Told in the East | Page 9

loyal until the end!"
"Well--the end is not in doubt. There can only be one end!" commented
Brown.
"Of a truth, sahib, I believe that you are right. There can only be one
end. This night is not more black, this horizon is no shorter, than the
outlook!"
"Then, you mean--"
"I mean, sahib, that this uprising is more serious than you--or any other
Englishman--is likely to believe. I believe that the side I fight for will
be the losing side."
"And yet, you stay loyal?"
"Why not?"
"All the same, Juggut Khan--I'm not emotional, or a man of many
words. I don't trust Indians as a rule! I--but--here--will you shake
hands?"

"Certainly, sahib!" said the Rajput. "We be two men, you and I! Why
should the one be loyal and the other not?"
"When this is over," said Brown, "if it ends the way we want, and we're
both alive, I'd like to call myself your friend!"
"I have always been your friend, sahib, and you mine, since the day
when you bandaged up a boy and gave him your own drinking-water
and carried him in to Bholat on your shoulder, twenty miles or more."
"Oh, as for that--any other man would have done the same thing. That
was nothing!"
"Strange that when a white man does an honorable deed he lies about
it!" said Juggut Khan. "That was not nothing, sahib, and you know it
was not nothing! You know that from the heat and the exertion you
were ill for more than a month afterward. And you know that there
were others there, of my own people, who might have done what you
did, and did not!"
"But, hang it all! Why drag up a little thing like this?"
"Because, sahib, I might have no other opportunity, and--"
"Well? And what?"
"And the Rajput boy whom you carried was my son!"

III.
The finding of a remount for Juggut Khan was not so troublesome as
might have been supposed. The rumors and plans and whispered orders
for the coming struggle had been passed around the countryside for
months past, and every man who owned a horse had it stalled safely
near him, for use when the hour should come.
There were country-ponies and Arabs and Kathiawaris and Khaubulis
among which to pick, and though the average run of them was worse
than merely bad, and though both best and worst were hidden away
whenever possible, good horses were discoverable. Within an hour, Bill
Brown; with the aid of his men, had routed out a Khaubuji stallion for
Juggut Khan, one fit to carry him against time the whole of the way to
Bholat.
The Rajput mounted him where Brown unearthed him, and watched the
signing of a scribbled-out receipt with a cynical smile.
"If he comes to claim his money for the horse," said Juggut Khan,
"I--even I, who am penniless--will pay him. Good-by, Brown sahib!"

He leaned over and grasped the sergeant by the hand. "Take my advice,
now. I know what is happening and what has happened. Fall back on
Bholat at once. Hurry! Seize horses or even asses for your men, and
ride in hotfoot. Salaam!"
He drove his right spur in, wheeled the horse and started across country
in the direction of Bholat at a hand-gallop, guiding himself solely by
the soldier's sixth sense of direction, and leaving the problem of
possible pitfalls to the horse.
"If what he says is true," said Brown, as the clattering hoof-beats died
away, "and I'm game to take my oath he wouldn't lie to me, I'd give
more than a little to have him with me for the next few hours!"
The men came clustering round him now, anxious for an explanation.
They had held their tongues while Juggut Khan was there, because they
happened to know Brown too well to do otherwise. He would have
snubbed any man who dared to question him before the Indian. But,
now that the Indian was gone, curiosity could stay no longer within
bounds.
"What is it, Sergeant? Anything been happening? What's the news?
What's that I heard him say about rebellion? They're a rum lot, them
Rajputs. D'you think he's square? Tell us, Sergeant!"
"Listen, then. Rebellion has broken out. The native barracks at Jailpore
have been burned, and all the English officers are killed-- or so says
Juggut Khan. He's riding on, to carry the news to General Baines. He
says that the mutineers are planning to come along this way some time
within the next few hours!"
"What are we going to do, then?"
"That's my business! I'm in command here!"
"Yes, but, Sergeant--aren't you going back to Bholat? Aren't you going
to follow him? Are you going to stay here and get cut up? We'll get