Alwa, recoiling. "My word is given. I take no Hindoo's
hand!"

Howrah glared for a moment, but thought better of the hot retort that
rose to his lips. Instead he struck a silver gong, and when the doors
swung open ordered the prisoners to be produced.

"Escape through the palace-grounds," he advised Alwa. "A man of mine
will show the way."

"Remember!" said Alwa across his shoulder with more than royal
insolence, "I swore to help thee against Jaimihr and to support thee on
thy throne--but in nothing did I swear to be thy tool--remember!"

CHAPTER XXI

Howrah City bows the knee
(More or less) to masters three,
King, and Prince, and Siva.
Howrah City comes and goes--
Buys and sells--and never knows
Which is friend, and which are foes--
King, or Prince, or Siva.

THAT that followed Alwa's breakaway was all but the tensest hour in
Howrah City's history. The inevitable--the foiled rage of the priests
and Jaimihr's impudent insistence that the missionaries should be handed
over to him--the Maharajah's answer--all combined to set the murmurings
afoot. Men said that the threatened rebellion against the rule of
Britain had broken loose at last, and a dozen other quite as false and
equally probable things.

Jaimihr, finding that his palace was intact, and that only the prisoner
and three horses from his stable were missing, placed the whole guard
under arrest--stormed futilely, while his hurrying swarm flocked to him
through the dinning streets--and then, mad-angry and made reckless by
his rage, rode with a hundred at his back to Howrah's palace, scattering
the bee-swarm of inquisitive but so far peaceful citizens right and
left.

With little ceremony, he sent in word to Howrah that he wanted Alwa and
the missionaries; he stated that his private honor was at stake, and
that he would stop at nothing to wreak vengeance. He wanted the man who
had dared invade his palace--the man whom he had released--and the
two who were the prime cause of the outrage. And with just as little
ceremony word came out that the Maharajah would please himself as to
what he did with prisoners.

That message was followed almost instantly by the high priest of Siva
in person, angry as a turkey-gobbler and blasphemously vindictive. He
it was who told Jaimihr of the unexpected departure through the
palace-grounds.

"Ride, Jaimihr-sahib! Ride!" he advised him.

"How many have you? A hundred? Plent