congregate; and he was no mean raconteur--he had a tale or two to
tell himself, of women and the chase and of the laugh that he, too, had
flung in the teeth of fear when opportunity arose.

But each new story of the paid taletellers, who squat and drone and
reach a climax, and then pass the begging bowl before they finish it--
each merrily related jest brought in by members of the constantly
arriving trading parties--each neigh of his three chargers--every
new phase of the kaleidoscopic life he watched stirred new ambition in
him to be up, and away, and doing. Many a dozen times he had to remind
himself that "there had been a trust imposed."

He exercised the horses daily, riding each in turn until he was as lean
and lithe and hard beneath the skin as they were. They were Mahommed
Gunga's horses--he Mahommed Gunga's man; therefore, his honor was
involved. He reasoned, when he took the trouble to, along the good
clean feudal line that lays down clearly what service is: there is no
honor, says that argument, in serving any one who is content with half
a service, and the honor is the only thing that counts.

As day succeeded ever sultrier, ever longer-drawn-out day--as each
night came that saw him peg the horses out wherever what little breezes
moved might fan them--as he sat among the courtyard groups and
listened in the heavy heat, the fact grew more apparent to him that
this trust of his was something after all which a man of worth might
shoulder proudly. There was danger in it.

The talk among the traders--darkly hinted, most of it, and couched in
metaphor--was all of blood, and what would follow on the letting of
it. Now and then a loud-mouthed boaster would throw caution to the