And above
them, from a window that overlooked the courtyard, shone a solitary
lamp that glistened here and there upon the sleek black guns and
flickered on the saber-hilts, and deepened the already dead-black
atmosphere of mystery.
From the room above, where the lamp shone behind gauze curtains came
the sound of voices; and in the deepest, death-darkest shadow of
the door below there stood a man on guard whose fingers clutched
his sword-hilt and whose breath came heavily. He stood motionless,
save for his heaving breast; between his fierce, black mustache
and his up-brushed, two-pointed beard, his white teeth showed through
parted lips. But he gave no other sign that he was not some Rajput
princeling's image carved out of the night.
He was an old man, though, for all his straight back and military
carriage. The night concealed his shabbiness; but it failed to hide
the medals on his breast, one bronze, one silver, that told of campaigns
already a generation gone. And his patience was another sign of age;
a younger man of his blood and training would have been pacing to
and fro instead of standing still.
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