re in the pass below us, and our friends
deny them passage. At dawn there will be a fight and our friends
will probably give ground. Two hours before dawn we will march, and
come down behind the Wassmuss men. Be ready!"

The sahib will understand now better what I meant by saying Anim
Singh has ears too big for his head. Because of his big ears, that
could detect a foot-fall in the darkness farther away than any of
us, he had been sent to share the guard with me, and now he came
looming up out of the night to share our counsels; for since the
news of Gooja Singh's defection there was no longer even a pretense
at awkwardness in approaching Ranjoor Singh. Anim Singh had been
among the first to fling distrust to the winds and to make the fact
evident.

But into those great ears, during all our days and weeks and months
of marching, Gooja Singh had whispered--whispered. The things men
whisper to each other are like deeds done in the dark--like rats
that run in holes--put to shame by daylight. So Anim Singh came now,
and Ranjoor Singh repeated to him what he had just told me. Anim
Singh laughed.

"Leave the Kurds to fight it out below, then!" said he. "While they
fight, let us eat up distance into Persia, gold and all!"

Ranjoor Singh, with the night mist sparkling like jewels on his
beard, eyed him in silence for a minute. Then:

"I give thee leave," he said, "to take as many men as share that
opinion, and to bolt for your skins into Persia or anywhither! The
rest of us will stay and keep the regiment's promise!"

That was enough for Anim Singh. I have said he is a Sikh with a
soldier's heart. He wept, there on the ledge, where we three leaned,
and begged forgiveness until Ranjoor Singh told him curtly that
forgiveness came of deeds, not words. And his deeds paid the price
that dawn. He is a very good man with the saber, and the saber he
took from a Turkish officer was, weight and heft and length, the
very image of the weapon he was used to. Nay, who was I to count the
Kurds he slew. I was busy with my own work, sahib.

The fight below us began before the earliest color of dawn flickered
along the heights. And though we started when the first rifle-shot
gave warning, hiding our plunder and mules among the crags in charge
of the Syrians, but taking Tugendheim with us, the way was so steep
and devious that morning came and found us worrying lest we come too
late to help our friends--even as once we had worried in the