g by courting the favor of the
Rangars, and of Alwa in particular, and that he might win security by
coaxing them to take his part. Of one thing he was certain: the Rangars
would do anything at all, if by doing it they could harm the Hindoo
priests.

But, being of the East Eastern, and at that Hindoo, he could not have
brought himself to make overtures direct and go straight to the real
issue. He had to feel his way gingerly. The thousand horses in his
stables, he reflected, would mount a thousand of the Rangars and place
at his disposal a regiment of cavalry which would be difficult to beat;
but a thousand mounted Mohammedans might be a worse thorn in his side
than even his brother or the priests. He decided to write to Alwa, but
to open negotiations with a very thin and delicately inserted wedge.

He could write. The priests had overlooked that opportunity, and had
taught him in his boyhood; in that one thing he was their equal. But the
other things that they had taught him, too, offset his penmanship.
He was too proud to write--too lazy, too enamoured of his dignity.
He called a court official, and the man sat very humbly at his
feet--listened meekly to the stern command to secrecy--and took the
letter from dictation.

Alwa was informed, quite briefly, that in view of certain happenings in
Howrah City His Highness the Maharajah had considered it expedient
to set a guard over the Christian missionaries in the city, for their
safety. The accompanying horse was a gift to the Alwa-sahib. The
Alwa-sahib himself would be a welcome guest whenever he might care to
come.

The document was placed in a silver tube and scaled. Within the space of
half an hour a horseman was kicking up the desert dust, riding as though
he carried news of life-and-death importance, and with another man and a
led horse galloping behind him. Five minutes after the man had started,
in a cell below the temple, of Siva, the court official who had taken
down the letter was repeating it word for word to a congeries of
priests. And one hour later still, in a room up near the roof of
Jaimihr's palace, one of the priests--panting from having come so
fast--was asking the Rajah's brother what he thought about it.

"Did he say nothing--," asked Jaimihr.

"Nothing, sahib."

The priest watched him eagerly; he would have to bear back to the other
priests an exact account of the Prince's every word, and movement, and
expression.

"Then I, too, say nothi