CHAPTER XXXI.
The freed wolf limped home to his lair, And lay to lick his sore.
With wrinkled lip and fangs agnash-- With back-laid ear and eyes aflash-- "Twas something rather more than rash To turn me loose!" he swore.
NOW Jaimihr fondly thought he held a few cards up his sleeve when he made his bargain with Rosemary McClean and let himself be lowered from the Alwa-sahib's rock.

He knew, better probably than any one except his brother and the priests, how desperate the British situation had become throughout all India at an instant's notice, and he made his terms accordingly.
He did not believe, in the first place, that there would be any British left to succor by the time matters had been settled sufficiently in Howrah to enable him to dare leave the city at his rear.

Afterward, should it seem wise, he would have no objection in the world to riding to the aid of a Company that no longer existed.
In the second place, he entertained no least compunction about breaking his word completely in every particular.

He knew that the members of the little band on Alwa's rock would keep their individual and collective word, and therefore that Rosemary McClean would come to him.

He suspected, though, that there would prove to be a rider of some sort to her agreement as regarded marrying him, for he had young Cunningham in mind; and he knew enough of Englishmen from hearsay and deduction to guess that Cunningham would interject any obstacle his ingenuity could devise.
Natives of India do not like Englishmen to marry their women.