At the foot of the stairway, in the blackness that seemed alive with
phantom shadows, the High Priest paused and listened, stretching out
his left hand against the wall to keep the other two behind him.
From somewhere beyond the courtyard came the din of hurrying sandaled
feet, scudding over cobblestones in one direction. The noise was
incessant and not unlike the murmur of a rapid stream. Occasionally
a voice was raised in some command or other, but the stream of sound
continued, hurrying, hurrying, shuffling along to the southward.
"This way and watch a while," whispered the priest.
"I have heard rats run that way!" growled the Risaldar.
They climbed up a narrow stairway leading to a sort of battlement
and peered over the top, Suliman laying Ruth Bellairs down in the
darkest shadow he could find. She was beginning to recover consciousness,
and apparently Mahommed Khan judged it best to take no notice of her.
Down below them they could see the city gate, wide open, with a blazing
torch on either side of it, and through the gate, swarming like ants
before the rains, there poured an endless stream of humans that marched--
and marched--and marched; four, ten, fifteen abreast; all heights
and sizes, jumbled in and out among one another, anyhow, without
formation, but armed, every one of them, and all intent on marching
to the southward, where Jundhra and Doonha lay.
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