Well, sahib, some laughed and some did not.  The most dangerous said nothing.  But they all obeyed, and that was the main thing.  Not more than an hour and a half after Ranjoor Singh had ridden off our carts were squeaking and bumping along behind us.  And within an hour after that we were in action!  Aye, sahib, I should say it was less than an hour after the start when I halted to serve out ten cartridges apiece to the Syrians, that Tugendheim might blood them and get himself into deeper water at the same time.  He was angry that I would not give him more cartridges, but I told him his men would waste those few, so why should I not be frugal?  When the time came I don’t think the Syrians hit anything, but they filled a gap and served a double purpose; for after Tugendheim had let them blaze away those ten rounds a piece there was less fear than ever of his daring to attempt escape.  Thenceforward his prospects and ours were one.  But my tale goes faster than the column did, that could travel no faster than the slowest man and the weakest mule.

We were far in among the hills now—­little low hills with broad open spaces between, in which thousands of cattle could have grazed.  Only there were no cattle.  I rode, as Ranjoor Singh usually did, twenty or thirty horses’ length away on the right flank, well forward, where I could see the whole column with one quick turn of the head.  I had ten troopers riding a quarter of a mile in front, and a rear-guard of ten more, but none riding on the flanks because to our left the hills were steep and impracticable and to our right I could generally see for miles, although not always.

We dipped into a hollow, and I thought I heard rifle shots.  I urged my horse uphill, and sent him up a steep place from the top of which I had a fine view.  Then I heard many shots, and looked, and lo a battle was before my eyes.  Not a great battle—­really only a skirmish, although to my excited mind it seemed much more at first.  And the first one I recognized taking his part in it was Ranjoor Singh.

I could see no infantry at all.  About a hundred Turkish cavalry were being furiously attacked by sixty or seventy mounted men who looked like Kurds, and who turned out later really to be Kurds.  The Kurds were well mounted, riding recklessly, firing from horseback at full gallop and wasting great quantities of ammunition.

The shooting must have been extremely bad, for I could see neither dead bodies nor empty saddles, but nevertheless the Turks appeared anxious to escape—­the more so because Ranjoor Singh with his forty men was heading them off.  As I watched, one of them blew a trumpet and they all retreated helter-skelter toward us—­straight toward us.  There was nothing else they could do, now that they had given way.  It was like the letter Y—­thus, sahib,—­see, I draw in the dust—­the Kurds coming this way at an angle—­Ranjoor Singh and his forty coming this way—­and we advancing toward them all along the bottom stroke of the Y, with hills around forming an arena.  The best the Turks could do would have been to take the higher ground where we were and there reform, except for the fact that we had come on the scene unknown to them.  Now that we had arrived, they were caught in a trap.