like a cow with its throat cut, and a Rajput and a German, either
of them six feet tall, were considering whether or not to resent
the violence of his interference. The German was disposed to yield
to numbers. The Rajput not so.

"Why are you beating him?" asked Monty.

"Gott in Hinimel, who would not! He wrote of me in his diary
--der Liminel!--that I shanghai laborers."

"Do you, or don't you?" asked Monty sweetly.

"Kreutz-blitzen! What is that to do with you--or with him? What
right had he to write that people in France should pray for me in church?"

The Rajput all this while was standing simmering, as ready as a boar
at bay to fight the lot of us, yet I thought with an air about him,
too, of half-conscious surprise. Several times he took a half-pace
forward to assert his right of chastisement, looked hard at Monty,
and checked mid-stride.

"You've done enough," said Monty.

"Who are you that says so?" the German retorted.

"He--who--will--attend--to--it--that--you--do--no--more!" Monty's
smooth voce had become without inflection.

"Bah! That is easy, isn't it? You are four to one!"