After a minute or two he turned his eyes away from the dazzling plain below and faced about to inspect the paved courtyard.  Round it, on three sides of a parallelogram, there ran a beautifully designed and wonderfully worked-out veranda-fronted building, broken here and there by cobbled passages that evidently led to other buildings on the far edge of the rock.  In the centre, covered by a roof like a temple-dome in miniature, was the ice-cold spring, whose existence made the fort tenable.  Under the veranda, on a long, low lounge, was a sight that arrested his attention—­held him spell-bound—­drew him, tingling in a way he could not have explained—­drew him—­drew him, slow-footed, awkward, red—­across the courtyard.

He heard Mahommed Gunga swear aloud; he recognized the wording of the belly-growled Rangar oath; but it did not occur to him that what he saw—­what was drawing him—­could be connected with it.  He looked straight ahead and walked ahead—­reached the edge of the veranda—­ took his helmet off—­and stood still, feeling like an idiot, with the sun full on his head.

“I’d advise you to step into the shade,” said a voice that laughed more sweetly than the chuckling spring.  “I don’t know who you are, but I’m more glad to see you than I ever was in my life to see anybody.  I can’t get up, because I’m too stiff; the ride to here from Howrah City all but killed me, and I’m only here still because I couldn’t ride another yard.  My father will be out in a moment.  He’s half-dead too.”

“My name is Cunningham.”

“I’m Miss McClean.  My father was a missionary in Howrah.”

She nodded to a chair beside her, and Cunningham took it, feeling awkward, as men of his type usually do when they meet a woman in a strange place.

“How in the world did you get in?” she asked him.  “It’s two days now since the Alwa-sahib told us that the whole country is in rebellion.  How is it that you managed to reach here?  According to Alwa, no white man’s life is safe in the open, and he only told me today that he wouldn’t let me go away even if I were well enough to ride.”

“First I’ve heard of rebellion!” said Cunningham aghast at the notion of hearing news like that a second hand, and from a woman.

“Hasn’t Alwa told you?”

“He hasn’t had time to, yet.”

“Then, you’d better ask him.  If what he say is true—­and I think he tells the truth—­the natives mean to kill us all, or drive us out of India.  Of course they can’t do it, but they mean to try.  He has been more than kind—­more than hospitable—­more than chivalrous.  Just because he gave his word to another Rangar, he risked his life about a dozen times to get my father and me and Ali Partab out of Howrah.  But, I don’t think he quite liked doing it—­and—­this is in confidence —­if I were asked—­and speaking just from intuition—­I should say he is in sympathy with the rebellion!”