A little after midnight there began to be attempts by Turkish soldiers to break through and run for Angora.  But I had kept my twenty guards awake with threats of being made to carry ammunition—­ even letting the butt of my rifle do work not set down in the regulations.  So it came about that we captured every single fugitive.  They were five all told, and I sent them, tied together, down to Ranjoor Singh.  Thereupon he went to the Turk, and promised him personal violence if another of his men should attempt to break away.  So the Turk gave orders that were obeyed.

Then, when all the plunder in the camp had been rearranged, and the mules and horses reapportioned, four hours yet before dawn, Ranjoor Singh took out his fountain-pen and executed the stroke of genius that made what followed possible.  Without Abraham I do not know what he would have done.  I can not imagine.  Yet I feel sure he would have contrived something.  He made use of Abraham as the best tool available, and that is no proof he could not have done as well by other means.  I have learned this:  that Ranjoor Singh, with that faith of his in God, can do anything.  Anything.  He is a true man, and God puts thoughts into his heart.

Among the Turk’s documents were big sheets of paper for official correspondence, similar to that on which his orders were written.  Ranjoor Singh ascertained from Abraham that he who had signed those orders was the German officer highest in command in all that region, who had left Angora a month previously to superintend the requisitioning.

So Ranjoor Singh sent for Tugendheim, whose writing would have the proper clerical appearance, and by a lantern in the tent dictated to him a letter in German to the effect that this Turkish officer, by name Nazim, with all his men and carts and animals, had been diverted to the aid of Wassmuss.  The letter went on to say that on his way back to Angora this same high German officer would himself cover the territory thus left uncared for, so that nothing need be done about it in the meanwhile. (He wrote that to prevent investigation and perhaps pursuit by the men in Angora who waited Nazim and his plunder.)

At the foot of the letter Abraham cleverly copied the signature of the very high German officer, after making many experiments first on another sheet of paper.

Tugendheim of course protested vehemently that he would do no such thing, when ordered to write.  But Ranjoor Singh ordered the barrel of a Turkish soldier’s rifle thrust in the fire, and the German did not protest to the point of permitting his feet to be singed.  He wrote a very careful letter, even suggesting better phraseology—­his reason for that being that, since he was thus far committed, our total escape would be the best thing possible for him.  The Germans, who are so fond of terrifying others, are merciless to their own who happen to be guilty of weak conduct, and to have said he was compelled to write that letter would have been no excuse if we were caught.  Henceforward it was strictly to his interest to help us.