"Poggul!" said the Rajput once again. And this time the sentry looked
and saw cold steel within three inches of his eye!

"Your rifle!" said the Rajput. "Hand it here!"

And, to save his eyesight, the sentry complied, while the Rajput's
ivory-white teeth grinned at him pleasantly.

"Now, hands to your sides! Attention! March!" the Rajput ordered, and
with his own bayonet at his back the sentry had to march, whether
he wanted to or not, by the route that the other chose, toward the
guardroom. The Rajput seemed to know by instinct where the second sentry
stood although the man's shape was quite invisible against the night. He
called out, "Friend!" again as he passed him, and the sentry hearing the
first sentry's footsteps, imagined that the real situation was reversed.

So, out of a pall of blackness, to the accompanying sound of rifles
being brought up to the shoulder, a British sentry--feeling and looking
precisely like a fool--marched up to his own guardroom, with a man who
should have been his prisoner in charge of him.

"Halt!" commanded Brown. "Who or what have you got there, Stanley?"

"Stanley is my prisoner at present!" said a voice that Brown vaguely
recognized.

He stepped up closer, to make sure.

"What, you? Juggut Khan!"

"Aye, Brown sahib! Juggut Khan--with tidings, and a dead gray horse on
which to bear them! If this fool could only use his bayonet as he can
shoot, I think I would be dead too. His brains, though, are all behind
his right eye. Tie him up, where no little child can come and make him
prisoner!"

"Arrest that man!" commanded Brown, and two men detached themselves from
the end of the guard, and stood him between them, behind the line.

"Here's his rifle!" smiled Juggut Khan, and Brown received it with an
ill grace.

"How did you get past the other sentry?" he asked.

"Oh, easily! You English are only brave; you have no brains. Sometimes
one part of the rule is broken, but the other never. You are not always
brave!"

"I suppose you're angry because he killed your horse?"

"I am angry, Brown sahib, for greater happenings than that! The man
conceivably was right, since I did not halt for him, and I suppose he
had his orders. I am angry because the standard of rebellion is raised,
and because of what it means to me!"

"Are you drunk, Juggut Khan?"

"Your honor is pleased to be humorous? No, I am not drunk. Nor have I
eaten opium. I have eaten of the bread of bitterness this