"Yes," said Kirby.
"I shall have to go over your head."
"Understand me, then. If an order of that kind reaches me, I shall
arrest Ranjoor Singh at once, so that he may stand trial and be
cleared like a gentleman. I'll have nothing done to one of my
officers that would be intolerable if done to me, so long as I
command the regiment!"
"What alternative do you suggest?" asked the man in gray, with a wry
face.
"Ask Ranjoor Singh about it."
"Who? You or I?"
"He wouldn't answer you."
"Then ask him yourself. But I shall remember, Colonel Kirby, that
you did not oblige me in the matter."
"Very well," said Kirby,
"Another drink?"
"No, thanks."
"Who won?" asked one of the two men in the window.
"Kirby!"
"I don't think so. I've been watching his face. He's the least bit
rattled. It's somebody else who has won; he's been fighting another
man's battle. But it's obvious who lost--look at that watch-chain
going! Come away."
_If a man has a price at all, his price is neither high nor low, but
just that price that you will pay him._
NATIVE PROVERB.
CHAPTER IV
Of course an Afridi can be depended on to overdo anything. The
particular Afridi whom Ranjoor Singh had kicked was able to see very
little virtue in Yasmin's method of attack. Suckled in a mountain-
range where vengeance is believed as real and worthy as love must be
transitory, his very bowels ached for physical retaliation, just as
his skin and bones smarted from the beating the risaldar-major's men
had given him.
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