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Updated: May 17, 2025
Alwa, swaggering until his long spurs jingled like a bunch of keys each time his boot-heels struck the marble floor, strode straight as a soldier up to the raised throne dais took no notice whatever of the sudden slamming of the door behind him looked knife-keenly into Howrah's eyes and saluted with a flourish. "I come from bursting open Jaimihr's buzzard roost!" he intimated mildly.
She saw the fat Hindoo come back, in no particular hurry now, and seat himself not far from her. Later she saw eight horsemen ride down the street, pass the arch, wheel, and halt. She noticed that they were not Maharajah Howrah's men but a portion of his brother Jaimihr's body-guard, then took no further notice of them.
Heir after heir could have agreed with Maharajah, but the priests had stood between. That treasure was their fulcrum; the legacy, dictated by a dead, misguided hand, intended as a war reserve to stay the throne of Howrah in its need, and trebly locked to guard against profligacy, had placed the priests of Siva in the position of dictators of Howrah's destiny.
Beyond all doubt it was Jaimihr's army, for his elephants were not so gaudily harnessed as Howrah's, and his men were not so brilliantly dressed.
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.
"I will wait until he does attack," the Maharajah answered. "For the moment we are friends and have a cause in common." "Howrah's men will desert to you the moment you make a move to win the throne," they assured Jaimihr. "Wait!" answered Jaimihr. "Wait but a day or two. I will move fast as I see fit when I am ready. For the present my cause and my brother's cause are one."
It was the Jew, beard-scrabbling and fidgeting among his horses, who reminded him that when the full moon shone most of the populace, and most of Jaimihr's and Howrah's guards, would be occupied near Siva's temple and the palace. He left his own horses, groomed again, and gorging their fill of good, clean grain in the Jew's ramshackle stable place.
The saices were sent scattering among the crowd to give the alarm and send the rest of his contingent hurrying back; Jaimihr and his ten drove home their spurs, and streaked, as the frightened jackal runs when a tiger interrupts them at their worry, hell-bent-for-leather up the unlit street. Then Maharajah Howrah's custom-accorded dignity stood him in good stead.
Word of all this came before dawn today, by a messenger from Maharajah Howrah to my cousin here. My cousin stands pledged to uphold Howrah on his throne; Howrah is against the British; Jaimihr, his brother, is in arms against Howrah." "Why did the Alwa-sahib pledge himself to Howrah's cause?" Mahommed Gunga who knew quite well saw fit to translate the question.
About two minutes of cautious questioning of neighbors satisfied her where the missionaries were; nothing short of death seemed able to deprive her of ability to flit like a black bat through the shadows, and the distance to Howrah's palace was accomplished, by her usual bat's entry route, in less time than a pony would have taken by the devious street.
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