But there were matters of graver import afoot than the Countess’s fainting fit. Already the conspirators in the summer-house, alarmed by the commotion, must be devising means to protect themselves, and the Emperor, ensconced in a hiding-place after the fashion invented by Dionysius of Syracuse, was probably doubting the wisdom of his Haroun-al-Raschid escapade. For Roger, bursting through the hostile cordons like an infuriated blue-bottle fly caught in the outer strands of a spider’s web, had applied a premature spark to a gunpowder train. The silence of the night was jarred into fierce uproar. The imperial troops, thinking the revolt had broken out before its appointed hour, were hurriedly closing in around the rebels. The latter, strenuously opposing Sainton’s passage up the hill leading to the Garden of Heart’s Delight, communicated a panic for action, which is the next worst thing to a flight, to those of their comrades who knew not what was happening. In a word, the left bank of the Jumna was ablaze, and sharp encounters occurred wherever the Emperor’s men met those who fought for his would-be supplanter, Khusrow. At the gate Devi Pershad and the Rajputs, manfully aided by the house servants, were even then resisting the efforts of the rebels previously hidden in the wood to break open the door and go to the aid of their leaders within. Indeed, Roger had barely ceased speaking, before a sowar, one of his own small escort, ran in and breathlessly announced the desperate nature of the attack on the gateway.
Sainton, of course, knew nothing of the real cause of all this riot. Nor was there time to tell him. Mowbray grasped the excited soldier.
“Canst hoot like an owl?” he cried.
“Aye, sahib, that can I,” was the reply, for the man guessed the portent of the question.
“Come, then, Roger! Thou knowest the summer-house? Smite any man who leaves it! Nur Mahal, bide you here till I return! Fra Pietro, bolt the doors and open only to me or Roger!”
“One word, brother, ere thou goest,” cried the friar in English. “A chosen ruler, be he Christian or heathen, is the Lord’s anointed. ‘Curse not the King, no, not in thy thought.’”
Walter, hurrying forth, darted a single glance at the speaker. Somehow, the Franciscan’s words gave ordered sequence to a project which flitted vaguely through his mind as he listened to Nur Mahal’s thrilling recital. It seemed to him that this beautiful woman, “who offered herself twice to no man,” harbored a certain spite against Jahangir because of the treatment he had meted out to her. Once she had vaguely hinted at bygones as between Mowbray and herself; otherwise her utterances were those of unsated and insatiable ambition, and the style of her raiment alone showed that she had quitted the palace that night prepared to fill the stage in whatsoever part fortune allotted her.
Now the two Englishmen were in the garden, running towards the summer-house, which, it will be remembered, stood on an island in the midst of a small lake, and was approached by four narrow causeways, each at right angles with its neighbors. There never was a darker night. It was barely possible to distinguish the tops of the trees against the sky; beneath, they passed through a blackness so dense that they could not see each other.
Under such conditions rapid progress was impossible. Mowbray called a halt, and bade the Rajput use his skill in imitating owls. Thrice the long-drawn ululu vibrated in the scent-laden atmosphere; at the third screech came an answering hoot, lanterns twinkled of a sudden at the farther end of the lawn, and Jai Singh, with his rabble of swashbucklers, perched expectantly on the wall, tumbled pell-mell into the garden.
“We come, sahib!” they heard his exultant cry. “Every man carries a light and wears a black turban. Spare none other!”