"You have the keys to the chest, Hunsa?" Sookdee said, with suspicion in his voice.
"Yes, Jamadar; I will open it. We will empty it, and place the iron box on top of the bodies in a pit, for it is too heavy to carry, and if we are stopped it might be observed."
"Take the dead," Sookdee commanded the Bagrees; "lay them out; take down the tents that are over the pits, and by that time I will be there to count these dead things in the way of surety that not one has escaped with the tale.
"Come," he said to Hunsa, "together we will go to the iron box and open it; then there can be no suspicion that the men of Alwar have been defrauded."
Hunsa turned malignant eyes upon Sookdee, but, keys in hand, strode toward the tent.
Sookdee, thrusting in the fire a torch made from the feathery bark of the _kujoor_ tree, followed.
Hunsa kneeling before the iron box was fitting the keys into the double locks. Then he drew the lids backward, and the two gasped at a glitter of precious stones that lay beneath a black velvet cloth Hunsa stripped from the gems.
Sookdee cried out in wonderment; and Hunsa, slobbering gutturals of avarice, patted the gems with his gorilla paws. He lifted a large square emerald entwined in a tracery of gold, delicate as the criss-cross of a spider's web, and held it to his thick lips.
"A bribe for a princess!" he gloated. "Take you this, Sookdee, and hide it as you would your life, for a gift to the son of the Peshwa, who, methinks, is behind the Dewan in this, we will be men of honour. And this"--a gleaming diamond in a circlet of gold--"for Sirdar Baptiste," and he rolled it in his loin cloth. "And this,"--a string of pearls, that as he laid it on the black velvet was like the tears of angels,--"This for the fat pig of a Dewan to set his four wives at each other's throats. Let not the others know of these, Sookdee, of these that we have taken for the account."
Suddenly there was a clamour of voices, cries, the clang of swords, the sharp crash of a shot, and the two jamadars, startled, eyes staring, stood with ears cocked toward the tumult.
"Soldiers!" Sookdee gasped. His hand brushed Hunsa's bare arm as he thrust it into the chest and brought it forth clasping jewels, which he tied in a knot of his waistcloth. "Take you something, Hunsa, and lock the box till we see," he said darting from the tent.