Given a British commanding officer—­just one British officer—­even a little young one—­one would have been enough—­it would have been hard to find better backing for him.  Even Gooja Singh would scarcely have failed a British leader.  But not only was the feeling still strong against Ranjoor Singh; there was another cloud in the sky.  Did the sahib ever lay his hands on loot?  No?  Ah!  Love of that runs in the blood, and crops out generation after generation!

Until the British came and overthrew our Sikh kingdom—­and that was not long ago—­loot was the staff of life of all Sikh armies.  In those days when an army needed pay there was a war.  Now, except for one month’s pay that, as I have told, the Germans had given us, we had seen no money since the day when we surrendered in that Flanders trench; and what the Germans gave us Ranjoor Singh took away, in order to bribe the captain of a Turkish ship.  And Gooja Singh swore morning, noon and night that as prisoners of war we should not be entitled to pay from the British in any event, even supposing we could ever contrive to find the British and rejoin them.

“Let us loot, then, and pay ourselves!” was the unanimous verdict, I being about the only one who did not voice it.  I claim no credit.  I saw no loot, so what was the use of talking?  We were crossing a desert where a crow could have found small plunder.  But being by common consent official go-between I rode to Ranjoor Singh’s side and told him what the men were saying.

“Aye,” he nodded, not so much as looking sidewise, “any one would know they are saying that.  What say the Turk and Tugendheim?”

“Loot, too!” said I, and he grunted.

It was this way, sahib.  Our Turkish officer prisoner was always put with his forty men to march in front—­behind our advance guard but in front of the carts and infantry.  Thus there was no risk of his escaping, because for one thing he had no saddle and rode with much discomfort and so unsafely that he preferred to march on foot more often than not; and for another, that arrangement left him never out of sight of nearly all of us.  One of us daffadars would generally march beside him, and some of the Syrian muleteers had learned English either in Egypt or the Levant ports, so that there was no lack of interpreters.  I myself have marched beside the Turk for miles and miles on end, with Abraham translating for us.

“Why not loot?  Who can prevent you?  Who shall call you to account?” was the burden of the Turk’s song.

And Tugendheim, who spoke our tongue fluently, marched as a rule among the men, or rode with the mounted men, watched day and night by the four troopers who had charge of him—­better mounted than he, and very mindful of their honor in the matter.  He made himself as agreeable as he could, telling tales about his life in India—­not proper tales to tell to a sahib, but such as to make the troopers laugh; so that finally the things he said began to