from the night.

"Let that fakir feel a bayonet-point, somebody!"

The fakir cursed between his teeth, in proof of prompt obedience by one
of the men who held him.

"Tell him to order his crowd to cease fire!"

The Beluchi translated, and the fakir howled again. The flames leaped
through the thatch, and in a minute more the countryside was lit for
half a mile or more by the glare of the burning guardroom.

The flames betrayed more than a hundred turbaned men, who hugged the
shadows.

"Keep that bayonet-point against his ribs. See? That comes o' moving
instead o' sitting still! If we'd shut ourselves in the guardroom there,
we'd have been merrily roasting in there now! We stole a march on them.
Beauty here was sitting on his throne to see the fun. Didn't expect us.
Thought we'd be all hiding under the beds, like Sidiki here! Goes to
prove the worst thing that a soldier can do is to sit still when there's
trouble. We're better off than ever. We're free and they won't dare do
much to us as long as we've got Sacred-Smells-and-Stinks in charge. Form
up round him, men, and keep your eyes skinned till morning!"

VIII.

Of course, discussing matters in the light of history, with full and
intimate knowledge of everything that had a bearing on the Mutiny, there
are plenty of club-armchair critics who maintain that England could not
do otherwise than win in '57. They always do say that afterward of the
side that won the day.

But then, with history yet to make, things looked very different, and
nobody pretended that there was any certainty of anything except a
victory for the mutineers. All that either side recognized as likely to
reverse conditions was the notorious ability that a beaten and cornered
British army has for upsetting certainties. So the rebels had more
than a little argument as to what steps should be taken next, once the
initial butchery and loot had taken place.

For instance, in Jailpore

More than a hundred fakirs and wandering priests and mendicants had
sent in word that the province from end to end was ready, and that the
British slept. But there were those in Jailpore who distrusted fakirs
and religious votaries of every kind. They believed them fully capable
of rousing the countryside, of working on the religious feelings of the
unsophisticated rustics and setting them to murdering and plundering
right and left. But they doubted their ability to judge of the army's
sleepiness. These doub