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Updated: April 30, 2025
"Tugendheim," he said at last, "has driven the Turkish officer to seek refuge in seclusion! I used the word 'Wassmuss, and that had effect; but Tugendheim's insolence was our real passport. Nobody here doubts that we are in full favor at Stamboul. Wassmuss can keep for later on." "Sahib," said I, seeing he was in good humor now, "tell me of this Wassmuss." "All in good time!" he answered.
Abraham was near me, and I saw him tremble and change color. Sikh troopers are not little baa-lambs, sahib, to be driven this and that way with a twig! Tugendheim, too, ready to preach mutiny and plunder, was afraid to begin lest they turn and tear him first. He listened with both ears, and watched with both eyes, but kept among his Syrians.
And besides flowers there were roots, remarkably good to eat, that the Syrians called "daughters of thunder," saying that was the local name. Tugendheim called them truffles. A little water and that desert would be fertile farm-land, or I never saw corn grow!
And when he has decided it is not yet time to answer, it is wisest to be still. After fifteen or twenty minutes with the men, I followed him across the yard and entered the station waiting-room a pretentious place, with fancy bronze handles on the doors and windows. Lo, there sat Tugendheim, with his hands deep in his pockets and a great cigar between his teeth.
I believed that the Turkish captain might have stabbed him, or that Tugendheim might have played some trick. But not so the men. They saw the lantern receding and receding, dancing with the motion of the ship, and they believed themselves deserted. "Quick! Fire on him!" shouted some one. "Let him not escape! Kill him before he is out of range!"
In fact, if there is any mishap they intend to lay all the blame on you. But it is to their interest as much as yours to keep us from being captured." "You mean I'm to help you escape?" asked Tugendheim. "Exactly!" said Ranjoor Singh. "Now that you have signed that, I am willing to bargain with you. We intend to find Wassmuss." Tugendheim pricked up his ears and began to look almost willing.
"I mean," said Ranjoor Singh, "that if you were to apply to be allowed to join this regiment for a while, and to be allowed to serve us in a certain manner, we would consider the proposal. Otherwise is my meaning clear?" "Yes!" said Tugendheim. "Then ? said Ranjoor Singh.
Aye, sahib, I should say it was less than an hour after the start when I halted to serve out ten cartridges apiece to the Syrians, that Tugendheim might blood them and get himself into deeper water at the same time. He was angry that I would not give him more cartridges, but I told him his men would waste those few, so why should I not be frugal?
But the Bakhtiari Khans received word of what was doing, and after that there were new problems. But for the fact that Tugendheim was with us in his ragged German uniform we should have had more trouble than we did. At first the Khans were content with blackmail, holding up the Germans at intervals and demanding money.
"If you decide to burn, it shall burn with you," said Ranjoor Singh, "and that trooper shall carry a good big stone instead to teach him manners!" "GOTT IN HIMMEL!" exclaimed Tugendheim, losing his self-control at last. "Can I offer what I have not got?" "Is there nothing you can do?" asked Ranjoor Singh. "In what way? How?" asked the German.
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