aded, many-minded polyglot rebellion-spume. A quarter of a
million underdogs had turned against their masters. A hundred factions
and as many more religions, all had one common end in view--to loot. All
were agreed on one thing--that the first stage of the game must be to
turn Jailpore and, after Jailpore, India, into a charnel-house.

Around and around the burning palace the mob screamed and swept
uncontrolled. Moslem looted Hindu, and Hindu Moslem. Armed sepoys,
with the blood of their British officers fresh-soaked on their British
uniforms, and the unspent pay of "John Company" still jingling in their
pockets, danced weird, wild devil-dances through the streets, clearing
their way, when they saw fit, with cold steel or wanton volleys. Women
screamed. Caste looted caste. Loose horses galloped madly through the
streets. Here and there a pitched battle raged, where a merchant who had
wealth had also courage, and apprentices and friends to help him defend
his store.

And through all the din and clamor, under and above the howling and
the volleys and the roar of flames, sounded the steady thumping of
the sacred war-drums. The whole sky glowed red. The Indian night was
scorched and smoked and lit by arson. Hell screamed with the cooking of
red mutiny, and throbbed with the thunder of the sacred temple-drums.
And that was only one of the hells, and a small one. India glowed red
that night from end to end!

Juggut Khan, free-lance Rajput and gentleman of fortune, had ridden out
of that caldron of Jailpore. His house was a heap of glowing ashes, and
his goods were tossed for and distributed among a company. But his mark
lay indelibly impressed upon the town. There were three European women
and a child who were nowhere to be found; and there was a trail that led
from somewhere near the palace to the western gate. It was a red trail.

In one spot lay a sepoy pierced through by a lance, and with half of the
lance-shaft still standing upright in him. That had been bad art--sheer
playing to the gallery! Juggut Khan had run him through and tried to
lift him on the lance-end for a trophy. It was luck that saved the day
for him that time, not swordsmanship.

But a man who has done what he had done that day may be forgiven. There
lay nine other men behind him where his lance was left, and each of them
lay face upward with a round red hole in his anatomy where the lance had
entered.

And from the point where he had broken his lan