He was interrupted by the rising of the iron gate.  It seemed solid, without even an eyehole in it.  It was wide enough to let four horses under side by side, and for all its weight it rose as suddenly and evenly as though a giant’s hand had lifted it.  Immediately behind it, like an actor waiting for the stage-curtain to rise, Alwa bestrode his war-horse in the middle of a roadway.  He saluted with drawn sabre, and this time Cunningham replied.

Almost instantly the man who had led the gallopers and had saluted Mahommed Gunga spurred his horse up close to Cunningham and whispered: 

“Pardon, sahib!  I did not know!  Am I forgiven?”

“Yes,” said Cunningham, remembering then that a Rajput, and a Rangar more particularly, thinks about points of etiquette before considering what to eat.  Alwa growled out a welcome, rammed his sabre home, and wheeled without another word, showing the way at a walk—­which was all a wild goat could have accomplished—­up a winding road, hewn out of the solid mountain, that corkscrewed round and round upon itself until it gave onto the battlemented summit.  There he dismounted, ordered his men to their quarters, and for the first time took notice of his cousin.

“I have thy missionary and his daughter, three horses for thee, and thy man,” he smiled.

“Did Ali Partab bring them?”

“Nay.  It was I brought Ali Partab and the rest!  My promise is redeemed!”

Mahommed Gunga thrust his sword-hilt out and smiled back at him.  “I present Raff-Cunnigan-sahib—­son of Pukka-Cunnigan-bahadur!” he announced.

Alwa drew himself up to his full height and eyed young Cunningham as a buyer eyes a war-horse, inch by inch.  The youngster, who had long since learned to actually revel in the weird sensation of a hundred pairs of eyes all fixed on him at once, felt this one man’s gaze go over him as though he were being probed.  He thanked his God he had no fat to be detected, and that his legs were straight, and that his tunic fitted him!

“Salaam, bahadur,” said Alwa slowly.  “I knew thy father.  So—­thou —­art—­his—­son.  Welcome.  There is room here always for a guest.  I have other guests with whom you might care to speak.  I will have a room made ready.  Have I leave to ask questions of my cousin here?”

Cunningham bowed in recognition of his courtesy, and walked away to a point whence he could look from the beetling parapet away and away across desert that shone hot and hazy-rimmed on every side.  If this were a man on whom he must depend for following—­if any of all the more than hints dropped by the risaldar were true—­it seemed to him that his reception was a little too chilly to be hopeful.