"That is true. Yet in this case perhaps it is not foolishness. There are many hungry beasts lurking down the track yonder."
"Hyenas!"
"Twenty thousand of them, says Fazl."
"Flat-nosed Kafirs; what are they to us?"
"That is true; they are of very little account. Still, there is a great number of them, and--correct me if I am wrong, havildar--a hundred hyenas are perhaps a match for one lion."
"Look you, khansaman, we have to make every man here believe that he is a lion. I do not deny that we are in a strait place, but what is that? I have been in strait places before. Hai! was I not one of the thirty with a young sahib in the hills, and did we not defend a post against a monstrous rabble of Khels, and drive them off, and strike such fear into the dogs that they slunk away and troubled us no more?"
The havildar's eyes gleamed as he recalled that fight.
"And are our young sahibs even as that one?" said the khansaman. "The huzur--may he sleep well!--was a good man, but these two striplings are very young."
"Hai! but they have red blood in their veins. They are of the race of the Sirkar: they will never yield. Think you of what they have done in these last days. Are they not quick and ready? Are not their eyes keen and their minds swift? They fear nothing, and overlook nothing. Fyz Ali told me how the chota sahib rode back to help him when he was alone and beset by the Kalmucks, and the chota sahib is no man of war. Of a truth, the sahibs know not what fear is. And Bob Sahib carried food to the Pathans up the river; he thinks of their welfare, and they love him. What is to come we know not, but be sure there will be very great doings here."
"Hark, havildar! What is that?"