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Understanding had not come to me fully yet, but it seemed to me that if Ranjoor Singh was really playing traitor, then he was going a tedious way about it. Yet it was equally clear that if I should dare to say one word in his behalf that would be to pass sentence on myself. I kept silence when I could, and was evasive when they pressed me, cowardice struggling with new conviction in my heart.
"Is it strange," asked Ranjoor Singh, "that a prisoner should be asked for information?" "I am not afraid to die," said Tugendheim. "You mean by rifle-fire?" asked Ranjoor Singh, and Tugendheim nodded. "But there are other kinds of fire," said Ranjoor Singh. "What do you mean?" asked Tugendheim.
Tugendheim begged hard to be allowed to come with us, but Ranjoor Singh would not let him.
Seeing they outnumbered us, and we had to spare a guard for our prisoners and hostages, and that fifty of our force were Syrians and therefore not much use, I felt doubtful. I thought Ranjoor Singh felt doubtful, too, until I saw him glance repeatedly behind and study the sky. Then I began to hope as furiously as he. The Turks down on the plain were studying the sky, too.
"Now, which had the right of that Abdul or the wolves?" "We are no wolves!" said Gooja Singh in a whining voice. "We be true men!" "Then I will tell you another story," Ranjoor Singh answered him. And we listened again, as men listen to the ticking of a clock. "This is a story the same old woman, my mother's aunt, told me when I was very little.
He wondered what her reply would be; and, moving the lantern a little, she read the hesitation in his eyes the wavering between desire for vengeance, a soldierly regard for sex, and mistrust of her apparent helplessness. And, being Yasmini, she dared him. "Like swords I have seen!" she laughed. "Two cutting edges and a point! Not to be held save by the hilt, eh, Ranjoor Singh?
The babu nodded; but his nod was not much more than tentative. He could have denied it next minute without calling much on his imagination. "Oh! Which way went the murderer?" "Grief overwhelms me!" said the babu. "Grief for what?" "For my money my good money my emoluments!" Direct as an arrow though he was in all his dealings, Ranjoor Singh had not forgotten how the Old East thinks.
I can't imagine his agreeing to the use I'm making of you. I've no time to listen to his protests. Write, man, write!" "Give me the paper and the pen, sahib!" Ranjoor Singh wrote by the light of a flickering oil lamp, using his trooper's shoulder for support. He passed the finished note back to the general.
But it hurt him to bend much, after a day's hard exercise on a horse such as he rode. Once in a rock-strewn gully where the whistling Himalayan wind was Acting Antiseptic-of-the-Day a young surgeon had taken hurried stitches over Ranjoor Singh's ribs without probing deep enough for an Afghan bullet; that bullet burned after a long day in the saddle.
"I will give you ten rupees," said Ranjoor Singh. This was too easy! The babu was prepared to bargain for an hour, fighting for rupee after rupee until his wit assured him he had reached the limit. Now he began to believe he had set the limit far too low. "I do not remember," he said slowly but with great conviction, scratching at his stomach as if he kept his recollections stored there.
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