That look of enthusiastic sympathy won his heart and
awoke his soldier's slumbering pride.
"I'm no good at explaining," he said, "but I know of things that would
stir your blood. For a whole year--my first year--I was up north in a
mud fortress where there was only one other European officer. It was
Nicholson. You mayn't have heard of him--precious few people have--but
up there in that lonely, awful place, with wild hill-tribes about us
and a handful of sepoys for our protection, he was a god--yes, a god;
for there was not one of us that didn't worship him and honor him. We
would have followed him to the mouth of hell. He was young, only six
months a captain, and yet there was nothing he didn't seem to know,
nothing he couldn't do. Every day he was in the saddle,
reconnoitering, visiting the heads of the tribes, making peace,
distributing justice. Every day he went out with his life in his
hands, and every night he came back, quiet, unpretending, never
boasting, never complaining, and yet we knew that somewhere he had
risked himself to clear a stone out of our way, to win an enemy over
to our side, to confirm a friend in his friendship. Yes, he was a man;
and there are others like him. No one hears about them, but they don't
care. They go on giving their lives and energy to their work, and
never ask for thanks or reward. I--once hoped to be like that; but I
came to Marut--and then--" He stumbled and stopped short.
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