Then, down in the hollow we saw many little campfires, each one reflected in the water.  Some Turks and about fifty men of another nation sat up and rubbed their eyes, and a Turkish captain—­an upstanding flabby man, came out from the only tent to learn what the trouble might be.  Ranjoor Singh strode down into the hollow and enlightened him, we standing around the rim of the rise with our bayonets fixed and rifles at the “ready.”  I did not hear what Ranjoor Singh said to the Turkish captain because he left me to prevent the men from stampeding toward the smell of food—­no easy task.

After five minutes he shouted for Tugendheim, and the German went down the slope visibly annoyed by the four guards who kept their bayonets within a yard of his back.  It was a fortunate circumstance for us, not only then but very many times, that Tugendheim would have thought himself disgraced by appealing to a Turk.  Seeing there was no German officer in the hollow, he adopted his arrogant manner, and the Turkish officer drew back from him like a man stung.  After that the Turkish captain appeared to resign himself to impotence, for he ordered his men to pile arms and retired into his tent.

Then Ranjoor Singh came up the slope and picked the twenty men who seemed least ready to drop with weariness, of whom I regretted to be one.  He set us on guard where the Turkish sentries had been, and the Turks were sent below, where presently they fell asleep among their brethren, as weary, no doubt, from plundering as we were from marching on empty bellies.  None of them seemed annoyed to be disarmed.  Strange people!  Fierce, yet strangely tolerant!

Then all the rest of the men, havildars no whit behind the rest, swooped down on the camp-fires, and presently the smell of toasting corn began to rise, until my mouth watered and my belly yearned.  Fifteen or twenty minutes later (it seemed like twenty hours, sahib!) hot corn was brought to us and we on guard began to be new men.  Nevertheless, food made the guard more sleepy, and I was hard put to it walking from one to another keeping them awake.

All that night I knew nothing of what passed in the camp below, but I learned later on that Ranjoor Singh found among the Syrians whose business was to load and drive carts a man named Abraham.  All in the camp who were not Turks were Syrians, and these Syrians had been dragged away from their homes scores of leagues away and made to labor without remuneration.  This Abraham was a gifted man, who had been in America, and knew English, as well as several dialects of Kurdish, and Turkish and Arabic and German.  He knew better German than English, and had frequently been made to act interpreter.  Later, when we marched together, he and I became good friends, and he told me many things.

Well, sahib, after he had eaten a little corn, Ranjoor Singh questioned this man Abraham, and then went with him through the camp, examining the plunder the Turks had seen fit to requisition.  It was plain that this particular Turkish officer was no paragon of all the virtues, and Ranjoor Singh finally entered his tent unannounced, taking Abraham with him.  So it was that I learned the details later, for Abraham told me all I asked.