“Well?”

“Are you marching north, sahib?”

“I have not determined yet.”

“Determined, sahib!  This is no hour for dallying!  Give orders now!  Up!  Strike, sahib!  Listen!  Should you march on Jailpore, the mutineers, who far outnumber you, will learn beforehand of your coming, and will put the place in a state of defense.  It may take you weeks to fight your way in!  Leave Jailpore, and those who are left in it to me, and lend me that non-commissioned officer of yours who guards the crossroads, and his twelve men.  With a few, we can manage what a whole division might fail to do.  And you march north, sahib, and burn and harry and slay!  Strike quickly, where the trouble is yet brewing, and not where the day is lost already!”

It was case of the British power in India on one side of the scale, against three women and a child on the other; sentiment in the balance against strategy.  And strategy must win, especially since this Rajput was offering his services.

“What are their names, you say?”

“Mrs. Leslie, wife of Captain Leslie; Mrs. Standish, wife of Colonel Standish and mother of Mrs. Leslie; Mrs. Leslie’s child—­I know not his name, he is but a child in arms—­and the child’s nurse.”

The general still found it difficult to make up his mind.

“What proof have I of you?” he asked.

“Sahib, my honor is in question!  I have a debt to pay!”

“What debt?”

“To the Raj.”

“To the Raj?”

“Aye, Sahib!  I have but one son, and his life was saved for me by a British soldier.  A life for a life.  Four lives for a life.  I ride!  I need, though, a fresh horse.  And I ask for the loan of that sergeant, and those twelve men.”

“I wonder whether a man such as you can realize exactly what it means to us to know that white women are in Jailpore, at the mercy of black mutineers?  I mean, are you sufficiently aware of the extreme horror of the situation?”

“Knew you Captain Collins Sahib, of the Jailpore command?”

“Know him well.”

“Knew you his memsahib?”

“She was a niece of mine.”

“I slew her myself, with this sword!”

“When?  Why?”

“Yesterday.  Because her husband could not get to her himself, and since he and I knew each other, and he trusted me.  I said to her, `Memsahib!  I have your husband’s orders!’ She asked me `What orders, Juggut Khan?’ I said, `Why ask me, memsahib?  Is my task easier, or yours?’ She said `Obey your orders, Juggut Khan, and accept my thanks now, since I shall be unable to thank you afterward!’ And then she looked me bravely in the face, and met her death, sahib.  Of a truth I know!  I am to be trusted!”

“I believe you, Juggut Khan.  And, incidentally, I beg your pardon for having doubted you.  Have you slept ?”

“Nay, Sahib.  And I sleep not on this side of the crossroads!”