“Ecod!” said Roger, “that is good talking. Jai Singh is thin in the ribs, but he hath the liver of a bull. Yet there seemeth no urgence for killing. What is toward, Walter? ‘Smite,’ say you. ‘Spare not,’ yelps Jai Singh. Nur Mahal shoots lightning from her eyes. Even the good friar points a moral with a text on cursing the king. Who hath cursed him? Whose throat is to be cut? My soul, there’s battle in the very air!”
Sainton was appealing to unheeding ears. The baraduri, being a roofed entablature supported on slight columns, became vaguely silhouetted against the dim glow of the advancing lantern-bearers. Walter saw several armed men rushing towards the house along the nearest chaussée. It went against the grain to strike any man who came to him trustingly, no matter what the ultimate intent, and among the foremost he thought he recognized Raja Man Singh.
“Back, there!” he shouted. “We are for Jahangir! Back to your covert and lay down your arms!”
There could be no mistaking his meaning. The conspirators, dumbfounded by the discovery that he whom they reckoned an ally was a declared foe, stopped, hesitated, and then broke, left and right.
“They must not escape!” said Mowbray to his companion. “After them, Jai Singh!” he vociferated to the Rajput, and forthwith there was a scurry in which several fell. Nevertheless, two, at least, got away through the trees and scaled the wall. Raja Man Singh remained, gasping his life out, but he of Bikanir and one other reached the reinforcements outside.
Hastily despatching Jai Singh and his followers to defend the main gate, Mowbray retained only two men of his own little troop. Equipping them with lanterns, he led Roger to the summer-house and cried in a loud voice:—
“Come forth, Jahangir!”
There was no answer. The hollow roof, exquisitely painted with frescoes representing forest life, echoed the command, and the slight scrutiny rendered possible by the weak light of the lamps gave force to Roger’s query:—
“Dost think to find him, like Mahmoud’s coffin, slung ’twixt heaven and earth, Walter?”
But Nur Mahal was to be trusted beyond the credence of eyes alone. Unless the Emperor had flown, or changed his mind at the latest moment, he was surely there, for the doorkeeper said two strangers had passed by the watchword “Safed-Kira.” And the vital need of hurry made stern measures necessary.