"How else would he kick the man here? Could he send his foot by messenger?"
"Was the German here? Did he have word with the German?"
"Surely. He spoke with him alone. So the Afridi reported him to the
'Rat sahib.'"
The general frowned. However deeply the military may intrigue, they neither like nor profess to like civilians who play the same game.
"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.
There came then a soft rap on the door. It opened about six inches, and a maid whispered.