But the bad was leavened by the good, for the same report told us that Juma Khan had resolutely and absolutely refused to fall in with Jiand's plans. He was also reported to have said that the General Sahib had kept every promise made to them, had spared their lives and crops when he could have destroyed them, had treated them, from the commencement of hostilities, as honourable foes, and later as friends, and had finally given them considerable sums of money. He had never broken his word, and he did not intend to begin doing so now. Therefore, he was to be counted out of any plans of treachery which Jiand might be meditating. Upon which expression of opinion he had ridden off to his own country with his following. But, even with Juma Khan eliminated, the situation was serious enough, for I saw no chance of obtaining reinforcements from any quarter in time to prevent a disaster. However, it was no use crying over spilt milk. Things must be faced as they were. After all, as I pointed out to Idu, Jiand could not do the impossible. He and Halil Khan could not collect their scattered men in a moment. The one thing left for us to do was to set off on the morrow, march back to Khwash, endeavour to reach it before Jiand, and organise our defence against his coming. I have often since been blamed for an apparent foolhardiness in trusting the Raiders sufficiently to let them go. But it must be remembered that I had not come out to fight the Raiders--unless events made it absolutely necessary to do so--but, rather, to make friends with them and to keep the Germans, or their agents, from coming through their country. Moreover, the force at my disposal was very small indeed, and quite insufficient to keep these Raiders in check when once the bluff was called. In other words, I should soon lose the game if I persisted in treating them as enemies. It must be understood, too, that the Sarhad was only the Southern portion of my command, and that rumours were constantly coming in that Germans, who had failed to get through into Afghanistan via the South, were not only moving North towards Birjand, but were trying to cross the border in that direction. I knew, also, that it would soon be necessary to move North in order to induce the Russians to keep a more careful guard than they had been doing in the district North of Birjand, a district within their sphere of influence in Persia. Nor must it be supposed that I had not quite realised, before I let the Raiders go, that I had not obtained all the safeguards I could have wished. But I did not then, nor do I now, see that I had any other alternative. In any case I had gained one very definite advantage. I had won over Juma Khan to our side; and it was through his territory that the Germans would first have to pass in order to get through the Sarhad.