ed about!"

"Flanders is one place and this another," he answered. "Should I
make those good men more distrustful than they are? Should I shoot
Gooja Singh unless I am afraid of him?"

I said no more because I knew he was right. If he should shoot Gooja
Singh the troopers would ascribe it to nothing else than fear. A
British officer might do it and they would say, "Behold how he
scorns to shirk responsibility!" Yet of Ranjoor Singh they would
have said, "He fears us, and behold the butchery begins! Who shall
be next?" Nevertheless, had I stood in his shoes, I would have shot
and buried Gooja Singh to forestall trouble. I would have shot Gooja
Singh and the Turk and Tugendheim all three with one volley. And the
Turk's forty men would have met a like fate at the first excuse. But
that is because I was afraid, whereas Ranjoor Singh was not. I
greatly feared being left behind to bring the men along, and the
more I thought of it, the worse the prospect seemed; so I began to
tell of things I had heard Gooja Singh say against him, and which of
the men I had heard and seen to agree, for there is no good sense in
a man who is afraid.

"Is it my affair to take vengeance on them, or to lead them into
safety?" he asked. And what could I answer?

After some silence he spread out his map where firelight shone on it
and showed Abraham and me where the Tigris River runs by Diarbekr.
"Thus," he said, "we must go," pointing with his finger, "and thus--and
thus--by Diarbekr, down by the Tigris, by Mosul, into Kurdistan,
to Sulimanieh, and thence into Persia--a very long march through
very wild country. Outside the cities I am told no Turk dare show
himself with less than four hundred men at his back, so we will keep
to the open. If the Turks mistake us for Turks, the better for us.
If the tribes mistake us for Turks, the worse for us; for they say
the tribes hate Turks worse than smallpox. If they think we are
Turks they will attack us. We need ride warily."

"It would take more Turks than there are," I said, "to keep our
ruffians from trying to plunder the first city they see! And as for
tribes--they are in a mood to join with any one who will help make
trouble!"

"Then it may be," he answered quietly, "that they will not lack
exercise! Follow me and lend a hand!" And he led down toward the
camp-fires, where very few men slept and voices rose upward like the
noise of a quarrelsome waterfall.

Just as on that night when we captu