mbed up a narrow stairway leading to a sort of battlement and
peered over the top, Suliman laying Ruth Bellairs down in the darkest
shadow he could find. She was beginning to recover consciousness, and
apparently Mahommed Khan judged it best to take no notice of her.

Down below them they could see the city gate, wide open, with a blazing
torch on either side of it, and through the gate, swarming like
ants before the rains, there poured an endless stream of humans that
marched--and marched--and marched; four, ten, fifteen abreast; all
heights and sizes, jumbled in and out among one another, anyhow, without
formation, but armed, every one of them, and all intent on marching
to the southward, where Jundhra and Doonha lay. Some muttered to one
another and some laughed, but the greater number marched in silence.

"That for thy English!" grinned the priest. "Can the English troops
overcome that horde?"

"Hey-ee! For a troop or two of Rajputs!" sighed the Risaldar. "Or
English Lancers! They would ride through that as an ax does through the
brush-wood!"

"Bah!" said the priest. "All soldiers boast! There will be a houghing
shortly after dawn. The days of thy English are now numbered."

"By those--there?"

"Ay, by those, there! Come!"

They climbed down the steps again, the Rajput humming to himself and
smiling grimly into his mustache.

"Ay! There will be a houghing shortly after dawn!" he muttered. "Would
only that I were there to see!... Where are the sepoys?" he demanded.

"I know not. How should I know, who have been thy guest these hours
past? This march is none of my ordering."

The priest pressed hard on a stone knob that seemed to be part of the
carving on a wall, then he leaned his weight against the wall and a huge
stone swung inward, while a fetid breath of air wafted outward in their
faces.

"None know this road but I!" exclaimed the priest.

"None need to!" said the Risaldar. "Pass on, snake, into thy hole. We
follow."

"Steps!" said the priest, and began descending.

"Curses!" said the Risaldar, stumbling and falling down on top of him.
"Have a care, Suliman! The stone is wet and slippery."

Down, down they climbed, one behind the other, Suliman grunting beneath
his burden and the Risaldar keeping up a running fire of oaths. Each
time that he slipped, and that was often, he cursed the priest and
cautioned Suliman. But the priest only laughed, and apparently Suliman
was sure-footed, for he never