Sahib, peace follows in the wake of soldiers, as we know. Time and time
+again the peace of India has been ripped asunder at the whim of priests!
+These padre people, preaching new damnation everywhere, are the flint
+and 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 the
+place whence the wind will come to fan the hell flames that presently
+will burn. The wind will blow hot or cold--for or against the
+government--according as you and I and certain others act when
+opportunity arrives! See yonder!"
+
+They had been seen, evidently, for horsemen--looking like black ants on
+the desert--seemed to have crawled from the bowels of the living rock
+and 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 and
+none dare raid his place; few would waste time trying. Therefore, it is
+all one to him who passes along this road; and he takes no trouble, as
+a rule, to send his men out in skirmishing order when a party comes in
+view. 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-red
+cloud! Alwa is neither scare-monger nor robber; when he sends out armed
+men to inspect strangers on the sky-line, there is war! Sahib, I grow
+young again! Had people listened to me--had they called me anything but
+fool when I warned them--thou and I would have been cooped up now in
+Agra, or in Delhi, or Lucknow, or Peshawur! Now we are free of the
+plains of Rajputana--within a ride of fifty of my blood-relations,
+and they each within reach of others! Ho! I can hear the thunder of
+a squadron at my back again! I am young, sahib--young! My old joints
+loosen! Allah send the cloud has burst at last--I bring to two thousand
+Rangars a new Cunnigan-bahadur! Thy father's son shall learn what
+Cunnigan-bahadur taught!"
+
+He lapsed into silence, watching the advancing horsemen, who swooped
+down on them in an ever-closing fan formation. His tired horse sensed
+the thrill that tingled through its rider's veins, and pranced again,
+curving his neck and straining at the bit until Mahommed Gunga steadied
+him. The five behind--even the mule-drivers too--detected excitement
+in the air, and the little column closed in on its leaders. All eyes
+watched the neck-and-neck approach of Alwa's men, until Cunningham at
+last could see their turbans and make out that they were Rangars, not
+Hindoos. 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 has
+summoned men from his estates. As a rule, he can afford but ten men for
+that fort of his, and he would not send all his men to meet us--he has a
+garrison up yonder!"
+
+Like blown dust-devils the twenty raced to them, and drew up thundering
+within a lance-length. A sword-armed Rangar with a little gold lace on
+his 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 no
+better! 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 or
+right of precedence. He was too excited, too inquisitive, too occupied
+with the necessity for keeping calm in the face of what most surely
+looked like the beginning of big happenings. These horsemen of Alwa's
+rode, and looked, and laughed like soldiers, new-stripped of the hobble
+ropes of peace, and their very seat in the untanned saddles--tight down,
+loose-swaying from the hips, and free--was confirmation of Mahommed
+Gunga's words.
+
+They wheeled in a cloud and led the way, opening a little in the centre
+to let the clouds of sand their horses kicked up blow to the right and
+left of Cunningham and his men. Not a word was spoken--not a question
+asked or a piece of news exchanged--until the whole party halted at the
+foot of Alwa's fortress home--a great iron gate in front of them and
+garden land on either side--watered by the splashing streamlet from the
+heights 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 has
+no 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 horses
+under side by side, and for all its weight it rose as suddenly and
+evenly as though a giant's hand had lifted it. Immediately behind it,
+like an actor waiting for the stage-curtain to rise, Alwa bestrode his
+war-horse in the middle of a roadway. He saluted with drawn sabre, and
+this time Cunningham replied.
+
+Almost instantly the man who had led the gallopers and had saluted
+Mahommed 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 Rangar
+more particularly, thinks about points of etiquette before considering
+what to eat. Alwa growled out a welcome, rammed his sabre home, and
+wheeled without another word, showing the way at a walk--which was all
+a wild goat could have accomplished--up a winding road, hewn out of the
+solid mountain, that corkscrewed round and round upon itself until it
+gave onto the battlemented summit. There he dismounted, ordered his men
+to their quarters, and for the first time took notice of his cousin.
+
+"I have thy missionary and his daughter, three horses for thee, and thy
+man," 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!" he
+announced.
+
+Alwa drew himself up to his full height and eyed young Cunningham as a
+buyer eyes a war-horse, inch by inch. The youngster, who had long since
+learned to actually revel in the weird sensation of a hundred pairs of
+eyes all fixed on him at once, felt this one man's gaze go over him
+as though he were being probed. He thanked his God he had no fat to be
+detected, and that his legs were straight, and that his tunic fitted
+him!
+
+"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 a
+room made ready. Have I leave to ask questions of my cousin here?"
+
+Cunningham bowed in recognition of his courtesy, and walked away to
+a point whence he could look from the beetling parapet away and away
+across desert that shone hot and hazy-rimmed on every side. If this were
+a man on whom he must depend for following--if any of all the more
+than hints dropped by the risaldar were true--it seemed to him that his
+reception was a little too chilly to be hopeful.
+
+After a minute or two he turned his eyes away from the dazzling plain
+below and faced about to inspect the paved courtyard. Round it, on
+three sides of a parallelogram, there ran a beautifully designed and
+wonderfully worked-out veranda-fronted building, broken here and there
+by cobbled passages that evidently led to other buildings on the far
+edge of the rock. In the centre, covered by a roof like a temple-dome
+in miniature, was the ice-cold spring, whose existence made the fort
+tenable. Under the veranda, on a long, low lounge, was a sight that
+arrested his attention--held him spell-bound--drew him, tingling in
+a 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 the
+belly-growled Rangar oath; but it did not occur to him that what
+he saw--what was drawing him--could be connected with it. He looked
+straight ahead and walked ahead--reached the edge of the veranda--took
+his helmet off--and stood still, feeling like an idiot, with the sun
+full on his head.
+
+"I'd advise you to step into the shade," said a voice that laughed more
+sweetly than the chuckling spring. "I don't know who you are, but I'm
+more glad to see you than I ever was in my life to see anybody. I can't
+get up, because I'm too stiff; the ride to here from Howrah City all but
+killed 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, feeling
+awkward, as men of his type usually do when they meet a woman in a
+strange place.
+
+"How in the world did you get in?" she asked him. "It's two days now
+since the Alwa-sahib told us that the whole country is in rebellion. How
+is it that you managed to reach here? According to Alwa, no white man's
+life is safe in the open, and he only told me today that he wouldn't let
+me go away even if I were well enough to ride."
+
+"First I've heard of rebellion!" said Cunningham aghast at the notion of
+hearing 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 he
+tells the truth--the natives mean to kill us all, or drive us out of
+India. Of course they can't do it, but they mean to try. He has been
+more than kind--more than hospitable--more than chivalrous. Just because
+he gave his word to another Rangar, he risked his life about a dozen
+times to get my father and me and Ali Partab out of Howrah. But, I don't
+think he quite liked doing it--and--this is in confidence--if I were
+asked--and speaking just from intuition--I should say he is in sympathy
+with the rebellion!"
+
+"How long have you been here?" asked Cunningham.
+
+"Several days--ten, I think. It seemed strange at first and rather awful
+to 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 the
+waiting-women. I've forgotten time; the news about rebellion seems too
+awful to leave room for any other thought."
+
+"Who was the Rangar to whom Aliva gave his word? Not Mahommed Gunga, by
+any 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 been
+talking in riddles to me ever since I came to India, and it looks as
+though he knew long in advance."
+
+He was about to cross-examine Miss McClean rigorously, even at the risk
+of seeming either rude or else frightened; but before his lips could
+frame another question he caught sight of Mahommed Gunga making signals
+to him. He affected to ignore the signals. He objected to being kept in
+the dark so utterly, and wished to find out a little for himself before
+listening to what the Rangars had to say. But Mahommed Gunga started
+over to him.
+
+He could not hear the remark Mahommed Gunga made to Alwa over his
+shoulder as he came.
+
+"Had I remembered there was a woman of his own race here, I would have
+plunged him straight into the fighting! Now there will be the devil
+first 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-lipped
+smile--then disappeared through a green door in the side of what seemed
+like 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-walled
+cavern into which Alwa had preceded them. It was nearly square--a hollow
+bubble in the age-old lava--axe-trimmed many hundred years ago. What
+light there was came in through three long slits that gave an archer's
+view 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 the
+silence of it seemed like the nestling-place of peace.
+
+They sat down on wooden benches round the walls, with their soldier legs
+stretched out in front of them. Alwa broke silence first, and it was of
+anything but peace he spoke.
+
+"Now--now, let us see whose throats we are to slit!" he started
+cheerfully.
+
+
+
+
+
+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 the
+first place, he had the perfectly natural dislike of committing his
+thoughts to any language other than his own when anything serious
+was the subject of discussion; in the second place, he had little of
+Mahommed 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 for
+pledging 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's
+benefit. Then Mahommed Gunga silenced him with an uplifted hand, and
+turned to translate to Cunningham.
+
+"It would seem, sahib, that even while we rode to Abu the rebellion was
+already raging! It burst suddenly. They have mutinied at Berhampur,
+and slain their officers. Likewise at Meerut, and at all the places in
+between. At Kohat, in this province they have slain every white man,
+woman, and child, and also at Arjpur and Sohlat. The rebels are hurrying
+to Delhi, where they have proclaimed new rule, under the descendants
+of the old-time kings. Word of all this came before dawn today, by a
+messenger from Maharajah Howrah to my cousin here. My cousin stands
+pledged 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, for
+whom he has no esteem at all, he was forced to swear allegiance to a
+Hindoo 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 his
+home at once--do we embarrass him?"
+
+Again Mahommed Gunga--this time with a grin--saw fit to ask before he
+answered.
+
+"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, if
+this 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 my
+government! I stay here officially, or not at all. It is for him to
+answer!"
+
+"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 all
+India, all trying at once, would fail to take this fort of mine, had I a
+larger garrison. But what Rangar on this countryside will risk his life
+and estates on behalf of a cause that is already lost? If they come to
+hold my fort for me, the rebels will burn their houses. The British Raj
+is 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 he
+turned at either end.
+
+"What Rangar in this province would have had one yard of land to his
+name but for this man's father?" he demanded. "In his day we fought, all
+of us, for what was right! We threw our weight behind him when he led,
+letting everything except obedience go where the devil wanted it! What
+came of that? Good tithes, good report, good feeling, peace!"
+
+"And then, the zemindary laws!" growled Alwa. "Then the laws that took
+away 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! He
+understood now that Mahommed Gunga had told nothing less than truth when
+he declared it had been through his scheming, and no other man's,
+that he--Cunningham--whose sole thought was to be a soldier, had been
+relegated to oblivion and politics! He understood why Byng had signed
+the transfer, and he knew--knew--knew--deep down inside him that his
+chance had come!
+
+"It seems that another Cunningham is to have the honor of preserving
+Rangars' titles for them," he smiled. "How many horsemen could the
+Alwa-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 that
+all 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 is
+against 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 you
+what I think?"
+
+Alwa arose and held the door open for him--stood and watched him cross
+the courtyard--then turned and laughed at Mahommed Gunga.
+
+"Straight over to the woman!" he grinned. "This leader of thine seems in
+leading-strings himself already!"
+
+Mahommed Gunga cursed, and cursed again as his own eyes confirmed what
+Alwa 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 entangled
+with a woman before he reached Peshawur! He should have been
+heart-broken by this time--rightly, he should have been desperate with
+unrequited love! Byng-bahadur could have managed it! Byng-bahadur would
+have managed it, had I thought to advise him!"
+
+He stood, looking over very gloomily at Cunningham, making a dozen
+wild plans for getting rid of Miss McClean--by no means forgetting
+poison--and the height of Alwa's aerie from the plain below! He would
+have been considerably calmer, could he have heard what Cunningham and
+Miss McClean were saying.
+
+The missionary was with her now--ill and exhausted from the combined
+effects of excitement, horror, and the unaccustomed ride across
+the desert--most anxious for his daughter--worried, to the verge of
+desperation, by the ghastly news of the rebellion.
+
+"Mr. Cunningham, I hope you are the forerunner of a British force?" he
+hazarded.
+
+But Cunningham was too intent on cross-examination to waste time on
+giving any information.
+
+"I want you to tell me, quite quietly and without hurry, all you can
+about Howrah," he said, sitting close to Miss McClean. "I want you to
+understand that I am the sole representative of my government in the
+whole district, and that whatever can be done depends very largely on
+what information I can get. I have been talking to the Alwa-sahib, but
+he seems too obsessed with his own predicament to be able to make things
+quite clear. Now, go ahead and tell me what you know about conditions
+in the city. Remember, you are under orders! Try and consider yourself
+a scout, reporting information to your officer. Tell me every single
+thing, however unimportant."
+
+On the far side of the courtyard Alwa and Mahommed Gunga had gone to
+lean over the parapet and watch something that seemed to interest
+both of them intently. There were twenty or more men, lined round
+the ramparts on the lookout, and they all too seemed spellbound, but
+Cunningham was too engrossed in Miss McClean's story of the happenings
+in Howrah City to take notice. Now and then her father would help her
+out with an interjected comment; occasionally Cunningham would stop her
+with a question, or would ask her to repeat some item; but, for more
+than an hour she spun a clear-strung narrative that left very little to
+imagination and included practically all there was to know.
+
+"Do you think," asked Cunningham "that this brute Jaimihr really wants
+to make you Maharanee?"
+
+"I couldn't say," she shuddered. "You know, there have been several
+instances of European women having practically sold themselves to native
+princes; there have been stories--I have heard them--of English women
+marrying Rajahs, and regretting it. There is no reason why he should not
+be in earnest, and he certainly seemed to be."
+
+"And this treasure? Of course, I have heard tales about it, but I
+thought they were just tales."
+
+"That treasure is really there, and its amount must be fabulous. I
+have been told that there are jewels there which would bring a Rajah's
+ransom, and gold enough to offset the taxes of the whole of India for a
+year or two. I've no doubt the stories are exaggerated, but the treasure
+is real enough, and big enough to make the throne worth fighting for.
+Jaimihr counts on being able to break the power of the priests and
+broach 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 against
+the British, but dare not move because of Jaimihr--I have Mahommed
+Gunga and five or six men to depend on--the Rangars are sitting on the
+fence--and the government has its hands full! The lookout's bright! I
+think I see the way through!"
+
+"You are forgetting me." The missionary spread his broad stooped
+shoulders. "I am a missionary first, but next to that I have my
+country's cause more at heart than anything. I place myself under your
+orders, Mr. Cunningham."
+
+"I too," said Miss McClean. She was looking at him keenly as he gazed
+away into nothing through slightly narrowed eyes. Vaguely, his attitude
+reminded 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 of
+self-contained power. His nose was not like the Iron Duke's, for young
+Cunningham's had rather more tolerance in its outline and less of Roman
+overbearing; but the eyes, and the mouth, and the angle of the jaw were
+so like Wellesley's as to force a smile. "A woman isn't likely to be
+much use in a case like this--but, one never knows. My country comes
+first."
+
+"Thanks," he answered quietly. And as he turned his head to flash one
+glance at each of them, she recognized what Mahommed Gunga had gloated
+over from the first--the grim decision, that will sacrifice all--take
+full responsibility--and use all means available for the one unflinching
+purpose 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 straightening
+his spectacles.
+
+Cunningham left them and walked over to the parapet, where the whole
+garrison was bending excitedly now above the battlement. There were more
+than 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 the
+desert 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 than
+half the city at his back. He has left behind ten men for every one he
+brings with him--sufficient to hold Howrah in check. Otherwise he
+would never have dared come here. He hopes to settle his little private
+quarrel with me first, before dealing with his brother! Who told him, I
+wonder, that I was pledged to Howrah?"
+
+"He reckons he has caught thee napping in this fort of thine!" laughed
+Mahommed Gunga. "He means to bottle up the Rangars' leader, and so
+checkmate all of them!"
+
+The eight hundred horsemen on the plain below rode carelessly through
+Alwa's gardens, leaving trampled confusion in their wake, and lined
+up--with Jaimihr at their head--immediately before the great iron
+gate. A moment later four men rode closer and hammered on it with their
+lance-ends.
+
+"Go down and speak to them!" commanded Alwa, and a man dropped down the
+zigzag roadway like a goat, taking short cuts from level to level, until
+he stood on a pinnacle of rock that overhung the gate. Ten minutes later
+he returned, breathing hard with the effort of his climb.
+
+"Jaimihr demands the missionaries--particularly the Miss-sahib--also
+quarters and food!" he reported.
+
+"Quarters and food he shall have!" swore Alwa, looking down at the
+Prince who sat his charger in the centre of the roadway. "Did he deign a
+threat?"
+
+"He said that in fifteen minutes he will burst the gate in, unless he is
+first admitted!"
+
+Duncan McClean walked over, limping painfully, and peered over the
+precipice.
+
+"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 below
+in less than fifteen minutes! Hindoos, for all I know, would benefit by
+prayer. They have too many gods, and their gods are too busy fighting
+for ascendancy to listen. Pray thou, a little!"
+
+There came a long shout from the plain, and Alwa sent a man again to
+listen. He came back with a message that Jaimihr granted amnesty to
+all who would surrender, and that he would be pleased to accept Alwa's
+allegiance if offered to him.
+
+"I will offer the braggart something in the way of board and lodging
+that will astonish him!" growled Alwa. "Eight men to horse! The first
+eight! 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, where
+great wheels with a chain attached to them were forced round to lift the
+gate. Next he stationed a signaller with a cord in either hand, above
+the parapet, to notify the men below exactly when to set the simple
+machinery in motion. His eight clattered out from the stables on the far
+side 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 ever
+since 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 room
+for eight and no more. Four following four abreast, and one ahead
+to lead them. I and my men know how to do this. I and my men have a
+personal dispute with Jaimihr. Stay thou here!"
+
+Mahommed Gunga's five and Ali Partab came clattering out so fast as
+to 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 man
+not 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 than
+anything what weird, wild trick these horsemen meant to play. No man in
+his senses would have dared to ride a horse at more than foot-pace down
+the path. Was there another path? he wondered. At least, if eight men
+were about to charge into eight hundred, it would be best to keep his
+good friend Mahommed Gunga out of it, he decided.
+
+"Risaldar!" The veteran was always most amenable to reason when
+addressed 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 here
+with me!"
+
+Mahommed Gunga saluted and dismounted, and his six followed suit,
+looking as disappointed as children just deprived of a vacation. Alwa
+wheeled his horse in front of Cunningham and saluted too.
+
+"For that service, sahib, I am thy friend!" he muttered. "That was right
+and reasonable, and a judgement quickly given! Thy friend, bahadur!" He
+spoke low on purpose, but Mahommed Gunga heard him, caught Cunningham's
+eye, 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 the
+man dropped down the cliff side for the third time; they could hear his
+voice, high-pitched, resounding off the rock, and they caught a faint
+murmur 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 McClean
+came over; she and Cunningham and the missionary leaned together over
+the battlement and watched.
+
+"We might do some execution with rifles from here," Cunningham
+suggested; "I believe I'll send for mine." But Mahommed Gunga overheard
+him.
+
+"Nay, sahib! No shooting will be necessary. Watch!"
+
+There was a clatter of hoofs, and they all looked up in time to see the
+tails 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 the
+only 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 teeth
+of 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-loosed
+avalanche, they could see the nine go, led by Alwa. No living creature
+could have looked away!
+
+Below, entirely unconscious of the coming shock, the mounted sepoys
+waited behind Jaimihr in four long, straight lines. Jaimihr himself,
+with a heavy-hilted cimeter held upward at the "carry," was about four
+charger lengths beyond the iron screen, ready to spur through. Close by
+him were a dozen, waiting to ram a big beam in and hold up the gate
+when it had opened. And, full-tilt down the gorge, flash-tipped like
+a thunderbolt, gray-turbaned, reckless, whirling death ripped down on
+them.
+
+They caught sound of the hammering hoofs too late. Two gongs boomed in
+the rock. The windlass creaked. Five seconds too late Jaimihr gathered
+up his reins, spurred, wheeled, and shouted to the men behind him.
+The great gate rose, like the jaws of a hungry monster, and
+the nine--streaking too fast down far too steep a slide to stop
+themselves--burst straight out under it and struck, as a wind blast
+smites a poppy-field.
+
+Jaimihr was borne backward--carried off his horse. Alwa and the first
+four rode him down, and crashed through the four-deep line beyond; the
+second four pounced on him, gathered him, and followed. Before the lines
+could form again the whole nine wheeled--as a wind-eddy spins on its own
+axis--and burst through back again, the horses racing neck and neck, and
+the sabres cutting down a swath to screech and swear and gurgle in among
+the trampled garden stuff.
+
+They came back in a line, all eight abreast, Alwa leading only by a
+length. At the opening, four horses--two on either side--slid, rump to
+the ground, until their noses touched the rock. Alwa and four dashed
+through and under; the rest recovered, spun on their haunches, and
+followed. The gongs boomed again down in the belly of the rock, and the
+gate 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 out
+from twenty vantage-points, and the smoke showed where some forty men
+were squinting down steel barrels, shooting as rapidly and as rottenly
+as natives of India usually do. They did little execution; but before
+Alwa and his eight had climbed up the steep track to the summit, patting
+their horses' necks and reviling Jaimihr as they came, the cavalry below
+had scampered out of range, leaving their dead and wounded where they
+lay.
+
+"How is that for a start, sahib?" demanded Mahommed Gunga exultantly,
+as two men deposited the dishevelled Jaimihr on his feet, and the Prince
+glared around him like a man awaking from a dream. "How is that for a
+beginning?"
+
+"As bad as could be!" answered Cunningham. "It was well
+executed--bold--clever--anything you like, Mahommed Gunga, but--if I'd
+been asked I'd have sooner made the devil prisoner! Jaimihr is no use at
+all 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 had
+dragged him none too gently) and with his jewelled pugree all awry,
+Jaimihr did not lack dignity. He held his chin high, although he gazed
+at 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, after
+washing it out first thoroughly and ostentatiously. But Jaimihr smiled.
+His caste forbade. He waved away the offering much as Caesar may have
+waved aside a crown, with an air of condescending mightiness too proud
+to know contempt.
+
+"Go, help thyself!" growled Alwa; and Jaimihr walked to the spring
+without haste, knelt down, and dipped up water with his hand.
+
+"Now to a cell with him!" commanded Alwa, before the Prince had time
+to slake a more than ordinary thirst. Jaimihr stood upright as four men
+closed in on him, and looked straight in the eyes of every one in turn.
+Rosemary McClean stepped back, to hide herself behind Cunningham's broad
+shoulders, but Jaimihr saw her and his proud smile broadened to a laugh
+of sheer amusement. He let his captors wait for him while he stared
+straight 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 even
+an 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 was
+doing the necessary dirty work out of Miss McClean's sight; but, except
+hospital nurses, there are few women who can see dry blood removed from
+steel 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 was
+seeing 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 for
+her.
+
+She knew that he would have killed a thousand men for her with equal
+generosity and equal disregard of what she thought was right, and she
+did not doubt that he would think himself both justified and worthy of
+renown for doing it. She could have begged his release that minute,
+had she thought for an instant that Alwa would consent, and but for
+Cunningham. She had grown aware of Cunningham's gray eyes, staring
+straight at her--summing her up--reading her. And she became conscious
+of the fact that she had met a man whose leave she would like to ask
+before deciding to act.
+
+The mental acknowledgment brought relief for a few seconds. She was
+tired. The woman in here went out to the man in Cunningham, and she
+welcomed a protector. Then the Scots blood raced to the assistance of
+the woman, and she bridled instantly. Who, then, was this chance-met
+jackanapes, that she should lean on him or look to him for guidance?
+
+The rebellion that had made her disobey her father back in Howrah
+City--the spirit that had kept her in Howrah City and had given Jaimihr
+back cool stare for stare--rallied her to resist--to ridicule--to rival
+Cunningham's pretensions. He saw her flush beneath his gaze, and turned
+away to where Mahommed Gunga watched from the parapet.
+
+The leaders of Jaimihr's calvary were arguing. They could be seen
+gathered together out of rifle-shot but in full view of Alwa's rock, and
+from their gestures they seemed to be considering the feasibility of an
+attack.
+
+But it needed no warrior--it needed less even than ordinary
+intelligence--to know that as few as forty men could hold that fastness
+against 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 the
+iron-shuttered entrance and cut off the little garrison from all
+communication or assistance.
+
+"We might as well resume our conference," suggested Alwa, with the
+courtly air of a man just arisen from a chair. No one who had not seen
+him ride would have dreamed that he was fresh from snatching a prisoner
+at the bottom of a neck-breaking defile. Cunningham nodded acquiescence
+and followed him, turning to stare again at Miss McClean before he
+strode away with long, even strides that had a reassuring effect on any
+one who watched him. She bridled again, and blushed. But she experienced
+the weird sensation of being read right through before Mahommed Gunga
+contrived adroitly to step into the line of view and so let Cunningham's
+attention fix itself on something else. The Risaldar had made up his
+mind that love was inopportune just then; and he was a man who left no
+stone unturned--no point unwatched--when he had sensed a danger. This
+might be danger and it might not be; so he watched. Cunningham was
+conscious of the sudden interruption of a train of thought, but he was
+not conscious of deliberate interference.
+
+"That very young man is an old man," said Duncan McClean, wiping his
+spectacles as he walked beside his daughter to the deep veranda where
+their chairs were side by side. "He is a grown man. He has come to man's
+estate. Look at the set of that pair of shoulders. Mark his strength!"
+
+"I expect any one of those Rajputs is physically stronger," answered
+Rosemary, in no mood to praise any one.
+
+"I was thinking of the strength of character he expresses rather than of
+his actual muscles," said McClean.
+
+"Bismillah!" Alwa was swearing behind the thick teak door that closed
+behind him and Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga. "We have made a good
+beginning! With the wolf in a trap, what has the goat to dread? Howrah
+may chuckle himself to sleep! And I--I, too, by the beard of God's
+prophet!--I, too, may laugh, for, with Jaimihr under lock and key, what
+need 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 Mahommed
+Gunga sat down on the nearest bench contented. He could wait for what
+was coming now. He recognized the blossoming of the plant that he had
+nursed through its growth so long.
+
+"I listen," answered Alwa.
+
+"I represent the British Government. I am the only servant of the
+Company 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 such
+time as some one senior to me turns up to relieve me. Is all that clear
+to you?"
+
+"Yes, sahib."
+
+Mahommed Gunga went through considerable pantomime of being angry with a
+fly. He found it necessary to conceal emotion in some way or other. Alwa
+sat 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 terms
+of 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 be
+in 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 Prince
+within 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 I
+offer you and your men pay at the rate paid to all irregular cavalry on
+a 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 of
+half Asia, and then of nine-tenths of the other half! But by the breath
+of 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 by
+Allah's sending, shall I plunge into another, like a frightened bird
+fluttering from snare to snare? Nay, nay, bahadur! For thyself, for thy
+father's sake, ask any favor. It is granted. But thy Company may stew in
+the grease of its own cartridges for ought I care!"
+
+Cunningham stood up and bowed very slightly--very stiffly--very
+punctiliously. Mahommed Gunga leaped to his feet, and came to attention
+with a military clatter. Alwa stared, inclining his head a trifle in
+recognition 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 exceedingly
+that I cannot avail myself of it further, either for myself or
+for Mahommed Gunga or for Mr. and Miss McClean. As the Company's
+representative, 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 a
+source 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 pledge
+your 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 Jaimihr
+prisoner. Has that small success undermined your power of decision? I
+know my mind. Mahommed Gunga knows his, Alwa-sahib."
+
+"I ask an hour. There are many points I must consider. There is the
+prisoner for one thing."
+
+"You can hand him over to the custody of the first British column we
+can get in touch with, Alwa-sahib. That will relieve you of further
+responsibility to Howrah and will insure a fair trial of any issue there
+may be between yourself and Jaimihr."
+
+Alwa scowled. No Rajput likes the thought of litigation where affairs
+of honor are concerned. He felt he would prefer to keep Jaimihr prisoner
+for the present.
+
+"Also, sahib"--fresh facets of the situation kept appearing to him as he
+sparred for time--"with Jaimihr in a cage I can drive a bargain with his
+brother. While I keep him in the cage, Howrah must respect my wishes for
+fear lest otherwise I loose Jaimihr to be a thorn in his side anew. If I
+hand him to the British, Howrah will know that he is safe and altogether
+out of harm's way; then he will recall what he may choose to consider
+insolence of mine; and then--"
+
+"Oh, well--consider it!" said Cunningham, saluting him and making for
+the door, close followed by Mahommed Gunga. The two went out and it
+left Alwa to stride up and down alone--to wrestle between desire and
+circumspection--to weigh uncomfortable fact with fact--and to curse his
+wits that could not settle on the wisest and most creditable course.
+They turned into another chamber of the tunnelled rock, and there until
+long after the hour of law allowed to Alwa they discussed the situation
+too.
+
+"The point was well taken, sahib," said Mahommed Gunga, "but he should
+have 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, I
+don't want him, and that's all!" said Cunningham. And Mahommed Gunga
+bitted his impatience fiercely, praying the one God he believed in to
+touch the right scale of the two. Later, Cunningham strode out to pace
+the 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 Cunningham
+in a rock-room near at hand, Rosemary McClean saw fit to take a hand
+in history. It was not her temperament to sit quite idle while others
+shaped her destiny; nor was she given to mere brooding over wrongs. When
+a wrong was being done that she could alter or alleviate it was her way
+to tackle it at once without asking for permission or advice.
+
+From where her chair was placed under the long veranda she could see the
+passage in the rock that led to Jaimihr's cell. She saw his captors take
+him up the passage; she heard the door clang shut on him, and she saw
+the men come back again. She heard them laugh, too, and she overheard a
+few words of a jest that seemed the reason for the laughter.
+
+In Rajputana, as in other portions of the East, men laugh with meaning
+as a rule, and seldom from mere amusement. Included in the laugh there
+usually lies more than a hint of threat, or hate, or cruelty. And, in
+partial confirmation of the jest she unintentionally overheard, she saw
+no servant go to the chuckling spring to fill a water-jar. She recalled
+that Jaimihr only sipped as much as he could dip up in the hollow of his
+hand, and that physical exertion and suffering of the sort that he had
+undergone 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 to
+interfere with his arrangements or to suggest insinuations anent his
+treatment of prisoners. She recalled the pride of all Rajputs, and its
+accompanying corollary of insolence when offended. There would come no
+good--she knew--from asking anybody whether Jaimihr was allowed to drink
+or not.
+
+Cunningham, with that middle-aged air of authority laid over the fire
+and ability of youth, would be able, no doubt, to enforce his wishes in
+the matter after finding out the truth about it. But Cunningham did not
+come; and she remembered from a short experience of her own what thirst
+was.
+
+The men-at-arms were all on the ramparts now, watching the leaderless
+cavalry on the plain. They had even left the cell door unguarded, for it
+was 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 rock
+against eight hundred. It was characteristic, though, and Eastern of the
+East, that they should omit to padlock the big beam. It pivoted at its
+centre on a big bronze pin, and even a child could move it from the
+outside; it was only from the inside that it was uncontrollable. From
+inside one could have jerked at the door for a week and the big beam
+would have lain still and efficient in its niche in the rock-wall; but
+a little pressure underneath one end would send it swinging in an arc
+until it hung bolt upright. Then the same child who had pushed it up
+could have swung the teak door wide.
+
+Rosemary, growing momentarily thirstier herself as she thought of the
+probable torture of the prisoner, walked down to the spring and filled
+a dipper, as she had done half a dozen times a day since she first
+arrived. She had carried almost all her own and her father's water,
+for Joanna was generally sleeping somewhere out of view, and no other
+body-servant had been provided for her. There was a fairly big brass
+pitcher by the spring. She filled it. Nobody noticed her.
+
+Then she recalled that nobody would notice her if she were to carry the
+brass 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 without
+having called attention to herself. She set it down then to make quite
+sure that she was unobserved.
+
+But some movement of the cavalry on the plain below was keeping the eyes
+of the garrison employed. Although a solitary lantern shone full on her,
+she reached the passage leading to the prisoner's cell unseen; and she
+walked on down it, making no attempt to hide or hurry, remembering that
+she was acting out of mercy and had no need to be ashamed. If she were
+to be discovered, then she would be, and that was all about it, except
+that she would probably be able to appeal to Cunningham to save her from
+unpleasant consequences. In any case, she reasoned, she would have done
+good. She was quite ready to get herself and her own in trouble if by
+doing 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; and
+in a land where water is as scarce as gold and far more precious the
+mention of water to a thirsty man calls forth a flood of thought such
+as only music or perhaps religion can produce in luckier climes. Jaimihr
+waxed eloquent; more eloquent than even water might have made him had
+another--had even another woman--brought it. He recognized her voice,
+and said things to her that roused all the anger that she knew. She had
+not come to be made love to.
+
+She thought, though, of his thirst. She remembered that within an hour
+or two he might be raving for another reason and with other words. The
+big beam lifted on her hands with barely more effort than was needed
+to 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 the
+prisoner. But there were no windows to that cell, and such dim light as
+there was came from behind her.
+
+"They have bound me, sahiba, in this corner," groaned Jaimihr. "I cannot
+reach it. Take it away again! The certainty that it is there and out of
+reach is too great torture!"
+
+So she slipped in through the door, leaving it open a little way--both
+her hands busy with the brass pitcher and both eyes straining their
+utmost through the gloom--advancing step by step through mouldy straw
+that might conceal a thousand horrors.
+
+"You wonder, perhaps, why I do not escape!" said a voice. And then she
+heard 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 was
+all the ventilation or light a prisoner in that place was allowed.
+
+"So you lied to me, even when I brought you water?" she answered. She
+was 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 no
+chains 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 known
+that I am in here, and I would not have it known."
+
+She could have bitten out her tongue with mortification a moment
+afterward for letting any such admission escape her. She heard him
+chuckle as he drank--he choked from chuckling, and set the jar down
+to cough. Then, when he had recovered breath again, he answered almost
+patronizingly.
+
+"Which would be least pleased with you, sahiba? The Rangars, or thy
+father, or the other Englishman? But never mind, sahiba, we are friends.
+I have proved that we are friends. Never have I taken water from the
+hands of any man or any woman not of my own caste. I would have died
+sooner. 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 on
+him, that at the least commotion on his part or on hers a dozen Rangars
+would be likely to come running. And just as he had done, she wondered
+what explanation she would give in that case, and who would be likely
+to believe it. To have been caught going to the cell would have been one
+thing; 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 beginning
+to realize that words would be of little help to her. A woman who will
+tell nothing but the truth under any circumstances and will surely keep
+her promises is at a disadvantage when conversing with a man who surely
+will not tell the truth if he can help it and who regards his given word
+with almost equal disrespect.
+
+"I have no fear, sahiba. I am not afraid to open this door wide and make
+a bid for liberty. It would not be wise, that is all, and thou--and I
+must deal in wisdom."
+
+His words came through the dark very evenly--spaced evenly--as though
+he weighed each one of them before he voiced it. She gathered the
+impression that he was thinking for his very life. She felt unable to
+think for her own. She felt impelled to listen--incredulous, helpless,
+frightened,--not a little ashamed. She was thinking more of the awful
+things those Moslem gentlemen would say about her should they come and
+discover her in Jaimihr's cell.
+
+"Listen, sahiba! From end to end of India thy people are either dead, or
+else face to face with death. There is no escape anywhere for any man or
+woman--no hope, no chance. The British doom is sealed. So is the doom of
+every 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 number
+them by thousands--will come and rip these Rangars from their roost.
+Those that are not crucified will be thrown down from the summit, and
+there shall be a Hindoo shrine where they have worshipped their false
+god. Then, sahiba, if thou art here--perhaps--there might--yet--be a
+way-perhaps, yes?--a way, still, to escape me?"
+
+She was trembling. She could not help beginning to believe him. Whatever
+might be true of what he said was certainly not comforting.
+
+"But, while my army comes in search of me, my brother Howrah will be
+making merry with my palace and belongings. There will be devastation
+and other things in my army's rear for which there is no need and
+for which I have no stomach. I detest the thought of them, sahiba.
+Therefore, sahiba, I would drive a bargain. Notice, sahiba, I say not
+one word of love, though love such as mine is has seldom been offered
+to a woman. I say no word of love--as yet. I say, help me to escape by
+night, when I may make my way unseen back to my men: enable me to reach
+Howrah before my dear brother is aware of my trouble and before his men
+can start plundering, and name your own terms, sahiba!"
+
+Name her own terms--name her own terms--name her own terms! The words
+dinned through her head and she could grasp no other thought. She was
+alone in a cell with Jaimihr, and she could get out of it if she would
+name her terms! She must name them--she must hurry--what were they? What
+were her terms? She could not think.
+
+"Understand, sahiba. Certain things are sure. It is sure my men will
+come. It is sure that every Rangar on this rock will meet a very far
+from pleasant death--"
+
+He grinned, and though she could not see him grin, she knew that he was
+doing it. She knew that he was even then imagining a hundred horrors
+that the Rangars would endure before they died. She might name her
+terms. She could save them.
+
+"No!" she hissed hoarsely. "No! They are my terms! I name them! You must
+spare 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 his
+power. She knew enough of Howrah City's politics to be convinced that
+he would not be left at the mercy of a little band of Rangars. She knew
+that there were not enough Rangars on the whole countryside to oppose
+the army that would surely come to his rescue. And whether he were dead
+or living, she knew well enough that the vengeance would be wreaked on
+every living body on the hill. Alwa might feel confident, not she. She
+trembled now with joy at the thought that she--she the most helpless and
+useless of all of them--might save the lives of all.
+
+But then another phase of the problem daunted her. She might help
+Jaimihr go. He might escape unobserved with her aid. But then? What
+then? What would the Rangars do to her? Had she sufficient courage to
+face that? It was not fear now that swept over her so much as wonder at
+herself. Jaimihr detected something different in her mental attitude,
+and, since almost any change means weakness to the Oriental mind, he
+was quick to try to take advantage of it. He guessed right at the first
+attempt.
+
+"And what wilt thou do here, sahiba? When I am gone, and there is none
+here 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 to
+fulfil my part!"
+
+She stepped toward the door, but he held out both his arms and she saw
+them. She had no intention of being embraced by him, whatever their
+conspiracy.
+
+"Stand back!" she ordered.
+
+"Nay, nay, sahiba! Listen! Escape with me! These Rangars will not
+believe without proof that thou hast saved their lives by bargaining.
+They will show thee short shrift indeed when my loss is discovered. Come
+now and I will make thee Maharanee in a week!"
+
+"I would be as safe with one as with the other!" she laughed, something
+of calm reflection returning to her. "And what proof have I in any case
+that you will keep your word, Jaimihr-sahib. I will keep mine--but who
+will 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 my
+father 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 he
+remembered his ambition and his present need, and words raced to his
+aid--words, plans, oaths, treachery, and all the hundred and one tricks
+that he was used to. He found himself consciously selecting from a dozen
+different plans for tricking her.
+
+"Sahiba"--he spoke slowly and convincingly. In the gloom she could
+see his brown eyes levelled straight at hers, and she saw they did not
+flinch--"there is none who knows better than thou knowest how my brother
+and I stand to each other." She shuddered at the reiterated second
+person singular, but he either did not notice it or else affected not
+to. "Thou know est that there is no love between him and me, and that
+I would have his throne. The British could set me on that throne unless
+they were first overwhelmed. Wert thou my legal wife, and were I to aid
+the British in this minute of their need, they would not be overwhelmed,
+and afterward they would surely set me on the throne. Therefore I pledge
+my word to lead my men to the Company's aid, provided that these Rangars
+ride to my aid. My brother plans to overcome me first, and then take
+arms against the British. If the Rangars come to help me I will ride
+with 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 the
+throne!"
+
+She actually laughed, and he winced palpably. There was no doubt that he
+loved 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 can
+promise. What more is there to say or offer? If I stay here, I swear on
+the honor of a Rajput and a prince of royal blood, that every living
+man and woman on this rock, excepting thee only, shall be dead within a
+week. But if I escape by thy aid, and if, at thy instance, these Rangars
+and their friends ride to my help against my brother, then I will throw
+all 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 you
+have named--that you spare these Rangars and every living body on this
+hill. Then I will do my utmost to persuade the Rangars to ride to your
+assistance on your condition, that you lead your men to help the British
+afterward. And if my action in helping you escape should make the
+Rangars turn against me and my immediate friends, I shall claim your
+protection. Is that agreed?"
+
+"Sahiba--absolutely!"
+
+"Then let me pass!"
+
+Reluctantly he stood aside. She slipped out and let the bar down
+unobserved. But she had not recovered all her self-possession when she
+reached the courtyard.
+
+"Evening, Miss McClean," said Cunningham; and she all but fainted, she
+was strained to such a pitch of nervousness.
+
+"Where have you come from, Miss McClean?" asked Cunningham. And she told
+him. 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 deep
+shadow."
+
+"Come to him, please. I want your explanation in his presence."
+
+She followed as obediently as a child. The sense of guilt--of fright--of
+impending judgment left her as she walked with him, and gave place to a
+glow of comfort that here should be a man on whom to lean. She did not
+fight the new sensation, for she was growing strangely weary of the
+other one. By the time that they had reached her father, and he was
+standing before Cunningham wiping his spectacles in his nervous way, she
+had completely recovered her self-possession, although it is likely she
+would 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 as
+he might have cross-examined a spy caught in the act. His voice was
+uncompromising, 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 to
+betray an inclination to bridle under the youngster's attitude, and to
+show 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 talk
+about treasure in Howrah City is not mere imagination and legend?"
+
+"Absolutely positive!" They both answered him at once, both looking in
+his eyes across the unsteady rays of the flickering, smoky lamp. "The
+amount has been, of course, much exaggerated," said McClean, "but I have
+no doubt there is enough there to pay the taxes of all India for a year
+or two."
+
+"Then I have another question to ask. Do you both--or do you
+not--place yourselves at the service of the Company? It is likely to be
+dangerous--a desperate service. But the Company needs all that it can
+muster."
+
+"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 seized
+the lamp. He held it high, and scanned Cunningham's face as though he
+were reading a finely drawn map.
+
+"We are prepared--I speak for my daughter as well as for myself--to obey
+any orders that you have a right to give, young man."
+
+"You misunderstand me," answered Cunningham. "I am offering you the
+opportunity to serve the Company. As the Company's senior officer in the
+neighborhood, I am responsible to the Company for such orders as I see
+fit to give. I could not have my orders questioned. I don't mind telling
+you that I'm asking you, as British subjects, no more than I intend to
+ask Alwa and his Rangars. You can do as much as they are going to be
+asked to do. You can't do more. But you can do less if you like. You
+are being given the opportunity now to offer your services
+unconditionally--that is to say in the only manner in which I will
+accept them. Otherwise you will remain non-combatants, and I shall take
+such 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 of
+the lantern.
+
+"I refuse to admit the qualification," answered Cunningham promptly.
+"Either you will obey, or you will not. You are asked to say which, that
+is all."
+
+"I will obey," said Rosemary McClean quietly. She said it through
+straight lips and in a level voice that carried more assurance than a
+string 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 away
+from him and faced Rosemary, not troubling to examine her face closely
+as he had done her father's, but seeming none the less to give her full
+attention. "I understood you to say that you promised to help Prince
+Jaimihr to escape from his cell tonight?"
+
+"WHAT?"
+
+Duncan McClean could not have acted such amazement. Cunningham desired
+no further evidence that he had not been accessory to his daughter's
+visit to the prisoner. He silenced him with a gesture. And now his eyes
+seemed for the time being to have finished with both of them; in spite
+of the darkness they both knew that he had resumed the far-away look
+that seemed able to see things finished.
+
+"Yes," said Rosemary. "I promised. I had to."
+
+Her father gasped. But Cunningham appeared to follow an unbroken chain
+of thought, and she listened.
+
+"Well. You will both realize readily that we, as British subjects, are
+ranged all together on one side opposed to treachery, as represented
+by the large majority of the natives. That means that our first
+consideration must be to keep our given word. What we say,--what we
+promise--what we boast--must tally with what we undertake, and at the
+least try, to do. You must keep your word to Jaimihr, Miss McClean!"
+
+She stared back at Cunningham through wide, unfrightened eyes. Whatever
+this man said to her, she seemed unable to feel fear while she had his
+attention. Her father seemed utterly bewildered, and she held his hand
+to reassure him.
+
+"On the other hand, we cannot be guilty of a breach of faith to our
+friend Alwa here. I must have a little talk with him before I issue any
+orders. Please wait here and--ah--do nothing while I talk to Alwa. Did
+you--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 from
+the 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, and
+stalked off to find Alwa, close followed by Mahommed Gunga. The grim old
+Rajput was grinning in his beard as he recognized the set of what might
+have 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 to
+preserve the fighting character of the organization. The very name Singh
+means lion. The Sikh's long hair with the iron ring hidden underneath
+is meant as a protection against sword-cuts. And because their faith
+is rather spiritual than fanatical--based rather on the cause of
+things than on material effect--men of that creed take first rank among
+fighting men.
+
+Jaidev Singh arrived soon after the moon had risen. The notice of
+his coming was the steady drumming footfall of his horse, that slowed
+occasionally, and responded to the spur again immediately.
+
+Close to the big iron gate below Alwa's eyrie there were some of
+Jaimihr's cavalry nosing about among the trampled gardens for the dead
+and wounded they had left there earlier in the afternoon. They ceased
+searching, and formed up to intercept whoever it might be who rode in
+such a hurry. Above them, on the overhanging ramparts, there was quick
+discussion, and one man left his post hurriedly.
+
+"A horseman from the West!" he announced, breaking in on Alwa's privacy
+without ceremony.
+
+"One?"
+
+"One only."
+
+"For us or them?"
+
+"I know not, sahib."
+
+Alwa--glad enough of the relief from puzzling his brain--ran to the
+rampart and looked long at the moving dot that was coming noisily toward
+his 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 and
+Mahommed Gunga, coming out at last in search of him, saw the strained
+figures of the garrison peering downward through the yellow moon
+rays, and took stand on either side of him to gaze, too, in spellbound
+silence.
+
+"If he is their man," said Alwa presently, "he will turn now. He will
+change direction and ride for the main body of them yonder. He can see
+them now easily. Yes. See. He is their man!"
+
+On a horse that staggered gamely--silhouetted and beginning to show
+detail in the yellow light--a man whose nationality or caste could not
+be recognized rode straight for the bivouacking cavalry, and a swarm of
+them rode out at a walk to meet him.
+
+The tension on the ramparts was relaxed then. As a friend in direst need
+the man would have been welcome. As one of enemy, with a message for
+them, however urgent, he was no more than an incident.
+
+"By Allah!" roared Alwa suddenly. "That is no man of theirs! Quick! To
+the wheels! Man the wheels! Eight men to horse!"
+
+He took the cord himself, to send the necessary signal down into the
+belly of the rock. From his stables, where men and horses seemed to
+stand ready day and night, ten troopers cantered out, scattering
+the sparks, the whites of their horses' eyes and their drawn blades
+gleaming; without another order they dipped down the breakneck gorge,
+to wait below. The oncoming rider had wheeled again; he had caught the
+cavalry, that rode to meet him, unawares. They were not yet certain
+whether he was friend or foe, and they were milling in a bunch, shouting
+orders to one another. He, spurring like a maniac, was heading straight
+for the searching party, who had formed to cut him off. He seemed to
+have thrown his heart over Alwa's iron gate and to be thundering on
+hell's own horse in quest of it again.
+
+Alwa's eight slipped down the defile as quickly as phantoms would have
+dared in that tricky moon-light. One of them shouted from below. Alwa
+jerked the cord, and the great gate yawned, well-oiled and silent.
+The oncomer raced straight for the middle of the intercepting line of
+horsemen; they--knowing him by this time for no friend--started to meet
+him; and Alwa's eight, unannounced and unexpected, whirled into them
+from the rear.
+
+In a second there was shouting, blind confusion--eddying and trying
+to reform. The lone galloper pulled clear, and Alwa's men drove his
+opponents, crupper over headstall, into a body of the main contingent
+who had raced up in pursuit. They rammed the charge home, and reeled
+through both detachments--then wheeled at the spur and cut their way
+back again, catching up their man at the moment that his horse dropped
+dead beneath him. They seized him beneath the arms and bore him through
+as the great gate dropped and cut his horse in halves. Then one man took
+the galloper up behind his saddle, and bore him up the hill unquestioned
+until he could dismount in front of Alwa.
+
+"Who art thou?" demanded the owner of the rock, recognizing a warrior
+by his trademarks, but in no way moderating the natural gruffness of
+his voice. Alwa considered that his inviolable hospitality should be too
+well known and understood to call for any explanation or expression; he
+would have considered it an insult to the Sikh's intelligence to have
+mouthed a welcome; he let it go for granted.
+
+"Jaidev Singh--galloper to Byng-bahadur. I bring a letter for the
+Risaldar Mahommed Gunga, or for Cunnigan-sahib, whichever I can find
+first."
+
+"They are both here."
+
+"Then my letter is for both of them."
+
+Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga each took one step forward, and the Sikh
+gave Cunningham a tiny, folded piece of paper, stuck together along
+one edge with native gum. He tore it open, read it in the light of
+a 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 has
+happened. We all need men immediately, and I particularly need them. One
+hundred troopers now would be better than a thousand men a month from
+now. 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 caste
+restrictions. All of his precepts, taken singly or collectively, bid him
+be nothing but a man, and no law forbids him accept the hospitality of
+soldiers of another creed. So Jaidev Singh walked off to feed on curried
+beef that would have made a Hindoo know himself for damned. Cunningham
+then turned on Alwa.
+
+"Now is the time, Alwa-sahib," he said in a level voice. "My party can
+start off with this man and our answer, if your answer is no. If your
+answer 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 to
+his soldier heart. He loved a man who held to his point in the teeth of
+odds. The odds, it seemed to him, were awfully against Cunningham.
+
+"So was thy father," he said slowly. "My cousin said thou wast thy
+father'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 of
+foregoing further hospitality at your hands."
+
+"Bismillah! Am I servant here or master?" wondered Alwa, loud enough for
+all 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 another
+conference."
+
+"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 of
+decisions! Now, by the curse of the sack of Chitor we shall know who is
+on whose side, or I am no Rangar, nor the son of one!"
+
+"I have a suggestion to make, sahib," smiled Alwa, closing the door of
+the 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 Mahommed
+Gunga. "Let us hear a plan worth hearing!" And Alwa looked into a pair
+of steady eyes that seemed to see through him--past him--to the finished
+work 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 aid
+until you have satisfactory guarantees that your homes and friends will
+not be assailed behind your backs."
+
+"Guarantees to whose satisfaction, sahib?"
+
+"Yours!"
+
+"But with whom am I dealing?" Alwa seemed actually staggered. "Who makes
+these 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, standing
+chin erect. He seemed in no doubt now of the outcome. He was merely
+waiting 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 send
+an answer back by that Sikh. He must--he shall take my answer! Either
+you 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 can
+raise, and I have made you specific promises. Choose, Alwa-sahib. Yes or
+no?"
+
+"The answer is yes--but--"
+
+"Then I understand that you undertake to obey my orders without
+question until such time as a senior to me can be found to take over the
+command."
+
+"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 to
+trust when I have your word of honor!"
+
+"I knew thy father! Thou art his son! I trusted him for good reason
+and with good result. I will trust thee also. My word is given, on thy
+conditions, sahib. First, the guarantees before we ride to the British
+aid!"
+
+And you obey my orders?
+
+"Yes. My word is given, sahib. The oath of a Rajput, of a Rangar, of a
+soldier, of a zemindar of the House of Kachwaha; the oath of a man to
+a 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 spurs
+together--"I am thy servant!"
+
+Cunningham saluted. All three men looked in each other's eyes and a bond
+was sealed between them that nothing less than death could sever.
+
+"Thank you," said Cunningham quite quietly. "And now, Alwa-sahib"--(he
+could strike while the iron glowed, could this son of Cunnigan!)--"for
+the 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, was
+hard put to it to believe his ears.
+
+"Jaimihr is the key to the position. He is nothing but a nuisance where
+he is. Outside he can be made to help us."
+
+"Am I dreaming, or art thou, sahib?" Alwa stood with fists clinched on
+his hips and his legs apart--incredulous. "Jaimihr to go free? Why that
+Hindoo pig is the source of all the trouble in the district!"
+
+"We are neither of us dreaming, Alwa-sahib. Jaimihr is the dreamer. Let
+him dream in Howrah City for a day or two, while we get ready. Let him
+lead 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 all
+that kind of thing. I'm offering you, to set off against that, a much
+greater honor than you ever experienced in your whole life yet, and I've
+put my order in the shape of a request for the sake of courtesy. I ask
+you 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 raising
+of as many men as can be raised to you, Alwa-sahib. You will remember
+that 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, assured
+authority of a general of division, returned it, and left the two
+Rajputs 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 its
+scabbard.
+
+"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 the
+blood-spilling! I have brought thee the leader of whom we spoke in
+Howrah 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 was
+his father's! I have seen him; I have heard him; I have felt his pulse
+in 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 of
+Cunnigan!"
+
+
+
+
+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 was
+concerned, 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. Whatever
+Scots reserve and caution may have acted as a brake on Duncan McClean's
+enthusiasm were offset by the fact that his word was given; so far as
+he was concerned, he was now as much and as obedient a servant of the
+Company 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 least
+right to expect it to turn out to be. Two or three thousand men looked
+to him as their hereditary chieftain who alone could help them hold
+their chins high amid an overwhelming Hindoo population; his position
+was delicate, and he might have been excused for much hesitation,
+and even for a point-blank refusal to do what he might have preferred
+personally. He and his stood to lose all that they owned--their
+honor--and the honor of their wives and families, should they fight on
+the wrong side. Even as a soldier who had passed his word, he might have
+been excused for a lot of wordy questioning of orders, for he had enough
+at stake to make anybody cautious.
+
+Yet, having said his say and sworn a dozen God-invoking Rangar oaths
+before he pledged his word, and then having pledged it, he threw Rajput
+tradition and the odds against him into one bottomless discard and
+proceeded to show Cunningham exactly what his fealty meant.
+
+"By the boots and beard of Allah's Prophet!" he swore, growing
+freer-tongued now that his liberty of action had been limited. "Here we
+stand and talk like two old hags, Mahommed Gunga! My word is given. Let
+us 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 amusement
+out of it!"
+
+So he and Mahommed Gunga swaggered across the courtyard to where
+Cunningham had joined the McCleans again.
+
+"We come with aid and not objections, sahib," he assured him. "If we
+listen, it may save explanations afterward."
+
+So at a sign from Cunningham they enlarged the circle, and the East
+and West--bearded and clean-shaven, priest and soldiers, Christian and
+Mohammedan--stood in a ring, while almost the youngest of them--by far
+the youngest man of them--laid down the law for all. His eyes were all
+for Rosemary McClean, but his gestures included all of them, and they
+all 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. There
+came cholera, and Byng-bahadur camped outside the town. He has been
+striking, sahib, striking hard with all too few to help him. His
+irregulars, sahib, were disbanded at some one's orders just before this
+outbreak, but some of them came back at word from him. And there were
+some of us Sikhs who knew him, and who would rather serve him and die
+than fight against him and live. He has now two British regiments with
+him, sadly thinned--some of my people, some Goorkhas, some men from the
+North--not very many more than two thousand men all told, having lost
+heavily in action and by disease. But word is going round from mouth to
+mouth that many sahibs have been superseded, and that only real sahibs
+such as Byng-bahadur have commands in this hour. Byng-bahadur is a man
+of 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 to
+act. Alwa here stands pledged to protect Howrah and you have promised to
+aid Jaimihr. Somebody's word has got to break, and you may take it from
+me that it will be the word of the weakest man! I think that that man
+is Jaimihr, but I can't be sure in advance, and we've got to accept his
+promise to begin with. Go to him, Miss McClean, and make a very careful
+bargain with him along the line I mapped out for you. Alwa-sahib, I want
+witnesses, or rather overhearers. I want you and Mahommed Gunga to place
+yourselves near Jaimihr's cell so that you can hear what he says. There
+won'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 Rajputs
+saluted her as she started back for the cell, and whatever their
+Mohammedan 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 McClean
+seemed to be praying softly, for his lips moved.
+
+When the cell-door creaked open, Alwa and Mahommed Gunga were crouched
+one on either side, listening with the ears of soldiers that do not let
+many sounds or words escape them.
+
+"Jaimihr-sahib!" she whispered. "Jaimihr-sahib!"
+
+"Ha! Sahiba!" Then he called her by half a dozen names that made the
+listening Rangars grin into their beards.
+
+"Jaimihr-sahib"--she raised her voice a little now--"if I help you to
+escape, will you promise me my safety under all conditions?"
+
+"Surely, sahiba!"
+
+"Do you swear to protect every living person on this hill, including the
+Alwa-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 is
+long enough to lower you over the parapet. I am prepared to risk the
+consequences, 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 they
+want to ride to the Company's aid, and they might be prepared to protect
+you against him. They might guarantee the safety of your palace and your
+men's homes. They might exact a guarantee from Howrah."
+
+Jaimihr laughed aloud, careless of the risk of being overheard, and
+Rosemary knew that Cunningham's little plan was useless even before
+it had been quite expounded. She felt herself trembling for the
+consequences.
+
+"Sahiba, there is only one condition that would make me ride to the
+British aid with all my men."
+
+"Name it!"
+
+"Thou art it!"
+
+"I don't understand you, Jaimihr-sahib," she whispered, understanding
+all too well.
+
+"Follow me. Come to me in Howrah. Then whatever these fool Rangars
+choose to do, I swear by Siva and the Rites of Siva that I will hurry to
+the Company's aid!"
+
+Rosemary McClean shuddered, and he knew it. But that fact rather added
+to his pleasure. The wolf prefers a cowering, frightened prey even
+though he dare fight on occasion. She was thinking against time. Through
+that one small, overburdened head, besides a splitting headache, there
+was flashing the ghastly thought of what was happening to her countrymen
+and women--of what would happen unless she hurried to do something for
+their aid. All the burden of all warring India seemed to be resting on
+her shoulders, in a stifling cell; and Jaimihr seemed to be the only
+help 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 waste
+on lies. Tell me the exact truth, please."
+
+He contrived to save his face, or, rather, he contrived to make himself
+believe he did.
+
+"I would need some to guard my rear," he answered. "I could lead five
+thousand 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 the
+Company'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, and
+all the Rangars he can raise. And I shall hold you to your bargain. You
+must 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 her
+eagerness to gain his aid for the Company, and he saw the weakness of
+her case in an instant. He knew very well, too, that no woman of her
+breed would have thought of consenting to marry him unless her hand was
+forced. He decided immediately to force it further.
+
+"I understand, sahiba. I, too, will hold thee to thy promise! Thou wilt
+come with an escort, as befits a prince's wife! But how should I know
+that the Rangars would prove friends of mine? How should I know that it
+is not all a trap?"
+
+"You will have my promise to depend on."
+
+"Truly! And there will be how many hundred men to override the promise
+of one woman? Nay! My word is good; my promise holds; but on my own
+conditions! Help me to escape. Then follow me to Howrah City. Come in
+advance of thy Rangar escort. By that I will know that the Rangars and
+this Cunningham are my friends--otherwise they would not let thee come.
+The Rangars are to exact guarantees from my brother? How should I know
+that they do not come to help my brother crush me out of existence? With
+thee in my camp as hostage I would risk agreement with them, but not
+otherwise. 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 will
+pass before my army comes to rip this nest of Alwa's from its roots, and
+defile the whole of it! If I am to spare the people on this rock, then I
+must hurry! Should my men come here to carry me away, they will be
+less merciful than I! Choose, sahiba! Let me go, and I will spare these
+Rangars until such time as they earn punishment anew. Or let me go, and
+follow me. Then fight with the Rangars and for the Company, with thee as
+the price of my alliance. Or leave me in this cell until my men come to
+rescue me. The last would be the simplest way! Or it would be enough
+to help me escape and wait until I have done my share at conquering the
+British. Then I could come and claim thee! Choose, sahiba; there are
+many ways, though they all end in one goal."
+
+"If I am the price of your allegiance," said Rosemary, "then I will pay
+the price. Five thousand men for the British cause are dearer to me than
+my own happiness. I promise, Jaimihr-sahib, that I will come to you in
+Howrah. I shall come accompanied by one servant, named Joanna, and--I
+think--by my father; and the Rangars and Mr. Cunningham shall be at
+least a day's ride behind me. I give my word on that. But--I can promise
+you, on Mr. Cunningham's behalf, and on the Alwa-sahib's, and
+Mahommed Gunga's, that should you have made any attempt against my
+liberty--should you have offered me any insult or indignity--before
+they come--should you have tried to anticipate the terms of your
+agreement--then--then--there would be an end of bargaining and
+promises, Jaimihr-sahib, and your life would be surely forfeit! Do you
+understand?"
+
+"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 is
+dearer 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 the
+wall. It will take perhaps fifteen minutes. Be ready."
+
+He made a quick movement to embrace her, but she slipped out and escaped
+him; and he thought better of his sudden plan to follow her, remembering
+that her word was likely to be good, whatever his might be. He elected
+to wait inside until she returned for him. He little knew that he
+missed the downward swing of Alwa's sabre, that was waiting, poised and
+balanced for him, in the darkness by the door.
+
+"Bismillah! I would have had a right to kill him had he followed her
+and broken faith so early in the business!" Alwa swore, excusing his
+impatience to Mahommed Gunga. "Have no fear, sahib!" he counselled
+Cunningham a moment later, laying a heavy hand on the boy's arm. "Let
+her keep her promises. That Hindoo pig will not keep his! We will
+be after her, and surely--surely we will find good cause for some
+throat-slitting as well as the cancelling of marriage promises!"
+
+"Do you understand, Alwa-sahib, that--if Jaimihr keeps his promise to
+her, she must keep hers to him? Do you realize that?"
+
+"Allah! Listen to him! Yes, sahib. Truly, bahadur, I appreciate! I also
+know that I have given certain promises which I, too, must fulfil! She
+is not the only bargainer! I am worrying more about those guarantees
+that 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 of
+ten thousand! I want to see those promises performed! Ay! The Miss-sahib
+has done well. She has done her share. Let her continue. And do thou thy
+share, 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 had
+happened in the cell. Whatever he may have thought, he had uttered no
+word of remonstrance.
+
+"Of course, we go to Howrah ahead of you," he answered to Cunningham's
+unspoken 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 that
+he wrote to Byng-bahadur. He wrote it in Greek characters for fear lest
+it 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 are
+all killed in the meantime we should number more than fifteen hundred
+when we come. Expect either all or none of us. The situation here is
+critical, 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-sahib
+has 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 ridden
+off, 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 get
+the 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 the
+summit, where the parapet was higher but the wall was very much less
+sheer. The Prince's arms were still too sore from the wrenching he
+received when they took him prisoner for him to dare trust himself hand
+over 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 the
+waist of a brass cannon. The Prince fended himself off the ragged wall
+with hands and feet, and called up instructions to her as loudly as he
+dared.
+
+It was a tremendous drop. For the last fifty or more feet the wall rose
+straight, overhung by a ridge that rasped the rope. And the rope proved
+fifteen feet or more too short. Rosemary paid out as much of it as she
+dared, and then made the end fast round the cannon, leaning over to see
+whether Jaimihr would have sense enough or skill enough to cut himself
+free and fall. But he hung where he was and spun, and it was five
+minutes before Rosemary remembered that his weapons had all been taken
+from him! It was scarcely likely that he could bite the thick rope
+through 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 rope
+fast--woman-wise--with a true landlubber's knot that tightened from the
+strain until her struggling fingers could not make the least impression
+on it. But Alwa walked up openly--drew his heavy sabre--and saved the
+situation 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 he
+could, 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 off
+awkwardly to where his cavalry were sleeping by their horses.
+
+He had some trouble in persuading the outposts who he really was, and
+there was an argument that could be quite distinctly heard from the
+summit of the rock, and made Alwa roar with laughter before, finally,
+the whole contingent formed and wheeled and moved away, ambling toward
+Howrah City at a pace that betokened no unwillingness.
+
+Five minutes later the Sikh's horse thundered out across the plain from
+under Alwa's iron gate, and the news, such as it was, was on its way to
+Byng-bahadur.
+
+"A clear road at the price of a horse-hide rope!" laughed Alwa. "Now for
+some real man's work!"
+
+Rosemary stole off to argue with her father and her conscience, but Alwa
+went to his troopers' quarters and told off ten good men for the task
+of manning the fortress in his absence. They were ten unwilling men; it
+needed all his gruff authority, and now and then a threat, to make them
+stay behind.
+
+"I must leave ten men behind," he insisted. "It takes four men, even at
+a pinch, to lift the gate. And who shall guard my women? Nay, I should
+leave twenty, and I must leave ten. Therefore I leave the ten best men I
+have, and they who stay behind may know by that that I consider them the
+best!"
+
+The remainder of his troopers he sent out one by one in different
+directions, with orders to rally every Rangar they could find, and at
+a certain point he named. Then he and Mahommed Gunga said good-by to
+Cunningham and took a trail that led in the direction where
+most of the doubtfuls lived--the men who might need personal
+convincing--rousing--awakening from lethargy.
+
+"You think I ought to stay behind?" asked Cunningham, who had already
+made his mind up but chose to consult Alwa.
+
+"Surely, sahib. If for no other reason, then to make sure that that
+priest of thine and his daughter make tracks for Howrah City! While he
+is here he is a priest, and we Rangars have our own ideas on what they
+are good for! When he is there he will be a man maneuvering to save his
+own life and his daughter's reputation! See that he starts, sahib!"
+
+He rode off then. But before Mahommed Gunga saw fit to follow him he
+legged his charger close to Cunningham for a final word or two.
+
+"Have no fear now, bahadur--no anxiety! Three days hence there will be
+a finer regiment to lead than ever thundered in thy father's wake--a
+regiment of men, sahib, for a man to lead and love!--a regiment that
+will 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 dawn
+for Howrah City, and they were, both of them, too overcome with mingled
+dread 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 was
+the chance of falling in with a party of Howrah's men. In fact, if they
+should encounter anybody before bringing up at Jaimihr's palace it was
+likely that the whole plan would fizzle into nothing.
+
+Cunningham, after fossicking for a long time in Aliva's armory--that
+contained, besides weapons of the date, a motley assortment of the
+tools of war that would have done great credit to a museum of
+antiquities--produced two pistols. He handed, one to the missionary and
+one to Miss McClean, advising her to hide hers underneath her clothing.
+"You know what they're for?" he asked. "No. You'd gain nothing by
+putting up a fight. They're loaded. All you've got to do is jerk the
+hammer back and pull the trigger, and the best way not to miss is to
+hold the muzzle underneath your chin--this way--keeping the butt well
+out from you. You make sure when you do that. The only satisfaction
+you'll have, if it comes to suicide as a last resource, will be that
+you've tried to do your duty and the knowledge that you'll be avenged. I
+promise that. But I don't think you'll have any need to do it--if I did
+think it I'd have thought twice before sending you."
+
+"How does such a very young man as you come to have all this
+responsibility?" asked Rosemary, taking the pistol without a shudder.
+She laughed then as she noticed Cunningham's discomfort and recognized
+the decency that hates to talk about itself.
+
+"I suppose I know my own mind," he answered. "These other awfully decent
+fellows don't, that's all--if you except Mahommed Gunga. That chap's
+a wonder. 'Pon my soul, it seems he knew this was coming and picked
+me from the start to take charge over here. Seems, owing to my
+dad's reputation, these Rangars think me a sort of reincarnation of
+efficiency. I've got to try and live up to it, you know--same old game
+of reaping what you didn't sow and hoping it'll all be over before you
+wake up! Won't you try and get some sleep before morning? No? Come and
+sit over by the parapet with me, then."
+
+He carried chairs for both of them to a point whence he could sit and
+watch the track that led to Howrah and so help out the very meagre
+garrison. There, until the waning moon dipped down below the sky-line,
+they talked together--first about the task ahead of each of them; then
+about the sudden ghastliness of the rebellion, whose extent not one of
+them could really grasp as yet; last, and much longest, as familiarity
+gradually grew between them, of youthful reminiscences and home--of Eton
+and the Isle of Skye.
+
+In the darkness and the comparative coolness that came between the
+setting of the moon and dawn Rosemary fell asleep, her head pillowed in
+her father's lap. For a while, then, seeing her only dimly through the
+night, but conscious, as he could not help being, of her youth and
+charm and of the act of self-sacrifice that she had undertaken without
+remonstrance, he felt ashamed. He began to wonder whether there might
+not have been some other way--whether he had any right, even for his
+country's sake, to send a girl on such a mission. Misgiving began to sap
+his optimism, and there was no Mahommed Gunga to stir the soldier in him
+and encourage iron-willed pursuance of the game. He began to doubt; and
+doubt bred silence.
+
+He was wakened from a revery by Duncan McClean, who raised his daughter
+tenderly 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 the
+missionary's hand. He was a soldier again. He had had the answer to
+his thoughts! If the man who was to sacrifice his daughter--or risk
+her sacrifice--was pleased to have met him, there was not much sense in
+harboring 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'll
+find 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 the
+old woman has taken in a message to Jaimihr, and wait until he sends
+you some men to escort you through the outskirts of the city. I've got
+disguises ready for you--a pugree for you, Mr. McClean, and a purdah for
+your daughter--you'll travel as a Hindoo merchant and his wife. If you
+get stopped, say very little, but show this."
+
+He produced the letter written once by Maharajah Howrah to the
+Alwa-sahib and sent by galloper with the present of a horse. It was
+signed, and at the bottom of it was the huge red royal seal. "Now go and
+put the disguise on, while I see to the horses; I'm going to pick out
+quiet 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 the
+slippery rock gorge, and waited at the bottom while six men wound the
+gate up slowly. Rosemary McClean was quite unrecognizable, draped from
+head to foot in a travelling veil that might have been Mohammedan or
+Hindoo, and gave no outward sign as to her caste, or rank. McClean, in
+the full attire of a fairly prosperous Hindoo, but with no other mark
+about him to betoken that he might be worth robbing, rode in front of
+her, high-perched on a native saddle. In front, on a desert pony, rode
+Joanna, garbed as a man.
+
+"She ought to be travelling in a carriage of some kind," admitted
+Cunningham, "but we haven't got a single wheeled thing here. If any one
+asks pertinent questions on the road, you'd better say that she had an
+ekka, but that some Rangars took it from you. D'you think you know the
+language well enough to pass muster?"
+
+"It's a little late to ask me that!" laughed McClean. "Yes--I'm positive
+I do. Good-by."
+
+They shook hands again and the three rode off, cantering presently, to
+make the most of the coolness before the sun got up. Cunningham climbed
+slowly up the hill and then watched them from the parapet--wondering,
+wondering again--whether he was justified. As he put it to himself, it
+was "the hell of a position for a man to find himself in!" He caught
+himself wondering whether his thoughts would have been the same, and
+whether his conscience would have racked him quite as much, had Rosemary
+McClean been older, and less lovely, and a little more sour-tongued.
+
+He had to laugh presently at the absurdity of that notion, for Jaimihr
+would never have bargained for possession of a sour-faced, elderly
+woman. He came to the conclusion that the only thing he could do was
+to congratulate the Raj because, at the right minute, the right
+good-looking woman had been on the spot! But he did not like the
+circumstances any better; and before two hours had passed the loneliness
+began to eat into his soul.
+
+Like any other man whose race and breed and training make him
+self-dependent, he could be alone for weeks on end and scarcely be aware
+that he had nobody to talk to. But his training had never yet included
+sending women off on dangerous missions any more than it had taught him
+to resist woman's attraction--the charm of a woman's voice, the lure
+of a woman's eyes. He did not know what was the matter with him, but
+supposed that his liver must be out of order or else that the sun had
+touched him.
+
+Taking a chance on the liver diagnosis, he had out the attenuated
+garrison, and drilled it, both mounted and dismounted, first on the
+hilltop--where they made the walls re-echo to the clang of grounded
+butts--and then on the plain below, with the gate wide open in their
+rear and one man watching from the height above. When he had tired
+them thoroughly, and himself as well, he set two men on the lookout
+and retired to sleep; nor did the droning and the wailing music of some
+women in the harem trouble him.
+
+They called him regularly when the guard was changed, but he slept the
+greater part of that day and stood watch all night. The next day, and
+the third day, he drilled the garrison again, growing horribly impatient
+and hourly more worried as to what Byng-bahadur might be doing, and
+thinking of him.
+
+It was evening of the fourth day when a Rangar woke him, squeezing at
+his 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 dust
+cloud that followed no visible track but headed straight toward them
+over desert.
+
+"How d'you know that's Mahommed Gunga?" he demanded.
+
+"Who else, huzoor? Who else would ride from that direction all alone and
+straight 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 horse
+who could come at that pace after traversing those leagues of desert!
+That is Mahommed Gunga, unless a new fire-eater has been found. And what
+new 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 a
+horse hard-ridden but not foundered. The sun went down and blackness
+supervened, but the sound increased, as one lone rider raced with the
+evening wind, head on.
+
+It seemed like an hour before the lookout challenged from the crag that
+overhung the gate--before the would-be English words rang out; and all
+Asia 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 Mahommed
+Gunga heard it on the plain below. There was a rush to man the wheels
+and sweat the gate up, and Cunningham started to run down the zigzag
+pathway. He thought better of it, though, and waited where the path gave
+out onto the courtyard, giving the signal with the cords for the gate to
+lower away again.
+
+"Evening, Mahommed Gunga!" he said, almost casually, as the weary
+charger'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 his
+horse's mouth out, then held out the dipper again to Cunningham for
+fresh charge for himself.
+
+"I would not ask the service, sahib, but for the moment my head reels. I
+must 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 I
+left--there will be three squadrons worthy of the name by the time we
+get 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 old
+woman of a priest by the hand before I die. He has a spark of manhood in
+him! Send me this good horse to the stables, sahib; I am overweary. Have
+him watered when the heat has left him, and then fed. Let them blanket
+him lightly. And, sahib, have his legs rubbed--that horse ever loved to
+have his legs rubbed. Allah! I must sleep four hours before I ride! And
+the 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 she
+have gone if a coward asked her, think you? Sahib--women are good--at
+the other end of things! We will ride and fetch her. Ha! I saw! My eyes
+are old, but they bear witness yet!--Now, food, sahib--for the love of
+Allah, 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 a
+serving-man was already heaping victuals for him.
+
+"Have me called in four hours, sahib! In four hours I will be a man
+again!"
+
+
+
+
+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 he
+made his bargain with Rosemary McClean and let himself be lowered from
+the Alwa-sahib's rock. He knew, better probably than any one except his
+brother and the priests, how desperate the British situation had become
+throughout all India at an instant's notice, and he made his terms
+accordingly.
+
+He did not believe, in the first place, that there would be any British
+left to succor by the time matters had been settled sufficiently in
+Howrah 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 riding
+to the aid of a Company that no longer existed.
+
+In the second place, he entertained no least compunction about breaking
+his word completely in every particular. He knew that the members of the
+little band on Alwa's rock would keep their individual and collective
+word, and therefore that Rosemary McClean would come to him. He
+suspected, though, that there would prove to be a rider of some sort to
+her agreement as regarded marrying him, for he had young Cunningham in
+mind; and he knew enough of Englishmen from hearsay and deduction to
+guess that Cunningham would interject any obstacle his ingenuity could
+devise.
+
+Natives of India do not like Englishmen to marry their women. How much
+less, then, would a stiff-necked member of a race of conquerors care
+to stand by while a woman of his own race became the wife of a native
+prince? He did not trust Cunningham, and he recalled that he had had no
+promise from that gentleman.
+
+Therefore, he proposed to forestall Cunningham if possible, and, if
+that were inconvenient or rash, he meant to take other means of making
+Rosemary McClean his, beyond dispute, in any case.
+
+Next to Rosemary McClean he coveted most the throne of Howrah. With
+regard to that he was shrewd enough not to conceal from himself for a
+second the necessity for scotching the priests of Siva before he dare
+broach the Howrah treasure, and so make the throne worth his royal
+while. Nor did he omit from his calculations the public clamor that
+would 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 than
+one. His army and his brother's were so evenly matched in numbers and
+equipment that he had been able to leave Howrah without fear for the
+safety of his palace while his back was turned. The eight hundred whom
+he 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 were
+still too many men behind for him to dare to start reprisals. The
+Maharajah was too complete a coward to do anything much until he was
+forced into it.
+
+The Rangars, he resolved, must be made to take the blame for the
+broaching of the treasure. He proposed to go about the broaching even
+before hostilities between himself and his brother had commenced, and he
+expected to be able to trick the Rangars into seeming to be looting. To
+appear to defend the treasure would probably not be difficult; and it
+would be even less difficult to blame the Rangars afterward for the
+death of any priest who might succumb during the ensuing struggle. He
+counted on the populace, more than on his own organized forces, to make
+the Rangars powerless when the time should come for them to try to
+take the upper hand. The mob would suffer in the process, but its
+fanaticism--its religious prejudice and numbers--would surely win the
+day.
+
+As for Rosemary McClean, the more he considered her the more his brown
+eyes glowed. He had promised to make her Maharanee. But he knew too
+thoroughly what that would mean not to entertain more than a passing
+doubt as to the wisdom of the course. He was as ready to break his word
+on that point as on any other.
+
+A woman of his own race, however wooed and won, would have been content
+to accept the usual status of whisperer from behind the close-meshed
+screens. Not so an Englishwoman, with no friends to keep her company
+and with nothing in the world to do but think. She, he realized, would
+expect to make something definite of her position, and that would suit
+neither his creed (which was altogether superficial), nor custom (which
+was 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 as
+she would have selected had she had her choice. Nor were his conclusions
+in 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 the
+lever had to be the treasure, if his plans were to succeed beyond
+upsetting. He changed his plans a dozen times over before he arrived at
+last at the audacious decision he was seeking.
+
+Like many another Hindoo in that hour of England's need, he did not lose
+sight altogether of the distant if actual possibility that the Company's
+servants might--by dint of luck and grit, and what the insurance papers
+term the Act of God--pull through the crisis. Therefore, he decided that
+under no circumstances should Rosemary McClean be treated cavalierly
+until the Rangars were out of the way and he could pose as her protector
+if need be.
+
+He would be able to prove that Rosemary and her father had come to
+him of their own free will. He would say that they had asked him for
+protection from the Rangars. He had evidence that his brother Howrah had
+been in communication with the Rangars. So, should the Company survive
+and retain power enough to force an answer to unpleasant questions,
+he thought it would not be difficult to prove that he had been the
+Company's friend all along.
+
+Under all the circumstances he considered it best to be false to
+everybody and strike for no hand but his own, and with that reconsidered
+end in view he decided on a master-stroke. He sent word to his brother,
+the Maharajah, saying that the Rangars had accepted service with the
+Company and purposed a raid on Howrah; therefore, he proposed that they
+unite against the common enemy and set a trap for the Rangars.
+
+Howrah sent back to ask what proof he had of the Rangars' taking service
+with the British. Jaimihr answered that Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga
+were both on Alwa's crag. He also swore that as Alwa's prisoner he had
+been able to over-hear the Rangars' plans.
+
+The Maharajah was bewildered, as Jaimihr had expected that he would
+be. And with just as Eastern, just as muddle-headed, just as dishonest
+reasoning, he made up his mind to play a double game with everybody,
+too. He agreed to join Jaimihr in opposition to the Rangars. He agreed
+to send all his forces to meet Jaimihr's and together kill every Rangar
+who should show himself inside the city. And he privately made plans to
+arrive on the scene too late, and smash Jaimihr's army after it had been
+reduced in size and efficiency by its battle with Alwa's men.
+
+Jaimihr, unknowingly, fitted his plan into his brother's by determining
+to get on the scene early enough to have first crack at the treasure. He
+meant 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 must
+remain inviolate until he was quite certain that the English had been
+driven out of India. He expected that good news within a week.
+
+He was delighted when Joanna, dressed as a man, turned up at his
+palace-gates and cajoled her way in past the guards. To be asked for
+an escort to bring the McCleans into Howrah fitted in with his role
+of protector as a key might fit a lock. Now they could never
+pretend--nobody could ever pretend--that he had seized them. He sent a
+carriage out for them, and when they arrived placed a whole wing of his
+palace at their disposal, treating them like royalty. He made no attempt
+to molest or interfere with either of them, except that he prevented
+them from going in and out; and he told off plenty of witnesses who
+would be able to swear subsequently that they had seen how well his
+guests were treated. He was taking no unnecessary chances at that stage
+of the game he played.
+
+There were others, though, who plotted besides Jaimihr. There were, for
+instance, Siva's priests. It is not to be forgotten that in that part
+of India the priests had been foremost in fomenting the rebellion. They
+urged Howrah constantly to take the field against the British, and it
+was only the sure knowledge of his brother's intention to strike for the
+throne that prevented the Maharajah from doing what the priests urged.
+
+He knew that Alwa and the Rangars would not help him unless Jaimihr
+first attacked him, for Alwa would be sure to stand on the strict letter
+of his oath. And he was afraid of the Rangars. He feared that they might
+protect him and depose him afterward. He reasoned that that, too,
+might be construed into a strict interpretation of the terms of Alwa's
+promise!
+
+He consented to collect his army. He kept it under arms. He even paid it
+something on account of arrears of wages and served out rations. But,
+to the disgust of the priests who asked nothing better than dissension
+between the brothers, he jumped at the idea of uniting with Jaimihr to
+defeat Alwa's men. He knew--just as the priests feared--that once he
+could trick and defeat Jaimihr he could treat the troublesome priests as
+cavalierly as he chose.
+
+So the priests made a third knot in the tangle and tried desperately at
+the last moment to recreate dissension between the rival royal camps.
+
+"Jaimihr is getting ready to attack you!" they assured Howrah. "Attack
+him first!"
+
+"I will wait until he does attack," the Maharajah answered. "For the
+moment we are friends and have a cause in common."
+
+"Howrah's men will desert to you the moment you make a move to win the
+throne," they assured Jaimihr.
+
+"Wait!" answered Jaimihr. "Wait but a day or two. I will move fast as I
+see fit when I am ready. For the present my cause and my brother's cause
+are one."
+
+Spies brought in news to Maharajah, Prince, and priest of the hurried
+raising of a Rangar army. The Maharajah and the Prince laughed up their
+sleeves and the priests swore horribly; the interjection of another
+element--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 had
+hung about the palace, and--known to nearly all the sweepers--she had
+overheard things. Garbed as a man again, she suddenly evaporated in thin
+air, and Rosemary McClean was left without a servant or any means of
+communication 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 and
+saddled, together with a fresh horse for the Risaldar. The veteran had
+needed no summoning, for with a soldier's instinct he had wakened at
+the moment his self-allotted four hours had expired. He mounted a little
+stiffly, and tried his horse's paces up and down the courtyard once or
+twice 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 out
+the man who waited with the gong cord in his hand--"is left in thy
+particular charge. Dost thou hear me? I will tell the Alwa-sahib what I
+now tell thee--that horse will be required of thee fit, good-tempered,
+light-mouthed, not spur-marked, and thoroughly well groomed. There will
+be a reward in the one case, but in the other--I would not stand in thy
+shoes! It is a trust!"
+
+"Come along, Risaldar!" called Cunningham. "We're wasting an awful lot
+of time!"
+
+"Nay, sahib, but a good horse is like a woman, to be loved and treated
+faithfully! Neither horse nor woman should be sacrificed for less than
+duty! Lead on, bahadur--I will join thee at the gate."
+
+He had several directions to give for the horse's better care, and
+Cunningham was forced to wait at least five minutes for him at the foot
+of the steep descent. Then for another minute the two sat their horses
+side by side, while the great gate rose slowly, grudgingly, cranked
+upward by four men.
+
+"If we two ever ride under here again, bahadur, we shall ride with honor
+thick on us," remarked Mahommed Gunga. "God knows what thy plan may
+be; but I know that from now on there will be no peace for either of
+us until we have helped rip it with our blades from the very belly of
+rebellion. Ride!"
+
+The gate clanged down behind them as--untouched by heel or
+spur--the two spring-limbed chargers raced for their bits
+across the sand. They went like shadows, casting other
+shadows--moon-made--wind-driven--knee-to-knee.
+
+"Now, sahib!"
+
+The Risaldar broke silence after fifteen minutes. Neither he nor
+Cunningham were of the type that chatters when the time has come to
+loosen sabres and sit tight.
+
+"In the matter of what lies ahead--as I said, neither I nor any man
+knows what this plan of thine may be, but I and the others have accepted
+thy bare word. These men who await thee--and they are many, and all
+soldiers, good, seasoned horsemen--have been told that the son of
+Cunnigan will lead them. Alwa has given his word, and I mine, that in
+the matter of a leader there is nothing left to be desired. And my five
+men have told them of certain happenings that they have seen. Therefore,
+thou art awaited with no little keenness. They will be all eyes and
+ears. It might be well, then, to set the pace a little slower, for a man
+looks 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 sabre
+work. ALL, sahib--ALL--depends now on the impression created on the men
+awaiting thee! Rein in a little. Thy father's name, thine own, and mine
+and Alwa's weigh for much on thy side; but have a sound horse between
+thy legs and a trumpet in thy throat when we get there! I have seen more
+than one officer have to fight up-hill for the hearts of his troopers
+because 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. He
+was conscious of something, not at all like a trumpet, in his throat
+that was nearly choking him. He did not care to let Mahommed Gunga know
+that what was being mistaken for masterly silence was really emotion! He
+did not speak because he did not trust his voice.
+
+"There are three squadrons, sahib--each of about five hundred men. Alwa
+has the right wing, I the left. Take thou the centre and command the
+whole. The horses are as good as any in this part of India, for each
+man 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. More
+horse feed is collecting, and they are bringing wagons, to follow when
+we give the word. But we thought there would be little sense in ordering
+wagons to follow us to Howrah City, knowing that thy plan would surely
+entail action. If we are to ride to the aid of Byng-bahadur it seemed
+better 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. Take
+charge the moment that we get there--issue thy orders--and trust to the
+men understanding each command. Lead off without delay."
+
+"All right," said Cunningham--two English words that went much further
+to allay the Risaldar's anxiety than any amount of rhetoric would have
+done. "But--d'you mean to tell me that the men don't understand words of
+command?"
+
+"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 are
+teaching the others while they wait for us. There is not one man among
+them 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 ranks
+have sabres only."
+
+"Good."
+
+After two hours of steady cantering the going changed and became a quick
+succession of ever-deepening gorges cleft in sandstone. Far away in the
+distance to the left there rose a glow that showed where Howrah City
+kept uneasy vigil, doubtless with watch-fires at every street corner. It
+looked almost as though the distant city were in flames.
+
+Ahead of them lay the gloom of hell mouth and the silence of the space
+beyond the stars.
+
+It was with that strange, unclassified, unnamed sixth sense that
+soldiers, savages, and certain hunters have that Cunningham became aware
+of life ahead of him--massed, strong-breathing, ready--waiting life,
+spring-bent in the quivering blackness. A little farther, and he caught
+the ring of a curb-chain. Then a horse whinnied and a hoarse voice swore
+low 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 close
+quarters instead of waiting for their answer. He peered curiously at
+Cunningham--glanced at Mahommed Gunga--then wheeled, spinning his horse
+as 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 after
+line of quite invisible light-horse-men--self-disciplined and eager to
+obey--took up their dressing. The overhanging cliff of sandstone hid the
+moon, but here and there there was a gleam of eyeballs in the dark--now
+man's, now horse's--and a sheen that was the hint of steel held
+vertical. No human being could have guessed the length of the gorge
+nor the number of the men who waited in it, for the restless chargers
+stamped in inch-deep sand that deadened sound without seeming to lessen
+its quantity.
+
+"Salaam, bahadur!"
+
+It was Alwa, saluting with drawn sabre, reining back a pedigreed mare to
+get all the spectacular emotion out of the encounter that he could.
+
+"Here are fifteen hundred eight and fifty, sahib--all Rangars--true
+believers--all true men--all pledged to see thee unsinged through the
+flames of hell! Do them the honor of a quick inspection, sahib!"
+
+"Certainly!" smiled Cunningham.
+
+"I have told them, sahib, that their homes, their women, their
+possessions, and their honor are all guaranteed them. Also pay. They
+make no other terms."
+
+"I guarantee them all of that," said Cunningham, loud enough for at
+least 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 of
+Pukka-Cunnigan whom we all knew--general--salute--present--sabres!"
+
+There was sudden movement--the ring of whipped-out metal--a bird's
+wing-beat--as fifteen hundred hilts rose all together to as many
+lips--and a sharp intake of breath all down the line.
+
+It wasn't bad. Not bad at all, thought Cunningham. It was not done
+as regulars would have worked it. There was the little matter of the
+lances, that he could make out dimly here and there, and he could detect
+even in that gloom that half of the men had been caught wondering how
+to salute with lance and sabre both. But that was not their fault;
+the effort--the respect behind the effort--the desire to act
+altogether--were all there and striving. He drew his own mare back a
+little, and returned their salute with full military dignity.
+
+"Reeeecee--turn--sabres!" ordered Alwa, and that movement was
+accomplished better.
+
+He rode once, slowly, down the long front rank, letting each man look
+him 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 choking
+now. The soldier instinct, that is born in a man like statesmanship
+or poetry, but that never can be taught, had full command over all his
+other senses, and when he spurred out to the front again his voice rang
+loud and clear, like a trumpet through the night.
+
+With fifty ground scouts scattered out ahead of them, they drummed out
+of 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 that
+mattered.
+
+"Last evening I sent word on ahead to them of our coming, sahib! I sent
+one messenger to the Maharajah and one to Jaimihr, warning each that we
+ride to keep our plighted word. At the worst, we shall find both parties
+ready 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 have
+united against us--that Howrah will eat his promises and play me
+false. God send he does! I would like to have my hands in that Hindoo's
+treasure-chests! We none of us know yet, bahadur, what is this plan of
+thine--"
+
+"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 my
+men 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 stride
+was 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 that
+much for certain, from the McCleans. All right. We're a new factor in
+the problem, and they all mistrust us nearly as much, if not more, than
+they mistrust one another. Good. They'll be all of them watching that
+treasure. It'll be near where they are, and I'm going to snaffle it or
+break my neck--and all your necks--in the deuced desperate attempt. Is
+that clear? Where the carcass is, there wheel the kites and there the
+jackals fight, as your proverb says. The easiest part will be finding
+the treasure. Then--"
+
+They legged in closer to him, hanging on his words and too busy
+listening to speak.
+
+"If Howrah thinks we're after the treasure and decides to fight without
+previous 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, to
+insure 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 men
+were 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 a
+hint of treachery on Jaimihr's part. I would rather quarrel with that
+gentleman 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 first
+objective is the treasure."
+
+"That, sahib, is an acrobat of a plan," said Alwa; "much jumping from
+one proposition to another!"
+
+"It is no plan at all," said Cunningham. "It is a mere rehearsal of the
+circumstances. A plan is something quickly seized at the right
+second 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 to
+ask 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. It
+would be wiser. I do not understand this one."
+
+"I follow Cunnigan-bahadur!" said Mahommed Gunga; and he spurred off
+to his squadron. Alwa could see nothing better than to follow suit, for
+Cunningham closed his lips tight in a manner unmistakable. And whatever
+Alwa's misgivings might have been, he had the sense and the soldierly
+determination not to hint at them to his men.
+
+As dawn rose pale-yellow in the eastern sky they thundered into view
+of Howrah City and drew rein to breathe their horses. The sun was high
+before they had trotted near enough to make out details. But, long
+before details could be seen, it was evident that an army was formed
+up to meet them on the tree-lined maidan that lay between them and the
+two-mile-long palace-wall. Beyond all doubt it was Jaimihr's army, for
+his elephants were not so gaudily harnessed as Howrah's, and his men
+were not so brilliantly dressed.
+
+As they dipped into the last depression between them and the wall and
+halted for a minute's consultation, a khaki-clad, shrivelled figure of
+a man leaped up from behind a sand-ridge, and raced toward Cunningham,
+shouting to him in a dialect he had no knowledge of and gesticulating
+wildly. A trooper spurred down on him, brought him up all standing with
+an 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 in
+a dust-dry throat. Cunningham gave her water and then set her on the
+ground.
+
+"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 the
+news 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 get
+the treasure out before either you or his brother came. He is trying
+now, 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 all
+dead, and the British overwhelmed throughout all India! He has her with
+him in a carriage, under guard, for all his men are with him and he
+could spare no great guard for his palace. See! Look, sahib! Jaimihr's
+palace 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. But
+Cunningham decided he had wasted time enough. He shouted his orders, and
+in less than thirty seconds his three squadrons were thundering in the
+direction of Jaimihr's army and the palace-wall. They drew rein again
+within a quarter of a mile of it, to discover with amazed military eyes
+that Jaimihr had no artillery.
+
+It was then, at the moment when they halted, that Jaimihr reached a
+quick decision and the wrong one. He knew by now that his brother had
+won the first trick in the game of treachery, for he could see the smoke
+and flames of his burning palace from where he sat his horse. He
+decided at once that Alwa and his Rangars must have taken sides with the
+Maharajah, for how, otherwise, he reasoned, could the Maharajah dare
+let the Rangars approach unwatched and unmolested. It was evident to him
+that the Rangars were acting as part of a concerted movement.
+
+He made up his mind to attack and beat off the new arrivals without
+further ceremony. He out-numbered them by four or five to one, and was
+on his own ground. Whatever their intentions, at least he would be
+able to pretend afterward that he had acted in defence of the sacred
+treasure; and then, with the treasure in his possession, he would soon
+be able to recompense himself for a mere burned and looted palace!
+
+So he opened fire without notice, argument, or parley, and an ill-aimed
+volley shrieked over the heads of Cunningham's three squadrons.
+
+Cunningham, unruffled and undecided still, made out through puckered
+eyes the six-horse carriage in which Miss McClean evidently was; it was
+drawn up close beside the wall, and two regiments were between it and
+his squadron. He was recalling the terms of the agreement made with
+Jaimihr; he remembered it included the sparing of all of Alwa's men, and
+not the firing on them.
+
+A thousand of Jaimihr's cavalry swooped from the shelter of the
+infantry, opened out a very little, and, mistaking Cunningham's delay
+for fear, bore down with a cheer and something very like determination.
+
+They were met some ten yards their side of the half-way mark by
+Cunningham's three squadrons, loosed and led by Cunningham himself.
+Outridden, outfought, outgeneralled, they were smashed through, ridden
+down, and whirled back reeling in confusion. About a hundred of them
+reached the shelter of the infantry in a formed-up body; many of the
+rest charged through it in a mob and threw it into confusion.
+
+Too late Jaimihr decided on more reasonable tactics. Too late he gave
+orders to his infantry that no such confused body could obey. Before
+he could ride to rally them, the Rangars were in them, at them, through
+them, over them. The whole was disintegrating in retreat, endeavoring to
+rally and reform in different places, each subdivision shouting orders
+to its nearest neighbor and losing heart as its appeals for help were
+disregarded.
+
+Back came Cunningham's close-formed squadrons, straight through the
+writhing mass again; and now the whole of Jaimihr's army took to its
+heels, just as part of the five-feet-thick stone palace-wall succumbed
+to the attacks of crowbars and crashed down in the roadway, disclosing a
+dark vault on the other side.
+
+Jaimihr made a rush for the six-horse carriage, and tried vainly to
+get it started. Cunningham shouted to him to surrender, but he took no
+notice of the challenge; he escaped being made prisoner by the narrowest
+of margins, as the position next him was cut down. The other postilions
+were un-horsed, and six Rangars changed mounts and seized the reins. The
+Prince ran one man through the middle, and then spurred off to try and
+overtake his routed army, some of which showed a disposition to form up
+again.
+
+"Sit quiet!" called Cunningham through the latticed carriage window.
+"You're safe!"
+
+The heavy, swaying carriage rumbled round, and the horses plunged in
+answer to the Rangars' heels. A moment later it was moving at a gallop;
+two minutes later it was backed against the wall, and Rosemary McClean
+stepped out behind three protecting squadrons that had not suffered
+perceptibly from what they would have scorned to call a battle.
+
+"Now all together!" shouted Cunningham, whose theories on the value
+of seconds when tackling reforming infantry were worthy of the Duke of
+Wellington, or any other officer who knew his business; and again he led
+his men at a breakneck charge. This time Jaimihr's disheartened little
+army did not wait for him, but broke into wild confusion and scattered
+right and left, leaving their elephants to be captured. There were only
+a few men killed. The lance-tipped, roaring whirlwind loosed itself
+for the most part against nothing, and reformed uninjured to trot back
+again. Cunningham told off two troops to pursue fugitives and keep their
+eyes open for the Prince before he rode back to examine the breach in
+the wall that Jaimihr had been to so much trouble about making.
+
+He had halted to peer through the break in the age-old masonry when
+Mahommed 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 to
+get 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's
+mouth, and Mahommed Gunga raced behind him; but Jaimihr had the start
+of them. Duncan McClean, looking ill and weak and helpless, crowded his
+daughter to the wall, standing between her and the Prince; but Jaimihr
+aimed a swinging sabre at him, and the missionary fell. His daughter
+stooped to bend over him, and Jaimihr seized her below the arms. A
+second later he had hoisted her to his saddle-bow and was spurring
+hell-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 by
+means of speed alone--as he might have done otherwise, for Cunningham's
+mare was growing tired.
+
+Jaimihr rode for two minutes with the frenzy of a savage before he saw
+the futility of it. It was Cunningham's mare, gaining on him stride
+over stride, that warned him he would be cut down like a dog from behind
+unless he surrendered or let go his prize.
+
+So he laughed and threw the girl to the ground. For a moment more he
+spurted, spurring like a fiend, then wheeled and charged at Cunningham.
+He guessed that but for Cunningham that number of Rangars would never
+have agreed on a given plan. He knew that it was he, and not Cunningham
+or Alwa or Rosemary McClean, who had broken faith. He had broken it in
+thought, 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 his
+safety. He came like a real man at last. And Cunningham, on a tired
+mare, met him point to point.
+
+They fought over a quarter of a mile of ground, for Jaimihr proved to
+be as useful with his weapon as Mahommed Gunga's teaching had made
+Cunningham. There was plenty of time for the reformed squadrons to see
+what was happening--plenty of time for Alwa, who considered that he had
+an account of his own to settle with the Prince, to leave his squadron
+and come thundering up to help. Mahommed Gunga dodged and reined and
+spurred, watching his opportunity on one side and Alwa on the other. It
+would have suited neither of them to have their leader killed at that
+stage of the game, but the fighting was too quick for either man to
+interfere.
+
+Jaimihr charged Cunningham for the dozenth time and missed, charged
+past, to wheel and charge again, then closed with the most vindictive
+rush of all. Again Cunningham met him point to point. The two blades
+locked, and bent like springs as they wrenched at them. Cunningham's
+blade snapped. He snatched at his mare and spun her before Jaimihr could
+recover, then rammed both spurs in and bore down on the Prince with half
+a sabre. He had him on the near side at a disadvantage. Jaimihr spurred
+and tried to maneuver for position, and the half sabre went home just
+below his ribs. He dropped bleeding in the dust at the second that Alwa
+and Mahommed Gunga each saw an opportunity and rushed in, to rein back
+face to face, grinning in each other's faces, their horses' breasts
+pressed tight against the charger that Jaimihr rode. The horse screamed
+as the shock crushed the wind out of him.
+
+"You robbed me of my man, sahib, by about a sabre's breadth!" laughed
+Alwa.
+
+"And you left your squadron leaderless without my permission!" answered
+Cunningham. "You too! Mahommed Gunga!"
+
+"But, sahib!"
+
+"Do you prefer to argue or obey?"
+
+Mahommed Gunga flushed and rode back. Alwa grinned and started after
+him. Cunningham, without another glance at the dead Prince, rode up to
+Rosemary McClean, who was picking herself up and looking bewildered;
+she had watched the duel in speechless silence, lying full length in the
+dust, and she still could not speak when he reached her.
+
+"Put your foot on mine," he said reassuringly; "then swing yourself up
+behind 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 and
+lifted her.
+
+"Am I welcome?" he asked. And she nodded.
+
+Fresh from killing a man--with a man's blood on his broken sword and the
+sweat of fighting not yet dry on him--he held a woman in his arms for
+the first time in his life. His hand had been steady when it struck the
+blow under Jaimihr's ribs, but now it trembled. His eyes had been stern
+and blazing less than two minutes before; now they looked down into
+nothing more dangerous than a woman's eyes and grew strangely softer
+all at once. His mouth had been a hard, tight line under a scrubby upper
+lip, but his lips had parted now a little and his smile was a boy's--not
+nervous or mischievous--a happy boy's.
+
+She smiled, too. Most people did smile when young Cunningham looked
+pleased with them; but she smiled differently. And he, with that blood
+still wet on him, bent down and kissed her on the lips. Her answer was
+as characteristic as his action.
+
+"You look like a blackguard," she said--"but you came, and I knew you
+would! I told Jaimihr you would, and he laughed at me. I told God you
+would, and you came! How long is it since you shaved? Your chin is all
+prickly!"
+
+They were interrupted by a roar from the three waiting squadrons. He had
+ridden without caring where he went, and his mare had borne the two of
+them to where the squadrons were drawn up with their rear to the great
+gap in the wall. The situation suited every Rangar of them! That was,
+indeed, the way a man should win his woman! They cheered him, and
+cheered again, and he grinned back, knowing that their hearts were in
+the cheering and their good will won. Red, then, as a boiled beet, he
+rode over to the six-horse carriage and dismounted by her father--picked
+him up--called two troopers--and lifted him on to the rear seat of the
+great old-fashioned coach.
+
+"Get inside beside him!" he ordered Rosemary, examining the missionary's
+head as he spoke. "It's a scalp wound, and he's stunned--no more. He's
+left off bleeding already. Nurse him!" He was off, then, without another
+word or a backward glance for her--off to his men and the gap in the
+wall 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 bought
+an army or a kingdom--the sacred, secret treasure of twenty troubled
+generations, that was guarded in the front by fifty doors and fifty
+corridors and three times fifty locks--the door of whose secret vault
+was guarded by a cannon, set to explode at the slightest touch--was
+hidden from the public road at its other side, its rear, by nothing
+better than a five-foot wall of ill-cemented stone! Cunningham stepped
+inside over the dismantled masonry and sat down on a chest that held
+more money's worth than all the Cunninghams in all the world had ever
+owned, or spent, or owed, or used, or dreamed of!
+
+"Ask Alwa and Mahommed Gunga to come to me here!" he called; and a
+minute later they stood at attention in front of him.
+
+"Send a hundred men, each with a flag of truce on his lance, to gallop
+through the city and call on Jaimihr's men to rally to me, if they wish
+protection against Howrah!"
+
+"Good, sahib! Good!" swore Alwa. "Howrah is the next danger! Make ready
+to fight Howrah!"
+
+"Attend to my orders, please!" smiled Cunningham, and Alwa did as he was
+told. Within an hour Jaimihr's men were streaming from the four quarters
+of the compass, hurrying to be on the winning side, and forming into
+companies as they were ordered.
+
+Then Cunningham gave another order.
+
+"Alwa-sahib, will you take another flag of truce, please, and ride with
+not more than two men to Maharajah Howrah. Tell him that I want him here
+at once to settle about this treasure."
+
+Alwa stared. His mouth opened a little, and he stood like a man bereft
+of 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 come
+with ten men without fear of molestation, but guarantee to him that if
+he 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, but
+doing his level best to appear at Ease--faced young Cunningham across
+a table in the treasure-vault. Outside was a row of wagons, drawn
+by horses and closely guarded by a squadron of the Rangars. Behind
+Cunningham stood Alwa and Mahommed Gunga; behind the Maharajah were
+two of his court officials. There were pen and ink and the royal seal
+between them on the table.
+
+"So, Maharajah-sahib. They are all scaled, and each chest is marked on
+the outside with its contents; I'm sorry there was no time to weigh the
+gold, but the number of the ingots ought to be enough. And, of
+course, you'll understand it wasn't possible to count all those unset
+stones--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 the
+peace 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 the
+treasure now, you'll have all the more to keep peace in the district
+with, won't you? Let me repeat the terms of our bargain--they're written
+here, but let's be sure there is no mistake. I agree to deliver your
+treasure into safe keeping until the rebellion is over, and to report to
+my government that you are friendly disposed toward us. You, in return,
+guarantee to protect the families and property of all these gentlemen
+who ride with me. It is mutually agreed that any damage done to their
+homes during their absence shall be made good out of your treasure, but
+that should you keep your part of the agreement the treasure shall be
+handed 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 the
+best grace possible. That agreement stands in my name, and no other
+man'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 priests
+altogether! McClean-sahib has told me that suttee has been practised
+here as a regular thing. That's got to stop, and we may as well stop it
+now. Of course, I shall keep my word about the treasure, and you'll get
+it back if you live up to the bargain you have made; but my government
+will know now where it is, and they'll be likely to impose a quite
+considerable fine on you when the rebellion's over unless this suttee's
+put an end to. Besides, you couldn't think of a better way of scoring
+off 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 at
+being dictated to by a boy of twenty-two.
+
+"I will do my best, sahib," he answered. "I am with the British--not
+against them."
+
+"Good for you!--er, I mean, that's right!" He turned to Alwa, and looked
+straight into his eyes. "Are you satisfied with the guarantee?" he
+asked.
+
+"Sahib, I am more than satisfied!"
+
+"Good! Oh, and--Maharajah-sahib--since we've fought your battle for
+you--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'd
+like 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 as
+friends. 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 empty
+his 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 that
+you offer me these horses as an act of royal courtesy and as additional
+proof of friendliness?"
+
+"Surely, sahib."
+
+"My men will be very grateful to you. This will enable them to reach
+the scene of action with their own horses in good shape. I'm sure it's
+awfully good of you to have offered them!"
+
+Outside, where the late afternoon sun was gradually letting things cool
+down, 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 horse
+or two! Oh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ho! Allah! But that boy will make a better
+soldier 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 ghastly
+generosity, young Cunningham proceeded to impose on Howrah the
+transferred, unwelcome, perilous allegiance of Jaimihr's reassembling
+army. The mere keeping of it in subjection, it was realized by donor and
+recipient 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 bated
+breath about the Act of God. It burst at the moment when India's reins
+were in the hands of some of the worst incompetents in history. A week
+found strong men in control of things--the right men, with the right
+handful behind them.
+
+Some of the men in charge went mad, and were relieved. Some threw
+up their commands. Some of the worst incompetents were killed by the
+mutineers, and more than one man who could have changed the course
+of history for the worse were taken sick and died. Instead of finding
+themselves faced by spineless nincompoops, the rebels reeled before
+the sudden, well-timed tactics of real officers with eyes and ears
+and brains. The mask was off on both sides, and the sudden, stripped
+efficiency of one was no less disconcerting than the unexpected
+rebellion of the other.
+
+Byng-bahadur--"Byng the Brigadier"--was in command of a force again
+within three days of the news of the first massacre; and because he was
+Byng, 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 free
+hand, and with no other orders than to hit, hit hard, and keep on
+hitting.
+
+"Go for them, Byng, old man. Live off the country, keep moving, and
+don'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 tornado
+at whatever crossed his path. But irreparable damage had been done
+before the old school was relieved, and Byng--like others--was terribly
+short of men. Many of his own irregulars were so enraged at having been
+disbanded at a moment's notice that they refused to return to him. Their
+honor, as they saw it, had been outraged. Only two British regiments
+could be spared him, and they were both thinned by sickness from the
+first. They were Sikhs, who formed the bulk of his headquarterless
+brigade, and many of them were last-minute friends, who came to him
+unorganized and almost utterly undrilled.
+
+But Byng was a man of genius, and his bare reputation was enough to
+offset much in the way of unpreparedness. He coaxed and licked and
+praised his new men into shape as he went along; within a week he had
+stormed Deeseera, blowing up their greatest reserve of ammunition and
+momentarily stunning the rebellion's leaders. But cholera took charge in
+the city, and two days later found him hurrying out again, to camp
+where there was uncontaminated water, on rising ground that gave him the
+command 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 point
+where a swiftly running river could be crossed, and from two other sides
+at once mutinied native regiments and thousands from the countryside
+flocked, hurrying to take a hand in what seemed destined to be Byng's
+last action. The fact that so many swaggering soldier Sikhs were
+cornered with him was sufficient in itself to bring out Hindoo and
+Mohammedan alike.
+
+The mutinous regiments had all been drilled and taught by British
+officers until they were as nearly perfect as the military knowledge of
+the day could make them; the fact that they had killed their officers
+only served to make them savage without detracting much from their
+efficiency. They had native officers quite capable of taking charge, and
+sense enough to retain their discipline.
+
+So Byng intrenched himself on the gradual rise, and sent out as many
+messengers as he could spare to bring reinforcements from whatever
+source obtainable. Then, when almost none came, he got ready to die
+where he stood, using all the soldier gift he had to put courage into
+the last-ditch loyalists who offered to die with him. He had counted
+most on aid from Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga, but that source seemed
+to have failed him; and he gave up hope of their arrival when a body
+of several thousand rebels took up position on his flank and cut off
+approach from the direction whence Cunningham should come.
+
+The sun blazed down like molten hell on sick and wounded. Rotting
+carcasses of horses and cattle, killed by the rebels' artillery-fire,
+lay stenching here and there, and there was no possibility of disposing
+of them. A day came very soon, indeed, when horse, or occasional
+transport bullock, was all there was to eat, and a night came when
+Govind 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 had
+disabled him, and he had himself set down by the tent-door, where the
+General sat on a camp-stool.
+
+"General-sahib, I have not been asked for advice; I am here to offer
+it."
+
+The huge black dome of heaven was punctuated by a billion dots of steely
+white that looked like pin-pricks. All the light there was came from the
+fitful watch-fires, where even the wagons were being burned now that
+the meagre supply of rough timber was giving out. The rebels, too, were
+burning everything on which they could lay their hands, and from between
+the spaced-out glow of their bonfires came ever and again the spurt of
+cannon-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 a
+slaughter-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 a
+shambles, with none but our men falling. They know that our food is
+giving out--they know that we lose heavily--they wait. They will wait
+for days yet before they close in to finish what their guns have but
+begun, and--then--how many will there be to die desperately, as is
+fitting?"
+
+"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 if
+they could get word to you! Tomorrow our rear will be surrounded, too;
+they have laid planks across the little streams behind us, and are
+preparing to drag guns to that side, too. Now, sahib, we have fire left
+in us. We can smite yet, and do damage while we die. Tomorrow night
+may find us decimated and without heart for the finish. I advise you to
+advance at dawn, sahib!"
+
+That advice came as a great relief to Byng-bahadur. He had been the
+first to see the hopelessness of the position, and every instinct that
+he had told him to finish matters, not in the last reeking ditch, but
+ahead, where the enemy would suffer fearfully while a desperate charge
+roared 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 only
+other chance had been to hold out until relief came, and that hope was
+now 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 been
+shot.
+
+"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 British
+officer, 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 best
+plan possible."
+
+He sent for the commanding officers of the British regiments--both of
+them captains, but the seniors surviving--and a weird scene followed
+round the lamp set on the tiny table. British, Sikh, Mohammedan, and
+Ghoorka clustered close to him, and watched as his pencil traced
+the different positions and showed the movement that was to make the
+morrow's finish, their faces outlined in the lamp's yellow glow and
+their breath coming deep and slow as they agreed on how the greatest
+damage could be done the enemy before the last man died.
+
+As he finished, and assigned each leader to his share in the last
+assault that any one of them would take a part in, a streak of light
+blazed suddenly across the sky. A shooting-star swept in a wide parabola
+to the horizon. A murmur went up from the wakeful lines, and the silence
+of the graveyard followed.
+
+"There is our sign, sahib!" laughed the Mohammedan. The old Sikh nodded
+and the Ghoorka grinned. "It is the end!" he said, without a trace of
+discouragement.
+
+"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 the
+picket. We're relieved! We advance at dawn, and we'll get through
+somehow! Join your commands, gentlemen, and explain the details
+carefully to your men--let's have no misunderstandings."
+
+The dawn rose gold and beautiful upon a sleepless camp that reeked and
+steamed with hell-hot suffering. It showed the rebels stationary, still
+in swarming lines, but scouts reported several thousand of them moving
+in a body from the flank toward the British rear.
+
+"What proportion of the rebel force?" asked Byng. "New arrivals, or some
+of the old ones taking up a new position?"
+
+"The same crowd, sir. They're just moving round to hem us in
+completely."
+
+"So much the better for us, then! That leaves fewer for us to deal with
+in front."
+
+As he spoke another man came running to report the arrival of five
+gallopers, coming hell-bent-for leather, one by one and scattered,
+with the evident purpose of allowing one man to get through, whatever
+happened.
+
+"That'll be relief at last!" said Byng-bahadur. And, instead of ordering
+the advance immediately, he waited, scouring the sky-line with his
+glasses.
+
+"Yes--dust--lance-heads--one--two--three divisions, coming in a hurry."
+
+Being on rising ground, he saw the distant relieving force much sooner
+than the rebels did, and he knew that it was help for him on the way
+some 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 the
+finish by an hour or two!"
+
+But he waited; and presently the rebel scouts brought word, and their
+leaders, too, became aware of reinforcements on the way for somebody.
+They made the mistake, though, of refusing to believe that any help
+could be coming for the British, and by the time that messengers had
+hurried from the direction of the British rear, to tell of gallopers who
+had ridden past them and been swallowed by the shouting British lines,
+three squadrons on fresh horses were close enough to be reckoned
+dangerous.
+
+"Is that a gun they've got with them?" wondered Byng. "By the lord
+Harry, no,--it's a coach and six! They're flogging it along like a
+twelve-pounder! And what the devil's in those wagons?"
+
+But he had no time for guesswork. The desultory thunder of the rebel
+ordnance ceased, and the whole mass that hemmed him in began to revolve
+within 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 a
+roar went up that is only heard on battle-fields. It has none of the
+exultant 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 riot
+for advantage. It is a welcome ironically offered up to
+Death--full-throated, and more freighted with moral effect on an enemy
+than a dozen salvoes of artillery.
+
+The thousands ahead tried hard to turn again and face two attacks at
+once; but, though the units were efficiently controlled, there were none
+who could swing the whole. Byng's decimated, forward-rushing fragment
+of 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 shouted
+to each other. A third of them was out of reach, beyond the British
+rear; fully another third was camped too far away to bring assistance at
+the first wild onslaught. Messengers were sent to bring them up, but the
+messengers were overtaken by a horde who ran.
+
+Then, like arrows driven by the bows of death, three squadrons took them
+on the flank as Cunningham changed direction suddenly and loosed his
+full weight at the guns. Instead of standing and serving grape, the
+rebel gunners tried to get their ordnance away--facing about again too
+late, when the squadrons were almost on them. Then they died gamely,
+when gameness served no further purpose. The Rangars rode them down and
+butchered them, capturing every single gun, and leaving them while they
+charged again at the rallying hordes ahead.
+
+The strange assortment of horsed wagons and the lumbering six-horse
+coach took full advantage of the momentary confusion to make at a gallop
+for the British rear, where they drew up in line behind the Sikhs, who
+were volleying at short range in the centre.
+
+Byng detached two companies of British soldiers to do their amateur
+damnedest with the guns, and, for infantry, they did good service with
+them; fifteen or twenty minutes after the first onslaught the enemy was
+writhing under the withering attention of his own abandoned ordnance.
+But the odds were still tremendous, and the weight of numbers made the
+ultimate outcome of the battle seem a foregone conclusion.
+
+From the British rear heads appeared above the rising ground; the
+deserted camp was rushed and set alight. The tents blazed like a beacon
+light, and a moment later the Ghoorkas retaliated by setting fire to
+such of the rebel camp as had fallen into British hands.
+
+It was those two fires that saved the day. From the sky-line to the
+rebel rear came the thunder of a salvo of artillery. It was the short
+bark of twelve-pounders loaded up with blank--a signal--and the rebels
+did not wait to see whether this was friend or foe. Help from one
+unexpected source had reached the British; this, they argued, was
+probably another column moving to the relief, and they drew off in
+reasonably decent order--harried, pestered, stung, as they attempted
+to recover camp-equipment or get away with stores and wagons, by
+Cunningham, Alwa, and Mahommed Gunga.
+
+In another hour the rebel army was a black swarm spreading on the
+eastern sky-line, and on the far horizon to the north there shone the
+glint of bayonets and helmet spikes, the dancing gleam of lance-tips,
+and the dazzle from the long, polished bodies of a dozen guns. A
+galloper 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 months
+past. The idea is to paralyze the vitals of the movement before
+concentrating somewhere on the road to Delhi, where the rebels are sure
+to 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 men
+off, saying that he has done all the damage possible with only fifteen
+hundred."
+
+"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 Cunningham
+to me."
+
+Cunningham came up fifteen minutes later, with a Rangar orderly behind
+him, and did his best to salute as though it were nothing more than an
+ordinary meeting.
+
+"Oh! Here you are. 'Gratulate you, Cunningham! You came in the nick of
+time. What kept you?"
+
+"That 'ud take a long time to tell, sir. I've fifteen hundred horses
+about ten miles from here, sir, left in charge of native levies, and
+I'd like permission to go and fetch them before the levies make off with
+them."
+
+"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. Howrah
+guarantees to keep the peace and protect the homes of my men. I
+guaranteed to hand him back the treasure when the show's over, less
+deductions 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 follow
+him.
+
+"General Byng," said Cunningham. "Miss McClean, sir."
+
+A very much dishevelled and very weary-looking young woman with a
+wealth of chestnut hair leaned through the window and smiled, not at the
+General but at Cunningham. Byng stared--looked from one to the other of
+them--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 a
+ladies' man!
+
+"This is Mr. McClean, sir--Rosemary's father. He helped her put the
+whole scheme through."
+
+Byng nodded to the missionary and looked back at Rosemary McClean--then
+from 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 you
+see General Evans's column and tell him the whole story. Take a small
+escort and the treasure with you. And--ah--er--lemme see--take this
+carriage, too. Oh, by the bye--you'd better ask General Evans to make
+some arrangements for Miss McClean. Leave her over there with the
+treasure. I want you back with my brigade, and I want you to be some
+sort 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 the
+moment that his back was turned.
+
+"Oh, no!" laughed Cunningham. "That's Byng-bahadur's little way, that's
+all. He's quite likely to insist on being best man or something of that
+sort when the show's all over! Wait here while I fetch the escort."
+
+
+                END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rung Ho!, by Talbot Mundy
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUNG HO! ***
+
+***** This file should be named 5153.txt or 5153.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/5/5153/
+
+Produced by M.R.J.
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.