It seemed to me that the whole thing might have been managed very much more simply.

Isaacs did things in his own way, however, and, after all, he generally had a good reason for his actions.
"I think not," he said in reply to my question.

"While you were throwing that ruffian, who would have overmatched me in an instant, Shere Ali and I disposed of the sowars who ran up at the captain's signal.

Shere Ali says he killed one of them with his hands, and my little knife here seems to have done some damage." He produced the vicious-looking dagger, stained above the hilt with dark blood, which he began to scrape off with a bit of stick.
"My dear fellow," I objected, "I am delighted to have served you, and I see that since Shere Ali could not be warned of the signal, I was the only person there who could tackle that Punjabi man; yet I am completely at a loss to explain why, if Ram Lal can command the forces of nature to the extent of calling down a thick mist under the cover of which we might escape, he could not have calmly destroyed the whole band by lightning, or indigestion, or some simple and efficacious means, so that we need not have risked our lives in supplementing what he only half did." "There are plenty of answers to that question," Isaacs answered.

"In the first place, how do you know that Ram Lal could do anything more than discover the preconcerted signal and bring down that fog?
He pretends to no supernatural power; he only asserts that he understands the workings of nature better than you do.