"There is one Ali Higg who could command you with a word--another who could order your carcass thrown to the vultures.

Words first, since your boastings are all words! I say that, for all your brave words, this Ali Higg who rides ahead of us can make you slay me for a word of praise from him." "You mean, beloved, you could make me slay him for a word of praise from you!" the Sikh lied glibly.
"But I might not want him slain." "Have him made into a cripple, then--a ruin of a man, for daring to displease you!" "But he pleases me!" "Aha! I am jealous! By the beard of the Prophet, Ayisha, beware of my jealousy! I am a man of few words but sudden deeds! Is there a man who stands in my way?
May Allah show compassion on him, for he is like to need it!" He was so fervid in his avowals that he almost convinced me--almost made me believe that his private agreement with me had been a camouflage for his real intentions.
There is precious little of which my friend Narayan Singh isn't capable in the way of romantic soldiering; he ought to have been born two or three hundred years ago as, in fact, according to his reincarnating creed, he was.

Perhaps he remembers past lives so vividly that he lives them over again.

I wish I could remember a past life or two.
Ayisha was about to answer him when Grim's shrill bosun's whistle that he keeps for emergencies whined from in front, and the sleepy-looking line awoke with a start.

Every single rifle down the length of the caravan, including mine, was unslung in a second and the click of the sliding bolts was as businesslike as if we had been a squad on the parade-ground.