"He had a son," said Mahommed Gunga quietly.

"True. Are all sons like their fathers? Take Maharajah Howrah here;
his father was a man with whom any soldier might be proud to pick a
quarrel. The present man is afraid of his own shadow on the wall--
divided between love for the treasure-chests he dare not broach and
fear of a brother whom he dare not kill. He is priest-ridden,
priest-taught, and fit to be nothing but a priest. Who knows how young
Cunnigan will shape? Where is he? Overseas yet! He must prove
himself, as his father did, before he can hope to lead a free regiment
of horse!"

"Then Cunnigan-bahadur's watch-word 'For the peace of India,' is
dead-died with him?" asked Mahommed Gunga. "We are each for our own
again?"

"I have spoken!" answered Alwa. As the biggest clan-chief left on all
that countryside, he had a right to speak before the others, and he
knew that what he said would carry weight when they had all ridden home
again, and the report had gone abroad in ever-widening rings. "If the
English can hold India, let them! I will not fight against them, for
they are honest men for all their madness. If they cannot, then I am
for Rajputana, not India--India may burn or rot or burst to pieces,
so long as Rajputana stands! But--" He paused a moment, and looked
at each man in turn, and tapped his sabre-hilt, "--if a
Cunnigan-bahadur were among us--a man whom I could trust to lead me
and mine and every man--I would lend him my sword for the sheer honor
of helping him hack truth out of corruption! I have nothing more to
say!"