again unless ordered. Following the line of eastern reasoning, had he
not given that order he would not have known what her object could be
should she make her way toward the cell; but now, if she risked his
wrath by disobeying, he would know beyond the least shadow of a doubt
that she had a message to deliver to the prisoner--the man who was
hidden in the dark corner need entertain no hope of keeping the secret
to himself for purposes of sale or blackmail!

They trust each other wonderfully--with an almost childlike
confidence--in a household such as Jaimihr's!

CHAPTER XV

Ho! I am king! All lesser fry
Must cringe, and crawl, and cry to me,
And none have any rights but I,--
Except the right to lie to me.

JAIMIHR was not the only man who would have dearly liked to know of the
whereabouts of Mahommed Gunga. It had been reported to Maharajah Howrah,
by his spies, that the redoubtable ex-Risaldar of horse had visited his
relatives in Howrah City, and, though he had not been able to ascertain
a word of what had passed, he was none the less anxious.

He knew, of course--for every soul in Howrah knew--that Jaimihr was
plotting for the throne. He knew, too, that the priests of Siva,
who with himself were joint keepers of the wickedly won, tax-swollen
treasure, had sounded Jaimihr; they had tentatively hinted that they
might espouse his cause, provided that an equitable division of the
treasure were arranged beforehand. The question uppermost in Maharajah
Howrah's mind was whether the Rangars--the Moslem descendants of once
Hindoo Rajputs, who formed such a small but valuable proportion of the
local population--could or could not be induced to throw in their lot
with him.

No man on the whole tax-ridden countryside believed or considered it as
a distant possibility that the Rangars would strike for any hand except
their own; they were known, on the other hand, to be more or less
cohesive, and it was considered certain that, whichever way they swung,
when the priest-pulled string let loose the flood of revolution, they
would swing all together. The question, then, was how to win the favor
of the Rangars. It was not at all an easy question, for the love lost
between Hindoos and Mohammedans is less than that between dark-skinned
men and white--a lot less.

Within two hours of its happening he had been told of the capture of
Ali Partab; and he knew--for that was another thing his