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.