It was two days later when they found a hole torn through the thatch, through which she had escaped; and though they searched the house from cellar up to roof, and turned all their small possessions over, they could not find (and they were utterly glad of it) that she had stolen anything.

“Thank God for that!” said the missionary.

“I’ve finished disbelieving in Joanna!” said his daughter with a grimace that went always with irrevocable decision.

“I’ve come to the conclusion,” said McClean, “that there are more than just Joanna to be trusted.  There is Ali Partab, and—­who knows how many?”

CHAPTER XVII

Against all fear; against the weight of what,
For lack of worse name, men miscall the Law;
Against the Tyranny of Creed; against the hot,
Foul Greed of Priest, and Superstition’s Maw;
Against all man-made Shackles, and a man-made Hell—­
Alone—­At last—­Unaided—­

                I rebel!

No single, individual circumstance, but a chain of happenings in very quick succession, brought about a climax, forcing the hand of Howrah and his brother and for the moment drawing the McCleans, father and daughter, into the toothed wheel of Indian action.  As usual in India, the usual brought about the unexpected, and the unexpected fitted strangely into the complex, mysteriously worked-out whole.

Two days after Joanna left the mission house, through a hole made in the thatch, the spirit of revolt took hold of Rosemary McClean again.  The stuffy, narrow quarters—­the insolent, doubled, unexplained, but very obvious, guard that lounged outside—­the sense of rank injustice and helplessness—­the weird feeling of impending horror added onto stale-grown ghastliness—­youth, chafing at the lack of liberty—­ stirred her to action.

Without a word to her father, who was writing reports that seemed endless at the little desk by the shaded window, she left the house—­ drew with a physical effort on all her reserve of strength and health —­faced the scorching afternoon wind, as though it were a foe that could shrink away before her courage, and walked, since she had no pony now, in any direction in which chance or her momentary whim might care to lead her.

“I won’t cry again—­and I won’t submit—­and I’ll see what happens!” she told herself; and the four who followed her at a none-too-respectful distance—­two of the Maharajah’s men in uniform and two shabby-looking ruffians of Jaimihr’s—­grinned as they scented action.  Like their masters they bore no love for one another; they were there now, in fact, as much to watch one another as the missionaries; they detected the possibility of an excuse to be at one another’s throats, and gloated as they saw two messengers, one of either side, run off in a hurry to inform the rival camps.

It was neither plan nor conscious selection that led Rosemary McClean toward the far end of the maidan, where the sluggish, narrow, winding Howrah River sucked slimily beside the burning ghats.  When she realized where her footsteps were leading her she would have turned in horror and retreated, for even a legitimately roasting corpse that died before the Hindoo priests had opportunity to introduce it to the flames is no sight for eyes that are civilized.