“Are all of you Rajputs loyal?” asked Brown.

“I know not.  I know that I myself shall stay loyal until the end!”

“Well—­the end is not in doubt.  There can only be one end!” commented Brown.

“Of a truth, sahib, I believe that you are right.  There can only be one end.  This night is not more black, this horizon is no shorter, than the outlook!”

“Then, you mean—­”

“I mean, sahib, that this uprising is more serious than you—­or any other Englishman—­is likely to believe.  I believe that the side I fight for will be the losing side.”

“And yet, you stay loyal?”

“Why not?”

“All the same, Juggut Khan—­I’m not emotional, or a man of many words.  I don’t trust Indians as a rule!  I—­but—­here—­will you shake hands?”

“Certainly, sahib!” said the Rajput.  “We be two men, you and I!  Why should the one be loyal and the other not?”

“When this is over,” said Brown, “if it ends the way we want, and we’re both alive, I’d like to call myself your friend!”

“I have always been your friend, sahib, and you mine, since the day when you bandaged up a boy and gave him your own drinking-water and carried him in to Bholat on your shoulder, twenty miles or more.”

“Oh, as for that—­any other man would have done the same thing.  That was nothing!”

“Strange that when a white man does an honorable deed he lies about it!” said Juggut Khan.  “That was not nothing, sahib, and you know it was not nothing!  You know that from the heat and the exertion you were ill for more than a month afterward.  And you know that there were others there, of my own people, who might have done what you did, and did not!”

“But, hang it all!  Why drag up a little thing like this?”

“Because, sahib, I might have no other opportunity, and—­”

“Well?  And what?”

“And the Rajput boy whom you carried was my son!”

III.

The finding of a remount for Juggut Khan was not so troublesome as might have been supposed.  The rumors and plans and whispered orders for the coming struggle had been passed around the countryside for months past, and every man who owned a horse had it stalled safely near him, for use when the hour should come.

There were country-ponies and Arabs and Kathiawaris and Khaubulis among which to pick, and though the average run of them was worse than merely bad, and though both best and worst were hidden away whenever possible, good horses were discoverable.  Within an hour, Bill Brown; with the aid of his men, had routed out a Khaubuji stallion for Juggut Khan, one fit to carry him against time the whole of the way to Bholat.

The Rajput mounted him where Brown unearthed him, and watched the signing of a scribbled-out receipt with a cynical smile.

“If he comes to claim his money for the horse,” said Juggut Khan, “I—­even I, who am penniless—­will pay him.  Good-by, Brown sahib!” He leaned over and grasped the sergeant by the hand.  “Take my advice, now.  I know what is happening and what has happened.  Fall back on Bholat at once.  Hurry!  Seize horses or even asses for your men, and ride in hotfoot.  Salaam!”