He paused here at the gate which ended the rising path, and waved a hand back at the group in the hollow, ere the snick of the latch started him again on the refrain,

'John Ellison, my chum.'

So he passed, with a curious mixture of swing and slouch, along the dusty roads towards the railway station, which lay on the outskirts of the town, about a quarter of a mile from the bridge. Like the latter, it was a semi-fortified structure, capable of some defence. The more so because the city wall, which it faced, was in itself an obstacle to attack from that quarter; since it was largely a retaining wall to the higher ground of the city within, and therefore solid, blank; until at the river end it jutted into a bastion, loopholed and embrasured. But even this would be of little use to a foe, for the brickwork was cracked from the parapet right down to the water's edge, and the whole building sloped outwards, as if even the firing of a cannon would send it toppling over into the river. Indeed, the advisability of so sending it safely under control of science, before chance interfered and sent it crashing into the railway bridge, had more than once been urged on the authorities. The bastion, however, happened to be part of a royal building which had been given for life to a very old pensioner; so it had been decided that destruction should await his death, unless matters became worse.

Therefore Jehân, as head of the six hundred of his like in Nushapore, still found it the best place in the whole city whence to fly kites; for there was generally a breeze off the river, and daylight lingered long, reflected from the glistening water.

So, at all times of the day, and occasionally by the help of a full moon, the royal pensioners gathered strong on the bastion. Quite a little court of them--reminiscent, strangely, of that dead dispossessed court of old days--centred round Jehân the Heir of all Things or Nothing. And they would pledge and pawn everything they possessed, except their pride, on the results of Lateefa's skill with paste and paper.

Half a dozen or more of these courtiers without a court or a king were lounging on the bastion waiting for Jehân to fly a match with another princeling of royal blood, when Jân-Ali-shân's trolly skimmed past on the line below it. They craned their yellow faces to look at him and the little knot of coolies who were pushing all they knew at the trolly; for Chris Davenant had bidden his overseer be at the drawbridge pier at eight o'clock to look over the machinery, and it was already five minutes past the hour. So Jân-Ali-shân had first hustled his own subordinates with oaths and abuse, into the utmost haste, and was now preparing the half-confidential, half-apologetic look of an offender for his own face--since he could see his superior officer's figure leaning over the iron lattice of the bridge waiting for him. Hurried as he was, however, he looked up, waved his hand to the group on the bastion, and called, 'Ram-ram, gents, and Mohammed-russool!' a salutation (compounded from Hindoo and Mohammedan formulæ) which, he would explain elaborately, prevented him from 'either 'inderin' weak brothers, or bowin' in any particklar 'ouse o' Rimming.' For his seven years in a 'surplus chore' had given him a curious knowledge of Scripture.

'We had better begin by seeing if the hydraulic tank is full up,' said Chris calmly, as the trolly stopped in prompt obedience to Jân-Ali-shân's imperative, 'Woa! I say woa! Didn't I tell yer to tyro (stop) at the pyli (first) pier.'

'Ay, ay, sir!' he answered, his face expressing a certain disappointment; and as he obeyed orders by climbing up an iron ladder which the coolies brought from its hooks on the pier, and fixed to a reservoir on the roof of the arched gateway, he shook his head gravely.

'It don't give a chap a fair chanst,' he muttered to himself as he mounted higher and higher. 'It ain't bracin' enough, that's what it ain't. Now, if 'e'd a said, "D--n you, if you're late agin, I'll cut yer pay," it 'u'd 'ave given a fellow a straight tip up the narrer path.' Here he paused to measure with a foot-rule, and hummed the while,

'A banner with a strange device--Ex--cel--si--or.'