"Sahib--art thou a priest?"

"I am."

"One, then, who prays?"

"Yes."

"For dead men, ever? For the dying?"

"Certainly."

"Aloud?"

"On occasion, yes."

"Then pray now! There will be many dead and dying on the plain below in less than fifteen minutes! Hindoos, for all I know, would benefit by prayer. They have too many G.o.ds, and their G.o.ds are too busy fighting for ascendancy to listen. Pray thou, a little!"

There came a long shout from the plain, and Alwa sent a man again to listen. He came back with a message that Jaimihr granted amnesty to all who would surrender, and that he would be pleased to accept Alwa's allegiance if offered to him.

"I will offer the braggart something in the way of board and lodging that will astonish him!" growled Alwa. "Eight men to horse! The first eight! That will do! Back to the battlement, the rest of you!"

They had raced for the right to loose themselves against eight hundred!

CHAPTER XXV

OH, duck and run--the hornets come!

Oh, jungli! Clear the way!

The nest's ahum--the hornets come!

The sharp-stinged, harp-winged hornets come!

Nay, jungli! When the hornets come, It isn't well to stay!

ALWA ordered ten men down into the bowels of the rock itself, where great wheels with a chain attached to them were forced round to lift the gate. Next he stationed a signaller with a cord in either hand, above the parapet, to notify the men below exactly when to set the simple machinery in motion. His eight clattered out from the stables on the far side of the rock, and his own charger was brought to him, saddled.

Then, in a second, it was evident why Raputs do not rule in Rajputana.

"I ride too with my men!" declared Mahommed Gunga.

"Nay! This is my affair--my private quarrel with Jaimihr!"

Mahommed Gunga turned to Ali Partab, who had been a shadow to him ever since he came.

"Turn out my five, and bring my charger!" he commanded.

"No, I say!" Alwa had his hand already on his sabre hilt. "There is room for eight and no more. Four following four abreast, and one ahead to lead them. I and my men know how to do this. I and my men have a personal dispute with Jaimihr. Stay thou here!"

Mahommed Gunga's five and Ali Partab came clattering out so fast as to lead to the suspicion that their horses had been already saddled.

Mahommed Gunga mounted.

"Lead on, cousin!" he exclaimed. "I will follow thy lead, but I come!"

Then Alwa did what a native nearly always will do. He turned to a man not of his own race, whom he believed he could trust to be impartial.

"Sahib--have I no rights in my own house?"

"Certainly you have," said Cunningham, who was wondering more than anything what weird, wild trick these hors.e.m.e.n meant to play. No man in his senses would have dared to ride a horse at more than foot-pace down the path. Was there another path? he wondered. At least, if eight men were about to charge into eight hundred, it would be best to keep his good friend Mahommed Gunga out of it, he decided.

"Risaldar!" The veteran was always most amenable to reason when addressed by his military t.i.tle. "Who of us two is senior--thou or I?"

"By Allah, not I, sahib! I am thy servant!"

"I accept your service, and I order you to stay with your men up here with me!"

Mahommed Gunga saluted and dismounted, and his six followed suit, looking as disappointed as children just deprived of a vacation. Alwa wheeled his horse in front of Cunningham and saluted too.

"For that service, sahib, I am thy friend!" he muttered. "That was right and reasonable, and a judgement quickly given! Thy friend, bahadur!" He spoke low on purpose, but Mahommed Gunga heard him, caught Cunningham's eye, and grinned. He saw a way to save his face, at all events.

"That was a trick well turned, sahib!" he whispered, as Alwa moved away.

"Alwa will listen in future when Cunnigan-bahadur speaks!"

"Go down and tell Jaimihr that I come in person!" ordered Alwa, and the man dropped down the cliff side for the third time; they could hear his voice, high-pitched, resounding off the rock, and they caught a faint murmur of the answer. Below, Jaimihr could be seen waiting patiently, checking his restive war-horse with a long-cheeked bit, and waiting, ready to ride under the gate the moment it was opened. Rosemary McClean came over; she and Cunningham and the missionary leaned together over the battlement and watched.

"We might do some execution with rifles from here," Cunningham suggested; "I believe I'll send for mine." But Mahommed Gunga overheard him.

"Nay, sahib! No shooting will be necessary. Watch!"

There was a clatter of hoofs, and they all looked up in time to see the tails of the last four chargers disappearing round the corner, downward.

They had gone--full pelt--down a path that a man might hesitate to take!

From where they stood, there was an archer's view of every inch of the only rock-hewn road that led from the gate to the summit of the cliff; an enemy who had burst the gate in would have had to climb in the teeth of a searching hail of missiles, with little chance of shooting back.

They could see the gate itself, and Jaimihr on the other side.

And, swooping--shooting--sliding down the trail like a storm-loosed avalanche, they could see the nine go, led by Alwa. No living creature could have looked away!

Below, entirely unconscious of the coming shock, the mounted sepoys waited behind Jaimihr in four long, straight lines. Jaimihr himself, with a heavy-hilted cimeter held upward at the "carry," was about four charger lengths beyond the iron screen, ready to spur through. Close by him were a dozen, waiting to ram a big beam in and hold up the gate when it had opened. And, full-tilt down the gorge, flash-tipped like a thunderbolt, gray-turbaned, reckless, whirling death ripped down on them.

They caught sound of the hammering hoofs too late. Two gongs boomed in the rock. The windla.s.s creaked. Five seconds too late Jaimihr gathered up his reins, spurred, wheeled, and shouted to the men behind him.

The great gate rose, like the jaws of a hungry monster, and the nine--streaking too fast down far too steep a slide to stop themselves--burst straight out under it and struck, as a wind blast smites a poppy-field.

Jaimihr was borne backward--carried off his horse. Alwa and the first four rode him down, and crashed through the four-deep line beyond; the second four pounced on him, gathered him, and followed. Before the lines could form again the whole nine wheeled--as a wind-eddy spins on its own axis--and burst through back again, the horses racing neck and neck, and the sabres cutting down a swath to screech and swear and gurgle in among the trampled garden stuff.

They came back in a line, all eight abreast, Alwa leading only by a length. At the opening, four horses--two on either side--slid, rump to the ground, until their noses touched the rock. Alwa and four dashed through and under; the rest recovered, spun on their haunches, and followed. The gongs boomed again down in the belly of the rock, and the gate clanged shut.

"That was good," said Mahommed Gunga quietly. "Now, watch again!"