Alwa had an utterly complete contempt for Jews, as was right and proper in a Rangar of the blood.  He had not met many of them, and those he had had borne away the memory of most outrageous insult gratuitously offered and rubbed home.  But this particular Jew was a money-lender on occasion, and his rates had proved as reasonable as his acceptance of Alwa’s unwritten promise had been prompt.  A man who holds his given word as sacred as did Alwa respects, in the teeth of custom or religion, the man who accepts that word; so, when the chance had offered, Alwa had done the Jew occasional favors and had won his gratitude.  He now counted on the Jew for fresh horses.

To reach him, he had to wade the Howrah River, less than a mile from where the burning ghats glowed dull crimson against the sky; the crowd around the ghats was the first intimation he received that the streets might prove less densely thronged than usual.  It was the Jew, beard-scrabbling and fidgeting among his horses, who reminded him that when the full moon shone most of the populace, and most of Jaimihr’s and Howrah’s guards, would be occupied near Siva’s temple and the palace.

He left his own horses, groomed again, and gorging their fill of good, clean grain in the Jew’s ramshackle stable place.  Joanna he turned loose, to sneak into any rat-hole that she chose.  Then, with their swords drawn—­for if trouble came it would be certain to come suddenly—­he and his nine made a wide-ringed circuit of the city, to a point where the main street passing Jaimihr’s palace ended in a rune of wind-piled desert sand.  From the moment when they reached that point they did not waste a second; action trod on the heel of thought and thought flashed fast as summer lightning.

They lit through the deserted street, troubling for speed, not silence; the few whom they passed had no time to determine who they were, and no one followed them.  A few frightened night-wanderers ran at sight of them, hiding down side streets, but when they brought up at last outside Jaimihr’s palace-gate they had so far escaped recognition.  And that meant that no one would carry word to Jaimihr or his men.

It was death-dark outside the bronze-hinged double gate; only a dim lamp hung above from chains, to show how dark it was, and the moon—­ cut off by trees and houses on a bluff of rising ground—­lent nothing to the gloom.

“Open!  The jaimihr-sahib comes!” shouted Alwa and one of his horsemen legged up close beside the gate.

Some one moved inside, for his footsteps could be heard; whoever he was appeared to listen cautiously.

“Open for the Jaimihr-sahib!” repeated Alwa.