r than all the
wealth of Ind!"

He spread his long legs like a pair of scissors and caught a child
between them and lifted him.

"Thou ruffian, thou!" he chuckled. "See how he fights! A true Rajput!
Nay, beat me not. Some day thou too shalt bear a sword for England,
great-grandson mine. Ai-ee! But I grow old."

"For England or the next one!"

"Nay! But for England!" said the Risaldar, setting the child down on his
knee. "And thou too, hot-head. Before a week is past! Think you I called
my sons and grandsons all together for the fun of it? Think you I rode
here through the heat because I needed the exercise or to chatter like
an ape or to stand in the doorway making faces at a Hindu woman or to
watch thee do it? Here I am, and here I stay until yet more news comes!"

"Then are we to wait here? Are we to swelter in Siroeh, eating up our
brother's hospitality, until thy messengers see fit to come and tell us
that this scare of thine is past?"

"Nay!" said the Risaldar. "I said that I wait here! Return now to your
own homes, each of you. But be in readiness. I am old, but I can ride
still. I can round you up. Has any a better horse than mine? If he has,
let him make exchange."

"There will be horses for the looting if this revolt of thine breaks
out!"

"True! There will be horses for the looting! Well, I wait here then and,
when the trouble comes, I can count on thirteen of my blood to carry
swords behind me?"

"Aye, when the trouble comes!"

There was a chorus of assent, and the Risaldar arose to let his sons and
grandsons file past him. He, who had beggared himself to give each one
of them a start in life, felt a little chagrined that they should now
refuse to exchange horses with him; but his eye glistened none the
less at the sight of their stalwart frames and at the thought of what a
fighting unit he could bring to serve the Raj.

"All, then, for England!" he exclaimed.

"Nay, all for thee!" said his eldest-born. "We fight on whichever side
thou sayest!"

"Disloyal one!" growled the Risaldar with a scowl. But he grinned into
his beard.

"Well, to your homes, then--but be ready!"

I.

The midnight jackals howled their discontent while heat-cracked
India writhed in stuffy torment that was only one degree less than
unendurable. Through the stillness and the blackness of the night came
every now and then the high-pitched undulating wails of women, that no
one answered-for, under that Tophet-lid