While he spoke a little child died not a hundred yards away from where I lay.  Its mother lay by it and wept, but a Turk spurred down and skewered the child’s body on his lance, tossing it into the midst of a score of others who went forward dumbly.  Another Turk riding along behind him thrashed the woman to her feet.

“That ought to do,” said Ranjoor Singh, crawling backward out of sight and then getting to his feet.  Then he called us, and we all crawled backward to the rear edge of the ridge.  And there at last we stood facing him.  I saw Gooja Singh whispering in Anim Singh’s great ear.  Ranjoor Singh saw it too.

“Stand forth, Gooja Singh!” he ordered.  And Gooja Singh stood a little forward from the others, half-truculent and half-afraid.

“What do you want?” asked Ranjoor Singh.  “Of what were you whispering?” But Gooja Singh did not answer.

“No need to tell me!” said Ranjoor Singh.  “I know!  Ye all seek leave to loot!  As sons of THALUKDARS [Footnote:  Land holder]—­as trusted soldiers of the raj—­as brave men—­honorable men—­ye seek to prove yourselves!”

They gasped at him—­all of them, Tugendheim included.  I tell you he was a brave man to stand and throw that charge in the teeth of such a regiment, not one man of whom reckoned himself less than gentleman.  I looked to my pistol and made ready to go and die beside him, for I saw that he had chosen his own ground and intended there and then to overcome or fail.

“Lately but one thought has burned in all your hearts,” he told them.  “Loot!  Loot!  Loot!  Me ye have misnamed friend of Germany—­ friend of Turkey—­enemy of Britain!  Yourselves ye call honorable men!”

“Why not?” asked Gooja Singh, greatly daring because the men were looking to him to answer for them.  “Hitherto we have done no shameful thing!”

“No shameful thing?” said Ranjoor Singh.  “Ye have called me traitor behind my back, yet to my face ye have obeyed me these weeks past.  Ye have used me while it served your purpose, planning to toss me aside at the first excuse.  Is that not shameful?  Now we reach the place where ye must do instead of talk.  Below is the plunder ye have yearned for, and here stand I, between it and you!”

“We have yearned for no such plunder as that!” said Gooja Singh, for the men would have answered unless he did, and he, too, was minded to make his bid for the ascendency.

“No?” said Ranjoor Singh. “‘No carrion for me!’ said the jackal.  ’I only eat what a tiger killed!’”

He folded his arms and stood quite patiently.  None could mistake his meaning.  There was to be, one way or the other, a decision reached on that spot as to who sought honor and who sought shame.  He himself submitted to no judgment.  It was the regiment that stood on trial!  A weak man would have stood and explained himself.

Presently Ramnarain Singh, seeing that Gooja Singh was likely to get too much credit with the men, took up the cudgels and stood forward.