hall wear the rags of a driver of mules if you talk any more
about loot to your men or mine!" said Ranjoor Singh. "If I proposed
to loot, I would bury you for a beginning, lest there be nothing for
the rest of us!"

He made Abraham translate that into Turkish, lest the full gist of
it be lost, and I sat comparing the two men. It was strange to see
what a change the uniform made in Abraham's appearance--what a
change, too, came over the Turk. Had I not known, I could never have
guessed the positions had once been reversed. Abraham looked like an
officer. The Turk looked like a peasant. He was a big up-standing
man, although with pouches under his eyes that gave the lie to his
look of strength. Now for the first time Ranjoor Singh set a picked
guard over him, calling out the names of four troopers who came
hurrying uphill through the dark.

"Let your honor and this man's ward be one!" said he, and they
answered "Our honor be it!"

He could not have chosen better if he had lined up the regiment and
taken half a day. Those four were troopers whom I myself had singled
out as men to be depended on when a pinch should come, and I
wondered that Ranjoor Singh should so surely know them, too.

"Take him and keep him!" he ordered, and they went off, not at all
sorry to be excused from other duties, as now of course they must
be. Counting the four who guarded Tugendheim, that made a total of
eight troopers probably incorruptible, for there is nothing, sahib,
that can compare with imposing a trust when it comes to making sure
of men's good faith. Hedge them about with precautions and they will
revolt or be half-hearted; impose open trust in them, and if they be
well-chosen they will die true.

"Now," said he to me when they were out of hearing, "I shall take
with me one daffadar, one naik, and forty mounted men. Sometimes I
shall take Abraham, sometimes Tugendheim, sometimes the Turk. This
time I shall take the Turk, and before dawn I shall be gone. Let it
be known that the best behaved of those I leave with you shall be
promoted to ride with me--just as my unworthy ones shall be degraded
to march on foot with you. That will help a little."

"Aye," said I, "a little. Which daffadar will you take? That will
help more!" said I.

"Gooja Singh," he answered, and I marveled.

"Sahib," I said, "take him out of sight and bury his body! Make an
end!" I urged. "In Flanders they shot men against a wall for far
less than he has talk