Rung Ho! Part 30

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 G.o.dsend!"

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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 bra.s.s dipper full of water, after was.h.i.+ng 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 amus.e.m.e.nt. He let his captors wait for him while he stared straight at her, sparing her no fragment of embarra.s.sment.

"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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.sistance.

"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 s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 rea.s.suring 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 G.o.d'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 ent.i.tle 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 a.s.sume 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."