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!

CHAPTER XXV

Oh, duck and run—­the hornets come! 
Oh, jungli!  Clear the way! 
The nest’s ahum—­the hornets come! 
The sharp-stinged, harp-winged hornets come! 
Nay, jungli!  When the hornets come,

                It isn’t well to stay!

Alwa ordered ten men down into the bowels of the rock itself, where great wheels with a chain attached to them were forced round to lift the gate.  Next he stationed a signaller with a cord in either hand, above the parapet, to notify the men below exactly when to set the simple machinery in motion.  His eight clattered out from the stables on the far side of the rock, and his own charger was brought to him, saddled.