Close to the big iron gate below Alwa"s eyrie there were some of Jaimihr"s cavalry nosing about among the trampled gardens for the dead and wounded they had left there earlier in the afternoon. They ceased searching, and formed up to intercept whoever it might be who rode in such a hurry. Above them, on the overhanging ramparts, there was quick discussion, and one man left his post hurriedly.
"A horseman from the West!" he announced, breaking in on Alwa"s privacy without ceremony.
"One?"
"One only."
"For us or them?"
"I know not, sahib."
Alwa--glad enough of the relief from puzzling his brain--ran to the rampart and looked long at the moving dot that was coming noisily toward his fastness but that gave no sign of its ident.i.ty or purpose.
"Whoever he is can see them," he vowed. "The moon shines full on them.
Either he is a man of theirs or else a madman!"
He watched for five more minutes without speaking. Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga, coming out at last in search of him, saw the strained figures of the garrison peering downward through the yellow moon rays, and took stand on either side of him to gaze, too, in spellbound silence.
"If he is their man," said Alwa presently, "he will turn now. He will change direction and ride for the main body of them yonder. He can see them now easily. Yes. See. He is their man!"
On a horse that staggered gamely--silhouetted and beginning to show detail in the yellow light--a man whose nationality or caste could not be recognized rode straight for the bivouacking cavalry, and a swarm of them rode out at a walk to meet him.
The tension on the ramparts was relaxed then. As a friend in direst need the man would have been welcome. As one of enemy, with a message for them, however urgent, he was no more than an incident.
"By Allah!" roared Alwa suddenly. "That is no man of theirs! Quick! To the wheels! Man the wheels! Eight men to horse!"
He took the cord himself, to send the necessary signal down into the belly of the rock. From his stables, where men and horses seemed to stand ready day and night, ten troopers cantered out, scattering the sparks, the whites of their horses" eyes and their drawn blades gleaming; without another order they dipped down the breakneck gorge, to wait below. The oncoming rider had wheeled again; he had caught the cavalry, that rode to meet him, unawares. They were not yet certain whether he was friend or foe, and they were milling in a bunch, shouting orders to one another. He, spurring like a maniac, was heading straight for the searching party, who had formed to cut him off. He seemed to have thrown his heart over Alwa"s iron gate and to be thundering on h.e.l.l"s own horse in quest of it again.
Alwa"s eight slipped down the defile as quickly as phantoms would have dared in that tricky moon-light. One of them shouted from below. Alwa jerked the cord, and the great gate yawned, well-oiled and silent.
The oncomer raced straight for the middle of the intercepting line of hors.e.m.e.n; they--knowing him by this time for no friend--started to meet him; and Alwa"s eight, unannounced and unexpected, whirled into them from the rear.
In a second there was shouting, blind confusion--eddying and trying to reform. The lone galloper pulled clear, and Alwa"s men drove his opponents, crupper over headstall, into a body of the main contingent who had raced up in pursuit. They rammed the charge home, and reeled through both detachments--then wheeled at the spur and cut their way back again, catching up their man at the moment that his horse dropped dead beneath him. They seized him beneath the arms and bore him through as the great gate dropped and cut his horse in halves. Then one man took the galloper up behind his saddle, and bore him up the hill unquestioned until he could dismount in front of Alwa.
"Who art thou?" demanded the owner of the rock, recognizing a warrior by his trademarks, but in no way moderating the natural gruffness of his voice. Alwa considered that his inviolable hospitality should be too well known and understood to call for any explanation or expression; he would have considered it an insult to the Sikh"s intelligence to have mouthed a welcome; he let it go for granted.
"Jaidev Singh--galloper to Byng-bahadur. I bring a letter for the Risaldar Mahommed Gunga, or for Cunnigan-sahib, whichever I can find first."
"They are both here."
"Then my letter is for both of them."
Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga each took one step forward, and the Sikh gave Cunningham a tiny, folded piece of paper, stuck together along one edge with native gum. He tore it open, read it in the light of a trooper"s lantern, and then read it again aloud to Mahommed Gunga, pitching his voice high enough for Alwa to listen if he chose.
"What are you two men doing?" ran the note. "The very worst has happened. We all need men immediately, and I particularly need them. One hundred troopers now would be better than a thousand men a month from now. Hurry, and send word by bearer. S. F. BYNG."
"How soon can you start back?" asked Cunningham.
"The minute I am provided with a horse, sahib."
Cunningham turned to Alwa.
"Will you be kind enough to feed him, Alwa-sahib?"
Alwa resented the imputation against his hospitality instantly.
"Nay, I was waiting for his money in advance!" he laughed. "Food waits, thou. Thou art a Sikh--thou eatest meat--meat, then, is ready."
The Sikh, or at least the true Sikh, is not hampered by a list of caste restrictions. All of his precepts, taken singly or collectively, bid him be nothing but a man, and no law forbids him accept the hospitality of soldiers of another creed. So Jaidev Singh walked off to feed on curried beef that would have made a Hindoo know himself for d.a.m.ned. Cunningham then turned on Alwa.
"Now is the time, Alwa-sahib," he said in a level voice. "My party can start off with this man and our answer, if your answer is no. If your answer is yes, then the Sikh can bear that answer for us."
"You would none of you ride half a mile alive!" laughed Alwa.
"I none the less require an answer, Alwa-sahib."
Alwa stared hard at him. That was the kind of talk that went straight to his soldier heart. He loved a man who held to his point in the teeth of odds. The odds, it seemed to him, were awfully against Cunningham.
"So was thy father," he said slowly. "My cousin said thou wast thy father"s son!"
"I require an answer by the time that the Sikh has finished eating,"
said Cunningham. "Otherwise, Alwa-sabib, I shall regret the necessity of foregoing further hospitality at your hands."
"Bismillah! Am I servant here or master?" wondered Alwa, loud enough for all his men to hear. Then he thought better of his dignity. "Sahib,"
he insisted, "I will not talk here before my men. We will have another conference."
"I concede you ten minutes," said Cunningham, preparing to follow him, and followed in turn by Mohammed Gunga.
"Now, swore the Risaldar into his beard, we shall see the reaching of decisions! Now, by the curse of the sack of Chitor we shall know who is on whose side, or I am no Rangar, nor the son of one!"
"I have a suggestion to make, sahib," smiled Alwa, closing the door of the rock-hewn chamber on the three of them.
"Hear mine first!" said Cunningham, with a hint of iron in his voice.
"Ay! Hear his first! Hear Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur!" echoed Mahommed Gunga. "Let us hear a plan worth hearing!" And Alwa looked into a pair of steady eyes that seemed to see through him--past him--to the finished work beyond.
"Speak, sahib."
"You are pledged to uphold Howrah on his throne?"
"Ha, sahib."
"Then, I guarantee you shall! You shall not go to the Company"s aid until you have satisfactory guarantees that your homes and friends will not be a.s.sailed behind your backs."
"Guarantees to whose satisfaction, sahib?"
"Yours!"
"But with whom am I dealing?" Alwa seemed actually staggered. "Who makes these promises? The Company?"