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Updated: May 1, 2025
"Thank you, Doggott, that won't be necessary; the sandwiches look mighty good to me." "Thank you, sir. Will there be anything else, Mr. Rutton?" "If there is, I'll call you." "Yes, sir. Good-night, sir. Good-night, Mr. Amber." As Doggott shut himself out of the room, Amber lifted his fragrant glass. "You're joining me, Rutton?" "With all my heart!" The man came forward to his glass.
He had never suspected Rutton to be his senior by more years than ten, at the most; to-night, however, he might well be taken for fifty were his age to be reckoned by its accepted signs the hollowing of cheek and temple, the sinking of eyes into their sockets, the deepening of the maze of lines about the mouth and on the forehead.
Indeed thou hast lost an opportunity that may never a second time be thine to learn of the wiles of woman." "There was work to be done," he repeated. "I went to take measures against thy failure." "O thou of little faith!" "Nay, why should I neglect proper precautions? Whether thy confidence be justified or no, this night will Har Dyal Rutton or one like him endure the Ordeal of the Gateway."
In the hush the metallic hammering of the mean tin clock rang loud and harsh; Amber's heart seemed to beat in funeral time to its steady, unhurried, immutable ticking. It was close upon two in the morning. "Amber," said Rutton suddenly and very clearly, "you'll find a will in my despatch box. Doggott is to have all I possess. The emerald ring the Token I give to you." "Yes, I I "
"They swore Stalky ought to have been born a Pathan, and 'member we nearly had a row in the fort when Rutton Singh said Stalky was a Pathan? Gad, how furious the old chap was with my Jemadar! But Stalky just waggled his finger and they shut up. "Old Rutton Singh's sword was half out, though, and he swore he'd cremate every Khye-Kheen and Malo't he killed.
'So Attar Singh abandoned his body, as an insect abandons a blade of grass. But Rutton Singh, having more work to do, went down from the housetop and sought an enemy whom he had forgotten a Patiala man of this regiment who had sided with the persecutors. When he overtook the man, Rutton Singh hit him twice with bullets and once with the sword.
"Now, will you please pay attention to me, my friend? Or do you wish me to turn and rend myself with curiosity after I've attended to these excellent sandwiches?... Seriously, I want to know several things. What have you been doing with yourself these past three years?" Rutton shook his head gravely. "I can't say." "You mean you won't?" "If you will have it that way." "Well ... I give you up."
"About noon there was no end of a snow-storm, and the enemy stopped firing. We replied gingerly, because we were awfully short of ammunition. Don't suppose we fired five shots an hour, but we generally got our man. Well, while I was talking with Rutton Singh I saw Stalky coming down from the watch-tower, rather puffy about the eyes, his poshteen coated with claret-colored ice.
"Well," he said slowly, "that is over." Amber, without speaking, went to his side and touched his shoulder with that pitifully inadequate gesture of sympathy which men so frequently employ. "I killed him," said Rutton dully. "Yes," replied Amber.
"That's all there is to it." "No, he didn't," said Dick Four. "Don't you remember how he insisted that he had only applied his luck? Don't you remember how Rutton Singh grabbed his boots and grovelled in the snow, and how our men shouted?" "None of our Pathans believed that was luck," said Tertius.
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