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The Moorhouses and McCleans were old friends, and had been together in Australia on the diggings many years before. He was not, I recollect, much impressed with Moorhouse's speculation, but as he had a run at the south of the Wanaka and a homestead there he arranged for our reception and for a boat to take us a portion of the voyage up the lake.
The Maharajah was a fearful man, and, unless the priests and Jaimihr threatened him with a show of combination, there was a slight chance that he might dread British vengeance too much to dare permit violence to the McCleans. Possibly he might hold out against the priests alone; but before an open alliance between Jaimihr and the priests he would surrender for his own throne's sake.
The deduction was not too far-fetched that the retainer had been left as a protection against Jaimihr, and consequently that the Rangars, at the behest of Mahommed Gunga, had decided on at least the white girl's safety. Therefore, he argued, if he now proceeded to protect the McCleans, he would, at all events, not incur the Rangars' enmity.
They will be all eyes and ears. It might be well, then, to set the pace a little slower, for a man looks better on a fresh horse than on a weary one!" "I'm thinking, Mahommed Gunga, of the two McCleans and of General Byng, who is expecting us. There is little time to lose." "I, too, consider them, sahib. It is we Rangars who must do the sabre work.
His fingers tightened on the jewelled cimeter that protruded, silk-sashed, from his middle, but neither voice nor eyes nor lips betrayed the least emotion. It was the McCleans whose eyes blazed with a new-born hope, that was destined to be dashed a second later. "Has he guards with him?" "But ten, Maharajah-sahib."
He made a sign. A spoken word might have told the priests too much, and have set them busy fore-stalling him. The guards rushed down the steps, seized both McCleans, and half-carried, half-hustled them up the palace-steps, through the great carved doors, and presently returned without them. "They are my prisoners," said the Maharajah, turning to the high priest. "We will now proceed."
While 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.
Mahommed Gunga left his squadron, too, to canter beside Alwa. "I am all ears, sahib!" he asserted, reining his horse until his stride was equal to the others. "The key to the situation is that treasure," asserted Cunningham. "Howrah wants it. Jaimihr wants it. The priests want it. I know that much for certain, from the McCleans. All right.
"Rung Ho! See you again, Mahommed Gunga!" Thy chargers fling Foam to the night thy trumpets sing Thy lance-butts on the stirrups ring Mount, sahib! Blood them! Lead them! IT was arranged that the McCleans, with old Joanna, should start at dawn for Howrah City, and they were, both of them, too overcome with mingled dread and excitement to even try to sleep.
The Maharajah looked from the company of guards that lined the palace-steps to the priests and his brother and the crowd and then to the McCleans again. He remembered Alwa and his Rangars, thought of the messenger whom he had sent, remembered that a regiment of lance-armed horsemen would be worth a risk or two to win over to his side, and made decision.
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