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

“And Jaimihr is—er—in love with you!”

“He tried very hard to prove it, in his own objectionable way!”

“And Jaimihr wants the throne—and Howrah wants to send a force against the British, but dare not move because of Jaimihr—I have Mahommed Gunga and five or six men to depend on—the Rangars are sitting on the fence—and the government has its hands full! The lookout's bright! I think I see the way through!”

“You are forgetting me.” The missionary spread his broad stooped shoulders. “I am a missionary first, but next to that I have my country's cause more at heart than anything. I place myself under your orders, Mr. Cunningham.”

“I too,” said Miss McClean. She was looking at him keenly as he gazed away into nothing through slightly narrowed eyes. Vaguely, his attitude reminded her of a picture she had once seen of the Duke of Wellington; there was the same mastery, the same far vision, the same poise of self-contained power. His nose was not like the Iron Duke's, for young Cunningham's had rather more tolerance in its outline and less of Roman overbearing; but the eyes, and the mouth, and the angle of the jaw were so like Wellesley's as to force a smile. “A woman isn't likely to be much use in a case like this—but, one never knows. My country comes first.”

“Thanks,” he answered quietly. And as he turned his head to flash one glance at each of them, she recognized what Mahommed Gunga had gloated over from the first—the grim decision, that will sacrifice all—take full responsibility—and use all means available for the one unflinching purpose of the game in hand. She knew that minute, and her father knew, that if she could be used—in any way at all—he would make use of her.

“Go ahead!” she nodded. “I'll obey!”

“And I will not prevent!” said Duncan McClean, smiling and straightening his spectacles.

Cunningham left them and walked over to the parapet, where the whole garrison was bending excitedly now above the battlement. There were more than forty men, most of them clustered near Alwa and Mahommed Gunga. Mahommed Gunga was busy counting.

“Eight hundred!” he exclaimed, as Cunningham drew near.

“Eight hundred what, Mahommed Gunga? Come and see, sahib.”

Cunningham leaned over, and beheld a mounted column, trailing along the desert road in wonderfully good formation.

“Where are they from?” he asked.

“Jaimihr's men, from Howrah!”

“That means,” growled Alwa, “that the Hindoo pig Jaimihr has more than half the city at his back. He has left behind ten men for every one he brings with him—sufficient to hold Howrah in check. Otherwise he would never have dared come here. He hopes to settle his little private quarrel with me first, before dealing with his brother! Who told him, I wonder, that I was pledged to Howrah?”

“He reckons he has caught thee napping in this fort of thine!” laughed Mahommed Gunga. “He means to bottle up the Rangars' leader, and so checkmate all of them!”

The eight hundred horsemen on the plain below rode carelessly through Alwa's gardens, leaving trampled confusion in their wake, and lined up—with Jaimihr at their head—immediately before the great iron gate. A moment later four men rode closer and hammered on it with their lance-ends.

“Go down and speak to them!” commanded Alwa, and a man dropped down the zigzag roadway like a goat, taking short cuts from level to level, until he stood on a pinnacle of rock that overhung the gate. Ten minutes later he returned, breathing hard with the effort of his climb.

“Jaimihr demands the missionaries—particularly the Miss-sahib—also quarters and food!” he reported.

“Quarters and food he shall have!” swore Alwa, looking down at the Prince who sat his charger in the centre of the roadway. “Did he deign a threat?”

“He said that in fifteen minutes he will burst the gate in, unless he is first admitted!”

Duncan McClean walked over, limping painfully, and peered over the precipice.

“Unfriendly?” he asked, and Mahommed Gunga heard him.

“Thy friend Jaimihr, sahib! His teeth are all but visible from here!”

“And—?”

“He demands admittance—also thee and thy daughter!”

“And—?”

“Sahib—art thou a priest?”

“I am.”

“One, then, who prays?”

“Yes.”

“For dead men, ever? For the dying?”

“Certainly.”

“Aloud?”

“On occasion, yes.”

“Then pray now! There will be many dead and dying on the plain below in less than fifteen minutes! Hindoos, for all I know, would benefit by prayer. They have too many gods, and their gods are too busy fighting for ascendancy to listen. Pray thou, a little!”

There came a long shout from the plain, and Alwa sent a man again to listen. He came back with a message that Jaimihr granted amnesty to all who would surrender, and that he would be pleased to accept Alwa's allegiance if offered to him.

“I will offer the braggart something in the way of board and lodging that will astonish him!” growled Alwa. “Eight men to horse! The first eight! That will do! Back to the battlement, the rest of you!”

They had raced for the right to loose themselves against eight hundred!