So that there was little extra argument required to induce one of our Turkish officer prisoners--the bimbashi himself, in fact--to write the letter to Wassmuss that Ranjoor Singh required.

And that he gave to the Kurdish chief, and the Kurd rode away with his men, not looking once back at the hostages he had left with us, but making a great show of guarding Gooja Singh, who rode unarmed in the center of a group of horsemen.

That instant I began to feel sorry for Gooja Singh, and later, when we advanced through those blood-curdling mountains I was sorrier yet to think of him borne away alone amid savages whose tongue he could not speak.

The men all felt sorry for him too, but Ranjoor Singh gave them little time for talk about it, setting them at once to various tasks, not least of which was cleaning rifles for inspection.
I took Abraham to interpret for me and went to talk with our ten hostages, who were herded together apart from the other ten armed Kurds.

They seemed to regard themselves as in worse plight than prisoners and awaited with resignation whatever might be their kismet.