And that means "Little Cunningham." He had yet to learn that a Rajput, be he poorest of the poor, admits no superior on earth.

He did not know yet that these men had come, at one man's private cost, all down the length of India to meet him.

Nobody had told him that the feudal spirit dies harder in northern Hindustan than it ever did in England, or that the Rajput clans cohere more tightly than the Scots.

The Rajput belief that honest service--unselfishly given--is the greatest gift that any man may bring--that one who has received what he considers favors will serve the giver's son--was an unknown creed to him as yet.
But he stood and looked those six men in the eye, and liked them.

And they, before they had as much as heard him speak, knew him for a soldier and loved him as he stood.
They hung sickly scented garlands round his neck, and kissed his hand in turn, and spoke to him thereafter as man to man.