There were no Mohammedans among that crowd to take delight in seeing Hindoo priests discomfited and Hindoo ritual disturbed.  There came no counter-shout.  The crowd did not, as so often happens, turn and rend itself; and yet, though a surge from behind pressed forward, the men in front pressed back.

“Slay them!  Slay the sacrilegious foreigners!” The yell grew louder and more widely voiced, but no man in the front ranks moved.

The Maharajah looked from the company of guards that lined the palace-steps to the priests and his brother and the crowd—­and then to the McCleans again.

He remembered Alwa and his Rangars, thought of the messenger whom he had sent, remembered that a regiment of lance-armed horsemen would be worth a risk or two to win over to his side, and made decision.

“You are in danger,” he asserted, using a pronoun not intended to convey politeness, but—­Eastern of the East—­counteracting that by courtesy of manner.  “Do you ask my aid?”

“Yes, among other things,” Duncan McClean answered him.  “I wish also to speak about a Rangar, who I know is held prisoner in a cage in the Jaimihr-sahib’s palace.”

“Speak of that later,” answered Howrah.  “Guard!”

He made a sign.  A spoken word might have told the priests too much, and have set them busy fore-stalling him.  The guards rushed down the steps, seized both McCleans, and half-carried, half-hustled them up the palace-steps, through the great carved doors, and presently returned without them.

“They are my prisoners,” said the Maharajah, turning to the high priest.  “We will now proceed.”

The crowd was satisfied, at least for the time being.  Well versed in the kind of treatment meted out to prisoners, partly informed of what was preparing for the British all through India, the crowd never doubted for an instant but that grizzly vengeance awaited the Christians who had dared to remonstrate against time-honored custom.  It looked for the moment as though the high priest’s word had moved the Maharajah to order the arrest, and the high priest realized it.  By skilful play and well-used dignity he might contrive to snatch all the credit yet.  He ordered; the pipes and cymbals started up again at once; and, one by one—­Maharajah, Jaimihr, high priest, then royal guard, Jaimihr’s guard, priest again—­the procession wound ahead, jewelled and egretted, sabred and spurred, priest-robed, representative of all the many cancers eating at the heart of India.

Chanting, clanging, wailing minor dirges to the night, it circled all the front projections of the palace, turned where a small door opened on a courtyard at one side, entered, and disappeared.

CHAPTER XVIII

    Oh, is it good, my soldier prince and is the wisdom clear,
    To guard thy front a thousand strong, while ten may take thy rear?