Nobody supposed that the Pathans and the other frontier tribes were anything but openly rebellious, and he would have been an idiot to ask questions about their loyalty.
Because of their disloyalty, and the ever-present danger that they were, the biggest British garrison in India had to be kept cooped up in Peshawur, to rot with fever and ague and the other ninety Indian plagues.
He wanted to see that garrison again, and estimate it, and make up his mind what exactly, or probably, the garrison would do in the event of the rebellion blazing out.

And he wanted to try once more to warn some one in authority, and make him see the smouldering fire beneath the outer covering of sullen silence.
He received thanks for the letters.

He received an invitation to take tea on the veranda of an officer so high in the British service that many a staff major would have given a month's pay for a like opportunity.

But he was laughed at for the advice he had to give.
"Mahommed Gunga, you're like me, you're getting old!" said the high official.
"Not so very old, sahib.

I was a young man when Cunnigan-bahadur raised a regiment and licked the half of Rajputana into shape with it.