blazing dark-brown eyes from one man to the other.

"What good ever came of listening to priests?" he asked. "All priests
are alike--ours, and theirs, and padre-sahibs! They all preach peace
and goad the lust that breeds war and massacre! Does a priest serve
any but himself? Since when? There will come this rising that the
priests speak of--yes! Of a truth, there will, for the priests will
see to it! There is a padre-sahib here in Howrah now for the Hindoo
priests to whet their hate on. You saw the woman ride past here a
half-hour gone? There is a pile of tinder ready here, and any fool of
a priest can make a spark! There will be a rising, and a big one!"

"There will! Of a truth, there will!" Alwa, his cousin, crossed one
leg above the other with a clink of spurs and scabbard. He had no
objection to betraying interest, but declined for the present to betray
his hand.

"There will be a blood-letting that will do no harm to us Rajputs!"
said another man, whose eyes gleamed from the darkest corner; he, too,
clanked his scabbard as though the sound were an obbligato to his
thoughts. "Sit still and say nothing is my advice; we will be all
ready to help ourselves when the hour comes!"

"It is this way," said Mahommed Gunga, standing straddle-legged to face
all five of them, with his back to the window. He stroked his black
beard upward with one hand and fingered with the other at his
sabre-hilt. "Without aid when the hour does come, the English will be
smashed--worn down--starved out--surrounded--stamped out--
annihilated--so!" He stamped with his heel descriptively on the hard
earth floor. "And then, what?"