from Bholat, Bill Brown--swordsman and sergeant and strictest of
martinets, as well as sentimentalist--had been set to watch and listen
and report.

There were many cleverer men in the non-commissioned ranks of Baine's
command, many who knew more of the native languages, and who had
more imagination. But there was none who knew better how to win
the unqualified respect and the obedience of British and native alike,
or who could be better counted on to obey an order, when it came,
literally, promptly and in the teeth of anything.

Brown's theories on religion were a thing to marvel at, and walk
singularly wide of, for he was a preacher with a pair of fists when
thoroughly aroused. And his devotion to a girl in England whom no
one in his regiment had ever seen, and of whom he did not even possess
a likeness, was next door to being pitiable. His voice was like
a raven's, with something rather less than a raven's sense of melody;
he was very prone to sing, and his songs were mournful ones. He
was not a social acquisition in any generally accepted sense, although
his language was completely free from blasphemy or coarseness. His
ideas were too cut and dried to make conversation even interesting.
But his loyalty and his sense of duty were as adamant.

He had changed the double guard at the crossroads; and had posted
two fresh men by the mud-walled guardroom door. He had lit his pipe
for the dozenth time, and had let it go out again while he hummed
a verse of a Covenanters' hymn. And he had just started up to wall
over to the cell and make a cursory inspection of his prisoner, when
his ears caught a distant sound that was different from any of the
night sounds, though scarcely louder.