"You are a stranger. Whence do you come?"

"From s.h.a.gpur, 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 a.s.s 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 s.h.a.gpur 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 s.h.a.gpur; 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 pa.s.sed. 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 pa.s.sed when Ahmed received his call. He rose and followed the servant, quaking with nervous antic.i.p.ation, 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 s.h.a.gpur," 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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.suredly 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sad 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 s.h.a.gpur; he was surprised to find himself glad that he could not. New feelings were springing within him. To be chief of s.h.a.gpur seemed no very desirable thing; to win his t.i.tle 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sad. 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 s.h.a.gpur 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."