It was early morning when Ahmed, riding through the level plain, among gardens which, though it was autumn, still scented the air, came to the cantonments outside the walls of Peshawar. What he saw filled him with amazement. The ground was studded with tents, amid which soldiers of all races—tall bearded Sikhs, active little Gurkhas, red-coated Englishmen—swarmed like bees in a hive. And there in the distance he sees a lady galloping, followed by a sais, and she is not veiled, as were all the women in Shagpur, save those of low caste; Ahmed had rarely seen the faces of Rahmut Khan's wives for a year or two. And here comes a carriage drawn by two horses, and in it are a lady, she too unveiled, and a Feringhi man in spotless white clothes. And as it dashes past him, the lady turns to the officer at her side and says—
"What a fine-looking young fellow! Who is he, Fred?"
"He? A Pathan from the hills, Alice, and a most accomplished brigand, you may be sure."
Ahmed hears the words, and though he does not understand them, they set him thrilling with a strange excitement. Long-forgotten scenes are coming back to him; he remembers ladies just like this one—ladies who used to speak in the same clear low tones, and men, sometimes in red coats, sometimes in white, who used to dance him up and down on their knees. His brain was in a whirl; recollection came to him like the dim remembrance of things seen in dreams. These were people of his blood—and he was a stranger among them.
He rode on dizzily, and entering the Kabul gate, found himself in a wide street, thronged with folk of every race of the borderland. The size of the place staggered him; Shagpur was a kennel compared with it. How could he find his way about this huge town? And among so many people, what place could there be for him? He knew not which way to turn, and as for seeking an interview with the great sahib, Jan Larrens, of whom he had heard, his heart sank at the mere thought of it. The speech he heard around him was not his speech; he began to fear lest he should be unable to make the least of his wants understood. But catching sight by and by of a man in the chogah of the hill-men, he rode up to him eagerly, and asked him where he might find a serai in which to stable his horse. To his joy the man answered in his own tongue.
"You are a stranger. Whence do you come?"
"From Shagpur, in the hills."
"Hai! the village of Rahmut Khan."
"I am his son. Where is he?"
"That Allah knows. He is gone from here. The foolish one! He is even as the ass that tried to get horns and lost his ears. Why was he so foolish?"
"But tell me, where is he gone? 'Twas told us in Shagpur that the Feringhis had put him in prison for five years. Where is the prison?"
"Did I not say that Allah knows? He was taken from this prison and sent to some other. He is not my chief: why should I trouble about him? And if you have come to see him, your journey is vain. Go back to Shagpur; in five years you will see him again, if Allah wills."
"Show me a place where I may stable my horse, and then I will go and see the Feringhi Jan Larrens; perhaps he will tell me that which I wish to know."
"A stone will not become soft, nor Jan Larrens a friend. But you are a bold youth, that is certain. And that is a good horse of yours; have a care lest it be stolen. If a stranger may give counsel, I say stable him not, but keep him always with you—though to be sure you cannot ride into the room where Jan Larrens is. Wah! no matter; leave the beast with the sentry at the door; he will keep him safe."
"Then tell me where this Jan Larrens is to be found. I would see him at once."
"And there is little time to lose, for when the sun is high the Feringhis cannot be seen any more till night. Come with me; I will show the way. 'Tis without there, towards the west."
He turned the horse's head, and led the way out again by the gate, and so on for two miles until they came to the British cantonments which Ahmed had already passed. He stopped at a small and unpretentious building, at the door of which stood a red-coated sepoy. After a brief conversation with him the Pathan hitched the bridle of Ahmed's horse to a nail in the wall, and bade him go forward into the lobby. Several men were squatting on the floor, Hindus in one part, Mohammedans in another, awaiting audience with the Englishman, who devoted certain hours of the morning to personal interviews with the natives. Ahmed found a place among the Mohammedans, and squatted upon his heels to wait his turn. He felt strangely depressed and forlorn. He was the youngest among the waiting company, the most of whom ranged in age from the prime of manhood to white old age. Some talked of their affairs with their friends, others maintained silence; every now and then one would be summoned to the room beyond, and the door opened to let out one and let in another. These interviews were brief, and hardly an hour had passed when Ahmed received his call. He rose and followed the servant, quaking with nervous anticipation, and found himself in the presence of a stern-looking, bronzed and bearded man, in plain clothes of the European sort, his coat off, his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his elbows, seated at a table strewn with papers. A younger man stood beside him.
"What does this youngster want?" said John Lawrence to the other, and Ahmed again felt that strange thrill at the sound of English words. The officer, recognizing his costume, asked him in the Pashtu tongue his name and his business.
"I am Ahmed, son of Rahmut Khan of Shagpur," said the boy, "and I come to ask Jan Larrens of my father's welfare."
The officer stared a little at this plain and simple statement, not prefaced by "Hazur!" or any other title of respect.
"He's the son of that rascally freebooter we caught the other day," said the officer. "Wants to know how the old villain is. Shall I tell him?"
"Oh yes, tell him, but not where we have sent him; we don't want a gang of Pathans prowling round on the chance of breaking into the jail."
The officer then told Ahmed what he already knew—that his father was imprisoned for five years.
"I wish to see him," said Ahmed. "Tell me where he is."
"Come, my boy, this is your first meeting with an Englishman, I take it, and you don't know our ways. Your father is in prison: we cannot tell you where he is; but if your tribe behaves itself and gives us no more trouble, it is possible that his Excellency may reduce the sentence."
"I want to ask Jan Larrens to set him free. That is why I came."
The officer smiled as he translated this to Lawrence. The governor did not smile. Had it been Sir Henry Lawrence instead of Sir John, the interview might have ended differently; the former had a sympathetic manner and understood the natives; the latter was of sterner stuff.
"Tell him it's absurd," he said gruffly. "The man is well out of the way, and if his people try any more tricks, we'll serve them the same. The youngster has no claim on us; make that clear, and send him about his business."
And thus it happened that within five minutes of his entering the room Ahmed was outside again, disheartened but not abashed. The officer had spoken to him not unkindly, toning down the governor's sternness, and as he was speaking Ahmed felt a momentary impulse to blurt out that he too was English. But he was held back by the same consideration as had moved him when discussing the matter with Ahsan, and by another motive—the feeling that such a statement now would savour an appeal to charity. The Pathans are a proud race; and Ahmed had, besides the pride fostered among them, a pride that was his birthright. As he stood before his fellow-countrymen that pride surged within him; there was no humbleness or subservience in his bearing, and when he left them his unspoken thought was: "They shall know some day that I am even as they themselves, and they shall be proud to know it."
He was tingling with excitement, too; some of the words used by the Englishmen had fallen familiarly upon his ear. "Boy," "business"—these were two of the words that woke echoes in his memory, and he glowed with the thought that, if he could spend a little time among Englishmen, he might soon recover his native speech. So it was with a light in his eyes that he stepped forth into the street again—a light that deceived his Pathan friend who had been awaiting him at the door.
"Wah! were the words of Jan Larrens words of honey, then?" he said.
"No; he would tell me nothing that I knew not already, but he will assuredly tell me more some day. And now let us go to the serai, for I would fain eat, having some few pice to pay withal. But stay, friend, canst tell me whether among all these soldiers here there are those that serve one Lumsden Sahib? I have a friend among them I should like to see."
"No, they are not here, but at Hoti-Mardan, two days' march towards the north-east. Two days, I say; but with this horse of yours you could get there in one. What is your friend's name?"
"Sherdil. Do you know him?"
"No. Well, we will go into the bazar and get food, and then I will put you in the way for Hoti-Mardan. But if you think to become one of those Guides of Lumsden Sahib yourself, 'twill be a waste of time; for there be many now waiting to put on the khaki for whom there is no room. Hai! I do not understand it; I am a swordsmith and will make swords for them, receiving a fair price, but Allah forbid I should ever give up my freedom to serve the sahibs."
He trudged beside Ahmed into the town again, chattering all the way. They had a simple meal together, Ahmed keeping a watchful eye on his horse tethered at the door; and then the swordsmith took his leave, with a sententious maxim by way of parting counsel.
"Friends are serpents: they bite. Strangers are best. May God go with you."
After resting a while, Ahmed set off on his ride to Hoti-Mardan, the head-quarters of the Guides. He had always intended to visit Sherdil, and see for himself whether his position was so ignominious as his father Assad had made out. But now, as he left the suburban gardens of Peshawar behind, and came into the wide sandy plain, over which he must ride for thirty miles or more, other ideas came into his mind. Jan Larrens had said that he had no claim on the Government of the Panjab: that was true; but what if he should establish a claim? What if he could do something for the sahibs as a Pathan, and so not merely attain a position in which he might serve his father, but also prove his right to the name of Englishman? It was clear that he could not go back to Shagpur; he was surprised to find himself glad that he could not. New feelings were springing within him. To be chief of Shagpur seemed no very desirable thing; to win his title of Englishman, to prove himself worthy to stand among these white men, who ruled, not villages, but empires—this seemed to him a goal worth striving towards.
And how could it be accomplished? The obvious answer to the question was: Join the Guides as Sherdil had done. But there were two difficulties. His friend the swordsmith had said that there were already many candidates waiting for admission to the corps; it was very unlikely that room could be made for a new-comer, and one so young. It might be years before he could be enrolled, and he was loath to wait; the little money he had would soon be gone, and then the only course open to him would be to join some band of freebooters in the hills, for to earn his living by any menial occupation would never have entered his head. That was a matter of caste.
The second difficulty was also a matter of caste. Sherdil was the son of a man who, while not of the lowest caste, like the washermen and sweepers and musicians, was certainly not of a high caste. If all the Guides were like him, Ahmed felt that he, as the son of a chief, would demean himself by joining them. His bringing-up made him very sensitive to caste distinctions. No doubt the Englishmen he had lately left were of high caste: no doubt his own real father had been one of them; he must certainly do nothing that would make him lose caste in English eyes.
These problems occupied his mind as he rode. They dropped from his thoughts by and by when he came in sight of his destination. He saw, standing in a clearing amid jungle and scrub, a walled fort, with a tower on which a flag was flying. Beyond rose the great mountain mass of the Himalayas. Outside the walls were huts and tents of every sort and size. As he rode among them up to the gate Ahmed saw men of every border race in their different costumes; none of them was in khaki, so that these were apparently not members of Lumsden Sahib's corps. He wondered whether they were the candidates of whom the swordsmith had spoken, and his heart sank, for they were strong, stalwart fellows of all ages, none so young as he, and looked as if they had been men of war from their youth.
Challenged at the gate, he asked for Sherdil, the son of Assad. And in a few minutes the man came swaggering to him in his khaki, not a bit like the downtrodden wretch his father had lamented. He hailed Ahmed effusively, and invited him proudly into the fort. It was, as Ahmed found, in the shape of a five-pointed star. Sherdil showed him the officers' quarters on four of the points, and the magazine and armoury on the fifth; the rude huts of the infantry tucked away under the parapets; the hornwork in which the cavalry portion of the corps had their quarters. Two British officers happened to cross the parade-ground as Sherdil was showing Ahmed round. Sherdil saluted.
"That is Lumsden Sahib," he said—"the tall one. The other is Bellew Sahib, the hakim. Hai! his powders are terrible: they bite the tongue, and make, as it were, an earthquake in one's inside."
And then he went on to describe an ailment from which he had recently suffered, and Dr. Bellew's drastic treatment. But Ahmed only half listened: he was more interested in Lumsden Sahib, the commander of this corps of Guides. He saw a tall, athletic figure, surmounted by a fine head—much handsomer than Jan Larrens, he thought, almost as handsome as Rahmut Khan. Ahmed was struck with a sudden fancy: allowing for differences of dress, Rahmut must in his young manhood have borne a striking resemblance to this Feringhi. Harry Burnett Lumsden was at this time thirty-five years of age. He had come to India at the age of seventeen, with a cadetship in the Company's service, and while still a lieutenant, at the age of twenty-five, had been ordered by Sir Henry Lawrence to raise the corps of Guides, which he had commanded ever since except for a brief period when Lieutenant Hodson held the command. His rank was now that of captain, with a brevet majority.
Sherdil was so taken up with his task of showman that he did not at once ask Ahmed's purpose in visiting him. But when he learnt what had happened at Shagpur since the capture of the chief, he cried—
"Wah! Ahmed-ji, I will get leave and go and kill that dog Dilasah. It cannot be yet, alas! for I have already had my leave for this year. But Dilasah shall die, and you shall be chief; by my beard, it shall be so."
"I do not want to be chief, Sherdil," said Ahmed; then, brought face to face with his thoughts, "I want to join the Guides—if I lose no caste by it."
"Hush! do not speak of caste. We are all high caste—we Guides."
"But you, Sherdil?"
"Hush! no one knows. Lumsden Sahib will only take men of good caste. I had to lie: lying is an honest man's wings, you know. Hai! you will lose no caste. We are all good men. But you are young, Ahmed, and there are many waiting. Those outside the walls: you saw them: they have encamped there to wait until there is room for them. And they are good men—some of the finest brigands of the hills, and sons of chiefs among them. I fear me you are too young. There are thirty waiting, and they live out there with their friends, spending their money in feeding themselves and their horses; can you do the same?"
"For a month; no more."
Sherdil drew a long face.
"A month! it is very little. Yet it may be well. Wah! it shall be well. Maybe there will be room for one or two in a month. And a month will give us time. I will teach you."
"Teach me what?"
And then Sherdil explained Lumsden's way of filling the vacancies as they occurred. He held a competition among the candidates, and took them to the rifle range to shoot it off among themselves: the best shots got the places.
"And if there are some who shoot equally well, what then?" asked Ahmed.
"Oh, then he does as Hodson Sahib did. He makes them ride unbacked horses, and the man that rides furthest before being thrown off, that is the man for the Guides."
"I can shoot, and I can ride, Sherdil," said Ahmed, with a smile. "I do not fear the tests."
"That may well be: but you are young, we have no boys in the Guides. Yet it may be possible. If we could give you a moustache and the beginnings of a beard!"
"That may not be until Allah wills."
"Nay, there is a very cunning magician in the bazar at Peshawar, who with some few touches of a stick can make the semblance of hair on the face. So we might add a few years to you till the tests are over: after that it will be as Heaven wills."
Ahmed thought over this suggestion for a minute, and then said—
"Nay, it cannot be so, Sherdil. Dost thou want me to be shamed? What if the shooting and riding be good and then it is proved that the hair is false? It would make my face fall before my countrymen."
"Thy countrymen! Hai! If thou thinkest so, better go straightway to Lumsden Sahib and say, 'I am a Feringhi, of the sahib-log like yourself. Give me clothes such as the sahibs wear, and a portion of pig to eat.'"
"Silence, son of a dog!" cried Ahmed. "I will tell all at a fitting time. And thou, Sherdil, wilt lock thy tongue and say nothing of these matters, or verily it will be a sad day for thee. Swear by the grave of thy grandmother."
Sherdil looked astonished at the sudden vigour of Ahmed's speech. He took the oath required. Then ensued a long conversation, at the end of which Ahmed rode back to Peshawar and Sherdil sought an interview with his commander.
"Well, what can I do for you?" shouted Lumsden in his breezy way as Sherdil stood before him, saluting humbly.
"If it please the heaven-born," said Sherdil, "I have a friend who wishes to put on the khaki and serve the Kumpani."
"Aha! another son of a dyer, like Sherdil, son of Assad?"
Sherdil gasped. Was his origin known after all?
"The heaven-born knows everything," he said, with a sigh. "No; this friend is of high caste and the son of a chief—a good man."
"His name?"
"Ahmed, son of Rahmut Khan."
"The villain we chased not long ago!"
"The heaven-born says; and the same villain is my own chief, and is now laid up in the sahibs' prison, and can make no more trouble; but there is trouble in the village——"
"Disputed succession, I suppose?"
"Hazur! Dilasah, a fat rascal, makes himself chief until I can slay him, and Ahmed wishes to serve the heaven-born until such time as his father is mercifully set free."
"How old is he?"
"I cannot tell that to a day, heaven-born. He seems somewhat younger than Sherdil thy servant, but he is well-grown, and can ride a horse and hit a mark. Moreover, he is exceeding skilful in the nazabaze."
"Well, well, I have put his name down. He makes the thirty-second. Is he here? Is he the boy I saw with you on the parade-ground?"
"Heaven-born, how could it be? Ahmed is in Peshawar: that boy was his cousin." Sherdil lied without a blush.
"Well, take yourself off now. I will let you know when a vacancy occurs, and then your friend must take his chance with the rest."
And next day, in the serai where he had put up in Peshawar, Ahmed learnt from Sherdil that his name stood thirty-second on the list of candidates for the Guides.
Sherdil did not do things by halves. He was now as keen as Ahmed himself that the boy should become one of the Guides. During the next fortnight he devoted every spare moment to coaching him in the shooting tests. Ahmed had never shot with a carbine, but only with the heavy jazail of the tribesmen. Sherdil sought out a secluded spot among the lower hills where practising could be carried on without attracting attention, and lent Ahmed his own carbine to practise with. And since it was impossible to obtain ammunition belonging to the corps, he spent some of his saved pay in buying powder, shot, and percussion caps in Peshawar, and refilled some old cartridge cases. He drew a rough target on the face of a rock, and diligently played musketry instructor until he could declare that Ahmed was as good a shot as any of the candidates was likely to be at various ranges.
About three weeks after Ahmed's arrival, Lumsden Sahib announced one day that there was a vacancy in the cavalry. One of the men had overstopped his leave, and was summarily dismissed. It appeared later that the trooper had employed his leave in hunting down a hill-man whose father had spoken disrespectfully of his own grandmother, and until the slight was avenged the man had no other object in life.
Sherdil lost no time in conveying the news to Ahmed. There was great bustle among the candidates and their friends, and as the day appointed for the competition drew near, the camp outside the walls of the fort became monstrously swollen with relatives of the competitors and people who had come from Peshawar for the mere pleasure and excitement of the event. Among them were representatives of every race of the borderland, speaking a variety of dialects, and keen partisans of the men of their own blood among the competitors.
The men of the Guides were as much excited as the rest. The corps was divided into companies, each of which consisted of men of one race; and though all were as loyal as any European soldiers could be, and had as high an ideal of soldierly duty and the honour of the corps, the men of one company would, on slight provocation, have flown at the throats of those of another if they met when on leave. The vacancy being for a cavalryman, the competitors were almost all exceptionally tall, strapping fellows, and the little Gurkhas among the candidates were vastly disappointed that the defaulting Guide had not been an infantryman.
On a fine October morning, with a light cold wind blowing down from the hills—herald of the winter—the competitors marched to the rifle range, accompanied by three of the English officers—Lumsden himself, Quintin Battye, the second in command, and Kennedy, commandant of the cavalry. Behind them came a rabble of spectators, laughing and yelling with excitement, and almost the whole of the corps. Arrived at the range, the competitors, twenty-five in all, were drawn up in line—Afridis and Sikhs, Hazaras and Waziris, Afghans and Pathans of different clans—and answered to their names as Lumsden Sahib called over the list. Ahmed's name came last, and as he, like the rest, answered "Hazur! I am here," he caught the eyes of all the officers fixed on him, and felt a strange nervousness under the scrutiny.
"Where is that rascal Sherdil?" cried Lumsden.
"Hazur! I am here," replied the man, saluting as he stepped out from the throng, and looking very like a dog that expected a whipping.
"What does this trick mean? This Ahmed of yours is a mere boy; you said he was a little younger than yourself. You seem to be playing up for a flogging, my man."
"Heaven-born, is it a time to be unjust? Did I not answer truly? I said I would not tell his age to a day, and the heaven-born would not have had me say he is older than I. That would have been very foolish."
"But this is a boy: his beard is not grown; we have no place for such in the corps."
"As for the beard, heaven-born, that will come. If I shave my beard and moustache—which Allah forbid!—my face will be even as Ahmed's. Shoes are tested on the feet, sahib, and a man in a fight. Behold him; his forehead is bright, since his sword-tip is red with blood. He has slain beasts and men; did he not come with me and blow up Minghal's tower? And then, to be sure, he had a moustache and the shadow of a beard, and if the heaven-born pleases we can get the conjurer in Peshawar to furnish him very quickly with the necessary hair. And he can shoot; if I do not offend to say it, he can shoot as well as the heaven-born himself; and he is a good shikari; and as for riding a horse—wah! let Kennedy Sahib judge of that. Look at a man's deeds, heaven-born, not whether he is tall or short. The thorn which is sharp is so from its youth, and——"
"Chup!" said Lumsden, who, with the other officers, had scarcely been able to keep his countenance during this address. "You have a moist tongue. You quote your proverbs at me; I'll give you one: 'A closed mouth is better than talking nonsense.'"
"True, sahib," said Sherdil quickly, "and there is yet another: 'If you are not a good judge of beasts, choose a young one.'"
At this, and Sherdil's sententious look, as of one who says "That's a clincher," Lumsden laughed outright.
"'The child is father of the man,'" said Battye, with whom quoting was a habit. "Give the boy a trial; we'll soon see whether this man's talk is all froth."
And so Ahmed was admitted to the competition. The spectators had been growing restless and restive during the colloquy, but now that the first man took post opposite the target, and lay flat on the ground, they hushed their noise and awaited the issue breathlessly. The range was three hundred yards; the marksman was a tall, grave-looking Sikh, and as his musket flashed and the marker signalled a bull's-eye, a great shout arose from his compatriots.
"Shahbash! Bravo! That's a fine shot. Thou'lt surely win, Faiz."
And then the partisans of the other men tried to shout the Sikh's friends down.
"Bah! what is that? A bull's-eye, you say. But it was an accident; the wind carried the bullet. Allah willing, he will miss next time. Courage, Sula; look not at the cock on his dunghill."
Similar cries, varying as the result of the shots, greeted the Sikh's succeeding attempts. Then came Sula's turn.
"Hai! Now he shoots!" cried his friends. "What is the marker about? A miss? Truly the jins are spiteful, the musket is bewitched. Do not lose heart, O Sula, the sahib will give thee another musket, and then wilt thou show thyself more than a match for that son of a pig."
And Sula, having taken another musket, fired off his six shots and retired.
The next came along, an Afghan, with features of a markedly Semitic cast, and with him a flock of his partisans. The same scene was enacted, the same yells of delight and howls of derision, the same words of flattery and of abuse—all kept within certain bounds, however, by the presence of the sahibs.
At last it came to Ahmed's turn. The colloquy between Lumsden Sahib and Sherdil had drawn particular attention to him, and the Pathans of the Guides, who outnumbered men of other races in the corps, were specially interested in the doings of this young candidate. For ten days past Sherdil had boasted of his pupil's ability, and Sherdil having a moist tongue, as Lumsden Sahib had put it, and being something of a favourite, the Pathans were prepared to open their lungs in vociferous plaudits. Ahmed fired and missed. A growl of dismay broke from the Pathans' lips; the other men, who resented the cocksureness of Sherdil and his friends, leapt about with shrieks of delight. Sherdil himself looked a little blue; and as for Ahmed, he was quivering with excitement and nervousness, as the Englishmen perceived.
"Chup! you sons of dogs!" cried Kennedy Sahib. "Let the boy have fair play. This din of cats would spoil any man's eye. Chup! The boy has five more shots."
And Ahmed, pulling himself together, took careful aim amid a breathless stillness, drew the trigger—and the marker signalled a bull's-eye.
"Shahbash! Shahbash!" cried Sherdil, pirouetting like a mad fakir, brandishing his sword, hurling abuse at the friends of the other candidates. "Wah! did I not say he could shoot? How should he not, when I am his teacher? Of a truth, he is the man for the Guides."
When Ahmed had finished his round, he was equal with four others. Amid the din of altercation which ensued, Lumsden Sahib's voice was heard calling for order. The competitors had still to shoot at the longer ranges of five hundred and seven hundred yards. The excitement grew to fever heat as the number gradually thinned, until the choice clearly rested between Ahmed and a Rajput named Wahid. They were to have six shots at seven hundred yards to finish the match. Ahmed had now lost his first nervousness, and waited quietly with Sherdil and a group of his friends while Wahid fired his round. The spectators watched in dead silence as the man took aim. The first shot was a bull's-eye. "Wahid will win! Wahid will win!" roared a hundred throats. The second was an inner, the third an outer, and now Sherdil's party were hilarious, crying that Wahid's eye was crooked, his arm was as weak as a woman's; what was he good for, except to play the fiddle at a Hindu wedding? But their jubilation was checked when with his last three shots he scored three bull's-eyes.
"Wah! where is the Pathan now?" shouted the Rajput's partisans. "Sherdil eats greens and breathes pulao. A great sound and an empty pot. Come, let us see what the smooth-faced boy can do."
Ahmed took his place. Four times he scored a bull's-eye, and his friends fairly shrieked with delight.
"Wah! he will eat up Wahid till not a little bit is left. Let Wahid tend asses, that is all that he is good for."
The fifth shot was an inner.
"Hai!" said Sherdil. "Some low-born Rajput is breathing, and his foul breath blows the bullet away. But the next will be a bull's-eye; be ready, brothers, for Ahmed will win."
But when the marker signalled an outer the uproar became deafening. The scores of Wahid and Ahmed were equal. The partisans of each clamoured for the choice to fall on their man. Wahid was the father of two boys: therefore he was the better candidate. Ahmed was not so fat: therefore he would prove the better Guide. Wahid had stolen horses for twenty years: who so fit to catch horse-thieves? Ahmed had blown up fifty men with gunpowder (Sherdil did not stick at trifles): where would they find a Rajput who could say the same? Thus they bellowed against one another, urging more and more ridiculous reasons on behalf of their favourites, and then Lumsden cried for silence.
"There is only one place," he said, "and these two are equal as shots. For the life of me I don't know which of them to give it to. Come along, we'll try the riding test. Fetch out that unbroken colt; jaldi karo!"
The jabbering began afresh, while a sais went off to fetch the colt. The whole company repaired to a level stretch of about three hundred yards, where the men practised the game of nazebaze. A post stood at the further end. When the colt was brought up—a mettlesome beast with arab blood in it—Lumsden ordered the course to be cleared, and the excited throng having been pressed back on either side, told Ahmed to mount and ride the animal bareback to the post and back. Ahmed sprang on to the quivering horse, which bucked and reared, making frantic efforts to throw him. But the boy had been given his first lesson in riding in just this way; Rahmut Khan had set him on horseback and bade him look after himself. So now, gripping the reins firmly and pressing his knees into the animal's flanks, at the same time speaking soothing words that he used with his own horse Ruksh, he succeeded in turning its head towards the post, and in another moment was off like the wind. The shouts of the crowd terrified the horse; it reared and plunged, and then made a dash for the centre of the yelling mob on the right, which broke apart and scattered with shrieks of alarm. But Ahmed controlled his steed before it reached the edge of the course. He turned it once more into the straight; it ran on past the post at a mad gallop, which was only checked by a hillock in front of it. Then, giving it a minute to recover, Ahmed patted it and coaxed it, wheeled round, and rode straight back to the starting-point.
Sherdil and the Guides roared with applause.
"By Jove!" said Lieutenant Battye, turning to Kennedy, "what a seat the fellow has got! Better make him your riding-master, old chap."
"Don't want one," was the answer. "All my fellows can ride. Let's see what the Rajput can do."
Wahid was about the same height as Ahmed, but broader and heavier. He leapt on to the horse's back nimbly enough, and kept his seat, as it seemed, by sheer muscular force. The horse appeared to fear him, and started for the post with a docility that surprised everybody, and sent Sherdil's hopes once more down to zero. Wahid reached the post; then, instead of galloping past, he pulled the horse up with a violent tug on the reins, and wheeled it round to return. But the animal had a temper; this treatment did not please it at all; and when it had got half-way back to the starting-point, and the crowd was already yelling that the prize was to Wahid, because he had shown the better management, suddenly the horse stopped dead, planting his fore feet firmly in the sand; up flew its hind hoofs, and the Rajput went clean over its head, falling with a thwack just in front of its nose.
The roar that went up from the crowd might almost have been heard at Peshawar. The Guides to a man shouted Ahmed's name; the Pathans among the spectators danced a kind of war-dance, and some, losing their heads, fired off their jazails with imminent risk of blowing some one to pieces. Sherdil, after a glance at his commander's face, in which he read the verdict, called to a comrade, and Ahmed was hoisted on to their shoulders and carried in triumph back to the fort.
"Wah! Did I not say it?" cried Sherdil. "What a man seeketh happens to him. I said 'I, Sherdil, will teach thee, Ahmed, the right way and make thee a Guide.' And now we will have a tamasha. Lumsden Sahib will give us a sheep or a goat, and we will be very merry."
Thus Ahmed became a trooper of the Guides.
Ahmed had enlisted in the Guides with two very definite purposes—the one closely connected with the other. The first was, to achieve something that would establish a claim on the sahibs; the second, to effect the release of Rahmut Khan, or at least to shorten his imprisonment. Since the possibility of the second depended on the first, he bent his whole energies, from the moment he donned the khaki, to the mastery of his duties. The circumstances of his admission to the corps were such that many eyes were watching him. Some of the men were curious; others, Sherdil's friends, were jealous that he should justify them; the British officers were interested, not merely in observing the result of the experiment of enlisting one much below the average age, but in the boy himself. There was in him a nameless something that attracted them, and all of them, from Lumsden downwards, kept a special eye upon his progress.
He showed himself quick at drill, and at exercise with the sword and lance. Assad had reported quite accurately about the goose-step; but Ahmed, so far from feeling any indignity in standing on one foot, found it amusing to watch the lines of men lifting and setting down their feet like automata at the word of the officers, and gravely balancing themselves like herons at a pond. He had nothing to learn in "stables" save some small matters of routine, and in three months passed as a thoroughly efficient sowar. Furthermore, he was on good terms with his comrades. Sherdil treated him as a show pupil, and one day took an opportunity of asking Lumsden Sahib whether his praise of Ahmed had not been well deserved.
"Do you want us to make him a risaldar at once?" said Lumsden, with a laugh.
"The heaven-born knows that I, Sherdil, am not yet a naik," said the man readily. Lumsden owed a great part of his influence with the men to the freedom he permitted in his intercourse with them. His attitude towards them was that of one brave man to another; it made for mutual respect; yet no man forgot that the commander was a hazur or presumed on hisbonhomie.
Ahmed was one of the escort that accompanied Lumsden and Sir John Lawrence to their interview with Dost Muhammed, the Amir of Kabul, at the entrance to the Khaibar Pass on the first day of the New Year. He wondered whether Jan Larrens would recognize him, but the great man was too preoccupied to notice a trooper. When it became known that in pursuance of the agreement made at that meeting Lumsden was to go before long on a mission to Kandahar, Ahmed hoped that he would be chosen among the escort on that occasion. Proximity day after day to the British officers would provide him with many opportunities of picking up their language. But before the time came for the mission to start he had reason to change his mind.
One evening, as he was passing alone through the Pathan lines of the infantry, he heard through the kusskuss matting which formed the doorway of one of the huts, and which had been blown aside for a second by a gust of wind, a voice that sounded strangely familiar. It was not the voice of any of his comrades, and for a moment he could not remember to whom it belonged. Not greatly concerned, he was passing on when he recalled it in a flash; it was certainly very much like the voice of Minghal, ex-chief of Mandan, and his father's enemy. He paused; if the speaker was indeed Minghal, what had brought him to Hoti-Mardan? Ahmed wondered whether the defeated chief had heard of his enlistment in the Guides, and had come on his own or Dilasah's behalf to do him a mischief. It occurred to him that he might be mistaken; but it was as well to make sure.
The hut was one of a row, beneath the parapet of the wall, built of mud, and eight or ten feet apart. At first Ahmed thought of creeping up to the doorway and pushing aside the matting gently so as to get a view of the occupants. There was some risk in this, however; he might be seen by those inside the hut, or by some one passing outside, and then his purpose would be defeated. So he crept round to the back, trying to find a crack in the wall of the flimsily-built hut, such as were often caused by the shrinking of the mud under the sun's heat. But in this he was disappointed. The hut, being close against the wall of the fort, had been defended from the sun's rays. Nothing daunted, he proceeded with his knife to cut a hole, very gently, as his tribesmen were wont to do when stealing horses. He was so dexterous in this that he soon scratched away the dried mud until he had made a hole a little larger than his eye. Then, as he expected, he came upon the straw network with which the mud was held together. So far his movements had been almost soundless, but there was a considerable risk of being heard if he cut the straw which alone stood between him and the occupants of the hut. Every now and then a gust of wind came, whistling as it swept between the hut and the wall. Taking advantage of this slight noise, he inserted the point of his knife and gently severed the straw until he was able to see pretty clearly the interior of the hut, lit as it was by a small saucer-lamp.
The occupants appeared to be three in number. Two of them were Panjabis, whom, being infantrymen, he knew but slightly. In the third he did not recognize, as he expected to do, the figure of Minghal Khan. It was a fakir, with long matted grey hair and a straggling beard. Cold as the weather was, the fakir was almost entirely unclothed; his body was smeared with ashes.
And then Ahmed blessed the caution which had prevented him from creeping up to the doorway of matting in front. Just behind it, so much in shadow that Ahmed had not at first perceived him, stood a fourth man, who peeped through now and again, as if to see that nobody approached without warning. At the same time he lent an ear to the conversation going on among his comrades, who were seated, cross-legged, on the floor. There was something suspicious in the attitude of the man on guard. Ahmed had once or twice lately noticed a certain restlessness among some of the Musalman members of the corps. He felt quite sure that the men were after no good, and removing his eye from the aperture, he turned his ear towards it The meeting was evidently a secret one, and it seemed to him important to know what was going on. The strange resemblance of the voice of one of the men to that of his enemy Minghal still disturbed him, and, as was perhaps natural in the circumstances, he still had a suspicion that he was himself the subject of their discussion; but as he listened, he soon found that they were talking about matters far more weighty than the latest recruit of the Guides.
"The Feringhis are attacking our religion," were the first words he heard. "Is it not a time when all good Musalmans should lay aside their little personal quarrels and join hands against the common foe?"
It was evidently the fakir who was speaking, and Ahmed was again struck by the likeness of his voice to Minghal's.
"The time is at hand when all the Feringhis shall be smitten," the voice continued. "Why have the infidels enlisted so many followers of Islam in their army? Why are they making this new cartridge? To turn the sons of the Prophet from the true faith."
"Bah!" said one of the group. "The Feringhis' religion has nought to do with the eating of pigs. They are men of the Book. They eat pigs, it is true; but that concerns not their religion."
"Foolish one, dost thou not see? This cartridge is smeared with the fat of pigs, and when a true believer bites off the top, as the need is, does he not lose his caste and become a pariah? Will his father speak to him? Will his brother eat with him? Nay, he loses father, brother, all his kin; and then the Feringhi comes and says, 'Dog, thou art outcast. Embrace my religion, or thou art friendless in this world as well as damned in the next.'"
"That may be so, O holy one," said the second man; "but what does it concern us? We have not the new cartridge of which you speak. Our sahibs are honourable; they would do nothing in despite of our religion; Lumsden Sahib told me when I became a Guide that he would not permit any man to interfere with that."
"Hai! Remember the saying, 'What is the goat, what is its flavour?' The goat can never become a camel, nor can its milk ever taste like the buffalo's. Your sahibs are kafirs; they hold not the faith; they but bide the time, and then assuredly you will be defiled."
"But didst thou not say that nothing can be done without the help of the accursed Hindus? I for one will not join hands with the dogs."
"Nay, nay, in this matter Islam and Shiva are at one. The Hindu by tasting the fat of the sacred cow, the Musalman by tasting the fat of the loathed swine, become alike defiled. The Feringhis are powerful. They are in the saddle. If the Hindus will aid us in tearing them out of the saddle, shall we despise their help? Have you not a saying, 'Buffalo! though we are not of one mountain, we belong to one thicket'? We Musalmans have our horns in the thicket; shall not Hindus help to disentangle them? When the Feringhis are smitten and sent to perdition, then will be the time for us true believers to deal fitly with the Hindu dogs. Will it not be then as it was in the days of the great Shah Nadir? Once more the Afghans, men of your race and faithful sons of the Prophet, will pour into the plains and set up a new and glorious kingdom. Who reigns now in Delhi? Bahadur Shah, toothless, feeble-kneed, a puppet in the hands of the Feringhis, doing nought from sunrise to sunset but invent foolish verses. We will change that; we will restore him to his dignities, or set up another in his room. As in the old days, every soldier in our host shall become a zamindar. There will be no goose-step to learn; no useless drill; none of the humiliation of obeying the commands of the white-faced dogs."
Though the fakir spoke in low tones, there was an intensity in his utterance that had its effect upon the listeners. This news of the fat-smeared cartridge troubled them in spite of themselves. They had heard nothing of it before; as a matter of fact, it had not yet been issued from the factory at Dam-dam; and but for the insolence of a Lascar, probably no suspicion of it would have arisen. The Lascar asked a Hindu one day for a drink of water from his brass lotah, which the Hindu indignantly refused, since he could not himself use the vessel again without losing caste. Upon this the Lascar retorted that he would soon have no caste to lose, since he would have to bite a cartridge smeared with the fat of pigs and cows. The news spread like wild-fire through the native army; and the terrible fear that the introduction of the new cartridge was a cunning device to make them pariahs, acting on superstitious minds which had other causes of disaffection, wrought the sepoys to a dangerous state of unrest.
But the fakir, besides appealing to his hearers' religious feelings, appealed also to their cupidity. He knew his men well. Like many of the Guides, they were by nature and training robbers. The prospect of unlimited plunder fired their imagination, and they received his last speech with a grunt of approval. He was quick to seize his advantage.
"Listen, brothers," he said in a mysterious whisper which Ahmed could barely catch. "'Tis nigh a hundred years since the Feringhi Clive, that son of perdition, defeated the host of Siraj-uddaula at Plassey. A holy man foretold that when the evil dominion of the Feringhis had endured for a hundred years, it should fade and vanish as a dream. The time is at hand, my brothers. Have I not lately received the sign from the hands of the Maulavi himself, the saint who now goes to and fro to stir the hearts of the faithful? Behold!"
Ahmed turned his eye quickly to the hole, and saw the fakir produce from his loin-cloth a chapati—a flat cake of unleavened bread—which he handed with a solemn gesture to one of the Guides. The man took it as though it were a sacred object.
"That is the sign chosen by the holy Maulavi Ahmed Ullah of Faizabad. Pass it to your comrades, brother, such of them as are true. I myself may no longer stay: I have far to go. Work in silence and discreetly, but with no loss of time. The hour is at hand; no man knoweth when the Maulavi may give the word. The train is laid from Meerut to Calcutta. The prize—wealth in this world and bliss in the world to come—is for him who leads, not for him who follows, in the blessed work. I will record your names, so that the Maulavi may have you in remembrance."
Ahmed had been so intently watching, that, being unable to hear and see at the same time, he lost part of this address. When he put his ear again to the hole, he could not catch the whispered words. With his knife he slightly enlarged the opening, and was straining his ears when he heard a light footfall behind him. Before he could turn, an arm was flung round his neck, a hand was pressed over his mouth, and in spite of his struggles to free himself he was held there until his captor, joined by others, securely gagged and trussed him. The man nearest him in the hut had heard the scratching of his knife, and crept out; his companions had followed him; and Ahmed was a prisoner.
While one of the men was scouting to make sure that nobody approached, the others dragged their captive round the hut and in at the doorway. As he entered, the fakir rose to his feet, and a glare of triumph lit his eyes.
"A spy!" he cried in a whisper. "Allah protects the faithful."
"Shall it be a knife, holy one?" asked one of the men.
"Nay, nay," said another, "a knife means blood on the floor. And how could we carry him from the lines? Within a little the gun will signal for 'lights out,' and the gates will be closed. We could not carry a dead man without being seen by the sentry. 'Tis easier to carry a man alive than dead."
"But we cannot keep him here," said the third. "'Tis Ahmed, the child who puts his elders to shame at man's work, and licks the boots of the sahibs. Search will be made for him; the braggart Sherdil, who shares his hut, will raise a cry when he is missed. This is evil work: he will betray us."
"Listen to me," said the fakir. "When the gun fires I go. But I will remain without, at the foot of the wall. When the night is far spent, do you lift him and throw him over the wall. Then will I take him and cast him into the river, and none will know."
"But the sentry!" said one of the men.
"Bah! has he eyes all round? The night is dark; none will see. Brothers, he is a kafir; he is a Feringhi who has come among you to learn your secrets and betray you. He shall die. So may all perish that stand in the way of the faithful."
And then Ahmed knew that the fakir was in very truth his enemy, Minghal. The voice, the glance of hate, the knowledge that he was an Englishman—all proved that his first suspicion was just. At the fakir's words one of the men spat upon him; then he was cast to the floor behind a charpoy that lay on one side of the entrance. Another charpoy was on the opposite side. It was near this that the conspirators had been squatting. The charpoy behind which he had been flung concealed him from the view of any one who should enter the doorway, and one of the men now placed the little lamp on the floor near the end of the charpoy, so that a shadow was cast on the place where Ahmed lay.
His hands and feet being tied, and his mouth gagged, the men felt free to listen to the fakir as he told them their prisoner's history. Ahmed felt that that history would soon come to an end. Even if a friend should enter the hut, he was so well concealed that he might escape observation. He had no means of giving an alarm; he saw no way of escape: and when the lights were out and the fort was in darkness, it would be no difficult matter for the men to do as the fakir had suggested. And should the sound of his fall from the wall attract the notice of a sentry, and bring any one to the spot, he knew that Minghal would certainly dispatch him even though he should himself be seized. A knife-thrust would take but the fraction of a second; and Minghal was such an adept in cunning that he might make good his escape.
And so he lay helpless while his captors planned how they would lower him over the wall by a rope, so that no sound of falling should catch the sentry's ear. They agreed that they ran a risk; but there was greater risk in any other course. To dispose of him was imperative, or they themselves were doomed. The safest time would be two hours after "lights out," when the sentries had been changed; it would not be many minutes before the signal gun was fired.
Ahmed tried again and again to think of some way of escaping the impending doom. If only he could attract the attention of some of his friends in the corps, all might be well. He longed that Sherdil, or Dilawur, or Rasul, all good friends of his, might be brought by some lucky chance into the hut. There was a possibility that he might then raise himself above the charpoy and be seen. With all his heart he hoped that the men would not extinguish the lamp before the signal was given, and he felt that if no help should come while it still burned he was lost indeed.
With the thought of the imminent extinction of the light a wild chance suggested itself. On the charpoy, close to his feet, was a small bundle of straw which had apparently been used as a pillow. It was almost opposite to the lamp. Drawing up his feet slightly, he gently pushed the bundle to the edge of the charpoy. He was careful to move it slowly, for straw crackles, and he expected that the slight rustle he could not help making would be heard by the men. But if they heard the sound at all, they probably attributed it merely to his uneasy movements. He pushed the bundle inch by inch until it came to a position where in a few moments it must fall over the edge of the charpoy to the floor. Would it fall on the lamp? If it did, would it extinguish the flame? If it did not extinguish the flame, would it catch light quickly enough to prevent the men from quenching the flame? To all these questions was added another: Would the signal gun be fired before anything could be done?
Ahmed saw that the men were so near to the lamp that even if the bundle caught fire they could stamp out the flames before they made such a glare as would raise an alarm. By some means this must be prevented. The very signal he had dreaded lent him aid. The gun was fired. The fakir rose to go. In another moment the lamp would be put out. Ahmed gave the little bundle the last tilt necessary to cause it to overbalance, and next instant he drew his feet up, stuck them under the charpoy, and, suddenly shooting them out, kicked it directly upon the three men, who were still squatting on the floor, looking towards the fakir as they bade him farewell. The three or four seconds thus gained achieved his object. The straw was ignited, a huge flame shot up in an instant to the roof. This, as in all Indian huts, was low. Being made of thatch it caught fire readily. The hut was ablaze.
For the moment the conspirators were thrown so completely off their balance that they knew not how to act. But it soon dawned on them that the fire must bring the whole camp down on them; already there were cries from without. The discovery of Ahmed bound, dead or alive, would be fatal to them. They could not get rid of him. Safety lay in flight alone. Barely five seconds after the sudden outbreak of flame they dashed out of the hut, rushed among the men who were flocking up, and in the confusion made for the gate and disappeared.
But the fakir was not with them. On the point of departing when the straw caught fire, he too had been dazed for a moment by the sudden glare, and took a step forward to flee. But then he turned, whipped out his knife, and ran to where Ahmed lay. Ahmed saw him coming, saw the knife in his hand, knew his fell purpose. Quick as thought he wriggled against the wall and drew up his knees. Minghal came swiftly towards him, intent only on his murderous design. Suddenly out shot the prisoner's bound feet; they caught the stooping fakir square on the knees. He reeled back against the loose matting of the doorway, and stumbled against one of the crowd whom the fire had summoned.
The man hurled him aside. He fell and was trampled by the feet of others. There were cries all around; some were shouting for water, others were beating at the burning roof with their swords; no one paid heed to the man on the ground. Bruised with kicks he wriggled through the press until he came near the gate; then, in full sight of the sentry, he raised his hands and piously besought the aid of Allah to save the dwellings of the faithful.
Meanwhile the British officers had run up to the scene of the conflagration. First of them was Lieutenant Hawes, the adjutant. The men fell back from him as he pushed his way towards the blazing hut.
"Where are the men?" he cried. "Is any one inside?"
"That we know not, sahib," replied a Gurkha.
"We cannot see through the smoke, sahib," added a tall Afridi; "we are beating out the flames."
"Idiots!" cried the lieutenant. "Out of the way!"
He rushed through the entrance. The hut was so full of smoke that for a moment he could see nothing. Then he caught sight of a figure against the wall: a trooper with his arms crossed on his face to defend it from the shreds of burning thatch that were falling. His legs were drawn up to avoid the flames from a charpoy already half consumed. Thinking he was unconscious, Lieutenant Hawes seized him by the feet and hauled him by main force into the open air.
"Who is it?" asked Lumsden, standing there with Dr. Bellew.
The prostrate trooper moved his arms.
"Ahmed!" cried the adjutant. "You had no business in the hut. Get up!"
Ahmed wriggled, but could neither stand nor speak.
"Let me see," said the doctor, stooping. "Why, God bless me, he is gagged and tied up!"
He slit the cords and removed the gag, and Ahmed got up on his feet. He was half suffocated, and his eyes were red, and watering with the smoke.
"There's some devilry here," cried Lumsden. "Bellew, take him to my quarters. Hawes, see that nobody leaves the fort. Some of you men put out the fire and then go quietly to your beds."
The gates were by this time shut. When Lieutenant Hawes asked the sentry whether he had noticed any suspicious characters leaving the fort, he replied—
"No, sahib. The last to go before I shut the gate was a holy fakir, who besought Allah that we might be saved from the fire."
"Just overhaul him, doctor," said Lumsden, when he reached his quarters with Ahmed. "He has had a narrow squeak."
"Hair singed, eyes a trifle inflamed; nothing else wrong," said the doctor, after a rapid examination. "Who tied you up, youngster?"
"Let us begin at the beginning," Lumsden interposed. "What were you doing in that hut?"
Ahmed told his story in as few words as possible. The officers did not interrupt him until he began to relate what he had heard the pretended fakir say about the Maulavi. Then Lumsden brought his fist down heavily on the table before him and said—
"That's the rascal I saw at Lahore a few months ago, without a doubt—a tall, lean, lantern-jawed fellow with a beak like the old Duke's. They told me he seemed to be very busy, though no one knew what his business was. Now, Ahmed, could you judge by what you heard whether this fakir had spoken to any other men in the corps?"
"I do not think he had, sahib. He was persuading these men to speak to the others."
"Very well. Go on with your story."
Ahmed repeated, as nearly as he could remember them, the actual words used by the fakir, and then described how he had been seized and carried, bound, into the tent, and lay gagged while his captors discussed how they should dispose of him. When he had related the manner in which he had set the hut on fire, Lumsden looked pleased.
"It was a good thought, and cleverly done, my lad. That's the kind of thing I like to see in my Guides—quickness, decision, willingness to take risks. I shall keep my eye on you. But now, you fellows," he added in English, the other officers having entered the room, "what are we to do about an explanation? The men will be desperately excited, you may be sure; those three scoundrels must be marked off as deserters, and Ahmed must have some tale for the rest of the men."
"Say they were in a funk at burning down the hut," suggested Lieutenant Battye.
"Won't wash, Quintin. The punishment would only be stopping of leave or something of that kind: none of the men would run away from that."
"Ask the youngster," said the adjutant. "These Pathans are good at fairy tales."
The question was put to Ahmed.
"It might be done thus, sahib," said the boy. "The fakir was not a true fakir. He is one Minghal, once chief of Mandan, and we blew up his tower and captured his village."
"I remember. Sherdil told me of that little piece of trickery—a box of porcelain from Delhi, eh? Well?"
"He is my enemy, sahib. We could say that he came to kill me, and indeed he tried to stick his knife into me just before Hawes Sahib came, but I kicked him down. The rest might be told even as it happened, except for what the fakir said."
"Very good. An excellent notion: you others agree? You shall tell them that. Now get to your hut: you have done very well."
Ahmed saluted and went away. He found Sherdil awaiting him in great excitement. The story he told seemed perfectly convincing. The conduct of Minghal was just what might have been expected of him, and the three Guides who abetted him clearly had no other course than to take flight. And the explanation spread through the whole corps next day, and was accepted with equal belief.
When Ahmed had gone, the officers sat up far into the night discussing the incident. It indicated the possibility of grave disorders arising. They were all aware of an undercurrent of disaffection in many regiments of the native army. Apart from the fears aroused by the threatened introduction of the new cartridge, there were other causes of discontent and suspicion, both among the sepoys and the native population generally. The native officers did not take kindly to the system of promotion by seniority instead of by merit. Slight instances of insubordination had been too leniently dealt with by the officers, and the men had begun to regard themselves as of vast importance. Tales had been spread of the difficulties of the British army in the Crimea; many of the sepoys believed that it had been almost entirely destroyed, and the British prestige had fallen in consequence. They had a grievance, too, in the matter of foreign service. When they were enlisted they were expressly guaranteed against service over sea. But the Government, with reprehensible disregard of this engagement, ordered some native regiments to sail across the dreaded kala pani, and when they refused, neither enforced the order nor punished the refusal as mutiny. Since then a law had been passed withdrawing the reservation in the case of new recruits, and the older men believed that the guarantee was to be no longer observed in their case.
Attempts to graft Western ideas and customs on an Oriental people had embittered the populace generally. Changes in the land system which had prevailed from time immemorial had exasperated the zamindars. Interference with the native customs in regard to succession had enraged the princes, and the recent annexation of the province of Oudh had alienated an immense population from which the native regiments were largely recruited.
These and other matters bred a spirit of unrest and distrust, and made the minds of the sepoys fit soil for the seeds of disaffection which religious fanatics were beginning to sow among them.
The possibility of a general rising caused grave disquiet to a few of the more thoughtful of the British authorities—those who knew the natives best, and were aware of the lengths to which superstition might drive them. But the great majority were blind to what was passing under their eyes, and disregarded the warnings of the keener-sighted. Even when, on February 27, the 19th Native Infantry at Barhampur rose in mutiny, impelled by a panic fear that the greased cartridges were to be forced on them at the muzzles of our guns, the incident was regarded as an isolated eruption instead of a symptom of general uneasiness, and a strange lack of firmness was shown in dealing with it. "A little fire is quickly trodden out which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench."
Major Lumsden felt that he could trust the Guides. They were not affected by many of the matters that agitated the other native regiments. Their officers had shown such tact and wisdom in respecting their religious scruples that the men had no fears of enforced conversion to the Christian faith. Peculiar ties of personal loyalty and devotion bound officers and men together; the latter had "eaten the sahibs' salt," and had developed a singular pride in the honour of the corps. They had, further, a vast contempt for the sepoys of the native regiments of the line. The latter assumed insufferable airs of superiority towards the Sikhs, Panjabis, and hill-men, from whom the Guides were mainly recruited, and turned the cold shoulder on such of them as enlisted in their own regiments. But though Lumsden had this confidence in his men's loyalty, he was not blind to the necessity of watchfulness. At the first hint of trouble he gave orders that any wandering fakir who might be discovered in the neighbourhood of the fort should be intercepted and severely dealt with.
A few weeks after news arrived of the rising at Barhampur, Lumsden left Hoti-Mardan at the head of his mission to Kabul. Among the officers who accompanied him was Dr. Bellew. The command of the Guides during his absence was given by Sir John Lawrence to Captain Daly, commander of the 1st Panjab Cavalry. The Guides awaited with considerable curiosity the arrival of their new commander. He reached Hoti-Mardan at sunset on the 28th of April, and the genial manner of his address to the men on the parade-ground next day, coupled with his reputation as a gallant soldier, won their instant confidence.
"Daly Sahib is a good man," said Sherdil to Ahmed, "though in truth he has not so much hair as Lumsden Sahib."
Thus he alluded to his new commander's premature baldness. Sherdil was rejoicing in the rank of naik, to which Lumsden had promoted him before leaving the fort. The good fellow was perfectly convinced that he owed his new dignity not merely to his merits, but to the broad hint he had given his commander, and suggested that Ahmed should look out for an opportunity to make a similar suggestion to Daly Sahib.
"I must wait until I have been in the corps as long as you," replied Ahmed, with a laugh.
Daly had been but a fortnight in his command when he received grave news in a letter from Colonel Edwardes at Peshawar. Edwardes had heard by telegraph that on Sunday, the 10th of May, the sepoys at Meerut had mutinied. Five days before, when cartridges were served out to the men of the 3rd Native Light Cavalry for the parade ordered for the next morning, eighty-five troopers refused to receive them. They were tried for this breach of discipline by a court-martial of native officers, and condemned to various terms of imprisonment. On the evening of the following Sunday, when the bells were tolling for church, the sepoys of the 11th and 20th line regiments and the 3rd Cavalry broke out of their lines, and while some set fire to the bungalows of the Europeans, others hastened to the prison, loosened the gratings of the cells, and dragged out their manacled comrades. Their fetters were struck off; then the mutineers set off on a mad riot of destruction, burning houses, smashing furniture, massacring every white man and woman whom they met.
General Hewitt had with him at Meerut a regiment of cavalry, the 60th Rifles, and a large force of artillery. With incredible lack of enterprise he kept them at bivouac during the night, allowing the mutinous sepoys to set off unmolested on the thirty-six miles' march to Delhi. Horse and foot made all haste through the darkness, reached the Jumna at sunrise, crossed by the bridge of boats, and entered the gates of Delhi exultant. Their arrival was the signal for a general rising. They massacred without mercy all the English people upon whom they could lay hands, men, women and children, and the streets of the ancient city were a scene of plunder and butchery.
With this terrible news Daly received orders to march for Delhi with the Guides. The men had been fasting all day: it was Ramzan, the Mohammedan Lent; but at six o'clock the same evening they set off, five hundred strong, a hundred and fifty being cavalry, on their long march of five hundred and eighty miles. At midnight they reached Nowshera, the first stage of their journey, and were up again at daybreak. It was the hottest season of the year; the sun beat mercilessly down upon them; and the burning march to Attock, the next stage, taxed their endurance to the uttermost. But not a man fell out, and after resting until two o'clock next morning they were on foot again, springing up with cheerful alacrity at the sound of the bugle. A dust-storm swept upon them as they started; they plodded steadily through it, marched for thirty-two miles with only the briefest halts, rested during the day at Boran, and were off again soon after midnight on the next stage of thirty-two miles to Jani-ki-sang.
Another night march brought them to Rawal Pindi. There they heard how the mutiny was spreading—a terrible tale of rapine, incendiarism and massacre; and—a little light amid the darkness—how native princes in various parts were showing a noble loyalty, and placing their swords at the service of the British. There, too, Sir John Lawrence reviewed the corps, gave the men unstinted praise for their patience and endurance under fatigue, and did all he could for their comfort. He spoke to many men personally as he passed down the lines, and, halting before Ahmed, said in his gruff voice—
"Where did I see you last, young man?"
"At Peshawar, sahib, when I spoke to your honour about my father, Rahmut Khan."
"Ah yes, I remember. I am glad to see you in such good company."
And he passed on, leaving Ahmed in a glow of pleasure.
Night after night the march continued. Sometimes the troopers dozed on their horses and had to dismount and go on foot in order to keep themselves awake. Even that remedy failed, and once Ahmed slept as he walked, and still trudged on when the rest halted, until Sherdil took him by the shoulder and shook him into wakefulness.
Early in the morning of June 6, when the corps had been marching for more than three weeks, they arrived at Karnal, about three days' march from Delhi, their goal. They had scarcely halted when Mr. Le Bas, the magistrate, came to Captain Daly with a request that he would destroy two or three villages in the neighbourhood whose inhabitants had proved very troublesome and were threatening the lines of communication. Daly was loath to delay; there was sterner work before him than the operations of a police officer; but the magistrate being very pressing, he at last consented to devote a day to the work required. After a few hours' rest a portion of the Guides marched out to the villages in question, forced their way into them with the loss of one man killed and three wounded, and set fire to the houses.
A party of about a dozen Guides, Ahmed among them, with Sherdil at their head, set off to ride down a body of armed villagers mounted on hardy country-bred ponies. The Guides' horses were feeling the strain of the previous three weeks' marching, while the villagers' mounts were fresh; but it was a point of honour with the Guides never to let their enemy escape, and Sherdil pushed on for mile after mile, gradually overhauling the fugitives. Captain Daly's orders were that no prisoners were to be taken; not one of the hapless villagers escaped.
As the little party was returning at a foot pace to rejoin their comrades, they caught sight of a group of bearers carrying a palki, and escorted by a couple of horsemen. Thinking it probable that the palki contained a village headman endeavouring to escape in a vehicle ordinarily used only by native ladies, Sherdil decided to give chase; it would be a notable feather in his cap if he could march into Karnal and hand over to Captain Daly the ringleader in the recent troubles.
"Daly Sahib will make me a dafadar at once," he said, with a chuckle, to Ahmed. "True, the palki may hold no person at all, but only treasure; I know their ways. But we shall have something for our pains, Ahmed-ji."
The men carrying the palki could not go quickly, but they were more than a mile distant, and the Guides' horses were so done up that they were incapable of more than a canter. Still, unless the quarry should be able to hide, they might be overtaken in the course of a quarter of an hour. Sherdil led the way, the sowars following in a scattered line. They had scarcely ridden three or four hundred yards when they came suddenly to a deep nullah. Sherdil attempted to leap his horse over it, but the animal was too wearied for the effort; it failed to clear the gully, and fell with its rider. The trooper next behind his leader met with the same mishap. Then came Ahmed. Being a little in the rear of the others, he had had time to prepare for the leap, and his horse Ruksh, besides being superior to the rest, was less fatigued through having had to carry a lighter weight. He took the leap gamely and landed safely on the other side, although with only an inch or two to spare.