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And now there was no need to restrain the men; they all stood and watched, to know what new turn affairs were taking. Most of them were staring downward at the Rangar's head as he urged the mare up the cliff path, when the explanation of Yasmini's message came. It was only King, urged by some intuition, who had his eyes fixed on Khinjan.
It was her unwounded hand, not Fred's, that touched the Rangar's breast. "Rustum Khan," she said, "I think better of you than to believe you would take advantage of our ignorance. You're a soldier. We are only civilians trying to help a tortured nation. We know nothing of Rajput customs. Won't you go to Lord Montdidier and tell him about it, and ask him to decide? We'll all obey Monty, you know."
They rolled over and over, breathing hard. King wanted to think before he gave an alarm, and he could not think with that scent in his nostrils and creeping into his lungs. Even in the stress of fighting be wondered how the Rangar's clothes and turban had come to be drenched in it.
More than once it occurred to him to draw and shoot, but that thought died into the darkness whence it came. Never once while he rode did he forget to admire the Rangar's courage or the black mare's speed.
King inclined his head politely, but the weight of the knife inside his shirt did not encourage credulity. True, it might not be Yasmini's knife, and the Rangar's emphatic assurance might not be an unintentional admission that the man who had tried to use it was Yasmini's man.
When Ismail had gone striding down the room, with no glance to spare for the whispering women in the window, and with dignity like an aura exuding from him, King looked into the Rangar's eyes with that engaging frankness of his that disarms so many people. "Then you'll be on the train to-night?" he asked. "To hear is to obey! With pleasure, sahib!" "Then good-by until this evening."
It seemed strange at first and rather awful to be lodged on a rock like this in a section of a Rangar's harem! Yes, there are several women here behind the scenes, but I only see the waiting-women. I've forgotten time; the news about rebellion seems too awful to leave room for any other thought." "Who was the Rangar to whom Aliva gave his word? Not Mahommed Gunga, by any chance?"
Rewa Gunga flashed a little electric torch into his eyes, but after a few seconds he shifted it so that both their faces could be seen, although the Rangar's only very faintly. "I have come to warn you!" "Very good of you, I'm sure!" said King. "If she knew I were here, she would jolly well have my liver nailed to a wall! I come to advise you to go back!" Have they taken Ali Masjid Fort?"
The malice which had glittered in his eyes then was functioning now. Rangar's message was to Dulac. "Your girl's just gone to Apple Lake with young Foote in his car," it said. That was all, but it seemed ample to Rangar. Bonbright was not a reckless driver, but he drove rapidly this evening, with a sort of driven eagerness.
King said nothing, but listened and watched, puzzled more than he would have cared to admit by the look in the Rangar's eyes. It was not suspicion nor respect. Yet there was a suggestion of both. "At last she said, 'It is well; I will not wait! I know of this sahib. He is a man whose feet stand under him and he will not tread my growing flowers into garbage!
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