“One often hears of the dangerous classes in India,” said the Pathan, as the train moved on again.  “You belong to the most dangerous of all.  You and your kind are a danger to the Empire and I have a good mind to be a public benefactor and destroy you.  Put you to the edge of the sword—­or rather of the tin-opener,” and he pulled his lunch-basket from under the seat.

“Have some chicken, little Worm?” he continued, opening the basket and preparing to eat.

“Keep your muck,” replied Horace.

“No, no, little Cad,” corrected the strange and rather terrible person; “you are going to breakfast with me and you are going to learn a few things about India—­and yourself.”

And Horace did....

“Where are you going?” asked the Pathan person later.

“I’m going to work up a bit o’ trade in a place called Gungerpore,” was the reply of the cowed Horace.

But in Gungapur Horace adopted the very last trade that he, respectable man, ever expected to adopt—­that of War.

CHAPTER IV.

“MEET AND LEAVE AGAIN.”

    “So on the sea of life, Alas! 
    Man nears man, meets and leaves again.”

Sec. 1.

It had come.  Ross-Ellison had proved a true prophet (and was to prove himself a true soldier and commander of men).

Possibly the most remarkable thing about it was the quickness and quietness, the naturalness and easiness with which it had come.  A week or two of newspaper forecast and fear, a week or two of recrimination and feverish preparation, an ultimatum—­England at war.  The navy mobilized, the army mobilizing, auxiliaries warned to be in readiness, overseas battalions, batteries and squadrons recalled, or re-distributed, reverses and “regrettable incidents,”—­and outlying parts of India (her native troops massed in the North or doing garrison-duty overseas) an archipelago of safety-islands in a sea of danger; Border parts of India for a time dependent upon their various volunteer battalions for the maintenance, over certain areas, of their civil governance, their political organization and public services.

In Gungapur, as in a few other Border cities, the lives of the European women, children and men, the safety of property, and the continuance of the local civil government depended for a little while upon the local volunteer corps.

Gungapur, whose history became an epitome of that of certain other isolated cities, was for a few short weeks an intermittently besieged garrison, a mark for wandering predatory bands composed of budmashes outlaws, escaped convicts, deserters, and huge mobs drawn from that enormous body of men who live on the margin of respectability, peaceful cultivator today, bloodthirsty dacoit to-morrow, wielders of the spade and mattock or of the lathi and tulwar[63] according to season, circumstance, and the power of the Government; recruits for a mighty army, given the leader and the opportunity—­the hour of a Government’s danger.