There was light in plenty. Many carried torches, whilst masses of tow soaked in oil had been placed on the ground to enable the archers and matchlockmen to shoot. Luckily the onward rush prevented anything like a volley being fired in that narrow space, or the Emperor and his English supporters must certainly have been hit. As it was, the giant had a fair field, steel against steel, and one man against a hundred.
When Roger was busy there was no standing-room for friends by his side or foes in front. His tremendous strength was no less astounding than his tigerish agility. His long sword whirled in lightning circles, he sprang back, forth, and sideways with incredible ease, and such was the area he covered, combined with a quick eye to discern and a supple wrist to disconcert every adventurous cut or thrust aimed at him, that, whilst those outside were yelling to the van to press forward, the unlucky wights of the front rank were making a new rampart of their bodies.
Walter found a corner where Sainton’s sickle did not reach, and Jahangir, fired to emulation, joined him. The three practically held the gate, because Jai Singh, with his horde of freebooters, did not quickly regain his self-possession after the stupefying discovery that the Emperor, whom he was actively fighting against, was laying on with a will in behalf of the Englishman.
Others, too, learned the bewildering fact that here was Jahangir himself in the very hatching ground of the conspiracy. The Maharaja of Bikanir saw him, and having missed him twice with a pistol, adopted a new tactic which might easily have involved the monarch and the Englishmen in common ruin. Awaiting the rebel leader, to carry him to the fort, was a war elephant, a huge brute, well protected by iron plates, thick knobs of brass, and chain armor, penetrable by no missile short of a cannon-ball. The animal was trained to charge any one or anything at the bidding of its mahout, and the Maharaja, mounting the howdah with some of his officers, bade the driver launch the elephant at full speed through the gate.
Among the many physical advantages Roger held over other men not the least was his height. While dealing with the present danger he could see that which threatened farther afield, and now, above the heads of the combatants, he caught sight of the great moving mass of shining panoply. Such a thunderbolt would rend its way through all opposition. Swords and lances were powerless against it, but there lay on the ground, wrenched from its sockets by the battering-ram, the heavy iron bar which the big Yorkshireman had used so effectively on the night that Sher Afghán carried off his unwilling bride.
None of the others knew of the approaching peril. Roger turned to Jai Singh.
“Come on, Don Whiskerando!” he shouted. “I thought thou hadst better stomach for a fray!”
Though he spoke English, his look was enough. The old Rajput awoke from his trance and rushed forward manfully. His levies followed, the rebels yielded a few feet, and Roger secured breathing space. He sheathed his reeking sword, picked up the iron bar, and stood on the left of the gateway, balancing the implement over his right shoulder and bracing his feet, set wide apart, firmly against the ground.
A fiercer yell, a stampede of both parties, announced the oncoming of the new danger. Mowbray and Jahangir thought that this was the end until they saw Roger, not smiling now but frowning, whirl the bar lightly as a preliminary to the greatest feat he ever performed. For the story lives yet amidst the glorious ruins of the Mogul Empire how the Man-Elephant killed the elephant. Trumpeting loudly, rushing through the swaying mass of human beings as a whale cleaves water, the immense brute seemed to enjoy the sensation it created. As it entered the gate, with trunk uplifted, the bar crashed across its knees. The elephant stumbled and fell. Again the iron flail whistled in the air, this time striking the brass-studded boss on the beast’s wide forehead. The thick metal disks shivered into fragments, and the monster, with fractured skull, lurched over heavily on its side, throwing the Maharaja of Bikanir and his lieutenants to the ground, where they died quickly at the hands of those nearest to them.
A great shout went up, a shout of terror and wonder. Men ran, throwing away their arms and shrieking incoherent appeals, whether to Allah or Khuda, for protection. It was recorded that some went mad, some died from fright, and many dropped from exhaustion miles away from Dilkusha and its magic. For never before had one man met a full-grown fighting elephant face to face in single combat and killed it. Such deeds were told of lions and tigers, of many-antlered deer and massive bulls, but never of the elephant, which, in the plenitude of its majestic strength, can drag four score men in triumph, let them tug their best at a rope.