forward like a stab of lightning only cut the cheek beneath the eye, and
slit it to the corner of his mouth.

The blood poured down into his beard and added fury to determination.

"Guards, break in the gate!" he shouted, and Yasmini stood back in the
darkest shadow, about as dangerous as a cobra guarding young ones.
With her left hand she signed to all six women to hide themselves;
but Tess came and stood beside her, minded in that minute to give
Gungadhura Western aftermath to reckon with as well as the combined
present courage of two women. Wondering desperately what she
could do to help against armed men she suddenly snatched one of
the long hat-pins that she herself had adjusted in her own hat on
Yasmini's head.

Yasmini hugged her close and kissed her.

"Better than sister! Better than friend!" she whispered.

Gungadhura had not been idle while he waited for his message to reach
Yasmini, but had sent some of the guard to find a baulk of timber for
a battering-ram. The butts of rifles would have been useless against
that stout iron.

The gate shook now under the weight of the first assault, but the guards
were handling the timber clumsily, not using their strength together.
Gungadhura cursed them, and spent two valuable minutes trying to
show them how the trick should be worked, the blood that poured into
his beard, and made of his mouth a sputtering crimson mess, not helping
to make his raging orders any more intelligible.