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"I follow Cunnigan-bahadur!" said Mahommed Gunga; and he spurred off to his squadron. Alwa could see nothing better than to follow suit, for Cunningham closed his lips tight in a manner unmistakable. And whatever Alwa's misgivings might have been, he had the sense and the soldierly determination not to hint at them to his men.
The two went out and it left Alwa to stride up and down alone to wrestle between desire and circumspection to weigh uncomfortable fact with fact and to curse his wits that could not settle on the wisest and most creditable course. They turned into another chamber of the tunnelled rock, and there until long after the hour of law allowed to Alwa they discussed the situation too.
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.
A man who holds his given word as sacred as did Alwa respects, in the teeth of custom or religion, the man who accepts that word; so, when the chance had offered, Alwa had done the Jew occasional favors and had won his gratitude. He now counted on the Jew for fresh horses.
How is it that you managed to reach here? According to Alwa, no white man's life is safe in the open, and he only told me today that he wouldn't let me go away even if I were well enough to ride." "First I've heard of rebellion!" said Cunningham aghast at the notion of hearing news like that a second hand, and from a woman. "Hasn't Alwa told you?" "He hasn't had time to, yet."
"Something that I think thou lackest, cousin!" came the hot retort. Alwa turned his back with a shake of his head and a thin-lipped smile then disappeared through a green door in the side of what seemed like solid rock. A moment later Mahommed Gunga stood near Cunningham, saluting. "We ask the favor of a consultation, sahib."
Mahommed Gunga went through considerable pantomime of being angry with a fly. He found it necessary to conceal emotion in some way or other. Alwa sat motionless and stared straight back at Cunningham. "I understand, sahib," he repeated. "You are talking to me, then, on that understanding?" "Most certainly, huzoor." "You can raise two thousand men?" "Perhaps." "Say fifteen hundred?"
A plan is something quickly seized at the right second and then acted on like your capture of Jaimihr. Wait awhile, Alwa-sahib!" "Ay, wait awhile!" growled Mahommed Gunga. "Did I bring thee a leader to ask plans of thee, or a man of men for thee to follow? Which?" "All the same," said Alwa, "I would rather halt and make a good plan. It would be wiser. I do not understand this one."
That incident, and her intimation that the missionaries were in Howrah's palace, took Alwa back up the black, blind side street; and before he emerged from it he saw Jaimihr and his ten go thundering past, their eyes on the sky-line for a hint of conflagration, and their horses belly-to-the-earth racing as only fear, or enthusiasm, or grim desperation in their riders' minds can make them race.
He too, was hard put to it to believe his ears. "Jaimihr is the key to the position. He is nothing but a nuisance where he is. Outside he can be made to help us." "Am I dreaming, or art thou, sahib?" Alwa stood with fists clinched on his hips and his legs apart incredulous. "Jaimihr to go free? Why that Hindoo pig is the source of all the trouble in the district!"
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