Aye, sahib!  There and then, without excuse or explanation, he made the Turkish officer remove his clothes and change with Abraham; and I never saw a man more unwilling or resentful!  Abraham had told me all about Turkish treatment of Syrians, and it is the way of the world that men most despise those whom they most ill-treat.  So that although Turks have no caste distinctions that I know of, that one felt like a high-caste Brahman ordered to change garments with a sweeper.  He looked as if he would infinitely rather die.

“Hurry!” Ranjoor Singh ordered him in English.

“HURRIET?” said the Turk.  HURRIET is their Turkish for liberty.  All the troops in Stamboul used it constantly, and Ranjoor Singh told me it means much the same as the French cry of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!” The Turk seemed bewildered, and opened his eyes wider than ever; but whatever his thoughts were about “HURRIET” he rightly interpreted the look in Ranjoor Singh’s eye and obeyed, grimacing like a monkey as he drew on Abraham’s dirty garments.

“You shall wear the rags of a driver of mules if you talk any more about loot to your men or mine!” said Ranjoor Singh.  “If I proposed to loot, I would bury you for a beginning, lest there be nothing for the rest of us!”

He made Abraham translate that into Turkish, lest the full gist of it be lost, and I sat comparing the two men.  It was strange to see what a change the uniform made in Abraham’s appearance—­what a change, too, came over the Turk.  Had I not known, I could never have guessed the positions had once been reversed.  Abraham looked like an officer.  The Turk looked like a peasant.  He was a big up-standing man, although with pouches under his eyes that gave the lie to his look of strength.  Now for the first time Ranjoor Singh set a picked guard over him, calling out the names of four troopers who came hurrying uphill through the dark.

“Let your honor and this man’s ward be one!” said he, and they answered “Our honor be it!”

He could not have chosen better if he had lined up the regiment and taken half a day.  Those four were troopers whom I myself had singled out as men to be depended on when a pinch should come, and I wondered that Ranjoor Singh should so surely know them, too.

“Take him and keep him!” he ordered, and they went off, not at all sorry to be excused from other duties, as now of course they must be.  Counting the four who guarded Tugendheim, that made a total of eight troopers probably incorruptible, for there is nothing, sahib, that can compare with imposing a trust when it comes to making sure of men’s good faith.  Hedge them about with precautions and they will revolt or be half-hearted; impose open trust in them, and if they be well-chosen they will die true.

“Now,” said he to me when they were out of hearing, “I shall take with me one daffadar, one naik, and forty mounted men.  Sometimes I shall take Abraham, sometimes Tugendheim, sometimes the Turk.  This time I shall take the Turk, and before dawn I shall be gone.  Let it be known that the best behaved of those I leave with you shall be promoted to ride with me—­just as my unworthy ones shall be degraded to march on foot with you.  That will help a little.”