"It is because I know not what he would do to me that I will do
nothing!" answered Ismail. "He is not at all like other sahibs I
have had dealings with. This man does unexpected things. This
man is not mad, he has a devil. I have it in my heart to love
this man. But such talk is foolishness. We are all her men!"

"Aye! We are her men!" came the chorus, so that King looked up
and watched them over the open book.

At dawn, when the train pulled out, the thirty prisoners sat safely
locked in third-class compartments. King lay lazily on the cushions
of a first-class carriage in the rear, utterly absorbed in the
principles of antiseptic dressing, as if that had anything to do
with Prussians and the Khyber Pass; and Ismail attended to the
careful packing of soda water bottles in the ice-box on the floor.

"Shall I open the little bag, sahib?" he asked.

King shook his head.

Ismail shook the bag.

"The sound is as of things of much importance all disordered," he
said sagely. "It might be well to rearrange."

"Put it over there!" King ordered. "Set it down!"

Ismail obeyed and King laid his book down to light another of his
black cheroots. The theme of antiseptics ceased to exercise its