“By those—­there?”

“Ay, by those, there!  Come!”

They climbed down the steps again, the Rajput humming to himself and smiling grimly into his mustache.

“Ay!  There will be a houghing shortly after dawn!” he muttered.  “Would only that I were there to see! . . .  Where are the sepoys?” he demanded.

“I know not.  How should I know, who have been thy guest these hours past?  This march is none of my ordering.”

The priest pressed hard on a stone knob that seemed to be part of the carving on a wall, then he leaned his weight against the wall and a huge stone swung inward, while a fetid breath of air wafted outward in their faces.

“None know this road but I!” exclaimed the priest.

“None need to!” said the Risaldar.  “Pass on, snake, into thy hole.  We follow.”

“Steps!” said the priest, and began descending.

“Curses!” said the Risaldar, stumbling and falling down on top of him.  “Have a care, Suliman!  The stone is wet and slippery.”

Down, down they climbed, one behind the other, Suliman grunting beneath his burden and the Risaldar keeping up a running fire of oaths.  Each time that he slipped, and that was often, he cursed the priest and cautioned Suliman.  But the priest only laughed, and apparently Suliman was sure-footed, for he never stumbled once.  They seemed to be diving down into the bowels of the earth.  They were in pitch-black darkness, for the stone had swung to behind them of its own accord.  The wall on either side of them was wet with slime and the stink of decaying ages rose and almost stifled them.  But the priest kept on descending, so fast that the other two had trouble to keep up with him, and he hummed to himself as though he knew the road and liked it.

“The bottom!” he called back suddenly.  “From now the going is easy, until we rise again.  We pass now under the city-wall.”

But they could see nothing and hear nothing except their own footfalls swishing in the ooze beneath them.  Even the priest’s words seemed to be lost at once, as though he spoke into a blanket, for the air they breathed was thicker than a mist and just as damp.  They walked on, along a level, wet, stone passage for at least five minutes, feeling their way with one band on the wall.

“Steps, now!” said the priest.  “Have a care, now, for the lower ones are slippery.”

Ruth was regaining consciousness.  She began to move and tried once or twice to speak.

“Here, thou!” growled the Risaldar.  “Thou art a younger man than I—­ come back here.  Help with the memsahib.”

The priest came back a step or two, but Suliman declined his aid, snarling vile insults at him.

“I can manage!” he growled.  “Get thou behind me, Mahommed Khan, in case I slip!”