"Make haste, hazoor!" cried the owner of the hand, in Hindustani. "Make haste, lest they seek to fasten this crime upon your head."
CHAPTER X
MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR
Both hand and voice might well have been Labertouche's; Amber believed they were. And the darkness rendered visual identification impossible. No shadow of doubt troubled him as he yielded to the urgent hand, and permitted himself to be dragged, more than led, through the reeking, milling mob, whose numbers seemed each instant augmented. He had thought, dully, to find it a difficult matter to worm through and escape, but somehow his guide seemed to have little trouble. Others, likewise, evidently wished to get out of sight before the arrival of the police, and in the wake of a little knot of these Amber felt himself drawn along until, within less than two minutes, they were on the outskirts of the crowd.
He drew a long breath of relief. Ever since that knife had flown whining past his cheek, his instinct of self-preservation had been dominated by a serene confidence that Pink Satin was at hand to steer him in safety away from the brawl. For his own part he was troubled by a feeling of helplessness and dependence unusual with him, who was of a self-reliant habit, accustomed to shift for himself whatever the emergency. But this was something vastly different from the run of experiences that had theretofore fallen to his lot. In. the foulest stews of a vast city, with no least notion of how to win his way back to the security of the Chowringhee quarter; in the heart of a howling native rabble stimulated to a pitch of frenzy by the only things that ever seem really to rouse the Oriental from his apathy—the scent and sight of human blood; and with a sense of terror chilling him as he realised the truth at which his guide had hinted—that the actual assassin would not hesitate an instant to cry the murder upon the head of one of the Sahib-logue: Amber felt as little confidence in his ability to work out his salvation as though he had been a child. He thanked his stars for Labertouche—for the hand that clasped his arm and the voice that spoke guardedly in his ear.
And then, by the light of the street, he discovered that his gratitude had been premature and misplaced. His guide had fallen a pace behind and was shouldering him along with almost frantic energy; but a glance aside showed Amber, in Labertouche's stead, a chunky little Gurkha in the fatigue uniform of his regiment of the British Army in India. Pink Satin was nowhere in sight and it was immediately apparent that an attempt to find him among the teeming hundreds before the goldsmith's stall would be as futile as foolish—if not fatal. Yet Amber's impulse was to wait, and he faltered—something which seemed to exasperate the Gurkha, who fairly danced with excitement and impatience.
"Hasten, hazoor!" he cried. "Is this a time to loiter? Hasten ere they charge you with this spilling of blood. The gods lend wings to our feet this night!"
"But who are you?" demanded Amber.
"What matter is that? Is it not enough that I am here and well disposed toward you, that I risk my skin to save yours?" He cannoned suddenly against Amber, shunting him unceremoniously out of the bazaar road and into a narrow black alley.
Simultaneously Amber heard a cry go up, shrill above the clamour of the mob, screaming that a white sailor had knifed the goldsmith. And he turned pale beneath his tan.