Under all the circumstances he considered it best to be false to everybody and strike for no hand but his own, and with that reconsidered end in view he decided on a master-stroke.  He sent word to his brother, the Maharajah, saying that the Rangars had accepted service with the Company and purposed a raid on Howrah; therefore, he proposed that they unite against the common enemy and set a trap for the Rangars.

Howrah sent back to ask what proof he had of the Rangars’ taking service with the British.  Jaimihr answered that Cunningham and Mahommed Gunga were both on Alwa’s crag.  He also swore that as Alwa’s prisoner he had been able to over-hear the Rangars’ plans.

The Maharajah was bewildered, as Jaimihr had expected that he would be.  And with just as Eastern, just as muddle-headed, just as dishonest reasoning, he made up his mind to play a double game with everybody, too.  He agreed to join Jaimihr in opposition to the Rangars.  He agreed to send all his forces to meet Jaimihr’s and together kill every Rangar who should show himself inside the city.  And he privately made plans to arrive on the scene too late, and smash Jaimihr’s army after it had been reduced in size and efficiency by its battle with Alwa’s men.

Jaimihr, unknowingly, fitted his plan into his brother’s by determining to get on the scene early enough to have first crack at the treasure.  He meant to get away with that, leave his brother to deal with Alwa’s men, circle round, and then attack his brother from the rear.

Finally, he made up his mind once and for all that Rosemary McClean must remain inviolate until he was quite certain that the English had been driven out of India.  He expected that good news within a week.

He was delighted when Joanna, dressed as a man, turned up at his palace-gates and cajoled her way in past the guards.  To be asked for an escort to bring the McCleans into Howrah fitted in with his role of protector as a key might fit a lock.  Now they could never pretend—­ nobody could ever pretend—­that he had seized them.  He sent a carriage out for them, and when they arrived placed a whole wing of his palace at their disposal, treating them like royalty.  He made no attempt to molest or interfere with either of them, except that he prevented them from going in and out; and he told off plenty of witnesses who would be able to swear subsequently that they had seen how well his guests were treated.  He was taking no unnecessary chances at that stage of the game he played.

There were others, though, who plotted besides Jaimihr.  There were, for instance, Siva’s priests.  It is not to be forgotten that in that part of India the priests had been foremost in fomenting the rebellion.  They urged Howrah constantly to take the field against the British, and it was only the sure knowledge of his brother’s intention to strike for the throne that prevented the Maharajah from doing what the priests urged.