"Shall I take that answer?" said I, and they answered "Yes!"
redoubling their emphasis when I objected. "The Germans do Ranjoor
Singh's thinking for him these days," said one man; "take that
answer and let us see what the Germans have to say to it through his
mouth!"

So I went and told Ranjoor Singh, whispering to him in a corner of
the officers' mess. Some Turks had joined the Germans and most of
them were bending over maps that a German officer had spread upon a
table in their midst; he was lecturing while the others listened.
Ranjoor Singh had been listening, too, but he backed into a corner
as I entered, and all the while I was whispering to him I kept
hearing the word Wassmuss--Wassmuss--Wassmuss. The German who was
lecturing explained something about this Wassmuss.

"What is Wassmuss?" I asked, when I had given Ranjoor Singh the
men's answer. He smiled into my eyes.

"Wassmuss is the key to the door," said he.

"To which door?" I asked him.

"There is only one," he answered.

"Shall I tell that to the men?" said I.

At that he began scowling at me, stroking his beard with one hand.
Then he stepped back and forth a time or two. And when he saw with
the corner of his eye that he had the senior German officer's
attention he turned on me and glared again. There was sudden silence
in the room, and I stood at attention, striving to look like a man
of wood.

"It is as I said," said he in English. "It was most unwise to pay
them. Now the ruffians demand liberty to go and spend--and that
means license! They have been prisoners of war in close confinement
too long. You should have sent them to Gallipoli before they tasted
money or anything else but work! Who shall control such men now!"

The German officer stroked his chin, eying Ranjoor Singh sternly,
yet I thought irresolutely.

"If they would be safer on board a steamer, that can be managed. A
steamer came in to-day, that would do," said he, speaking in
English, perhaps lest the Turks understand. "And there is
Tugendheim, of course. Tugendheim could keep watch on board."

I think he had more to say, but at that minute Ranjoor Singh chose
to turn on me fiercely and order me out of the room.

"Tell them what you have heard!" he said in Punjabi, as if he were
biting my head off, and I expect the German officer believed he had
cursed me. I saluted and ran, and one of the Turkish officers aimed
a kick at me as I passed. It was by the favor of God that the