Then a light flashed in the room, and he saw a beautiful woman standing in an inner doorway, a woman whose exquisite face was white and tense as she held aloft a lamp and cried:—
“Why do ye tarry here when my husband is fighting for his life and for yours?”
Now he was wide awake. It was Nur Mahal, unveiled and robed all in white, who stood there and spoke so vehemently.
Up he sprang, and roused Mowbray with his mighty grip. The new conflict raging over Sher Afghán’s body was music in his ears, for several Rajputs had come, too late, to their master’s assistance.
“God in heaven, lad!” he roared, “here’s a fray in full blast and we snoring. Have at them, Walter! The pack is on us!”
His words, no less than a vigorous shaking, awoke his companion.
“Oh, come speedily!” wailed Nur Mahal again. “I know not what is happening, but I heard my husband’s voice calling for aid.”
They needed no further bidding, though their eyes were strangely heavy and their bodies relaxed. Once they were out in the night air and running toward the din of voices the stupor passed. Yet, when they reached the main alley, where Sher Afghán lay dead, they knew not whom to strike nor whom to spare, so intermixed were the combatants and so confused the riot of ringing simitars, of hoarse shouts, of agonized appeals for mercy.
But Nur Mahal, quicker than they to distinguish between native and native, cried as she ran with them:—
“My husband’s men wear white turbans. All the others are strangers.”