shone. Then he tossed a chupatty to the imprisoned fakir, spat again
from sheer disgust, lit his pipe and went and sat where he could hear
the footbeats of the sentries.

"They can't help their religion," he muttered. "The poor infidels
don't know no better. And they've got a right to think what they
please `about me or the Company. But I've no patience with uncleanliness!
That's wrong any way you look at it. That critter can't see straight
for the dirt on him, nor think straight for that matter. He's a disgrace
to humanity. Priest or fakir or whatever he is, if I live to see
tomorrow's sun I'll hand him over to the guard and have him washed!"

Having formed that resolution, Brown dismissed all thoughts of the
fakir. His memory went back to home--the clean white cottage on the
Sussex Downs, and the clean white girl who once on a time had waited
for him there. For the next few hours, until the guard was changed,
the only signs or sounds of life were the glowing of Brown's pipe,
the steady footfalls of the sentries and occasional creakings from
the hell-hot guard-room, where sleepless soldiers tossed in prickly
discomfort.




II.

Bill Brown, with his twelve, had not been set to watch a lonely crossroad
for the fun of it. One road was a well-made highway, and led from
a walled city, where three thousand men sweated and thought of England,
to another city, where five thousand armed natives drew England's