back with a message that Jaimihr granted amnesty to
all who would surrender, and that he would be pleased to accept Alwa's
allegiance if offered to him.

"I will offer the braggart something in the way of board and lodging
that will astonish him!" growled Alwa. "Eight men to horse! The first
eight! That will do! Back to the battlement, the rest of you!"

They had raced for the right to loose themselves against eight hundred!

CHAPTER XXV

OH, duck and run--the hornets come!
Oh, jungli! Clear the way!
The nest's ahum--the hornets come!
The sharp-stinged, harp-winged hornets come!
Nay, jungli! When the hornets come,
It isn't well to stay!

ALWA ordered ten men down into the bowels of the rock itself, where
great wheels with a chain attached to them were forced round to lift the
gate. Next he stationed a signaller with a cord in either hand, above
the parapet, to notify the men below exactly when to set the simple
machinery in motion. His eight clattered out from the stables on the far
side of the rock, and his own charger was brought to him, saddled.

Then, in a second, it was evident why Raputs do not rule in Rajputana.

"I ride too with my men!" declared Mahommed Gunga.

"Nay! This is my affair--my private quarrel with Jaimihr!"

Mahommed Gunga turned to Ali Partab, who had been a shadow to him ever
since he came.

"Turn out my five, and bring my charger!" he commanded.

"No, I say!" Alwa had his hand already on his sabre hilt. "There is room
for eight and no more. Four following four abreast, and one ahead
to lead them. I and my men know how to do this. I and my men have a
personal dispute with Jaimihr. Stay thou here!"

Mahommed Gunga's five and Ali Partab came clattering out so fast as
to lead to the suspicion that their horses had been already saddled.
Mahommed Gunga mounted.

"Lead on, cousin!" he exclaimed. "I will follow thy lead, but I come!"

Then Alwa did what a native nearly always will do. He turned to a man
not of his own race, whom he believed he could trust to be impartial.

"Sahib--have I no rights in my own house?"

"Certainly you have," said Cunningham, who was wondering more than
anything what weird, wild trick these horsemen meant to play. No man in
his senses would have dared to ride a horse at more than foot-pace down
the path. Was there another path? he wondered. At least, if eight men
were about to charge into eight hundred, it wo