Shaking his head, he lifted himself cautiously out of the boat. "You stay right there, Dulla Dad," he warned the native, "until I see what happens. If I catch you trying to get away—the boat'll show up nicely against the opening, you know—I'll give you cause for repentance."
"I am here, hazoor. Turn you and knock upon the door thus"—rapping the gunwale of the boat—"thrice."
Amber obeyed, wrought up now to so high a pitch of excitement and suspense that he could hardly have withdrawn had he wished to and been able to force Dulla Dad to heed him. As he knuckled the third signal, the door swung slowly inward, disclosing, in a dim glow of light, stone walls—a bare stone chamber illumined by a single iron lamp hanging in chains from the ceiling. Across the room a dark entry opened upon a passageway equally dark.
By the door a servant stood, his attitude deferential. As the
Virginian's gaze fell upon him he salaamed respectfully.
Amber entered, his eyes quick, his right hand in his pocket and grateful for the cold caress of nickelled steel, his body poised lightly and tensely upon the balls of his feet—in a word, ready. Prepared against the worst he was hopeful of the best: apprehensive, he reminded himself that he had first met Labertouche under auspices hardly more prepossessing than these.
The clang of the door closing behind him rang hollowly in the stillness. The warder moved past him to the entrance of the corridor. Amber held him with a sharp question.
"Am I to wait here?"
"For a moment, Heaven-born!" He disappeared.
Without a sound a door at Amber's elbow that had escaped his cursory notice, so cunningly was it fitted in the wall, swung open, and a remembered voice boomed in his ears, not without a certain sardonic inflection: "Welcome, my lord, welcome to Khandawar!"
Amber swung upon the speaker with a snarl. "Salig Singh!"