Rung Ho! | Page 5

no woman in the East so worth a prince's while as this
one, who dared flout him with her riding-whip before his men!
"Sahiba!" he said, sidling close to her again, and bowing in the saddle
in mock cavalier humility. "The time will come when your government
and my brother, who - at present - is Maharajah Howrah - will be of
little service to you. Then, perhaps, you may care to recall my promise
to load all the jewels you can choose out of the treasure-house on you.
Then, perhaps, you may, remember that I said 'a throne is better than a
grave, sahiba.' Or else - "
"Or else what, Jaimihr-sahib?" She reined again and wheeled about and
faced him - pale-trembling a little - looking very small and frail beside
him on his great war-horse, but not flinching under his gaze for a single
second.
"Or else, sahiba- I think you saw me slay the Maharati? Do you think
that I would stop at anything to accomplish what I had set out to do?
See, sahiba - there is a little blood there on your jacket! Let that be for a
pledge between us - for a sign - or a token of my oath that on the day I
am Maharajah Howrah, you are Maharanee - mistress of all the jewels
in the treasure-house!"
She shuddered. She did not look to find the blood; she took his word
for that, if for nothing else.
"I wonder you dare tell me that you plot against your brother!" That

was more a spoken thought than a statement or a question.
"I would be very glad if you would warn my brother!" he answered her;
and she knew like a flash, and on the instant, that what he said was true.
She had been warned before she came to bear no tales to any one. No
Oriental would believe the tale, coming from her; the Maharajah would
arrest her promptly, glad of the excuse to vent his hatred of Christian
missionaries. Jaimihr would attempt a rescue; it was common
knowledge that he plotted for the throne. There would be instant civil
war, in which the British Government would perforce back up the
alleged protector of a defenseless woman. There would be a new
Maharajah; then, in a little while, and in all likelihood, she would have
disappeared forever while the war raged. There would be, no doubt, a
circumstantial story of her death from natural causes.
She did not answer. She stared back at him, and he smiled down at her,
twisting at his mustache.
"Think!" he said, nodding. "A throne, sahiba, is considerably better
than a grave!" Then he wheeled like a sudden dust-devil and decamped
in a cloud of dust, followed at full pelt by his clattering escort. She
watched their horses leap one after the other the corpse of the Maharati
that lay by the corner where it fell, and she saw the last of them go
clattering, whirling up the street through the bazaar. The old hag rose
out of a shadow and trotted after her again as she turned and rode on,
pale-faced and crying now a little, to the little begged school place
where her father tried to din the alphabet into a dozen low-caste
fosterlings.
"Father!" she cried, and she all but fell out of the saddle into his arms
as the tall, lean Scotsman came to the door to meet her and stood
blinking in the sunlight." Father, I've seen another man killed! I've had
another scene with Jaimihr! I can't endure it! I - I - Oh, why did I ever
come?"
"I don't know, dear," he answered. "But you would come, wouldn't
you?"

CHAPTER II
'Twixt loot and law - 'tween creed and caste - Through slough this
people wallows, To where we choose our road at last. I choose the
RIGHT! Who follows?
HEMMED in amid the stifling stench and babel of the caravansary,
secluded by the very denseness of the many-minded swarm, five other
Rajputs and Mahommed Gunga - all six, according to their turbans,
followers of Islam - discussed matters that appeared to bring them little
satisfaction.
They sat together in a dark, low-ceilinged room; its open door - it was
far too hot to close anything that admitted air - gave straight onto the
street, and the one big window opened on a courtyard, where a pair of
game-cocks fought in and out between the restless legs of horses, while
a yelling horde betted on them. On a heap of grass fodder in a corner of
the yard an all-but-naked expert in inharmony thumped a skin tom-tom
with his knuckles, while at his feet the own-blood brother to the
screech-owls wailed of hell's torments on a wind