be pondering, for the thousandth time, his extraordinary life and more
extraordinary death. Nor had I the very faintest notion that the
Subedar-Major had ever heard of such a person, much less that he was
actually his own brother, or, to be exact, his half-brother. You see I
had known Ross-Ellison intimately as one only can know the man with whom
one has worked, soldiered, suffered, and faced death. Not only had I
known, admired and respected him--I had loved him. There is no other
word for it; I loved him as a brother loves a brother, as a son loves
his father, as the fighting-man loves the born leader of fighting-men: I
loved him as Jonathan loved David. Indeed it was actually a case of
"passing the love of women" for although he killed Cleopatra Dearman,
the only woman for whom I ever cared, I fear I have forgiven him and
almost forgotten her.

But to return to the Subedar-Major. "Peace, fool! Art blind as Ibrahim
Mahmud the Weeper," growled that burly Native Officer as the zealous and
over-anxious young sentry cried out and pointed to where, in the
moonlight, the returning reconnoitring-patrol was to be seen as it
emerged from the lye-bushes of the dry river-bed.

A recumbent comrade of the outpost sentry group sniggered.

My own sympathies were decidedly with the sentry, for I had fever, and
"fever is another man". In any case, hours of peering, watching,
imagining and waiting, for the attack that will surely come--and never
comes--try even experienced nerves.

"And who was Ibrahim the Weeper, Subedar-Major Saheb?" I inquired of the
redoubtable warrior as he joined me.