After another talk with me Ranjoor Singh was to horse and away with his forty an hour before daybreak, the Turkish officer riding bareback in Syrian clothes between the four who had been set to guard him.  And the sound of the departing hooves had scarcely ceased drumming down the valley when the men left behind with me began to put me to a test.  Abraham was near me, and I saw him tremble and change color.  Sikh troopers are not little baa-lambs, sahib, to be driven this and that way with a twig!  Tugendheim, too, ready to preach mutiny and plunder, was afraid to begin lest they turn and tear him first.  He listened with both ears, and watched with both eyes, but kept among his Syrians.

“Whither has he gone?” the men demanded, gathering round me where I stooped to feel my horse’s forelegs.  And I satisfied myself the puffiness was due to neither splint nor ring-bone before I answered.  There was just a little glimmer of the false dawn, and what with that and the dying fires we could all see well enough.  I could see trouble—­out of both eyes.

“Whither rides Ranjoor Singh?” they demanded.

“Whither we follow!” said I, binding a strip from a Syrian’s loin-cloth round the horse’s leg. (What use had the Syrian for it now that he wore uniform?  And it served the horse well.)

A trooper took me by the shoulder and drew me upright.  At another time he should have been shot for impudence, but I had learned a lesson from Ranjoor Singh too recently to let temper get the better of me.

“Thou art afraid!” said I.  “Thy hand on my shoulder trembles!”

The man let his hand fall and laughed to show himself unafraid.  Before he could think of an answer, twenty others had thrust him aside and confronted me.

“Whither rides Ranjoor Singh?  Whither does he ride?” they asked.  “Make haste and tell us!”

“Would ye bring him back?” said I, wondering what to say.  Ranjoor Singh had told me little more than that we were drawing near the neighborhood of danger, and that I was to follow warily along his track.  “God will put true thoughts in your heart,” he told me, “if you are a true man, and are silent, and listen.”  His words were true.  I did not speak until I was compelled.  Consider the sequel, sahib.

“Ye have talked these days past,” said I, “of nothing but loot—­ loot—­loot!  Ye have lusted like wolves for lowing cattle!  Yet now ye ask me whither rides Ranjoor Singh!  Whither should he ride?  He rides to find bees for you whose stings have all been drawn, that ye may suck honey without harm!  He rides to find you victims that can not strike back!  Sergeant Tugendheim,” said I, “see that your Syrians do not fall over one another’s rifles!  March in front with them,” I ordered, “that we may all see how well you drill them!  Fall in, all!” said I, “and he who wishes to be camp guard when the looting begins, let him be slow about obeying!”