his'll be a messenger
from Bholat, ten to one. Mind they don't ambush him! Watch every way at
once, and shoot at anything that moves!"

"Clippety-clippety-clippety-cloppety--"

The sound of a galloping horse grew nearer; a horse hard-ridden, that
was none the less sure-footed still, and going strong in spite of sun
and heat. Suddenly a foam-flecked black mare swung round a bend between
two banks, and the sun shone on a polished saber-hilt. A turbaned
Rajput rose in his stirrups, gazed left and right and then in front of
him--from the burned-out guardhouse to the baobab--drew rein to a walk
and waved his hand.

"By all that's good and great and wonderful," said Brown aloud, "if
here's not Juggut Khan again!"

X.

It is not easy to give any kind of real impression of India twenty-four
hours after the outbreak of the mutiny. Movement was the keynote of
the picture--stealthy, not-yet-quite-confident pack-movement on the one
hand, concentrated here and there in blood-red eddies, and, on the other
hand, swift, desperate marches in the open.

The moment that the seriousness of the outbreak had been understood, and
the orders had gone out by galloper to "Get a move on!" each commanding
officer strained every nerve at once to strike where a blow would
have the most effect. There was no thought of anything but action, and
offensive, not defensive action. Until some one at the head of things
proved still to be alive, and had had time to form a plan, each
divisional commander acted as he saw fit. That was all that any one was
asked to do at first: to act, to strike, to plunge in headlong where the
mutiny was thickest and most dangerous, to do anything, in fact; except
sit still.

Even with the evidence of mutiny and treachery on every side, with red
flames lighting the horizon and the stench of burning villages on every
hand, the strange Anglo-Saxon quality persisted that has done more even
that the fighting-quality to teach the English tongue to half the world.
The native servants who had not yet run away retained their places
still, unquestioned. When an Englishman has once made up his mind to
trust another man, he trusts him to the hilt, whatever shade of brown or
red or white his hide may be.

But, since every rule has its exceptions, there were some among the
native servants, who remained ostensibly loyal to their masters, who
would better have been shot or hanged at the first suggestion of
an outbreak. For na