Jaimihr, then, was the most pressing danger.
Second, as a Hindoo, she knew well how fiendishly the priests loathed the Christian missionaries; and it was common knowledge that the Maharajah was cross-hobbled by the priests.

The Maharajah was a fearful man, and, unless the priests and Jaimihr threatened him with a show of combination, there was a slight chance that he might dread British vengeance too much to dare permit violence to the McCleans.

Possibly he might hold out against the priests alone; but before an open alliance between Jaimihr and the priests he would surrender for his own throne's sake.
So far Joanna could reason readily enough, for there was a vast fund of wisdom stored beneath her wrinkled ugliness.

But her Eastern limitation stopped her there.

She could not hold loyalty to more than one cause, or to more than one offshoot of that cause, in the same shrewd head at once.