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First, she knew what Jaimihr's ambition was every man in Howrah knew how he planned to seize Miss McClean when the moment should be propitious and her Eastern wisdom warned her that Jaimihr, foiled, would stop at nothing to contrive vengeance.
It was barely probable that Jaimihr's temper would permit them the privilege of dying quickly should he come and find his palace looted; a Rangar's sword seemed better, and they made ready to die hard. "Where's Ali Partab?" There was no answer. The little crowd drew in, and one by one took up the fighting attitude that each man liked the best. "I say I did not come for blood!
A crowd of stragglers drew together near the four laughed with them took sides in the coarse-worded argument about Jaimihr's known ambition and shamed her into pressing on homeward. But she was forced to rest again, and then again. Physical sickness prevented her from obeying instinct, reason, will, that all three urged her on.
"Send a hundred men, each with a flag of truce on his lance, to gallop through the city and call on Jaimihr's men to rally to me, if they wish protection against Howrah!" "Good, sahib! Good!" swore Alwa. "Howrah is the next danger! Make ready to fight Howrah!" "Attend to my orders, please!" smiled Cunningham, and Alwa did as he was told.
He was recalling the terms of the agreement made with Jaimihr; he remembered it included the sparing of all of Alwa's men, and not the firing on them. A thousand of Jaimihr's cavalry swooped from the shelter of the infantry, opened out a very little, and, mistaking Cunningham's delay for fear, bore down with a cheer and something very like determination.
Joanna, very much as usual, snoozed comfortably, curled in a blanket in a corner. They would run about a hundred different risks, not least of which was the chance of falling in with a party of Howrah's men. In fact, if they should encounter anybody before bringing up at Jaimihr's palace it was likely that the whole plan would fizzle into nothing.
Then, by a trail that no one would have guessed at and few could have followed, she made her way to Jaimihr's palace three miles away from Howrah's where a dozen sulky-looking sepoys lolled, dismounted, by the wooden gate.
Five minutes after the man had started, in a cell below the temple, of Siva, the court official who had taken down the letter was repeating it word for word to a congeries of priests. And one hour later still, in a room up near the roof of Jaimihr's palace, one of the priests panting from having come so fast was asking the Rajah's brother what he thought about it.
"There have been men who wondered what the light of day was like, having long ago forgotten!" "Make me prisoner!" laughed Alwa. "Count then the hours until three thousand blades join Jaimihr and help him grease the dungeon hinges with thy fat!" "Having looted Jaimihr's palace, you speak thus?" "Having whipped a dog, I wait for the dog to lick my hand."
Apparently, then, Ali Partab a prisoner in Jaimihr's palace-yard was the only connecting link between him and the Rangars whom he wished to win over to his side.
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