Mahommed Khan closed the door again behind his half-brother and turned
the key, but the half-brother shot the bolt home as well before he
spoke, then listened intently for a minute with his ear to the keyhole.
“Where is the priest's son?” growled the Risaldar, in the Rajput tongue.
“I have him. I have the priestling in a sack. I have him trussed and
bound and gagged, so that he can neither speak nor wriggle!”
“Where?”
“Hidden safely.”
“I said to bring him here!”
“I could not. Listen! That ayah--where is she?”
“Dead! What has the ayah to do with it?”
“This--she was to give a sign. She was not to slay. She had leave only
to take the jewels. Her orders were either to wait until she knew by
questioning that the section would not return or else, when it had
returned, to wait until the memsahib and Bellairs sahib slept, and then
to make a sign. They grow tired of waiting now, for there is news! At
Jundhra the rebels are defeated, and at Doonha likewise.”
“How know you this?”
“By listening to the priests' talk while I lay in wait to snare the
priestling. Nothing is known as yet as to what the guns or garrison at
Doonha do, but it is known that they of Jundhra will march on Hanadra
here. They search now for their High Priest, being minded to march out
of here and set an ambush on the road.”
“They have time. From Jundhra to here is a long march! Until tomorrow
evening or the day following they have time!”
“Aye! And they have fear also! They seek their priest--listen.”
There were voices plainly audible in the courtyard down below, and
two more men stood at the foot of the winding stairway whispering. By
listening intently they could hear almost what they said, for the stone
stairway acted like a whispering-gallery, the voices echoing up it from
wall to wall.
“Why do they seek him here?”
“They have sought elsewhere and not found him; and there is talk--He
claimed the memsahib as his share of the plunder. They think--”
Mahommed Khan glared at the trussed-up priest and swore a savage oath
beneath his breath.
“Have they touched the stables yet?” he demanded.
“No, not yet. The loot is to be divided evenly among certain of the
priests, and no man may yet lay a hand on it.”
“Is there a guard there?”
“No. No one would steal what the priests claim, and the priests will not
trust one another. So the horses stand in their stalls unwatched.”
The voices down the stairs grew louder, and the sound of footsteps began
ascending, slowly and with hesitation.
“Quick!” said the Risaldar. “Light me that brazier again!”
Charcoal lights quickly, and before the steps had reached the landing
Mahommed Khan had a hot coal glowing in his tongs:
“Now speak to them!” he growled at the shuddering priest. “Order them to
go back to their temple and tell them that you follow!”
The priest shut his lips tight and shook his head. With rescue so near
as that, he could see no reason to obey. But the hot coal touched him,
and a Hindu who may be not at all afraid to die can not stand torture.
“I speak!” he answered, writhing.
“Speak, then!” said the Risaldar, choosing a larger coal. Then, in
the priest's language, which none--and least of all a Risaldar--can
understand except the priests themselves, he began to shout directions,
pitching his voice into a high, wailing, minor key. He was answered by
another sing-song voice outside the door and he listened with a glowing
coal held six inches from his eyes.
“An eye for a false move!” hissed Mahommed Khan. “Two eyes are the
forfeit unless they go down the stairs again! Then my half-brother here
will follow to the temple and if any watch, or stay behind, thy ears
will sizzle!”
The High Priest raised his voice into a wail again, and the feet
shuffled along the landing and descended.
“Put down that coal!” he pleaded. “I have done thy bidding!”
“Watch through the window!” said the Risaldar. “Then follow!”
His giant half-brother peered from behind the curtain and listened. He
could hear laughter, ribald, mocking laughter, but low, and plainly not
intended for the High Priest's ears.
“They go!” he growled.
“Then follow.”
Once again the Risaldar was left alone with the priest and the
unconscious Ruth. She was suffering from the effects of long days and
nights of nerve-destroying heat, with the shock of unexpected horror
super-added, and she showed no disposition to recover consciousness. The
priest, though, was very far from having lost his power to think.
“You are a fool!” he sneered at the Risaldar, but the sword leaped from
its scabbard at the word and he changed that line of argument. “You hold
cards and know not how to play them!”
“I know along which road my honor lies! I lay no plans to murder people
in their sleep.”
“Honor! And what is honor? What is the interest on honor--how much
percent?”
The Risaldar turned his back on him, but the High Priest laughed.
“'The days of the Raj are numbered!” said the priest. “The English will
be slain to the last man and then where will you be? Where will be the
profit on your honor?”
The Risaldar listened, for he could not help it, but he made no answer.
“Me you hold here, a prisoner. You can slay or torture. But what good
will that do? The woman that you guard will fall sooner or later into
Hindu hands. You can not fight against a legion. Listen! I hold the
strings of wealth. With a jerk I can unloose a fortune in your lap. I
need that woman there!”
“For what?” snarled the Risaldar, whirling round on him, his eyes
ablaze.
“'For power! Kharvani's temple here has images and paintings and a voice
that speaks--but no Kharvani!”
The Rajput turned away again and affected unconcern.
“Could Kharvani but appear, could her worshipers but see Kharvani
manifest, what would a lakh, two lakhs, a crore of rupees mean to me,
the High Priest of her temple? I could give thee anything! The power
over all India would be in my hands! Kharvani would but appear and say
thus and thus, and thus would it be done!”
The Risaldar's hand had risen to his mustache. His back was still turned
on the priest, but he showed interest. His eyes wandered to where Ruth
lay in a heap by the inner door and then away again.
“Who would believe it?” he growled in an undertone.
“They would all believe it! One and all! Even Mohammedans would become
Hindus to worship at her shrine and beg her favors. Thou and I alone
would share the secret. Listen! Loose me these bonds--my limbs ache.”
Mahommed Khan turned. He stooped and cut them with his sword.
“Now I can talk,” said the priest, sitting up and rubbing his ankles.
“Listen. Take thou two horses and gallop off, so that the rest may think
that the white woman has escaped. Then return here secretly and name thy
price--and hold thy tongue!”
“And leave her in thy hands?” asked the Risaldar.
“In my keeping.”
“Bah! Who would trust a Hindu priest!”
The Rajput was plainly wavering and the priest stood up, to argue with
him the better.
“What need to trust me? You, sahib, will know the secret, and none other
but myself will know it. Would I, think you, be fool enough to tell the
rest, or, by withholding just payment from you, incite you to spread it
broadcast? You and I will know it and we alone. To me the power that
it will bring--to you all the wealth you ever dreamed of, and more
besides!”
“No other priest would know?”
“Not one! They will think the woman escaped!”
“And she--where would you keep her?”
“In a secret place I know of, below the temple.”
“Does any other know it?”
“No. Not one!”
“Listen!” said the Risaldar, stroking at his beard. “This woman never
did me any wrong--but she is a woman, not a man. I owe her no fealty,
and yet--I would not like to see her injured. Were I to agree to thy
plan, there would needs be a third man in the secret.”
“Who? Name him,” said the priest, grinning his satisfaction.
“My half-brother Suliman.”
“Agreed!”
“He must go with us to the hiding-place and stay there as her servant.”
“Is he a silent man?”
“Silent as the dead, unless I bid him speak!”
“Then, that is agreed; he and thou and I know of this secret, and none
other is to know it! Why wait? Let us remove her to the hiding-place!”
“Wait yet for Suliman. How long will I be gone, think you, on my
pretended flight?”
“Nay, what think you, sahib?”
“I think many hours. There may be those that watch, or some that ride
after me. I think I shall not return until long after daylight, and then
there will be no suspicions. Give me a token that will admit me safely
back into Hanadra--some sign that the priests will know, and a pass to
show to any one that bids me halt.”
The priest held out his hand. “Take off that ring of mine!” he answered.
“That is the sacred ring of Kharvani--and all men know it. None will
touch thee or refuse thee anything, do they have but the merest sight of
it!”
The Risaldar drew off a clumsy silver ring, set with three stones--a
sapphire and a ruby and an emerald, each one of which was worth a
fortune by itself. He slipped it on his own finger and turned it round
slowly, examining it.
“See how I trust thee,” said the priest.
“More than I do thee!” muttered the Risaldar.
“I hear my brother!” growled the Risaldar after another minute. “Be
ready to show the way!”
He walked across the room to Ruth, tore a covering from a divan and
wrapped her in it; then he opened the outer door for his half-brother.
“Is it well?” he asked in the Rajput tongue.
“All well!” boomed the half-brother, eying the unbound priest with
unconcealed surprise.
“Do any watch?”
“Not one! The priests are in the temple; all who are not priests man the
walls or rush here and there making ready.”
“And the priestling?”
“Is where I left him.”
“Where?--I said.”
“In the niche underneath the arch, where I trapped the High Priest!”
“Are the horses fed and watered?”
“Ha, sahib!”
“Good! How is the niche opened where the priestling lies?”
“There is the trunk of an elephant, carved where the largest stone of
all begins to curve outward, on the side of the stone as you go outward
from the courtyard.”
“On which side of the archway, then?”
“On the left side, sahib. Press on the trunk downward and then pull; the
stone swings outward. There are steps then--ten steps downward to the
stone floor where the priestling lies.”
“Good! I can find him. Now pick up the heavenborn yonder in those great
arms of thine, and bear her gently! Gently, I said! So! Have a care,
now, that she is not injured against the corners. My honor, aye, my
honor and yours and all our duty to the Raj you bear and--and have a
care of the corners?”
“Aye,” answered the half-brother, stolidly, holding Ruth as though she
had been a little bag of rice.
Again the Risaldar turned to the High Priest, and eyed him through eyes
that glittered.
“We are ready!” he growled. “Lead on to thy hiding-place!”