[Hira Singh by Talbot Mundy]@TWC D-Link book
Hira Singh

CHAPTER IV
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I left the men standing there and went and told Ranjoor Singh.
I found him talking to the lined up men in no gentle manner.

As I drew nearer I heard him say the word "Wassmuss." Then I heard a trooper ask him, "Where are we ?" And he answered, "Ye stand on Asia!" That was the first intimation I received that we were in Asia, and I felt suddenly lonely, for Asia is wondrously big, sahib.
Whatever Ranjoor Singh had been saying to the men he had them back under his thumb for the time being; for when I told him of my discovery of the hut he called them to attention, turned them to the right, and marched them off as obedient as a machine, Tugendheim following like a man in a dream between his four guards and struggling now and then to loose the wet thongs that were beginning to cut into his wrists.

He had not been trussed over-tenderly, but I noticed that Ranjoor Singh had ordered the gag removed.
The hut stood alone, clear on all four sides, and after he had looked at it, Ranjoor Singh made the men line up facing the door, with himself and me and Tugendheim between them and the hut.
Presently he pushed Tugendheim into the hut, and he bade me stand in the door to watch him.
"Now the man who wishes to ask questions may," he said then, and there was a long silence, for I suppose none wished to be accused of impudence and perhaps made an example for the rest.

Besides, they were too curious to know what his next intention might be to care to offend him.

So I, seeing that he wished them to speak, and conceiving that to be part of his plan for establishing good feeling, asked the first question--the first that came into my head.
"What shall we do with this Tugendheim ?" said I.
"That I will show you presently," said he.


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