“Leagues from here, sahib.  I must bring them.  I need a horse.”

“And while you are gone?”

“My half-brother, sahib—­he is here for no other purpose—­he will answer to me for her safety!”

“All right, Mahommed Khan, and thank you!  Take my second charger, if you care to; he is a little saddle-sore, but your light weight—­”

“Sahib—­listen!  Between here and Siroeh, where my eldest-born and his three sons live, lie seven leagues.  And on from there to Lungra, where the others live, are three more leagues.  I need a horse this night!”

“What need of thirteen men, Mahommed?  You are sufficient by yourself, unless a rebellion breaks out.  If it did, why, you and thirteen others would be swamped as surely as you alone!”

“Thy father and I, sahib, rode through the guns at Dera thirteen strong!  Alone, I am an old man—­not without honor, but of little use; with twelve young blades behind me, though, these Hindu rabble—­”

“Do you really mean, Mahommed Khan, that you think Hanadra here will rise?”

“The moment you are gone, sahib!”

“Then, that settles it!  The memsahib rides with me!”

“Nay, listen, sahib!  Of a truth, thou art a hot-head as thy father was before thee!  Thus will it be better.  If the heavenborn, thy wife, stays behind, these rabble here will think that the section rides out to exercise, because of the great heat of the sun by day; they will watch for its return, and wait for the parking of the guns before they put torch to the mine that they have laid!”

“The mine?  D’you mean they’ve—­”

“Who knows, sahib?  But I speak in metaphor.  When the guns are parked again and the horses stabled and the men asleep, the rabble, being many, might dare anything!”

“You mean, you think that they—­”

“I mean, sahib, that they will take no chances while they think the guns are likely to return!”

“But, if I take the memsahib with me?”

“They will know then, sahib, that the trap is open and the bird flown!  Know you how fast news travels?  Faster than the guns, Sahib!  There will be an ambuscade, from which neither man, nor gun, nor horse, nor memsahib will escape!”

“But if you follow later, it will mean the same thing!  When they see you ride off on a spent horse, with twelve swords and the memsahib—­ d’you mean that they won’t ambuscade you?”

“They might, sahib—­and again, they might not!  Thirteen men and a woman ride faster than a section of artillery, and ride where the guns would jam hub-high against a tree-trunk!  And thy orders, sahib—­ are thy orders nothing?”

“Orders!  Yes, confound it!  But they know I’m married.  They know—­”

“Sahib, listen!  When the news came to me I was at Siroeh, dangling a great-grandson on my knee.  There were no orders, but it seemed the Raj had need of me.  I rode!  Thou, sahib, hast orders.  I am here to guard thy wife—­my honor is thy honor—­take thou the guns.  Yonder lies the road!”