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Then they elect a Daffadar, or head man, to superintend the work, and sell the gold, and they subscribe money to buy lamp oil, and the necessary iron tools, then partly from knowledge of the ground, and partly from the idea they have, that the tract over which a peacock has been observed to fly and alight, is that of a vein of gold, they fix on a spot and begin to mine."
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!"
Then, because the Kurds could not be trusted on such an errand, Ranjoor Singh sent me back with fifty men to bring on the Syrians and our mules and belongings, and the gold. He gave me Chatar Singh to help, and glad I was to have him. A brave good daffadar is Chatar Singh, and now that all suspicion of our leader was weaned out of him, I could ask for no better comrade on a dark night.
Very early I had taken those two naiks in hand, showing them friendship, harping on the honor and pleasure of being daffadar and on the chance of quick promotion. Given a British commanding officer just one British officer even a little young one one would have been enough it would have been hard to find better backing for him. Even Gooja Singh would scarcely have failed a British leader.
"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.
Of the other four, the next was Ramnarain Singh, the shortest as to inches of us all, but perhaps the most active on his feet. A great talker. Brave in battle, as one must be to be daffadar of Outram's Own, but too assertive of his own opinion. He and Gooja Singh were ever at outs, resentful of each other's claim to wisdom.
It is good we have another to replace the fifth!" There goes the trooper, sahib he yonder with the limp. He and I are as good friends to-day as daffadar and trooper can be, but he would have slain me to save himself from vengeance unless Ranjoor Singh had punished him that night. But my tale is not of that trooper, nor of myself. I tell of Ranjoor Singh.
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 him. Who could explain that?
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