Light women, with their painted faces, went abroad boldly.
And there was but one word on all these tongues: Magic! Could any human being pass through what this white woman had?
No! She was the reincarnation of some forgotten goddess.

They knew that, and Umballa would soon bring famine and plague and death among them.
Whenever they uttered his name they spat to cleanse their mouths of the defilement.
For the present the soldiers were his; and groups of them swaggered through the bazaars, chanting drunkenly and making speech with the light women and jostling honest men into the gutters.
All these things Lal Singh saw and heard and made note of as he went from house to house among the chosen and told them to hold themselves in readiness, as the hour was near at hand.

Followed the clinking of gunlocks and the rattle of cartridges.

A thousand fierce youths, ready for anything, death or loot or the beauties of the zenanas.

For patriotism in Southern Asia depends largely upon what treasures one may wring from it.
But how would they know the hour for the uprising?
A servant would call and ask for chupatties.