"They violate the sacred rites!" There were no Mohammedans among that crowd to take delight in seeing Hindoo priests discomfited and Hindoo ritual disturbed.

There came no counter-shout.

The crowd did not, as so often happens, turn and rend itself; and yet, though a surge from behind pressed forward, the men in front pressed back.
"Slay them! Slay the sacrilegious foreigners!" The yell grew louder and more widely voiced, but no man in the front ranks moved.
The Maharajah looked from the company of guards that lined the palace-steps to the priests and his brother and the crowd--and then to the McCleans again.
He remembered Alwa and his Rangars, thought of the messenger whom he had sent, remembered that a regiment of lance-armed horsemen would be worth a risk or two to win over to his side, and made decision.
"You are in danger," he asserted, using a pronoun not intended to convey politeness, but--Eastern of the East--counteracting that by courtesy of manner.

"Do you ask my aid ?" "Yes, among other things," Duncan McClean answered him.

"I wish also to speak about a Rangar, who I know is held prisoner in a cage in the Jaimihr-sahib's palace." "Speak of that later," answered Howrah.