"His father's son!" growled Mahommed Gunga; and the big, black-bearded
warriors who stood behind him echoed, "Ay!"
But for four or five inches of straight stature, and a foot, perhaps,
of chest-girth, he was a second edition of the Cunnigan-bahadur who had
raised and led a regiment and licked peace into a warring countryside;
and though he was that much bigger than his father had been, they
dubbed him "Chota" Cunnigan on the instant. 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.
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