nd waiting, they keep coming--there were many when I
left--there will be three squadrons worthy of the name by the time we
get there! Is all well at your end, sahib?"

"Yes, all's well."

"Did the padre people go to Howrah?"

"They started and they have not returned."

"Then, Allah be praised! Inshallah, I will grip that spectacled old
woman of a priest by the hand before I die. He has a spark of manhood in
him! Send me this good horse to the stables, sahib; I am overweary. Have
him watered when the heat has left him, and then fed. Let them blanket
him lightly. And, sahib, have his legs rubbed--that horse ever loved to
have his legs rubbed. Allah! I must sleep four hours before I ride! And
the Miss-sahib--went she bravely?"

"Went as a woman of her race ought to go, Mahommed Gunga."

"Ha! She met a man first of her own race, and he made her go! Would she
have gone if a coward asked her, think you? Sahib--women are good--at
the other end of things! We will ride and fetch her. Ha! I saw! My eyes
are old, but they bear witness yet!--Now, food, sahib--for the love of
Allah, food, before my belt-plate and my backbone touch!"

"I wonder what the damned old infidel is dreaming of!" swore Cunningham,
as Mahommed Gunga staggered to the chamber in the rock where a
serving-man was already heaping victuals for him.

"Have me called in four hours, sahib! In four hours I will be a man
again!"

CHAPTER XXXI

The freed wolf limped home to his lair,
And lay to lick his sore.
With wrinkled lip and fangs agnash--
With back-laid ear and eyes aflash--
"Twas something rather more than rash
To turn me loose!" he swore.

NOW Jaimihr fondly thought he held a few cards up his sleeve when he
made his bargain with Rosemary McClean and let himself be lowered from
the Alwa-sahib's rock. He knew, better probably than any one except his
brother and the priests, how desperate the British situation had become
throughout all India at an instant's notice, and he made his terms
accordingly.

He did not believe, in the first place, that there would be any British
left to succor by the time matters had been settled sufficiently in
Howrah to enable him to dare leave the city at his rear. Afterward,
should it seem wise, he would have no objection in the world to riding
to the aid of a Company that no longer existed.

In the second place, he entertained no least compunction about breaking
his word completely