“Thy father gave me this,” he told him, producing a gold watch and chain of the hundred-guinea kind that nowadays are only found among the heirlooms.  Young Cunningham looked at it, and recognized the heavy old-gold case that he had been allowed to “blow open” when a little boy.  On the outside, deep-chiseled in the gold, was his father’s crest, and on the inside a portrait of his mother.

“Thy father died in these two arms, bahadur!  Thy father said:  ’Look after him, Mahommed Gunga, when the time is ripe for him to be a soldier.’  And I said:  ‘Ha, huzoor!’ So!  Then here is India!”

He waved one hand grandiloquently, as though he were presenting the throne of India to his protegé!

“Here, sahib, is a servant—­blood of my own blood.”

He clapped his hands, and a man who looked like the big, black-ended spirit of Aladdin’s lamp stood silent, instant, in the doorway.

“He speaks no English, but he may help to teach thee the Rajput tongue, and he will serve thee well—­on my honor.  His throat shall answer for it!  Feed him and clothe him, sahib, but pay him very little—­to serve well is sufficient recompense.”

Young Cunningham gave his keys at once to the silent servant, as a tacit sign that from that moment he was trusted utterly; and Mahommed Gunga nodded grim approval.

“Thy father saw fit to bequeath me much in the hour when death came on him, sahib.  I am no boaster, as he knew.  Remember, then, to tell me if I fail at any time in what is due.  I am at thy service!”

Tact was inborn in Cunningham, as it had been in his father.  He realized that he ought at once to show his appreciation of the high plane of the service offered.

“There is one way in which you could help me almost at once, Mahommed Gunga,” he answered.

“Command me, sahib.”

“I need your advice—­the advice of a man who really knows.  I need horses, and—­at first at least—­I would rather trust your judgment than my own.  Will you help me buy them?”

The Raiput’s eyes blazed pleasure.  On war, and wine, and women, and a horse are the four points to ask a man’s advice and win his approval by the asking.

“Nay, sahib; why buy horses here?  These Bombay traders have only crows’ meat to sell to the ill-advised.  I have horses, and spare horses for the journey; and in Rajputana I have horses waiting for thee—­seven, all told—­sufficient for a young officer.  Six of them are country-bred-sand-weaned—­a little wild perhaps, but strong, and up to thy weight.  The seventh is a mare, got by thy father’s stallion Aga Khan (him that made more than a hundred miles within a day under a fifteen-stone burden, with neither food nor water, and survived!).  A good mare, sahib—­indeed a mare of mares—­fit for thy father’s son.  That mare I give thee.  It is little, sahib, but my best; I am a poor man.  The other six I bought—­there is the account.  I bought them cheaply, paying less than half the price demanded in each case—­but I had to borrow and must pay back.”