"You are right, indeed…. Now if there be aught of truth in that saying, and if one were unwisely to speak a certain name, even here——"
"The echo of that name might be heard beyond the threshold of a certain
Gateway, sahib."
Amber grunted and said no more, contented now with the assurance that he was in truth in touch with Labertouche, that this Ram Nath was an employee of the I.S.S. The wink was now explained away with all the rest of the tonga-wallah's churlishness. Since there was a purpose behind it all, the Virginian was satisfied to contain his curiosity. Nevertheless he could not help thinking that there must be some fantastic exaggeration in the excessive degree of caution that was thus tacitly imposed upon him.
He looked round him, narrowing his eyes against the sun-glare; and the desert showed itself to his eyes a desert waste and nothing more. The day lay stark upon its lifeless face and it seemed as if, within the wide rim of the horizon, no thing moved save the tonga. They were then passing rapidly over higher ground and seemed to have drawn a shade nearer to the raw red northern hills. Amber would have said that they could never have found a solitude more absolute.
The thought was still in his mind when the tonga dipped unexpectedly over another ridge, began to descend another long grade of dead, parched earth, and discovered some distance ahead of them on the wagontrack a cloud of dust like a tinted veil, so dense, opaque, and wide and high that its cause was altogether concealed in its reddish, glittering convolutions. But the Virginian knew the land well enough to recognise the phenomenon and surmise its cause, even before his ears began to be assailed by the hideous rasping screech of wheels of solid wood revolving reluctantly on rough-hewn axles guiltless of grease. And as the tonga swiftly lessened the distance, his gaze, penetrating the thinning folds, discerned the contours of a cotton-wain drawn by twin stunted bullocks, patient noses to the ground, tails a-switch. Beside his cattle the driver plodded, goad in hand, a naked sword upon his hip. Within his reach, between the rude bales of the loaded cart, the butt of a brass-bound musket protruded significantly…. All men went armed in that wild land: to do as much is one of the boons attendant upon citizenship in an unprogressive, independent native State.
Deliberately enough the carter swerved his beasts aside to make way for the tonga, lest by undue haste he should make himself seem other than what he was—a free man and a Rajput. But when his fierce, hawk-like eyes encountered those of the dak traveller, his attitude changed curiously and completely. Recognition and reverence fought with surprise in his expression, and as Ram Nath swung the tonga past the man salaamed profoundly. His voice, as he rose, came after them, resonant and clear:
"Hail, thou Chosen of the Gateway! Hail!"
Amber neither turned to look nor replied. But his frown deepened. The incident passed into his history, marked only by the terse comment it educed from Ram Nath—words which were flung curtly over the tonga-wallah's shoulder: "Eyes to see and ears to hear and a tongue withal … sahib!"
The Virginian said nothing. But it was in his mind that he had indeed thrust his head into the lion's mouth by thus adventuring into the territory which every instinct of caution and common-sense proclaimed taboo to him—the erstwhile kingdom of the Maharana Har Dyal Rutton. It was, in a word, foolhardy—nothing less. But for his pledged word it had been so easy to order Ram Nath to convey him back to Badshah Junction to order and to enforce obedience at the pistol's point, if needs be! Honour held him helpless, bound upon the Wheel of his Destiny: he must and would go on….
He sat in silent gloom while sixty minutes were drummed out by the flying hoofs. The hills folded in about the way, diverting it hither and yon with raw, seamed spurs, whose flanks flung back harsh and heavy echoes of the tonga's flight through riven gulch and scrub-grown valley. And then it was that Ram Nath proved his mettle. Hardened himself, he showed no mercy to his passenger, and never once drew rein, though the tonga danced from rock to ridge and ridge to rut and back again, like a tin can on the tail of an astonished dog. As for Amber, he wedged his feet and held on with both hands, grimly, groaning in spirit when he did not in the flesh, foreseeing as he did nine hours more of this heroic torture punctuated only by brief respites at the end of each stage.