ht! What devils' tricks have been hatched out
in my absence?"

The high priest started to protest, but Jaimihr silenced him with
coarse-mouthed threats.

"I, too, can play double when occasion calls for it!" he swore. And with
that hint at coming trouble he clattered on home to his palace.

To begin with, when he reached home, he had the guard beaten all but
unconscious for having dared let raiders in during the night before;
then he sent them, waterless and thirsty, back to the dungeon. He felt
better then, and called for ink and paper.

For hours he thought and wrote alternately, tearing up letter after
letter. Then, at last, he read over a composition that satisfied him and
set his seal at the foot. He placed the whole in a silver tube, poured
wax into the joint, and called for the fat man who had been responsible
for Ali Partab's capture.

"Dog!" he snarled. "Interfering fool! All this was thy doing! Didst thou
see the guard beaten awhile ago?"

"I did. It was a lordly beating. The men are all but dead but will live
for such another one."

"Wouldst thou be so beaten?"

"How can I prevent, if your highness wishes?"

"Take this. It is intended for Peshawur but may be given to any British
officer above the rank of major. It calls for a receipt. Do not dare
come back, or be caught in Howrah City, without a receipt for that tube
and its contents intact!"

"If Alwa and Mahommed Gunga are in league with my brother," muttered
Jaimihr to himself when the fat Hindoo had gone, "then the sooner the
British quarrel with both of them the better. Howrah alone I can dispose
of easily enough, and there is yet time before rebellion starts for the
British to spike the guns of the other two. By the time that is done, I
will be Maharajah!"

It was less than three days later when the word came mysteriously
through the undiscoverable "underground" route of India for all men to
be ready.

"By the next full moon," went the message, from the priests alone knew
where, "all India will be waiting. When the full moon rises then the
hour is come!"

"And when that full moon rises," thought Jaimihr to himself, "my
brother's funeral rites will be past history!"

For the present, though, he made believe to regret his recent rage, and
was courteous to priest and Maharajah alike--even sending to his brother
to apologize.

CHAPTER XXII

They've called thee by an evil word,
They've named thee traitor, friend