“I know that it could not! Else had one already come. My advice to you, sahib, as one soldier to another and tendered with all respect, is to up and leave this Bholat. Here, of what use are you? Here you can hold a small city, until the countryside has time to rise and lay siege to you and hem you in! Outside of here, you can be a hornet-storm! They will burn Bholat behind you. Let them! Let them, too, pay the price. Swoop down on Harumpore, sahib--join there with Kendrick sahib's command. There make a fresh plan, and swoop down on some other place. But move, quickly, and keep on moving! And waste no time on places that are already lost.” “Then you would have me leave those women and that child, that you tell me of to their fate?” “Nay, sahib! I am not of your command. I have done my duty to the Raj, and I now go about my own business.” “And that is?” “To repay a debt that I owe the Raj, sahib!” “Your answers are rather unnecessarily evasive, Juggut Khan. Be good enough to explain yourself!” “I ride back to Jailpore, sahib. I would have stayed there, but it seemed right and soldierly to bring through the news first. Now, I return to do what I may to rescue those whom I hid there. I owe that to the Raj!” “You mean that you will ride alone?” “At least half of the distance, sahib. I had a favor to ask.” “Well?” “Are you marching north, sahib?” “I have not determined yet.” “Determined, sahib! This is no hour for dallying! Give orders now! Up! Strike, sahib! Listen! Should you march on Jailpore, the mutineers, who far outnumber you, will learn beforehand of your coming, and will put the place in a state of defense. It may take you weeks to fight your way in! Leave Jailpore, and those who are left in it to me, and lend me that non-commissioned officer of yours who guards the crossroads, and his twelve men. With a few, we can manage what a whole division might fail to do. And you march north, sahib, and burn and harry and slay! Strike quickly, where the trouble is yet brewing, and not where the day is lost already!” It was case of the British power in India on one side of the scale, against three women and a child on the other; sentiment in the balance against strategy. And strategy must win, especially since this Rajput was offering his services. “What are their names, you say?” “Mrs. Leslie, wife of Captain Leslie; Mrs. Standish, wife of Colonel Standish and mother of Mrs. Leslie; Mrs. Leslie's child--I know not his name, he is but a child in arms--and the child's nurse.” The general still found it difficult to make up his mind. “What proof have I of you?” he asked. “Sahib, my honor is in question! I have a debt to pay!” “What debt?” “To the Raj.” “To the Raj?” “Aye, Sahib! I have but one son, and his life was saved for me by a British soldier. A life for a life. Four lives for a life. I ride! I need, though, a fresh horse. And I ask for the loan of that sergeant, and those twelve men.”