"Johar!" he greeted them in the Mahar form: "O, warrior!"
"Johar!" returned Labertouche, panting heavily. He closed upon the native confidently, but was brought up short by a peremptory sweep of the sword, coupled with an equally imperative demand for an explanation of their haste. The Englishman replied with apparent difficulty, as if half-winded. "It is an order, Johar. The woman is to be brought to the Hall of the Bell."
"You have the word?" The Mahar lowered his sword. "It hath been said to me that—"
Labertouche stumbled over his feet, and caught the speaker for support. The native gurgled in a sodden fashion, dropped his sword, stared stupidly at Labertouche, and put an uncertain hand to his throat. Then he lurched heavily and collapsed upon himself.
The secret-agent stepped back, dropping the knife he had used. "Poor devil!" he said in a compassionate undertone. "That was cold-blooded murder, Mr. Amber."
"Necessary?" gasped Amber, regarding with horror the bloodstained heap of rags and flesh at his feet.
"Judge for yourself," said Labertouche coolly, stepping over the body. "Here," he added, pausing by the doorway, "you go first; she knows you."
He pushed Amber on ahead. Stooping, the Virginian entered a small, rude chamber hollowed out of the rock of Kathiapur. A crude lamp in a bracket furnished all its illumination, filling it with a reek of hot oil. Amber was vaguely aware of the figures of two women—one standing in a corner, the other seated dejectedly upon a charpoy, her head against the wall. As he lifted his head after passing under the low lintel, the woman in the corner fired at him point-blank.
The Virginian saw the jet of flame spurt from her hand and felt the bullet's impact upon the wall behind his head. He flung himself upon her instantly. There was a moment of furious struggle, while the cell echoed with the reverberations of the shot and the screaming of the woman on the charpoy. The pistol exploded again as he grappled with the would-be murderess; the bullet, passing up his sleeve, creased his left arm as with a white-hot iron, and tore out through the cloth on his shoulder. He twisted brutally the wrist that held the weapon, and the woman dropped it with a cry of pain.
"You would!" he cried, and threw her from him, putting a foot upon the pistol.