getting rid of Jaimihr,
she was endangering the liberty and life of Alwa--the one man able to do
anything for the McCleans!

That thought sent her scooting over housetops, diving down dark
alleyways, racing, dodging, hiding, dashing on again, and brought her
in the nick of time to a ditch, from whose shelter she sprang and seized
the hand of Ali Partab. That incident, and her intimation that the
missionaries were in Howrah's palace, took Alwa back up the black, blind
side street; and before he emerged from it he saw Jaimihr and his ten go
thundering past, their eyes on the sky-line for a hint of conflagration,
and their horses--belly-to-the-earth--racing as only fear, or
enthusiasm, or grim desperation in their riders' minds can make them
race.

A little later, in groups and scattered fours, and one by one, his
heavy-breathing troopers followed, cursing the order that had sent
them abroad with-out their horses, damning--as none but a dismounted
cavalryman can damn--the earth's unevenness, their swords, their luck,
their priests, the night, their boots, and Jaimihr. Forewarned, Alwa
held on down the pitch-dark side street, into whose steep-sided chasm
the moon's rays would not reach for an hour or two to come, and once
again he led his party in a sweeping, wide-swung circle, loose-reined
and swifter than the silent night wind--this time for Howrah's palace.
There was his given word, plighted to Mahommed Gunga, to redeem.

CHAPTER XX

Ha! my purse may be lean, but my 'scutcheon is clean,
And I'm backed by a dozen true men;
I've a sword to my name, and a wrist for the same;
Can a king frown fear into me, then?

IT is the privilege of emperors, and kings and princes, that--however
little real authority they have, or however much their power is
undermined by men behind the throne--they must be accorded dignity. They
must be, on the face of things, obeyed.

Inspection of the treasure finished and an hour-long mummery of rites
performed, the thirty wound their way, chanting, in single file back
again. The bronze-enforced door, that was only first of half a hundred
barriers between approach and the semi-sacred hoard, at last clanged
shut and was locked with three locks, each of whose individual keys was
in the keeping of a separate member of the three--Maharajah, Prince, and
priest. The same keys fitted every door of the maze--made passages, but
no one door would open without all three.

Spea