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!”