what was due on these occasions. Thus he spoke in the vernacular:
- "Colonel Sahib and officers of this regiment. Much honour have
you done me. This will I remember. We came down from afar to play
you. But we were beaten." (" No fault of yours, Ressaidar Sahib.
Played on our own ground, y' know. Your ponies were cramped from
the railway. Don't apologise!") "Therefore perhaps we will come
again if it be so ordained." (" Hear! Hear! Hear, indeed! Bravo!
Hsh!") "Then we will play you afresh" ("Happy to meet you.") "till
there are left no feet upon our ponies. Thus far for sport." He
dropped one hand on his sword-hilt and his eye wandered to
Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair. "But if by the will of God
there arises any other game which is not the polo game, then be
assured, Colonel Sahib and officers, that we will play it out side
by side, though they," again his eye sought Dirkovitch, "though
they, I say, have fifty ponies to our one horse." And with a deep-
mouthed Rung ho! that sounded like a musket-butt on flagstones he
sat down amid leaping glasses.

Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself steadily to the brandy - the
terrible brandy aforementioned - did not understand, nor did the
expurgated translations offered to him at all convey the point.
Decidedly Hira Singh's was the speech of the evening, and the
clamour might have continued to the dawn had it not been broken by
the noise of a shot without that sent every man feeling at his
defenseless left side. Then there was a scuffle and a yell of
pain.

"Carbine-stealing again!" said the adjutant, calmly sinking back
in his chair. "This comes of reducing the guards. I hope the
sentries have killed him."