w--as few men in India knew--the length and the breadth of what
was coming. And when two of his non-commissioned officers sent in word
that the whole country was ablaze, he realized, as few other men did
in that minute, that this was no local outbreak. The long-threatened
holocaust had come, and he had to act, to smite, to strike sure and
swift at the festering root of things, or Central India was lost.

But his hands were tied still. He knew. He could see. He could feel.
He could hear. But he had his orders. That very morning they had been
repeated to him, and with emphasis. In a letter from the Council he had
been told that "slight disturbances, of a purely local character, were
not without the bounds of possibility, due partly to religious unrest
and partly to local causes. Under no circumstances were any extended
reprisals to be undertaken until further orders, and generals commanding
districts were required to keep the bulk of their commands within
cantonments."

The countryside was up. All India probably was up. His own men, set by
himself to watch with one definite idea, had confirmed his worst fears.
And he was under orders to stay with the bulk of his command in Bholat!
Corked up in cantonments, with three thousand first-class fighting-men
squealing for trouble, and red rebellion running riot all around him
though it might be quelled by instant action!

And then worse happened. Juggut Khan clattered in to Bholat, spurring
a horse that was so spent it could barely keep its feet. It fell in a
woeful heap outside the general's quarters, and Juggut Khan--all but as
weary as the horse--swung himself free, staggered past the sentry at the
door and rapped with his hilt on the tough teak panel. They had to give
him brandy and feed him before he could summon strength enough to tell
what he had seen and heard and done.

"And Brown stayed on at the crossroads?"

"Aye, General sahib! He stayed!"

The general sat back and drummed his heels together on the floor in a
way that his aides had come to recognize as meaning trouble.

"You say that all of the European officers in Jailpore have been
killed?"

"I did not count. I did not even know them all by mine or sight. I
think, though, that all were killed. I heard men among the mutineers
declare that all had been accounted for, save only three women and a
child, and me. Those four I myself had hidden, and as for myself--I too
was accounted for, and not without credit t