Now, because it was impregnable to almost anything except a yet-to-be-invented air-ship, the Alwa-sahib owned a fortress still, high-perched on a crag that overlooked a glittering expanse of desert.  More precious than its bulk in diamonds, a spring of clear, cold water from the rock-lined depths of mother earth gushed out through a fissure near the Summit, and round that spring had been built, in bygone centuries, a battlemented nest to breed and turn out warriors.  Alwa’s grandfather had come by it through complicated bargaining and dowry-contracts, and Alwa now held it as the rallying-point for the Rangars thereabout.

But its defensibility was practically all the crag fort had to offer by way of attraction.  Down at its foot, where the stream of rushing water splashed in a series of cascades to the thirsty, sandy earth, there were an acre or two of cultivation—­sufficient, in time of peace, to support an attenuated garrison and its horses.  But for his revenues the Alwa-sahib had to look many a long day’s march afield.  Leagues of desert lay between him and the nearest farm he owned, and since—­more in the East than anywhere—­a landlord’s chief absorption is the watching of his rents, it followed that he spent the greater part of his existence in the saddle, riding from one widely scattered tenant to another.

It was luck or fortuitous circumstance—­Fate, he would have called it, had he wasted time to give it name—­that brought him along a road where, many miles from Howrah City, he caught sight of Joanna.  Needless to say, he took no slightest notice of her.

Dog-weary, parched, sore-footed, she was hurrying along the burning, sandy trail that led in the direction of Alwa’s fort.  The trail was narrow, and the horsemen whose mounts ambled tirelessly behind Alwa’s plain-bred Arab pressed on past him, to curse the hag and bid her make horse-room for her betters.  She sunk on the sand and begged of them.  Laughingly, they asked her what a coin would buy in all that arid waste.

“Have the jackals, then, turned tradesman?” they jeered; but she only mumbled, and displayed her swollen tongue, and held her hands in an attitude of pitiful supplication.  Then Alwa cantered up—­rode past —­heard one of his men jeering—­drew rein and wheeled.

“Give her water!” he commanded.

He sat and watched her while she knelt, face upward, and a Rangar poured lukewarm water from a bottle down her tortured throat.  He held it high and let the water splash, for fear his dignity might suffer should he or the bottle touch her.  Strictly speaking, Rangars have no caste, but they retain by instinct and tradition many of the Hindoo prejudices.  Alwa himself saw nothing to object to in the man’s precaution.

“Ask the old crows’ meat whither she was running.”

“She says she would find the Alwa-sahib.”

“Tell her I am he.”

Joanna fawned and laid her wrinkled forehead in the dust.