"We Banjaras are taught by our mothers that we are to become men," the herdsman answered with simple dignity.
Like the sealing of a solemn compact between the members of a brotherhood was this exchange of handclasps, Swinton also taking the Banjara's hand in a grasp of admiration.
As Finnerty and Swinton melted down the gloomed path with the Banjara's brother, the herdsman stood watching their going, repeating a tribal saying: "In the kingdom of men there are no boundaries."
When the two sahibs came out to where the Safed Jan Trail wound along the bed of a nala approaching the palace plateau, their guide said: "Just beyond is the new cave. I will go forward to see that no one keeps the door, for they will not think it strange that I should be about. If the sahibs hear the small cry of a tree cricket they may come forward."
In five minutes the hissing pipe of a cicada came back to their ears, and, slipping from the jungle to the nala trail, they noiselessly crept to the dark portal that yawned to the right of their way. From the contour of the hill, outlined against an afterglow sky, Finnerty knew that they were on the reverse side of the jutting point that held Jadoo Cave. As they entered a gloom so intense they saw nothing, a whisper reassured them, and the native's hand grasped Finnerty's fingers. The major, understanding, reached back the stock of his 10-bore to Swinton, and they went forward into the blackness. Soon the watchman stopped and whispered: "Put out your hand, sahib, and feel the spot that is here."
By a grasp on his wrist Finnerty's hand was placed upon a stone wall, and his fingers, moving up and down and across, detected a thin crack so truly perpendicular that it suggested mechanics.
The native whispered: "One of the keys on the ring will unlock this that is a door." Then he fumbled the wall with his fingers, and presently found a square block of stone, saying: "The keyhole is within."
A long-stemmed key on the ring fitted the keyhole, but before Finnerty could shoot the bolt the native whispered: "Not yet, sahib." He produced two candles and a box of matches. "Remember, sahib, that no man owns the light of a fire; here is an eye that makes no betraying light." And he placed in Finnerty's fingers a slim male-bamboo rod.
At a twist from Finnerty's hand a heavy bolt in the lock glided back with noiseless ease; a pull caused the stone-faced door to swing forward in the same frictionless quiet, and beyond was a gloom as deep as that of the cave.
"I will watch, sahib," the guide whispered, "and if it is known that evil has fallen upon you I will warn the Lord Sahib; if it please the gods that you come forth I will also carry to him that good tale."