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Updated: June 2, 2025
The five behind even the mule-drivers too detected excitement in the air, and the little column closed in on its leaders. All eyes watched the neck-and-neck approach of Alwa's men, until Cunningham at last could see their turbans and make out that they were Rangars, not Hindoos. Then he and the Risaldar drew rein. There were twenty who raced toward them, but no Alwa.
Cunningham bowed in recognition of his courtesy, and walked away to a point whence he could look from the beetling parapet away and away across desert that shone hot and hazy-rimmed on every side. If this were a man on whom he must depend for following if any of all the more than hints dropped by the risaldar were true it seemed to him that his reception was a little too chilly to be hopeful.
The part, said he, of every wise man was to go over to the enemy before the day should come for paying penalties. I told what he had said to me to a risaldar, and the risaldar spoke with Colonel Kirby. We heard although I do not know whether it is true or not that the major was shot that evening with his face to a wall.
Respect were his, and homage and obeisance, for the Rajput saw to it. Of evenings, while they rested, but before the sun went down, the old risaldar would come with his naked sabre and defy "Chota" Cunnigan to try to touch him.
"By which way did we come?" asked the Risaldar, staring in amazement round the walls. There was not a door nor crack, nor any sign of one, except that a wooden ladder in one corner led to a trapdoor overhead, and they had certainly not entered by the ladder. "Nay! That is a secret!" grinned the priest. "He who can may find the opening! Here can the woman and her servant stay until we need them."
"Steps, now!" said the priest. "Have a care, now, for the lower ones are slippery." Ruth was regaining consciousness. She began to move and tried once or twice to speak. "Here, thou!" growled the Risaldar. "Thou art a younger man than I come back here. Help with the memsahib." The priest came back a step or two, but Suliman declined his aid, snarling vile insults at him.
The deep-throated answer rang out promptly from every one of them, and they stood with their sword-hilts thrust out toward the colonel. He rose and touched each hilt in turn. "They are now thy servants!" said the Risaldar, laying his head back. "It is good! I go now. Give my salaams to General Turner sahib!"
In the sudden darkness the white breeches showed and the whites of his eyes, but little else; his voice growled like a rumble from the underworld. "Why did you do it, risaldar? What did he say?" "It was enough, bahadur, that he sat on that stone; for that alone he had been beaten! What he said was but the babbling of priests. All priests are alike.
"You old war-dog, what brought you here? Heavens, how you startled me! What good wind brought you?" "Nay! It seems it was an ill wind, sahib!" "What ill wind? I'm glad to see you!" "The breath of rumor, sahib!" "What rumor brought you?" "Where a man's honor lies, there is he, in the hour of danger! Is all well with the Raj, sahib?" "With the Raj? How d'you mean, Risaldar?"
He mounted a little stiffly, and tried his horse's paces up and down the courtyard once or twice before nodding to Cunningham. "All ready, sahib." "Ready, Mahommed Gunga." But there was one other matter, after all, that needed attention first. "That horse of mine that brought me hither" the Risaldar picked out the man who waited with the gong cord in his hand "is left in thy particular charge.
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