“I will offer the braggart something in the way of board and lodging that will astonish him!” growled Alwa. “Eight men to horse! The first eight! That will do! Back to the battlement, the rest of you!”
They had raced for the right to loose themselves against eight hundred!
CHAPTER XXV
OH, duck and run—the hornets come!
Oh, jungli! Clear the way!
The nest's ahum—the hornets come!
The sharp-stinged, harp-winged hornets come!
Nay, jungli! When the hornets come,
It isn't well to stay!
ALWA ordered ten men down into the bowels of the rock itself, where great wheels with a chain attached to them were forced round to lift the gate. Next he stationed a signaller with a cord in either hand, above the parapet, to notify the men below exactly when to set the simple machinery in motion. His eight clattered out from the stables on the far side of the rock, and his own charger was brought to him, saddled.
Then, in a second, it was evident why Raputs do not rule in Rajputana.
“I ride too with my men!” declared Mahommed Gunga.
“Nay! This is my affair—my private quarrel with Jaimihr!”
Mahommed Gunga turned to Ali Partab, who had been a shadow to him ever since he came.