"Your answers are rather unnecessarily evasive, Juggut Khan. Be
good enough to explain yourself!"

"I ride back to Jailpore, sahib. I would have stayed there, but
it seemed right and soldierly to bring through the news first. Now,
I return to do what I may to rescue those whom I hid there. I owe
that to the Raj!"

"You mean that you will ride alone?"

"At least half of the distance, sahib. I had a favor to ask."

"Well?"

"Are you marching north, sahib?"

"I have not determined yet."

"Determined, sahib! This is no hour for dallying! Give orders now!
Up! Strike, sahib! Listen! Should you march on Jailpore, the
mutineers, who far outnumber you, will learn beforehand of your coming,
and will put the place in a state of defense. It may take you weeks
to fight your way in! Leave Jailpore, and those who are left in it
to me, and lend me that non-commissioned officer of yours who guards
the crossroads, and his twelve men. With a few, we can manage what
a whole division might fail to do. And you march north, sahib, and
burn and harry and slay! Strike quickly, where the trouble is yet
brewing, and not where the day is lost already!"

It was case of the British power in India on one side of the scale,