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Updated: June 8, 2025
They seized him beneath the arms and bore him through as the great gate dropped and cut his horse in halves. Then one man took the galloper up behind his saddle, and bore him up the hill unquestioned until he could dismount in front of Alwa. "Who art thou?" demanded the owner of the rock, recognizing a warrior by his trademarks, but in no way moderating the natural gruffness of his voice.
Forewarned, Alwa held on down the pitch-dark side street, into whose steep-sided chasm the moon's rays would not reach for an hour or two to come, and once again he led his party in a sweeping, wide-swung circle, loose-reined and swifter than the silent night wind this time for Howrah's palace. There was his given word, plighted to Mahommed Gunga, to redeem.
A little way beyond the outskirts of the city lived a man who was neither Mohammedan nor Hindoo a fearful man, who took no sides, but paid his taxes, carried on his business, and behaved a Jew, who dealt in horses and in any other animal or thing that could be bought to show a profit. Alwa had an utterly complete contempt for Jews, as was right and proper in a Rangar of the blood.
Give him thine, unless there is a better to be had." There was nothing for it but obedience, for few things were more certain than that Alwa was not there to waste time asking for anything he would not fight for if refused. The guard held out his long sword, hilt first, and Ali Partab strapped it on.
Then: "He is good. He will do!" said the black-beard who had brought the lamp. "He is good. But many sahibs would have acted coolly, thus. There must be a greater test. There must be no doubt no littlest doubt. Alwa and the others will ask me on my honor, and I will answer on my honor, yes or no."
"Mother of corruption! Listen! Alwa must know! Canst thou escape from here? Canst thou reach the Alwa-sahib?" "If the price were four mohurs, there might be many things that I could do." "The price is three! I have spoken!" "'I would eat honey were I outside! said the bear." "Hag! The bear died in the cage, and they sold his pelt for how much?
With a little sign of irritation Alwa growled his answer. "He says, sahib, that for the safety of two Christian missionaries, for whom he has no esteem at all, he was forced to swear allegiance to a Hindoo whom he esteems even less. He says that his word is given!" "Does he mean that he would like me and the missionaries to leave his home at once do we embarrass him?"
With fifty ground scouts scattered out ahead of them, they drummed out of the gorge and thundered by squadrons on the plain beyond straight, as the jackal runs, for Howrah City. Alwa, leaving his own squadron, to canter at Cunningham's side, gave him all the new intelligence that mattered. "Last evening I sent word on ahead to them of our coming, sahib!
Thy friend, bahadur!" He spoke low on purpose, but Mahommed Gunga heard him, caught Cunningham's eye, and grinned. He saw a way to save his face, at all events. "That was a trick well turned, sahib!" he whispered, as Alwa moved away. "Alwa will listen in future when Cunnigan-bahadur speaks!"
But outside, by a remade camp-fire, Mahommed Gunga sat and chuckled to himself, and every now and then grew eloquent to the bearded men who sat beside him. "Aie! Did you hear him reprimand me? By the beard of God's prophet, that is a man of men! So was his father! Now I will tell Alwa and the others that I bring a man to them! By the teeth of God and my own honor I will swear to it!
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