It was wide enough to let four horses under side by side, and for all its weight it rose as suddenly and evenly as though a giant's hand had lifted it.

Immediately behind it, like an actor waiting for the stage-curtain to rise, Alwa bestrode his war-horse in the middle of a roadway.

He saluted with drawn sabre, and this time Cunningham replied.
Almost instantly the man who had led the gallopers and had saluted Mahommed Gunga spurred his horse up close to Cunningham and whispered: "Pardon, sahib! I did not know! Am I forgiven ?" "Yes," said Cunningham, remembering then that a Rajput, and a Rangar more particularly, thinks about points of etiquette before considering what to eat.

Alwa growled out a welcome, rammed his sabre home, and wheeled without another word, showing the way at a walk--which was all a wild goat could have accomplished--up a winding road, hewn out of the solid mountain, that corkscrewed round and round upon itself until it gave onto the battlemented summit.

There he dismounted, ordered his men to their quarters, and for the first time took notice of his cousin.
"I have thy missionary and his daughter, three horses for thee, and thy man," he smiled.
"Did Ali Partab bring them ?" "Nay.