Now, because it was impregnable to almost anything except a yet-to-be-invented air-ship, the Alwa-sahib owned a fortress still, high-perched on a crag that overlooked a glittering expanse of desert. More precious than its bulk in diamonds, a spring of clear, cold water from the rock-lined depths of mother earth gushed out through a fissure near the Summit, and round that spring had been built, in bygone centuries, a battlemented nest to breed and turn out warriors. Alwa's grandfather had come by it through complicated bargaining and dowry-contracts, and Alwa now held it as the rallying-point for the Rangars thereabout.

But its defensibility was practically all the crag fort had to offer by way of attraction. Down at its foot, where the stream of rushing water splashed in a series of cascades to the thirsty, sandy earth, there were an acre or two of cultivation—sufficient, in time of peace, to support an attenuated garrison and its horses. But for his revenues the Alwa-sahib had to look many a long day's march afield. Leagues of desert lay between him and the nearest farm he owned, and since—more in the East than anywhere—a landlord's chief absorption is the watching of his rents, it followed that he spent the greater part of his existence in the saddle, riding from one widely scattered tenant to another.

It was luck or fortuitous circumstance—Fate, he would have called it, had he wasted time to give it name—that brought him along a road where, many miles from Howrah City, he caught sight of Joanna. Needless to say, he took no slightest notice of her.

Dog-weary, parched, sore-footed, she was hurrying along the burning, sandy trail that led in the direction of Alwa's fort. The trail was narrow, and the horsemen whose mounts ambled tirelessly behind Alwa's plain-bred Arab pressed on past him, to curse the hag and bid her make horse-room for her betters. She sunk on the sand and begged of them. Laughingly, they asked her what a coin would buy in all that arid waste.

“Have the jackals, then, turned tradesman?” they jeered; but she only mumbled, and displayed her swollen tongue, and held her hands in an attitude of pitiful supplication. Then Alwa cantered up—rode past—heard one of his men jeering—drew rein and wheeled.

“Give her water!” he commanded.

He sat and watched her while she knelt, face upward, and a Rangar poured lukewarm water from a bottle down her tortured throat. He held it high and let the water splash, for fear his dignity might suffer should he or the bottle touch her. Strictly speaking, Rangars have no caste, but they retain by instinct and tradition many of the Hindoo prejudices. Alwa himself saw nothing to object to in the man's precaution.

“Ask the old crows' meat whither she was running.”

“She says she would find the Alwa-sahib.”

“Tell her I am he.”

Joanna fawned and laid her wrinkled forehead in the dust.

“Get up!” he growled. “Thy service is dishonor and my ears are deaf to it! Now, speak! Hast thou a message? Who is it sends a rat to bring me news?”

“Ali Partab.”

“Soho! And who is Ali Partab? He needs to learn manners. He has come to a stern school for them!”

“Sahib—great one—Prince of swordsmen!—Ali Partab is Mahommed Gunga-sahib's man. He bid me say that he is held a prisoner in a bear-cage in Jaimihr's palace and needs aid.”

Alwa's black beard dropped onto his chest as he frowned in thought. He had nine men with him. Jaimihr had by this time, perhaps, as many as nine thousand, for no one knew but Jaimihr and the priests how many in the district waited to espouse his cause. The odds seemed about as stupendous as any that a man of his word had ever been called upon to take.

A moment more, and without consulting any one, he bade one of his men dismount.

“Put that hag on thy horse!” he commanded. “Mount thou behind another!”

The order was obeyed. Another Rangar took the led horse, and Joanna found herself, perched like a monkey on a horse that objected to the change of riders, between two troopers whose iron-thewed legs squeezed hers into the saddle.

“To Howrah City!” ordered Alwa, starting off at an easy, desert-eating amble; and without a word of comment, but with downward glances at their swords and a little back-stiffening which was all of excitement that they deigned to show, his men wheeled three and three behind him.

It was no affair of Alwa's that a full moon shone that night—none of his arranging that on that one night of the month Jaimihr and his most trusted body-guard should go with the priests and the Maharajah to inspect the treasure. Alwa was a soldier, born to take instant advantage of chance—sent opportunity; Jaimihr was a schemer, born to indecision and the cunning that seeks underhanded means but overlooks the obvious. Because the streets were full of men whose allegiance was doubtful yet, because he himself would be too occupied to sit like a spider in a web and watch the intentions of the crowd unfold, Jaimihr had turned out every retainer to his name, and had scattered them about the city, with orders, if they were needed, to rally on a certain point.

He did think that at any minute a disturbance might break out which would lead to civil war, and he saw the necessity for watchfulness at every point; but he did not see the rather obvious necessity for leaving more than twenty men on guard inside his palace. Not even the thoughtfulness of Siva's priests could have anticipated that ten horse-men would be riding out of nowhere, with the spirit in them that ignores side issues and leads them only straight to their objective.

Alwa, as a soldier, knew exactly where fresh horses could be borrowed while his tired ones rested. A little way beyond the outskirts of the city lived a man who was neither Mohammedan nor Hindoo—a fearful man, who took no sides, but paid his taxes, carried on his business, and behaved—a Jew, who dealt in horses and in any other animal or thing that could be bought to show a profit.

Alwa had an utterly complete contempt for Jews, as was right and proper in a Rangar of the blood. He had not met many of them, and those he had had borne away the memory of most outrageous insult gratuitously offered and rubbed home. But this particular Jew was a money-lender on occasion, and his rates had proved as reasonable as his acceptance of Alwa's unwritten promise had been prompt. A man who holds his given word as sacred as did Alwa respects, in the teeth of custom or religion, the man who accepts that word; so, when the chance had offered, Alwa had done the Jew occasional favors and had won his gratitude. He now counted on the Jew for fresh horses.

To reach him, he had to wade the Howrah River, less than a mile from where the burning ghats glowed dull crimson against the sky; the crowd around the ghats was the first intimation he received that the streets might prove less densely thronged than usual. It was the Jew, beard-scrabbling and fidgeting among his horses, who reminded him that when the full moon shone most of the populace, and most of Jaimihr's and Howrah's guards, would be occupied near Siva's temple and the palace.

He left his own horses, groomed again, and gorging their fill of good, clean grain in the Jew's ramshackle stable place. Joanna he turned loose, to sneak into any rat-hole that she chose. Then, with their swords drawn—for if trouble came it would be certain to come suddenly—he and his nine made a wide-ringed circuit of the city, to a point where the main street passing Jaimihr's palace ended in a rune of wind-piled desert sand. From the moment when they reached that point they did not waste a second; action trod on the heel of thought and thought flashed fast as summer lightning.

They lit through the deserted street, troubling for speed, not silence; the few whom they passed had no time to determine who they were, and no one followed them. A few frightened night-wanderers ran at sight of them, hiding down side streets, but when they brought up at last outside Jaimihr's palace-gate they had so far escaped recognition. And that meant that no one would carry word to Jaimihr or his men.

It was death-dark outside the bronze-hinged double gate; only a dim lamp hung above from chains, to show how dark it was, and the moon—cut off by trees and houses on a bluff of rising ground—lent nothing to the gloom.

“Open! The jaimihr-sahib comes!” shouted Alwa and one of his horsemen legged up close beside the gate.

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.

“Nay, sahib, but my creditor! The mother of confusion tells me that the Miss-sahib and her father are in Howrah's palace!”

They halted, all together in a cluster in the middle of the street—shut in by darkness—watched for all they knew, by a hundred enemies.

“Of their own will or as prisoners?”

“As prisoners, sahib.”

“Back to the side street! Quickly! Jaimihr' rat's nest is one affair,” he muttered; “Howrah' beehive is another!”