"If Ranjoor Singh is under suspicion, what is the use of--"
"Oh, all men are alike!" jeered Yasmini, holding up the light and
looking more impudent than the general had ever seen her--and he had
seen her often, for most of his private information about the regions
north of the Himalayas had come through her in one way or another,
and often enough from her lips direct. "I have said that Ranjoor
Singh is a buffalo! He was born a buffalo--he has been trained to be
one by the British--he likes to be one--and he will die one, with a
German bullet in his belly, unless this business prove too much for
him and he dies of fretting before he can get away to fight!
"I--look at me, sahib! I have tempted Ranjoor Singh, and he did not
yield a hair! I stood closer to him than I am to you, and his pulse
beat no faster! All he thought of was whether he could crush me and
make me give up my prisoner.
"Ranjoor Singh is a buffalo of buffaloes--a Jat buffalo of no
imagination and no sense. He is buffalo enough to love the British
Raj and his squadron of Jat farmers with all his stupid Sikh heart!
There _could_ not be a better for the purpose than this Ranjoor
Singh! He is stupid enough, and nearly blunt enough, to be an
Englishman. He is just of the very caliber to fool a German! Trust
me, sahib--I, who picked the man who--"
"That'll do!" said the general; and Yasmini laughed again like the
tinkling of a silver bell.
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