"Kuchch saiya pur gya!" (some shadow fell on me) muttered one man below his breath, as he sheathed his sword.
And another, with an oath, said boldly, "This one is for the winning side," then gave the cry, "To the rescue, brothers, to the rescue! Cut down the mutineers"--so, promptly, began operations on the nearest defenceless prisoner.
Thus, almost before those who had galloped in hot haste after Roshan's lead were out of sight, the prisoners, even the resisting warders, had been driven into the portico, and penned like a flock of sheep between the troopers outside and the pioneers within.
"The Lord is King," said the lance-duffadar, piously, to a neighbour,--he had started back from Roshan's blow with a scowl, and watched his retreat resentfully,--"the Handle-end of His Sword is safest! Lo! Have at them, brothers!"--he added aloud--"have at the evil-born ones who would have killed the mems and the baba-logue as such scum did in the Great Breathing, making the faces of the soldiery black for all time! Show them our mettle. Forward! 'Gord--save--the--Ka-veen!'"
"Gord--save--the--Ka-veen!"
The cry grew to a shout, and Dr. Dillon, who, with a great incredulity lessening the values of all he saw and heard, had promptly swung himself down into the courtyard, looked through a crevice in the barricade--which was fast taking form under the willing hands of the pioneers--to see what the noise meant.
"It is all over," he said slowly, his face pathetic in its bewilderment; "the troopers are siding with us!"
He stood for a moment as if unable to grasp the reality, and his keen, inquisitive eyes seemed to search almost reproachfully for some cause, some hint of reason, in his surroundings. In the splintered door, in every cranny and foothold of the broken stair, and so, past the parapet, they continued their question to the lightening sky, against which, faint and far, those distant peaks where lay the "Cradle of the Gods" had begun to show dimly.
"All for nothing!" he muttered to himself, almost petulantly. "Poor Dering!" So, swiftly he passed down the alley,--swiftly, but hopelessly; for he knew what those iron shackles meant on a man's bare head.
He drew the body to one side with tender care, then knocked at the closed door and called to the man within. "Smith, open the door! You'd better come out--I think it's all over now; be quick, please."