Rung Ho! | Page 8

as a lance, and without the
slightest change in his expression.
"The word is sufficient, cousin!"

Alwa returned his salute, and raised his voice in a gruff command. A
saice outside the window woke as though struck by a stick - sprang to
his feet - and passed the order on. A dozen horses clattered in the
courtyard and filed through the arched passage to the street, and Alwa
mounted. The others, each with his escort, followed suit, and a moment
later, with no further notice of one another, but with as much pomp and
noise as though they owned the whole of India, the five rode off, each
on his separate way, through the scattering crowd.
Then Mahommed Gunga called for his own horse and the lone armed
man of his own race who acted squire to him.
"Did any overhear our talk?" he asked.
"No, sahib. "
"Not the saice, even?"
"No, sahib. He slept."
"He awoke most suddenly, and at not much noise."
"For that reason I know he slept, sahib. Had he been pretending, he
would have wakened slowly."
"Thou art no idiot!" said Mahommed Gunga. "Wait here until I return,
and lie a few lies if any ask thee why we six came together, and of what
we spoke!"
Then he mounted and rode off slowly, picking his way through the
throng much more cautiously and considerately than his relatives had
done, though not, apparently, because he loved the crowd. He used
some singularly biting insults to help clear the way, and frowned as
though every other man he looked at were either an assassin or - what a
good Mohammedan considers worse - an infidel. He reached the long
brick wall at last - broke into a canter - scattered the pariah dogs that
were nosing and quarreling about the corpse of the Maharati, and drew
rein fifteen minutes later by the door of the tiny school place that Miss

McClean had entered.

CHAPTER III
For service truly rendered, and for duty dumbly done - For men who
neither tremble nor forget - There is due reward, my henchman. There
is honor to be won. There is watch and ward and sterner duty yet.
No sound came, from within the schoolhouse. The little building,
coaxed from a grudging Maharajah, seemed to strain for light and air
between two overlapping, high-walled brick warehouses. Before the
door, in a spot where the scorching sun-rays came but fitfully between
a mesh of fast-decaying thatch, the old hag who had followed
Rosemary McClean lay snoozing, muttering to herself, and blinking
every now and then as a street dog blinks at the passers-by. She took no
notice of Mahommed Gunga until he swore at her.
"Miss-sahib hai?" he growled; and the woman jumped up in a hurry
and went inside. A moment later Rosemary McClean stood framed in
the doorway still in her cotton riding-habit, very pale - evidently
frightened at the summons - but strangely, almost ethereally, beautiful.
Her wealth of chestnut hair was loosely coiled above her neck, as
though she had been caught in the act of dressing it. She looked like the
wan, wasted spirit of human pity - he like a great, grim war-god.
"Salaam, Miss Maklin-sahib!"
He dismounted as he spoke and stood at attention, then stared
truculently, too inherently chivalrous to deny her civility - he would
have cut his throat as soon as address her from horseback while she
stood - and too contemptuous of her father's calling to be more civil
than he deemed in keeping with his honor.
"Salaam, Mohammed Gunga!" She seemed very much relieved,
although doubtful yet. "Not letters again?"

"No, Miss-sahib. I am no mail-carrier! I brought those letters as a favor
to Franklin-sahib at Peshawur; I was coming hither, and he had no man
to send. I will take letters, since I am now going, if there are letters
ready; I ride to-night."
"Thank you, Mahommed Gunga. I have letters for England. They are
not yet sealed. May I send them to you before you start?"
"I will send my man for them. Also, Miss Maklin-sahib" (heavens! how
much cleaner and better that sounded than the prince's ironical
"sahiba"!)
"If you wish it, I will escort you to Peshawur, or to any city between
here and there."
"But - but why?"
"I saw Jaimihr. I know Jaimihr."
"And - "
"And - this is no place for a padre, or for the daughter of a padre."
What he said was true, but it was also insolent, said insolently.
"Mahommed Gunga-sahib, what are those ribbons on your breast?" she
asked him.
He glanced down at them, and his expression changed a trifle; it was
scarcely perceptible, but underneath his fierce mustache the muscles of
his mouth stiffened.
"They