The murmur from the ranks was as difficult to read as Colonel Carter’s voice had been.  It might have meant pleasure at the thought of rest, or anger, or contempt, or almost anything.  It was undefined and indefinable.

But there was no doubt at all as to how young Bellairs felt.  He was sitting on a trunnion, sobbing, with his head bent low between his hands.

IX.

“Come, then!” said the High Priest.

Mahommed Khan threw open the outer door and bowed sardonically.  “Precedence for priests!” he sneered, tapping at his sword-hilt.  “Thou goest first!  Next come I, and last Suliman with the memsahib!  Thus can I reach thee with my sword, O priest, and also protect her if need be!”

“Thou art trusting as a little child!” exclaimed the priest, passing out ahead of him.

“A priest and a liar and a thief—­all three are one!” hummed the Risaldar.  “Bear her gently, Suliman!  Have a care, now, as you turn on the winding stairs!”

“Ha, sahib!” said the half-brother, carrying Ruth as easily as though she had been a little child.

At the foot of the stairway, in the blackness that seemed alive with phantom shadows, the High Priest paused and listened, stretching out his left hand against the wall to keep the other two behind him.  From somewhere beyond the courtyard came the din of hurrying sandaled feet, scudding over cobblestones in one direction.  The noise was incessant and not unlike the murmur of a rapid stream.  Occasionally a voice was raised in some command or other, but the stream of sound continued, hurrying, hurrying, shuffling along to the southward.

“This way and watch a while,” whispered the priest.

“I have heard rats run that way!” growled the Risaldar.

They climbed up a narrow stairway leading to a sort of battlement and peered over the top, Suliman laying Ruth Bellairs down in the darkest shadow he could find.  She was beginning to recover consciousness, and apparently Mahommed Khan judged it best to take no notice of her.

Down below them they could see the city gate, wide open, with a blazing torch on either side of it, and through the gate, swarming like ants before the rains, there poured an endless stream of humans that marched—­ and marched—­and marched; four, ten, fifteen abreast; all heights and sizes, jumbled in and out among one another, anyhow, without formation, but armed, every one of them, and all intent on marching to the southward, where Jundhra and Doonha lay.  Some muttered to one another and some laughed, but the greater number marched in silence.

“That for thy English!” grinned the priest.  “Can the English troops overcome that horde?”

“Hey-ee!  For a troop or two of Rajputs!” sighed the Risaldar.  “Or English Lancers!  They would ride through that as an ax does through the brush-wood!”

“Bah!” said the priest.  “All soldiers boast!  There will be a houghing shortly after dawn.  The days of thy English are now numbered.”