by it, to all seeming, like a trapped man in a
cage--no lamp--no help at hand, or so he thought until it was all
over. And he ran at the tiger! And then, 'you come with your shoes on,
Mahommed Gunga--why, forsooth?' Did you hear him? By the blood of Allah,
we have a man to lead us!"

CHAPTER VIII

Now, the gist of the thing is--Be silent. Be calm.
Be awake. Be on hand on the day.
Be instant to heed the first note of alarm.
And--precisely--exactly--Obey.

AT Howrah, while Mahommed Gunga was employing each chance circumstance
to test the pluck and decision and reliability of Cunningham at almost
every resting-place along the Grand Trunk Road, the armed squire he had
left behind with a little handful of gold mohurs and three horses was
finding time heavy on his hands.

Like his master, Ali Partab was a man of action, to whom the purlieus
of a caravansary were well enough on rare occasions. He could ruffle
it with the best of them; like any of his race, he could lounge
with dignity and listen to the tales that hum wherever many horsemen
congregate; and he was no mean raconteur--he had a tale or two to tell
himself, of women and the chase and of the laugh that he, too, had flung
in the teeth of fear when opportunity arose.

But each new story of the paid taletellers, who squat and drone and
reach a climax, and then pass the begging bowl before they finish
it--each merrily related jest brought in by members of the constantly
arriving trading parties--each neigh of his three chargers--every new
phase of the kaleidoscopic life he watched stirred new ambition in
him to be up, and away, and doing. Many a dozen times he had to remind
himself that "there had been a trust imposed."

He exercised the horses daily, riding each in turn until he was as lean
and lithe and hard beneath the skin as they were. They were Mahommed
Gunga's horses--he Mahommed Gunga's man; therefore, his honor was
involved. He reasoned, when he took the trouble to, along the good clean
feudal line that lays down clearly what service is: there is no honor,
says that argument, in serving any one who is content with half a
service, and the honor is the only thing that counts.

As day succeeded ever sultrier, ever longer-drawn-out day--as each night
came that saw him peg the horses out wherever what little breezes moved
might fan them--as he sat among the courtyard groups and listened in the
heavy heat, the fact gr