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Not thirty seconds later Alwa and his nine were striking hoof sparks on the stone of Jaimihr's courtyard, and the gates that could have easily withstood a hundred-man assault with battering-rams had clanged behind them, bolted tight against their owner. "Where is the bear cage?" demanded Alwa. "It is a bear I need, not blood!"
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.
He agreed to join Jaimihr in opposition to the Rangars. He agreed to send all his forces to meet Jaimihr's and together kill every Rangar who should show himself inside the city. And he privately made plans to arrive on the scene too late, and smash Jaimihr's army after it had been reduced in size and efficiency by its battle with Alwa's men.
"Where is Mahommed Gunga?" "I know not." "At Alwa's place?" "Am I God that I should know where any man is whom I cannot see?" "Oh! So he is at Alwa's, eh?" That overdose of opium had rendered Jaimihr's brain very dull indeed; he considered himself clever, and overlooked the fact that Ali Partab would be almost surely lying to him.
"Surely, sahib, provided our intention is not to evade the promise." "Our intention is to prevent Howrah and his brother from fighting, to insure peace and protection on this whole countryside, and, if possible, to ride away with Jaimihr's army to the Company's aid." "Good, sahib."
"Eight hundred!" he exclaimed, as Cunningham drew near. "Eight hundred what, Mahommed Gunga? Come and see, sahib." Cunningham leaned over, and beheld a mounted column, trailing along the desert road in wonderfully good formation. "Where are they from?" he asked. "Jaimihr's men, from Howrah!" "That means," growled Alwa, "that the Hindoo pig Jaimihr has more than half the city at his back.
They trust each other wonderfully with an almost childlike confidence in a household such as Jaimihr's! Ho! I am king! All lesser fry Must cringe, and crawl, and cry to me, And none have any rights but I, Except the right to lie to me. JAIMIHR was not the only man who would have dearly liked to know of the whereabouts of Mahommed Gunga.
Joanna he turned loose, to sneak into any rat-hole that she chose. Then, with their swords drawn for if trouble came it would be certain to come suddenly he and his nine made a wide-ringed circuit of the city, to a point where the main street passing Jaimihr's palace ended in a rune of wind-piled desert sand.
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.
He was known to have engaged a new servant when he rode away from Howrah and to have left his trusted man behind. Miss McClean was known to have conversed with the retainer, immediately after which the man had been seized and carried off by Jaimihr's men. Jaimihr was known to have placed watchers round the mission house and once to have killed a man in Miss McClean's defense.
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