the vista opening so brightly before them, discussing plans with
youthful eagerness and optimism, voting their uncle a "trump," a
"brick," a "ripping old boy," and employing the hundred and one
meaningless phrases with which Englishmen are wont to dissemble their
feelings. It is only the bare truth to say that their deepest
satisfaction and thankfulness sprang from reunion with their uncle.
Presently Bob noticed, in the gloom, Ditta Lal pacing slowly along by
the cliff wall.
"Hallo, Babu!" he called. "Come here. I want to speak to you."
The Bengali drew near, and as he came within the candlelight beaming
through the open doorway of the shed, they noticed that he wore a very
dejected look.
"I want to thank you," continued Bob. "Chunda Beg told me that while the
fight was going on you were heaping up that rampart yonder. It was well
thought of; we're indebted to you."
The Babu's face lit up for a moment as he bowed his acknowledgments; but
it instantly clouded over again.
"You don't look very happy," said Lawrence. "What's the matter?"
"It is a complicated case, sir," said the Babu mournfully. "Diagnosis
easy, but as for remedies that touch the spot, alas! _non est_, or more
correctly, _non sunt_."
"What's wrong? Out with it, man," said Bob.
"Imprimis and in first place, sir, I droop in shade of impending
calamity--regular sword of Damocles. I learn from esteemed avuncular
relative, whose return to wonted haunts fills bitter cup of rejoicing to
overflowing and slops, that he abandons commercial avocation, rests on
his oars and laurels, and subsides into lassitude of adipose retirement.
Every man to his gout, sir; but what is one man's alimentary nourishment
is another man's happy dispatch. In short, young sirs, where do I come
in?"
"Well, I'll tell you a secret," said Bob. "In recognition of your
valuable services, and your willingness to help in all sorts of ways out
of your own line, my uncle is going to make you a present of L50 when
you leave his employment."
"Jolly good tip, sir," said the Babu, brightening. "To use vulgar
tongue, Burra Sahib is ripping old josser, and no mistakes. But for one
harrowing reflection, carking care, sir, and fly in ointment, I should
be restored to normal hilarity and cock-a-hoopness."
"Well?"
"You observe, sir, that while honourable superior persons are engaged in
temperate carousal and fumigation, there is absence of mafficking and
horseplays among small fry; no beer and skittles, sir. That lies like
leaden hundred-weight upon my bounding bosom. I attribute it to vacuous
cavity in my brain-pan, or possibly erratic convulsions of grey matter.
I spoke of organising tamasha, you remember--regular orgy of
intellectual fireworks and monkey tricks, the set piece and tour de
force of which was to be ode, elegy, or comic song penned by humble and
obsequious servant. Would you believe it! Though I have scorned
delights and lived laborious days, crowned my noble brow with sopped
tea-cloth, imbibed oceans of coffee, black as your hat, and performed
other rites enjoined by custom and recollections of stewing for
exams--in spite of stupendous and praiseworthy efforts, that monument of
literary agility is yet only shapeless block, sir: in short, I haven't
done it."
"That's a pity," said Lawrence, repressing a smile. "Inspiration ran
short, eh?"
"No, sir, inspiration flows unchecked, a mild pellucid stream. Failure
is due to intractable and churlish disposition of English lingo. I
write a magnificent and lovely line, to wit--
"The solar luminary winked his bloodshot orb--
and then beat coverts for a rhyme: cui bono and what's the use? How
true it is that fine words butter no parsnips! My note-book is chock
full of similar felicitous lines, left in single blessedness and mere
oblivion for want of an accommodating partner, or, as I may say,
eligible parti."
"Why not try blank verse, then?" said Bob.
"Blank verse is like blank cartridge, sir, suitable for reviews and
sham-fights--that is to say, for long-winded epics and rigmaroles about
nothing in particular; but not for battle pieces, in which you need
clink-clank and rum-ti-tum to achieve truly martial effects."
"I should like to see what you've done, though," said Lawrence.
"Well begun is half done, proverb runs; fallacious and tommy rot, sir.
I began well; I will exhibit, commending to you beautiful aphorism of
some precious and defunct poet now forgotten, namely, 'We may our ends
by our beginnings know.'"
He drew a roll of paper from his pocket, and moving towards the lighted
doorway, spread it before their eyes. This is what they read--
ODE
_in celebration of gorgeous defence of gorge
by two young English sirs,
who with handful of rude mechanicals,
dauntless breasts
and flying machine, 100 h.p.,
withstood the mights of twenty thousand Mongols.
Written at request of one of aforesaid sirs,
Mr. ROBERT APPLETON, Esquire, etc.,
by
DITTA LAL,
B.A. Calcutta University._
Here the page ended. Lawrence turned over: the back was blank.
"Where's the rest?" he asked.
"There's the rub, sir. The rest is dispersed through many pages of my
note-book, high and dry, pearls of poesy, gems of purest ray serene,
waiting leisure and a rhyming dictionary to thread them into perfect and
resplendent ornament."
"Well, finish it when you have time. You can send it to us, you know."
"Registered, sir. I will do so without failings, and earn the meed of
melodious tear or two, if not penny a line."
Rolling up the paper, he returned to his own quarters, followed by eyes
mirthful but compassionate.
The campaign in Afghanistan lasted for several months after the check
given to the flanking force in the valley. The Mongols having obtained
a firm grip of the country around Kabul, it was difficult to dislodge
them, though they never succeeded in forcing the passes into India. As
the struggle developed, and the British Indian army took the offensive,
the Afghans, who had by this time found the Mongols unpleasant guests,
and begun to doubt their value as allies, quarrelled with the invaders,
and either withdrew into their remotest and least accessible hills, or
took sides actively against them. This was the beginning of the end.
The horses which, if the early raids had been successful, would have
proved a tremendous asset to the enemy, were in a prolonged check in
Afghanistan a serious handicap. It became impossible to feed them. The
Mongol host lost its mobility, and found itself pent up in a mountainous
region where supplies even for the men failed.
The story of the great retreat cannot be told in these pages. When once
the retrograde movement began, every armed man in Afghanistan and
Northern Persia hasted like a sleuth-hound in pursuit. Only a fraction
of the half-million invaders returned to Tashkend and beyond.
A year or two afterwards, when the invasion was passing into the
oblivion which soon swallows up even the greatest events of the hurrying
modern world, two of the actors in this little drama had their memories
recalled to it by a trifling street scene. Colonel Sir Herbert Endicott
and Lieutenant Robert Appleton were walking through the bazaar at Lahore
when they met an old fakir striding along. They were struck by his
vacant gaze, and the incessant muttering of his lips.
"You heard what he said, Bob?" said the Colonel, as the tall, lean,
half-naked figure swung by.
"Yes," replied Bob, who was becoming an expert in the Border dialects.
"'I am a sharpener of swords,' wasn't it?"
And his thoughts flew back to that first journey through the hills.
"The poor wretch is clearly mad," said the Colonel. "I fear the sword
he sharpened has wounded his own hand. Let's hope it will always be so
with rebels and malcontents. There's this good come out of it, at any
rate: we have learnt to sharpen our own swords, and not to grudge the
expense.... When do you expect your new aeroplane?"
"Pretty soon. It's a ripper, but I shan't like it so well as the old
one. Old friends are best."
"Does that hold with aeroplanes as with men, I wonder? Anyhow, I wish
you luck with it. Shall we turn?"
THE END
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited London and Bungay.