Rung Ho! A Novel, Talbot Mundy [free ebook reader for ipad .txt] 📗

Some one moved inside, for his footsteps could be heard; whoever he was appeared to listen cautiously.

“Open for the Jaimihr-sahib!” repeated Alwa.

Evidently that was not the usual command, or otherwise the gates would have swung open on the instant. Instead, one gate moved inward by a fraction of a foot, and a pureed head peered cautiously between the gap. That, though, was sufficient. With a laugh, the man up closest drove his sword-hilt straight between the Hindoo's eyes, driving his horse's shoulder up against the gate; three others spurred and shoved beside him. Not thirty seconds later Alwa and his nine were striking hoof sparks on the stone of Jaimihr's courtyard, and the gates—that could have easily withstood a hundred-man assault with battering-rams—had clanged behind them, bolted tight against their owner.

“Where is the bear cage?” demanded Alwa. “It is a bear I need, not blood!”

The dozen left inside to guard the palace had recovered quickly enough from their panic. They were lining up in the middle of the courtyard, ready to defend their honor, even if the palace should be lost. It was barely probable that Jaimihr's temper would permit them the privilege of dying quickly should he come and find his palace looted; a Rangar's sword seemed better, and they made ready to die hard.

“Where's Ali Partab?”

There was no answer. The little crowd drew in, and one by one took up the fighting attitude that each man liked the best.

“I say I did not come for blood! I came for Ali Partab! If I get him, unharmed, I ride away again; but otherwise—”

“What otherwise?” asked the captain of the guard.

“This palace burns!”

There was a momentary consultation—no argument, but a quickly reached agreement.

“He is here, unharmed,” declared the captain gruffly.

“Bring him out!”

“What proof have we that he is all you came for?”

“My given word.”

“But the Jaimihr-sahib—”

“You also have my given word that unless I get Ali Partab this palace burns, with all that there is in it!”

Distrustful still, the captain of the guard called out to a sweeper, skulking in the shadow by the stables to go and loose Ali Partab.

“Send no sweepers to him!” ordered Alwa. “He has suffered indignity enough. Go thou!”

The captain of the guard obeyed. Two minutes later Ali Partab stood before Alwa and saluted.

“Sahib, my master's thanks!”

“They are accepted,” answered Alwa, with almost regal dignity. “Bring a lamp!” he ordered.

One of the guard brought a hand-lantern, and by its light Alwa examined Ali Partab closely. He was filthy, and his clothing reeked of the disgusting confinement he had endured.

“Give this man clothing fit for a man of mine!” commanded Alwa.

“Sahib, there is none; perhaps the Jaimihr-sahib—”

“I have ordered!”

There was a movement among Alwa's men—a concerted, horse-length-forward movement, made terrifying by the darkness—each man knew well enough that the men they were bullying could fight; success, should they have to force it at the sword-point, would depend largely on which side took the other by surprise.

“It is done, sahib,” said the leader of the guard, and one man hurried off to execute the order. Ten minutes later—they were ten impatient minutes, during which the horses sensed the fever of anxiety and could be hardly made to stand—Ali Partab stood arrayed in clean, new khaki that fitted him reasonably well.

“A sword, now!” demanded Alwa. “Thy sword! This man had a sword when he was taken! Give him thine, unless there is a better to be had.”

There was nothing for it but obedience, for few things were more certain than that Alwa was not there to waste time asking for anything he would not fight for if refused. The guard held out his long sword, hilt first, and Ali Partab strapped it on.

“I had three horses when they took me,” he asserted, “three good ones, sound and swift, belonging to my master.”

“Then take three of Jaimihr's!”

It took ten minutes more for Ali Partab and two of Alwa's men to search the stables and bring out the three best chargers of the twenty and more reserved for Jaimihr's private use. They were wonders of horses, half-Arab and half-native-bred, clean-limbed and firm—worth more, each one of them, than all three of Mahommed Gunga's put together.

“Are they good enough?” demanded Alwa.

“My master will be satisfied,” grinned Ali Partab.

“Open the gate, then!” Alwa was peering through the blackness for a sight of firearms, but could see none. He guessed—and he was right—that the guard had taken full advantage of their master's absence, and had been gambling in a corner while their rifles rested under cover somewhere else. For a second he hesitated, dallying with the notion of disarming the guard before he left, then decided that a fight was scarcely worth the risking now, and with ten good men behind him he wheeled and scooted through the wide-flung gates into outer gloom.

He galloped none too fast, for his party was barely out of range before a ragged volley ripped from the palace-wall; one of his men, hampered and delayed by a led horse that was trying to break away from him, was actually hit, and begged Alwa to ride back and burn the palace after all. He was grumbling still about the honor of a Rangar, when Alwa called a halt in the shelter of a deserted side street in order to question Ali Partab further.

Ali Partab protested that he did not know what to say or think about the missionaries. He explained his orders and vowed that his honor held him there in Howrah until Miss McClean should consent to come away. He did not mention the father; he was a mere side issue—it was Alwa who asked after him.

“A tick on the belly of an ox rides with the ox,” said Ali Partab.

“Lead on, then, to the mission house,” commanded Alwa, and the ten-man troop proceeded to obey. They had reached the main street again, and were wheeling into it, when Joanna sprang from gutter darkness and intercepted them. She was all but ridden down before Ali Partab recognized her.

“The mohurs, sahib!” she demanded. “Three golden mohurs!”

“Ay, three!” said Ali Partab, giving her a hand and yanking her off the ground. She sprang across his horse's rump behind him, and he seemed to have less compunction about personal defilement than the others had.

“Is she thy wife or thy mother-in-law?” laughed Alwa.