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- Author: Talbot Mundy
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“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
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