“Did I think you meant what you have said, you and I should quarrel,” retorted Walter.
“Sooner would my right hand quarrel with the left. Yet my counsel is good. Whilst one of us lives she is not wholly bereft, and you are the lad of her choosing. I’ faith, if she showed me such preference, I’d take a similar offer from thee.”
“You are not wont to anticipate disaster, Roger, nor yet to frame such clumsy excuse.”
“I have never before been so mixed up with a woman. Argue not, Walter, but away with her. I’ll strike more freely if I ken you are safe. It is good generalship, too. She is the treasure they seek, and she should not be left to the hazard of a rough-and-tumble in the dark.”
“Then let her ride alone if she be so minded. We have fought side by side too often, Roger, that we should be separated now.”
Sainton’s huge hand reached out in the gloom and gripped his comrade’s shoulder.
“Gad, Walter,” he growled, “thou art tough oak. Least said is soonest mended, but the notion jumbles in my thick head that Nur Mahal will surely be a quean, and that thou art fated to help in her crowning. Hark! What now?”
They heard Jai Singh’s loud challenge, followed by the confused halting of a large body of horse. The clang of arms and the champing of bits came to them plainly. The distance was too great to distinguish voices at an ordinary pitch, but it was reasonable to suppose that Jai Singh was conversing with some one in authority.
They were not kept long in suspense. A few horsemen advanced slowly, Jai Singh at their head.
“Sahiba!” he called, when close at hand, “there is one here who would converse with your Lordships in privacy.”