ove the long grave (for our men
had brought all our dead along with them, although our Kurdish
friends left theirs behind them) and I took one of the captured
horses, and Ranjoor Singh led on. I slept on the march. Nay, I had
no eyes for scenery just then!

After that the unexpected, amazing, happened as it so often does in
war. We were at the mercy of any handful who cared to waylay us, for
the hillsides shut us in, and there was cover enough among the
boulders to have hidden a great army. It was true we had worsted the
Wassmuss men utterly; I think we slew at least half of them, and
doubtless that, and the loss of their horses, must have taken much
heart out of the rest. But we expected at least to be attacked by
friends of the men we had worsted--by mountain cutthroats, thieves,
and plunderers, any fifty of whom could have made our march
impossible by sniping us from the flanks.

But nothing happened, and nobody attacked us. As we marched our
spirit grew. We began to laugh and make jokes about the enemy
hunting for lost horses and letting us go free. For two days we
rode, and camped, and slept a little, and rode on unmolested,
climbing ever forward to where we could see the peaks that our
friendly chief assured us were in Persia. For miles and miles and
everlasting miles it seemed the passes all led upward; but there
came a noon at last when we were able to feel, and even see--when at
least we knew in our hearts that the uphill work was over. We could
see other ranges, running in other directions, and mountains with
tree-draped sides. But chiefly it was our hearts that told us we
were really in sight of Persia at last.

Then wounded and all gathered together, with Ranjoor Singh in the
midst of us, and sang the Anand, our Sikh hymn of joy, our Kurdish
friends standing by and wondering (not forgetting nevertheless to
watch for opportunity to snatch that gold and run!)

And there, on the very ridge dividing Persia from Asiatic Turkey, it
was given to us to understand at last a little of the why and
wherefore of our marching unmolested. We came to a crack in a rock
by the wayside. And in the crack had been thrust, so that it stood
upright, a gnarled tree-trunk, carried from who knows how far. And
there, crucified to the dry wood was our daffadar Gooja Singh, with
his flesh all tortured and torture written in his open eyes--not
very long dead, for his flesh was scarcely cold--although the birds
had already begun on