rges, taking charge and
supervising.

"To Stamboul," said he. "Bulgaria is in. The road to Stamboul is
open."

"Sahib," said I, "I know you are true to the raj. I know the
surrender in Flanders was the only course possible for one to whom
the regiment had been entrusted. I know this business of taking the
German side is all pretense. Are we on the way to Stamboul?"

"Aye," said he.

"What are we to do at Stamboul?" I asked him.

"If you know all you say you know," said he, "why let the future
trouble you?"

"But---" said I.

"Nay," said he, "there can be no 'but.' There is false and true. The
one has no part in the other. What say the men?"

"They are true to the raj," said I.

"All of them?" he asked.

"Nay, sahib," said I. "Not quite all of them, but almost all."

He nodded. "We shall discover before long which are false and which
are true," said he, and then he left me.

So I told the men that we were truly on our way to Stamboul, and
there began new wondering and new conjecturing. The majority decided
at once that we were to be sent to Gallipoli to fight beside the
Turks in the trenches there, and presently they all grew very
determined to put no obstacle in the Germans' way but to go to
Gallipoli with good will. Once there, said they all, it should be
easy to cross to the British trenches under cover of the darkness.

"We will take Ranjoor Singh with us," they said darkly. "Then he can
make explanation of his conduct in the proper time and place!" I saw
one man hold his turban end as if it were a bandage over his eyes,
and several others snapped their fingers to suggest a firing party.
Many of the others laughed. Men in the dark, thought I, are fools to
do anything but watch and listen. Outlines change with the dawn,
thought I, and I determined to reserve my judgment on all points
except one--that I set full faith in Ranjoor Singh. But the men for
the most part had passed judgment and decided on a plan; so it came
about that there was no trouble in the matter of getting them to
Stamboul--or Constantinople, as Europeans call it.

At a place in Bulgaria whose name I have forgotten we disembarked
and became escort to a caravan of miscellaneous stores, proceeding
by forced marches over an abominable road. And after I forget how
many days and nights we reached a railway and were once more packed
into a train. Throughout that march, although we traversed wild
country where any or all of us might easil