h chose was
forward to the Khyber Pass, and so down into India.

Aye, sahib, down into India! It was a long road, but the Afghans
were very kind to us, providing us with food and blankets and giving
some of us new horses for our weary ones, and so we came at last to
Landi Kotal at the head of the Khyber, where a long-legged English
sahib heard our story and said "Shabash!" to Ranjoor Singh--that
means "Well done!" And so we marched down the Khyber, they signaling
ahead that we were coming. We slept at Ali Mas jib because neither
horses nor men could move another yard, but at dawn next day we were
off again. And because they had notice of our coming, they turned
out the troops, a division strong, to greet us, and we took the
salute of a whole division as we had once taken the salute of two in
Flanders, Ranjoor Singh sitting his charger like a graven image, and
we--one hundred three-and-thirty men and the prisoner Tugendheim,
who had left India eight hundred strong-reeling in the saddle from
sickness and fatigue while a roar went up in Khyber throat such as I
scarcely hope to hear again before I die. Once in a lifetime, sahib,
once is enough. They had their bands with them. The same tune burst
on our ears that had greeted us that first night of our charge in
Flanders, and we--great bearded men--we wept like little ones. They
played IT IS A LONG, LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY.

Then because we were cavalry and entitled to the same, they gave us
BONNIE DUNDEE and the horses cantered to it; but some of us rolled
from the saddle in sheer weakness. Then we halted in something like
a line, and a general rode up to shake hands with Ranjoor Singh and
to say things in our tongue that may not be repeated, for they were
words from heart to heart. And I remember little more, for I, too,
swooned and fell from the saddle.

The shadows darkened and grew one into another. Hira Singh sat
drawing silently in the dust, with his injured feet stretched out in
front of him. A monkey in the giant tree above us shook down a
little shower of twigs and dirt. A trumpet blared. There began much
business of closing tents and reducing the camp to superhuman
tidiness.

"So, sahib," he said at last, "they come to carry me in. It is time
my tale is ended. Ranjoor Singh they have made bahadur. God grant
him his desire! May my son be such a man as he, when his day comes.

"Me! They say I shall be made commissioned officer--the law is
changed since this grea