"Am-ma!" came Erda's voice again, and there was a hush and yet a triumph in it, "to the right--steer to the right." The raft edged slowly towards the ray, but the soldiers still crouched inactive; awed, yet not certain. Then suddenly that quick crack of George Dillon's first shot echoed over the river, then the yell, then the answering shots. And following on their heels rapidly came a stir among those crouching figures, and one of them stood up excitedly--"It has begun!--see you, Prag! Lehna, give the boatman a hand! Lo! do as the Miss-_baba_ bade thee, quickly, son of a pig! Steer for the light--they have begun!" Erda gave a sigh of relief. _That_ danger was over. CHAPTER XXIV BEYOND THE SHADOW The fact that the quarrel had begun did not, however, have the same effect upon Roshan Khân. In the first tempest of rage and hate which the sight of Laila and Vincent in the balcony had roused in him he had simply let himself go. He had not thought at all. Had his revolver held other cartridges, he would have gone on shooting at Vincent, Pidar Narâyan, at everybody, till he could shoot no more. He had run _â-mak_; that curious phase of the Oriental mind when once it oversteps the hard and fast lines of custom in which it moves and breathes and has its being. The very fact that his revolver did not contain more possibilities for death, that he had no other weapon, emphasized his wild revolt. He was helpless--impotent--before these strangers, who had stolen everything! Everything, save bare existence. This thought, as he burst into the open, into the lurid darkness of the new-come storm, had made him laugh bitterly; for it was only that bare existence which _he_ wished to steal! They might keep the rest; but _that_ he would claim from them somehow, in fair exchange. The time was ripe for such exchange too,--for fair exchange. (The epithet "fair" haunted him, trying to still the keen remorse for that shot in the dark; for one part of him knew it to have been cowardly.) Yes! this useless plot, with foolish mischief hidden in its heart, to which he had just been listening with loyal intent to frustrate it, could be made to serve his purpose without delay. His men would follow him anywhere. He had but to say the word--the word so many of them wanted. Then, those thieves of all that made life worth living would learn a lesson. They would fight and win, of course; but the lesson that without such men as he--men whom they thwarted and repressed at every turn--they could not rely upon their regiments, would have to be learnt. And in the learning, one thief would learn something else. So, without more thought than this desperate clashing of jealousy and despair, he had dashed through the crowd of pilgrims who were waiting for the dawn, gone back to the Fort, and given the word.