The sentry placed his bayonet-point exactly where directed, and leaned
his weight above it. The horse gave a little shudder, and lay still.

"Poggul!" said the Rajput once again. And this time the sentry looked
and saw cold steel within three inches of his eye!

"Your rifle!" said the Rajput. "Hand it here!"

And, to save his eyesight, the sentry complied, while the Rajput's
ivory-white teeth grinned at him pleasantly.

"Now, hands to your sides! Attention! March!" the Rajput ordered,
and with his own bayonet at his back the sentry had to march, whether
he wanted to or not, by the route that the other chose, toward the
guardroom. The Rajput seemed to know by instinct where the second
sentry stood although the man's shape was quite invisible against
the night. He called out, "Friend!" again as he passed him, and the
sentry hearing the first sentry's footsteps, imagined that the real
situation was reversed.

So, out of a pall of blackness, to the accompanying sound of rifles
being brought up to the shoulder, a British sentry--feeling and looking
precisely like a fool--marched up to his own guardroom, with a man
who should have been his prisoner in charge of him.

"Halt!" commanded Brown. "Who or what have you got there, Stanley?"

"Stanley is my prisoner at present!" said a voice that Brown vaguely
recognized.