"In case of trouble one can bribe the police," counseled Nanak
Singh, and he surely ought to know, for he was the oldest trooper,
and trouble everlasting had preserved him from promotion. "But
weapons are good, when policemen are not looking," he added, and the
squadron agreed with him.

It was Tej Singh, not given to talking as is rule, who voiced the
general opinion.

"Now we are on the track of things. Now, perhaps, we shall know the
meaning of field exercises during the monsoon, with our horses up to
the belly in blue mud! The winds of all the world blow into Yasmini's
and out again. Our risaldar-major knows nothing at all of women--and
that is the danger. But he can listen to the wind; and, what he
hears, sooner or later we shall know, too. I smell happenings!"

Those three words comprised the whole of it. The squadron spent most
of the night whispering, dissecting, analyzing, subdividing,
weighing, guessing at that smell of happenings, while its risaldar-major,
thinking his secret all his own, investigated nearer to its source.


Have you heard the dry earth shrug herself
For a storm that tore the trees?

Have you watched loot-hungry Faithful
Praising Allah on their knees?

Have you felt the short hairs rising
When the moon slipped out of sight,