But, long before details could be seen, it was evident that an army was formed up to meet them on the tree-lined maidan that lay between them and the two-mile-long palace-wall.

Beyond all doubt it was Jaimihr's army, for his elephants were not so gaudily harnessed as Howrah's, and his men were not so brilliantly dressed.
As they dipped into the last depression between them and the wall and halted for a minute's consultation, a khaki-clad, shrivelled figure of a man leaped up from behind a sand-ridge, and raced toward Cunningham, shouting to him in a dialect he had no knowledge of and gesticulating wildly.

A trooper spurred down on him, brought him up all standing with an intercepted lance, examined him through puckered eyes, and then, roaring with laughter, picked him up and carried him to Cunningham.
"A woman, sahib! By the beard of Abraham, a woman!" "Joanna!" "Ha, sahib! Ha, sahib!" She babbled to him, word overtaking word and choking all together in a dust-dry throat.

Cunningham gave her water and then set her on the ground.
"Translate, somebody!" he ordered.

"I can't understand a word she says." Babbled and hurried and a little vague it might be, but Joanna had the news of the minute pat.
"Jaimihr is looting the treasure now, sahib.