They had found
their goal worth while, and they bore him off to his hotel in
clattering glee, riding before him as men who have no doubt of the
honor that they pay themselves. No other of the homesick subalterns
drove away with a six-man escort to clear the way and scatter sparks!
They careered round through the narrow gate of the hotel courtyard as
though a Viceroy at least were in the trap behind them; and Mahommed
Gunga--six medaled, strapping feet of him--dismounted and held out
an arm for him to take when he alighted. The hotel people understood
at once that Somebody from Somewhere had arrived.
Young Cunningham had never yet been somebody. The men who give their
lives for India are nothing much at home, and their sons are even less.
Scarcely even at school, when they had made him captain of the team,
had he felt the feel of homage and the subtle flattery that undermines
a bad man's character; at schools in England they confer honors but
take simultaneous precautions. He was green to the dangerous influence
of feudal loyalty, but he quitted himself well, with reserve and
dignity.
"He is good! He will do!" swore Mahommed Gunga fiercely, for the other
emotions are meant for women only.
"He is better than the best!"
"We will make a man of this one!"
"Did you mark how he handed me his purse to defray expenses?" asked a
black-bearded soldier of the five.
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