king like an omen from the deepest shadow, the sweeper called to
Jaimihr.

"Sahib, thy palace burns! Sahib, thy prisoner runs! Haste, sahib! Call
thy men and hasten back! Thy palace is in flames--the Rangars come to--"

As a raven, disturbed into night omen-croaking, he sent forth his news
from utter blackness into nerve-strung tension. No one member of the
thirty but was on the alert for friction or sudden treachery; the were
all eyes for each other, and the croaking fell on ears strained to the
aching point. He had time to repeat his warning before one of Jaimihr's
men stepped into the darkness where he hid and dragged him out.

"Sahib, a woman came but now and brought the news. It was from the
captain of the guard. The Rangars came to take their man away. They
broke in. They burn. They loot. They--"

But Jaimihr did not wait another instant to hear the rest. To him this
seemed like the scheming of his brother. Now he imagined he could read
between the lines! That letter sent to Alwa had been misreported to
him, and had been really a call to come and free the prisoner and wreak
Rangar vengeance! He understood! But first he must save his palace, if
it could be saved. The priests must have deceived him, so he wasted no
time in arguing with them; he ran, with his guards behind him, to the
outer wall of Siva's temple where the horses waited, each with a saice
squatting at his head. The saices were sent scattering among the crowd
to give the alarm and send the rest of his contingent hurrying back;
Jaimihr and his ten drove home their spurs, and streaked, as the
frightened jackal runs when a tiger interrupts them at their worry,
hell-bent-for-leather up the unlit street.

Then Maharajah Howrah's custom-accorded dignity stood him in good stead.
It flashed across his worried brain that space had been given him by the
gods in which to think. Jaimihr--one facet of the problem and
perhaps the sharpest--would have his hands full for a while, and the
priests--wish how they would--would never dare omit the after-ritual in
Siva's temple. He--untrammelled for an hour to come--might study out a
course to take and hold with those embarrassing prisoners of his.

He turned--updrawn in regal stateliness--and intimated to the high
priest that the ceremony might proceed without him. When the priests
demurred and murmured, he informed them that he would be pleased to give
them audience when the ritual was over, and without deigning anot