He was one great bruise from head to foot from hailstones, yet with all he had to think about and all his aches, he had understanding enough to spare for my little problem.  He saw at once that he must punish the man in order to convince him his account with me was settled.

“Be driver of asses,” he ordered, “until we reach Persia!  There were five asses.  One is dead.  It is good we have another to replace the fifth!”

There goes the trooper, sahib—­he yonder with the limp.  He and I are as good friends to-day as daffadar and trooper can be, but he would have slain me to save himself from vengeance unless Ranjoor Singh had punished him that night.  But my tale is not of that trooper, nor of myself.  I tell of Ranjoor Singh.  Consider him, sahib, seated on the dead ass beside ten chests of captured gold, with scarcely a man of us fit to help him or obey an order, and himself bleeding in fifty places where the hail had pierced his skin.  We were drenched and numbed, with the spirit beaten out of us; yet I tell you he wiped the blood from his nose and beard and made us save ourselves!

CHAPTER VIII

Once in a lifetime.  Once is enough! 
—­Hira Singh.

Well, sahib, our journey was not nearly at an end, but my tale is; I can finish it by sundown.  After that fight there was no more doubt of us; we were one again—­one in our faith in our leader, and with men so minded such a man as Ranjoor Singh can make miracles seem like details of a day’s work.

Turks who had been bayoneted and Turks slain by hailstones lay all about us, and we should have been dead, too, only that the hail was in our backs.  As it was, ten of our men lay killed and more than thirty stunned, some of whom did not recover.  Our little Greek doctor announced himself too badly injured to help any one, but when Ranjoor Singh began to choose a firing party for him, he changed his mind.

The four living donkeys were too bruised by the hail to bear a load, but the Turks had had some mules with them and we loaded our dead and wounded on those, gathered up the plunder, told off four troopers to each chest of gold, and dragged ourselves away.  It was essential that we get back to the hills before dawn should disclose our predicament, for whatever Kurds should chance to spy us would never have been restrained by promises or by ritual of friendship from taking prompt advantage.  A savage is a savage.

The moon came out from behind clouds, and we cursed it, for we did not want to be seen.  It shone on a world made white with hail—­on a stricken camp—­dead animals—­dead men.  We who had swept down from the hills like the very spirit of the storm itself returned like a funeral cortege, all groaning, chilled to the bone by the searching wind, and it was beginning to be dawn when the last man dragged himself between the boulders into our camping ground.  We looked so little like victors that the Syrians sent up a wail and Tugendheim began tugging at his mustaches, but Ranjoor Singh set them at once to feeding and grooming animals and soon disillusioned them as to the outcome of the night.