Part 17 (2/2)
”Well, we'll see!”
The colonel called an orderly, and sent the orderly running for Jane E arms were thrown round Bill Brown from behind, and he was all but carried off his feet
”Oh, Bill-Bill-Bill! I knew you'd be all right! Turn round, Bill! Look atto hied to pry her hands loose, and to draw her round in front of hinized your voice the minute that the trapdoor opened and I heard it! I did, Bill! I knew you in a minute! I didn't worry then! I knew you wouldn't co as there was any duty to be done I just waited! They said you were killed in the explosion, but I knew you weren't! I knew it! I did! I knew it!”
”Face me, please!” said Colonel Kendrick ”Now, Jane Eeant William Brown, of the Rifles?”
”Yes, sir”
”Is he the man who entered Jailpore with nine men and a Rajput, and came to your assistance?”
”Yes, sir! He's the saazine;”
”Do you confirm that?” he asked Brown
”Under favor, sir, my men nize ht and all today They'll tell you where they found me!”
”Never mind! I've decided I believe you! D'you realize that you're so of a marvel?”
”No, sir-except that I've had reat pleasure in o direct, at first hand, to Her Majesty the Queen! There are few eant Broould dare what you dared in the first place But, more than that, there are even fewer men ould leave a sweetheart in soazine with themselves on top of it, in order to ht hand's out of action unfortunately-you'll have to shake my left!”
The colonel rose, held his uninjured hand out and Brown shook it, since he was ordered to
”I consider it an honor and a privilege to have shaken hands with you, Sergeant Brown!” said Colonel Kendrick
”Thank you, sir!” said Brown, taking one step back, and then saluting ”May I join i re the by-ways and back alleys of Jailpore And the chaplain married him and Jane Emmett out of hand He sent her off at once with her foriment to Delphi And at Delphi his name was once more mentioned in despatches
When the Mutiny was over, and the country had settled down again to peace and reincarnation of a nation had begun, Brown found hireater andhis modest soul had ever dreah he did his fighting-best consistently to fill the job; and he never understood why Queen Victoria should have taken the trouble to write a letter to him in which she thanked hiled out for praise and special notice a felloho had merely done his duty
Perhaps that was the reason why he was such a conspicuous success in civil life They still talk of how Bill Broith Jane his wife and Juggut Khan the Rajput to advise him, was Resident Political Adviser to a Maharajah, and of how the Maharajah loathed hih, is not a war-story It is a story of the saving of a war, and shall go on record, some day, beneath a title of its own
FOR THE SALT HE HAD EATEN
Prologue
To the northward of Hanadra, blue in the sweltering heat-haze, lay Siroeh, walled in with sun-baked ate at one end of the village filed a string of women with their water-pots Oxen, tethered underneath the thatched eaves or by the thirsty-looking trees, lay chewing the cud, aloats see sneaked in and out a the shadows or lay and licked his sores beside an offal-heap; but there see The bone-dry, hot-weather wind had shriveled up verdure and aes, where , hot days, there werebeds, and talked instead of drea-which is the reverse of custom Hanadra hat it always had been, thatched, sun-baked lassitude; but underneath the thatch there thrummed a beehive ate, where the one ate came to an abrupt end at a low er than the others and somewhatthe enclosure that surrounded it on all four sides, and there was even ash, peeling off in places but still comparatively white, smeared on the sun-cracked walls