r me--and I brought
away two from Bholat. One of them carried me more than fifty miles, and
then I changed to this one, leaving the other on the road. I have orders
for you, sahib."

"Hand 'em over then," said Brown. "Orders first, and talk afterward,
when there's time!"

The Rajput drew out a sealed envelope, and passed it to him. Brown tore
it open, and read the message, scowling at the half-sheet of paper as
though it were a death-sentence.

"Where's the general?"

"With his column-twenty or thirty miles away to the northward by now!"

"And he's left me, with this handful, in the lurch?"

"Nay, sahib! As I understood the orders, he has left you with a very
honorable mission to fulfil!"

Brown stared hard at the half-sheet of notepaper again. Reading was not
his longest suit by any means, and at that he infinitely preferred to
wrestle with printed characters.

"Have you read it, Juggut Khan?" he asked.

"Nay, sahib. I can speak English, but not read it."

"Then we're near to being in the same boat, we two!" said Brown with
a grin. "I'll have another try! It looks like a good-by message to
me--here's the word 'good-by' written at the end above his signature."

"There were other matters, sahib. There was an order. I can not read,
but I know what is in the message."

"Well?"

"You, and your twelve--"

"Nine!" corrected Brown.

"Three dead?"

Brown nodded.

"Your nine, then, sahib, and you and I are to proceed immediately
to Jailpore, and to gain an entrance if we can, rescue those whom I
concealed there and bring them to Harumpore, or to the northward of
Harumpore, wherever we can find the column."

"Eleven men are to attempt that?"

Brown was studying out the letter word by word, and discovering to his
amazement that its purport was exactly what Juggut Khan pretended.

"If there are no more than eleven of us, then yes, eleven! And, sahib,
since you seem to hold at least an island here where a man may lie down
unmolested, I propose to sleep for an hour or two, before proceeding. I
have had no sleep since I left Jailpore."

"Nothing of the sort!" said Brown. "If we're to march on Jailpore, off
we go at once! You can sleep on the road, my son! It's time we paid a
visit to that village, I'm thinking. Those treacherous brutes need a
lesson. I'd have been down there before, only I wanted to be in full
view of the road in case anybody came looking for me from Bholat. We'll
need a wagon for the faki