is _sais_ with a note to Rose; and, on
reaching the Mosque, he found things lively enough already. The iron
railings, round the main gate of the Fort, were besieged by a hooting,
roaring mob, belabouring the air with _lathis_ and axes on bamboo poles;
rending it with shouts of abuse and one reiterate cry, "Kill the white
pigs, brothers! Kill! Kill!"

Again and again they stormed the railings, frantically trying to bear
them down by sheer weight of numbers--yelling ceaselessly the while.

"How the devil can they keep it up?" thought Roy; and sickened to think
how few of his own kind there were to stand between the English women
and children in Lahore and those hostile thousands. Thank God, there
remained loyal Indians, hundreds of them--as in Mutiny days; but surely
a few rounds from the Fort just then would have heartened them and been
distinctly comforting into the bargain.

The walls were manned with rifles and Lewis guns, and at times things
looked distinctly alarming; but not a shot was fired. The mob was left
to exhaust itself with its own fury. Part melted away, and part was
drawn away by the attraction of a mass meeting in the Mosque, where
thirty-five thousand citizens were gathered to hear Hindu agitators
preaching open rebellion from Mahommedan pulpits; and a handful of
British police officers--present on duty--were being hissed and hooted,
amid shouts of "_Hindu-Mussalman ki jai!_"

From the city all police pickets had been withdrawn, since their
presence would only provoke disturbance and bloodshed. And the bazaar
people were parading the streets, headed by an impromptu army of young
hotheads, carrying _lathis_, crying their eternal '_Hai!_' and '_Jai!_'
with extra special '_Jai's_' for the 'King of Germany' and the Afghan
Amir.

Portraits of Their Majesties were battered down and trampled in the mud;
and over the fragments the crowd swept on, shouting: '_Hai! hai! Jarge
Margya!_'[34] And the air was full of the craziest rumours, passed on,
with embellishments, from mouth to mouth....

Roy, on reaching Cantonments, was relieved to find that the decision had
already been taken to regain control of the city by a military
demonstration in force; eight hundred troops and police, under the
officer commanding Lahore civil area. Desmond's squadron was included;
and, sitting down straightway, Roy dashed off a note to Rose.

"MY DARLING,--

"I'm sorry, but it looks like 'no go' to-morrow. You'll he