“Sahib,” said I, standing out alone before the men, not facing him, but near one end of the line, so that I could raise my voice with propriety and all the men might hear.  He backed away, to give more effect to that arrangement.  “Sahib,” I said, “we are in a trap.  Either we go to the mines, or we fight for the Germans against the British.  What is your word on the matter?”

“Ho!” said he.  “Is it as bad as that?  As bad as that?” said he.  “If ye go to the mines to dig coal, they will use that coal to make ammunition for their guns!  That seems a poor alternative!  They fight as much with ammunition as with men!”

“Sahib,” said I, “it is worse than that!  They seek to compel us to sign a paper, forswearing our allegiance to Great Britain and claiming allegiance to them!  Should we sign it, that makes us out traitors in the first place, and makes us amenable to their law in the second place.  They could shoot us if we disobeyed or demurred.”

“They could do that in the mines,” said he, “if you failed to dig enough coal to please them.  They would call it punishment for malingering—­or some such name.  If they take it into their heads to have you all shot, doubt not they will shoot!”

“Yet in that case,” said I, “we should not be traitors.”

“I will tell you a story,” said he, and we held our breath to listen, for this was his old manner.  This had ever been his way of putting recruits at ease and of making a squadron understand.  In that minute, for more than a minute, men forgot they had ever suspected him.

“When I was a little one,” said he, “my mother’s aunt, who was an old hag, told me this tale.  There was a pack of wolves that hunted in a forest near a village.  In the village lived a man who wished to be headman.  Abdul was his name, and he had six sons.  He wished to be headman that he might levy toll among the villagers for the up-keep of his sons, who were hungry and very proud.  Now Abdul was a cunning hunter, and his sons were strong.  So he took thought, and chose a season carefully, and set his sons to dig a great trap.  And so well had Abdul chosen—­so craftily the six sons digged—­that one night they caught all that wolf-pack in the trap.  And they kept them in the trap two days and a night, that they might hunger and thirst and grow amenable.

“Then Abdul leaned above the pit, and peered down at the wolves and began to bargain with them.  ‘Wolves,’ said he, ’your fangs be long and your jaws be strong, and I wish to be headman of this village.’  And they answered, ’Speak, Abdul, for these walls be high, and our throats be dry, and we wish to hunt again!’ So he bade them promise that if he let them go they would seek and slay the present headman and his sons, so that he might be headman in his place.  And the wolves promised.  Then when he had made them swear by a hundred oaths in a hundred different ways, and had bound them to keep faith by God and by earth and sky and sea and by all the holy things he could remember, he stood aside and bade his six sons free the wolves.