"I'll obey!" "And I will not prevent!" said Duncan McClean, smiling and straightening his spectacles.
Cunningham left them and walked over to the parapet, where the whole garrison was bending excitedly now above the battlement.

There were more than forty men, most of them clustered near Alwa and Mahommed Gunga.
Mahommed Gunga was busy counting.
"Eight hundred!" he exclaimed, as Cunningham drew near.
"Eight hundred what, Mahommed Gunga?
Come and see, sahib." Cunningham leaned over, and beheld a mounted column, trailing along the desert road in wonderfully good formation.
"Where are they from ?" he asked.
"Jaimihr's men, from Howrah!" "That means," growled Alwa, "that the Hindoo pig Jaimihr has more than half the city at his back.

He has left behind ten men for every one he brings with him--sufficient to hold Howrah in check.

Otherwise he would never have dared come here.

He hopes to settle his little private quarrel with me first, before dealing with his brother! Who told him, I wonder, that I was pledged to Howrah ?" "He reckons he has caught thee napping in this fort of thine!" laughed Mahommed Gunga.