If a man stole my dinner, I might let him run; but if he stole my horse, he and I and death would play hide-and-seek!--RANJOOR SINGH That dawn, sahib, instead of lessening, the rainstorm grew into a deluge that saved us from being seen.

As I led my twenty men forward I looked back a time or two, and once I could dimly see steamers and some smaller boats tossing on the sea.

Then the fiercest gust of rain of all swept by like a curtain, and it was as if Europe had been shut off forever--so that I recalled Gooja Singh's saying on the transport in the Red Sea, about a curtain being drawn and our not returning that way.

My twenty men marched numbly, some seeming half-asleep.
By and by, with heels sucking in the mud, we came to the road of which Ranjoor Singh had spoken and I turned along it.

It had been worn into ruts and holes by heavy traffic and now the rain made matters worse, so we made slow progress.