Maybe you gentlemen think that I am just making out a case for myself, but I give you my word that when I thought of that, though I felt the point of the knife at my throat, I opened my mouth with the intention of giving a scream, if it was my last one, which might alarm the main guard.

The man who held me seemed to know my thoughts; for, even as I braced myself to it, he whispered, 'Don't make a noise.

The fort is safe enough.

There are no rebel dogs on this side of the river.' There was the ring of truth in what he said, and I knew that if I raised my voice I was a dead man.
I could read it in the fellow's brown eyes.

I waited, therefore, in silence, to see what it was that they wanted from me.
"'Listen to me, Sahib,' said the taller and fiercer of the pair, the one whom they called Abdullah Khan.