They were Mahommed Gunga's horses--he Mahommed Gunga's man; therefore, his honor was involved.

He reasoned, when he took the trouble to, along the good clean feudal line that lays down clearly what service is: there is no honor, says that argument, in serving any one who is content with half a service, and the honor is the only thing that counts.
As day succeeded ever sultrier, ever longer-drawn-out day--as each night came that saw him peg the horses out wherever what little breezes moved might fan them--as he sat among the courtyard groups and listened in the heavy heat, the fact grew more apparent to him that this trust of his was something after all which a man of worth might shoulder proudly.
There was danger in it.
The talk among the traders--darkly hinted, most of it, and couched in metaphor--was all of blood, and what would follow on the letting of it.
Now and then a loud-mouthed boaster would throw caution to the winds and speak openly of a grim day coming for the British; he would be checked instantly by wiser men, but not before Ali Partab had heard enough to add to his private store of information.
Priests came from a dozen cities to the eastward, all nominally after pilgrims for the sacred places, but all strangely indifferent to their quest.

They preferred, it would seem, to sit in rings with chance-met ruffians--with believers and unbelievers alike--even with men of no caste at all--and talk of other things than pilgrimages.
"Next year, one hundred years ago the English conquered India.

Remember ye the prophecy?
One hundred years they had! This, then, is the last year.

Whom the gods would whelm they first deprive of reason; mark ye this! The cartridges they serve out to the sepoys now are smeared with the blended fat of cows and pigs.