As Swinton struck a match it broke, its flickering fall glinting green two devilish eyes in the head of a tiger that was setting himself for a spring, ten feet away. The roar of Finnerty's 10-bore, the two shocks almost in one, nearly burst their eardrums, and Swinton stood keyed to rigidity by the call for steady nerve. There was no rushing charge. A smothered cough from the tiger told that blood choked his lungs.
A man's voice came from the darkness almost at their elbow, saying: "Sahib, I am Darna Singh—a friend!"
"Come here!" Finnerty answered. "But no treachery!" For he feared it might be an imposter.
Darna Singh drew close, whispering: "The tiger is dead, so do not make a light. How did the sahib get here—has he keys for the door?"
Finnerty told how the princess had sent him Darna's ring of keys.
Darna Singh explained: "I was cast in here by Ananda to be killed by the tiger who has been let down from his cage. Perhaps they do not know that you are here."
"Have they heard the gun?" the major asked.
"The doors are very heavy, and through the rock they would not have heard. If they have, the key will not open the door if they wish."
Then Darna Singh told what lay beyond the door. The magazine was all prepared for blowing up should Ananda's plan fail and there be danger of discovery of his imported guns. Wires ran from the magazine to a room in the palace, where a switch could bury everything in a second. The passages were lighted by electricity, and the dynamo might have gone wrong, causing the darkness, or it might be an entrapping scheme. There would not be more than one or two German guards at the magazine, where the guns were, and if the sahibs could fall upon these in the dark, Darna Singh could win over the native guards, for they did not love Ananda.
The door opened to a key, showing beyond no glint of light. They passed through; this time Finnerty, finding a fragment of rock, fixed it so that the door could not be closed behind them. Hope suggested that the shot had not been heard, for no storm of attack broke upon them.