"that was her
father's name, Sahib."

"Say it again, slowly."

"Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan."

"I have it! Yes, but _what_?--John Robin Ross-Ellison? Good God! But _I_
knew a John Robin Ross-Ellison when _I_ was a Captain. He was Colonel of
the Corps of which I was Adjutant, in fact--the Gungapur Volunteer
Rifles.... By Jove! That explains a lot. _John Robin Ross-Ellison_!"

I was too incredulous to be astounded. It _could_ not be.

"_Han_[4] Sahib, _be shak_![5] Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan Ilderim Dost
Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan was his name. And his mother called him
Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan and his father, Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan, called
him Ilderim Dost Mahommed."

[4] Yes.
[5] Without doubt.

"H'm! A Scotch Pathan, brought up by an Australian girl in India, would
be a rare bird--and of rare possibilities naturally," I murmured, while
my mind worked quickly backward.

"My brother was unlike us in some things, Sahib. He was fond of the
_sharab_ called '_Whisky_' and of dogs; he drank smoke from the cheroot
after the fashion of the Sahib-log and not from the hookah nor the
_bidi_;[6] he wore boots; he struck with the clenched fist when angered;
and never did he squat down upon his heels nor sit cross-legged upon the
ground. Yet he was true Pathan in many ways during his life, and he died
as a Pathan should, concerning his honour (and a woman). Yea--and in his
last fight, ere he was hanged, he killed more men with his long Khyber
knife, single-handed against a mob, than ever did lone man before with
cold steel in fair fight."

[6] Native cigarette.

Then it was so. And the Subedar-Major was John Robin Ross-Ellison's
brother!

"He may have been foolishly kind to women, servants and dogs, and of a
foolish type of honour that taketh not every possible advantage of the
foe--but he was very brave, Huzoor, a strong enemy, and when he began he
made an end, and if that same honour were affronted he killed his man.
And yet he did not kill Ibrahim Mahmud the Weeper, who surely earned his
death twice, and who tried to kill him in a manner most terrible to
think of. No, he did not--but it shall be told.... And the white woman
prevailed upon our father to make her man-child a Sahib and to let him
go to the _maktab_[7] and _madressah-tul-Islam_[8] at Kot Ghazi, to
learn the clerkly lore that gives no grip to the hand on the sword-hilt
and lance-shaft nor to the thighs in the saddle, no skill to the fingers
on the reins