r back again; only the comforting assurance that she was
near him still. There was also, on this occasion, a consuming curiosity
and impatience not to be denied.

Switching on his electric torch, he consulted his watch. Nearly
half-past four--why not ...? It was no distance to the lower gate, and
only a mile of zigzag road up to the city.

Thought and action were almost simultaneous. He was out of bed, standing
in the doorway. The moon's unclouded brilliance seemed to flood his
brain; to clear it of cobwebs and dispel all desire of sleep. For he
loved the veiled spirit of night as most men love the unveiled face of
morning; and in no way, perhaps, was he more clearly of the East. In a
land where the sun slays his thousands, the moon comes triumphantly to
her own: and Roy decided, there and then, that in the glamour of her
light he would take his first look at Chitor. Whether or no it really
was his first look, he might possibly find out when he got there.

His train-basket provided him with a hurried cup of tea, biscuits and a
providential hard-boiled egg. He had no qualms about rousing Bishun
Singh to saddle Suraj, or disturbing the soldiery quartered at the
gates. His grandfather had written of him to the Maharana of Udaipur--a
cousin in the third degree: and he had leave to go in and out, during
his stay, at what hour he pleased. He would remain on the rock till
dawn; and from the ninth storey of Khumba Rana's Tower he would see the
sun rise over Chitor....

Half an hour later, he was in the saddle trotting along the empty road;
Terry, a scurrying shadow in his wake; Bishun Singh left to finish his
night's rest. Eight before him loomed the magnet that had dragged him
out of bed at this unearthly hour--the great rock-fortress, three miles
long, less than a mile broad, aptly likened to a battleship ploughing
through the disturbed sea of bush-grown hills at its base.

Riding quickly through new Chitor--a dirty little town, fast asleep--he
reached the fortified gateway: was challenged by sleepy soldiery; gave
his name and passed on--into another world; a world that grew
increasingly familiar with every hundred yards of ascent.

At one point he halted abreast of two rough monuments, graves of the
valiant pair who had fought and died, like Rajputs, in that last
terrible onslaught when the hosts of Akbar entered in, over the bodies
of eight thousand saffron-robed warriors, and made Chitor a place of
desolation for eve