"There be not many of us here," muttered a voice from a dark corner; "and maybe we could hold our own against the lot of you." It was Soma's, and the man beside him frowned. But the agent who knew every petty jealousy, every private quarrel of regiment with regiment, went on remorselessly. "Let the 3d swagger if it choose. The Rajpoots and Brahmins know how to obey the stars. The 31st is the auspicious day. That is the word. The word of the King, of the Brahmins, of India, of God!"
"The 31st! Then slay and spare not! It is jehad! Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!" said the Ghâzee.
The cry, though a mere whisper, electrified the Mohammedans, and an older man in the group of dissentients at the door muttered that he could hold his troop--if others who had risen to favor quicker than he--could hold theirs.
"I'll hold mine, Khân sahib, without thine aid," retorted a very young smart-looking native officer angrily. "That is if the women will hold their tongues. But, look you, my troop held the hardest hitters in the 3d. And Nargeeza's fancy is of those in jail. Now Nargeeza leads all the other town-women by the nose; and that means much to men who be not all saints like Ghâzee-jee yonder, who ties the two ends of life with a ragged green turban and a bloody banner!"
"And I see not why our comrades should stay yonder for three weeks, when there is but a native guard to hold them, and I and mine have made the Sirkar what it is," put in a man with arrogance and insolence written on him from top to toe; a true type of the pampered Brahmin sepoy.
"Rescue them if thou wilt, Havildar-jee," sneered the agent. "But the man who risks our plot will be held traitor by the Council. And the men of the 11th," he added sharply, turning to the corner whence Soma's voice had come, "may remember that also. They have had the audacity to stipulate for their Colonel's life."
"For our officers lives, baboo-jee," came the voice again, bold as the agent's. "We of the 11th kill not men who have led us to victory. And if this be not understood I, Soma, Yadubansi, go straight to the Colonel and tell him. We are not butchers in the 11th: Oh, priest of Kâli!"
The agent turned a little pale. He did not care to have his calling known, and he saw at a glance that his challenger had the reckless fire of hemp in his eyes. He had indeed been drinking as a refuge from the memory of the sweeper's broom and from the taunts and threats which had been used to force him to join the malcontents. Such a man was not safe to quarrel with, nor was the audience fit for a discussion of that topic; there was already a stir in it, and mutterings that butchery was one thing, fighting another.
"Pay thy Colonel's journey home if thou likest, Rajpoot-jee," he said with a sneer. "Ay! and give him pension, too! All we want is to get rid of them. And there will be plenty of loot left when the pension is paid, for it is to be each man for himself when the time comes. Not share and share alike with every coward who will not risk his life in looting, as it is with the Sirkar."
It was a deft red-herring to these born mercenaries, and no more was said. But as the meeting dispersed by twos and threes to avoid notice, the agent stood at the door giving the word in a final whisper: