But the exigencies of the hour left no room for vague forebodings.  Emergency orders, that morning, detailed Lance with a detachment for the Railway Workshops, where passive resisters were actively on the war-path.  Roy, after early stables, was dispatched with another party, to strengthen a cavalry picket near the Badshahi Mosque, on the outskirts of the city, where things might be lively in the course of the day.

Passing through Lahore, he sent his sais with a note to Rose; and, on reaching the Mosque, he found things lively enough already.  The iron railings, round the main gate of the Fort, were besieged by a hooting, roaring mob, belabouring the air with lathis and axes on bamboo poles; rending it with shouts of abuse and one reiterate cry, “Kill the white pigs, brothers!  Kill!  Kill!”

Again and again they stormed the railings, frantically trying to bear them down by sheer weight of numbers—­yelling ceaselessly the while.

“How the devil can they keep it up?” thought Roy; and sickened to think how few of his own kind there were to stand between the English women and children in Lahore and those hostile thousands.  Thank God, there remained loyal Indians, hundreds of them—­as in Mutiny days; but surely a few rounds from the Fort just then would have heartened them and been distinctly comforting into the bargain.

The walls were manned with rifles and Lewis guns, and at times things looked distinctly alarming; but not a shot was fired.  The mob was left to exhaust itself with its own fury.  Part melted away, and part was drawn away by the attraction of a mass meeting in the Mosque, where thirty-five thousand citizens were gathered to hear Hindu agitators preaching open rebellion from Mahommedan pulpits; and a handful of British police officers—­present on duty—­were being hissed and hooted, amid shouts of “Hindu-Mussalman ki jai!”

From the city all police pickets had been withdrawn, since their presence would only provoke disturbance and bloodshed.  And the bazaar people were parading the streets, headed by an impromptu army of young hotheads, carrying lathis, crying their eternal ‘Hai!’ and ‘Jai!’ with extra special ‘Jai’s’ for the ‘King of Germany’ and the Afghan Amir.

Portraits of Their Majesties were battered down and trampled in the mud; and over the fragments the crowd swept on, shouting:  ’Hai! hai!  Jarge Margya!’[34] And the air was full of the craziest rumours, passed on, with embellishments, from mouth to mouth....

Roy, on reaching Cantonments, was relieved to find that the decision had already been taken to regain control of the city by a military demonstration in force; eight hundred troops and police, under the officer commanding Lahore civil area.  Desmond’s squadron was included; and, sitting down straightway, Roy dashed off a note to Rose.

“MY DARLING,—­