we are bid to do--is not that strange? It is strange to me myself, I
own; for I never did what you bade me, father. But with the
sahibs--well, that is a different matter. They say, Do this! and we do
it, with a cheerful countenance. Canst thou see Sherdil handling a
pick-axe? Say we have no water, and the sahib wishes a well to be sunk.
We of the Guides do it, and I, Sherdil, am the most diligent among them.
Say we need bricks to make a wall; the sahib bids us mould the clay and
burn it, and lo! the bricks are made. Say the sahib desires to go
a-hunting--and a mighty hunter he is, by Allah!--he bids us go into the
jungle as beaters, and gives us rounds of ammunition for ourselves. And
if we do well in our tasks, he gives us goats and rice, and after the
feast we sing songs and make merry."
"But this is not work fit for warriors of the hills," said Assad,
looking a little blank. "Dost never fight and steal?"
"To steal is forbidden," replied Sherdil; "it is against the sahibs'
law. But fight!--do we not fight, my father! Didst never hear how we
fought at Multan, with Fatteh Khan? And how we took the fort of
Goringhar, Rasul Khan being our leader? Lo! I have many tales to tell;
they will last the days of my leave. Yes, we fight, when we get the
chance. Why, only four days ago we spied a troop of fifty or more
hill-men away there in the hills, and we chased them for two days and
nights, but they would never stand to take a shot at us, so much are we
feared."
Inquiry soon discovered that Sherdil had been among the troops which had
kept Rahmut Khan on the run, and loud was his laughter when he learnt
that it was his own chief whom they had been chasing. He became serious,
however, when he heard of what had befallen the village during the
chief's absence, and cursed Minghal Khan with the true vigour of a
Pathan. And on being told that no plans had yet been formed for the
punishment of the offender, he vowed by the beard of the Prophet that
some way should be found before his leave was expired.
Next day he sought an interview with the chief, and had not been in
conversation with him more than half-an-hour before Rahmut called his
council together and asked their opinion of an enterprise Sherdil had
suggested. It won their hearty admiration. One of Minghal's sources of
revenue consisted of a tribute levied on traders passing to and from
Central Asia. Their route lay within a few miles of his village, and,
indeed, sometimes they made use of a change-house in it. They usually
travelled in bodies of considerable size, and sufficiently well armed to
offer a good defence against marauders. But they found it profitable to
placate the principal chiefs through whose territories they passed by
paying a tribute varying with the importance of the chiefs; and the
chiefs on their side recognized that their interests were better served
by the regular income thus derived than by forays which might or might
not be successful, and which would ultimately have the effect of scaring
away the trade caravans altogether.
Sherdil had suggested that advantage of this fact might be taken to
practise a trick on Minghal. He proposed that a small party of Rahmut's
men should be equipped as traders, and thus gain admittance to Minghal's
village. Then, at night, they might find some means of seizing his
tower, and while the village was in confusion Rahmut could attack it
with the main body of his men.
The old chief himself, true to his character, was at first reluctant to
fall in with this cunning scheme. He pointed out that Minghal's attack
on his own tower had failed, and foresaw many possibilities of failure
in the proposed adventure. He would have preferred to wait until he
could have gathered a sufficient reinforcement to enable him to make a
direct attack in force on his enemy. But Sherdil laughed away his
doubts; the burden of his reasoning was that against a wily enemy like
Minghal, wiles must be employed. And as for the matter of the tower, and
a possible failure there, that was not worth considering.
"Minghal had no Sherdil and no Ahmed," he said, with a magnificent
gesture. "I, Sherdil, have learnt somewhat from the sahibs, and has not
Ahmed the blood of sahibs in his veins? We are more than a match for
Minghal, believe me."
Rahmut frowned, and threw an anxious glance at Ahmed when this reference
was made to his English birth. This admiration of the sahibs was little
to his liking; but he discreetly said nothing of what was passing in his
mind, and the general opinion being favourable to the scheme, he gave
his assent to it. Then he threw himself keenly enough into the
preparations suggested by Sherdil. He declared that if the stratagem was
to be attempted, it must be done thoroughly. Any carelessness would
invite discovery, and discovery would mean death to those engaged in it.
Sherdil undertook the arrangements. The first step was to select the
members of the pretended trading party. Five well-tried warriors were
chosen from among those who had accompanied the chief on his recent
expedition. Having been absent from the village during Minghal's attack,
they were not likely to be recognized by his men when they entered his
village. And Sherdil himself begged that Ahmed might be allowed to join
the party. To this the chief at first objected. The enterprise was
fraught with great danger; Minghal would like nothing better than to get
the chief's heir into his hands; and Ahmed, having taken so prominent a
part in the defence of the tower, would certainly be recognized. But
Sherdil had conceived a great admiration for the part Ahmed had played
in resisting Minghal's raid, especially for his exploit in blowing up
the powder. He assured Rahmut Khan that the lad could easily be
sufficiently disguised; Ahmed himself pleaded very hard to be allowed to
join the expedition; and the old chief at last, bethinking himself that,
if successful, it might serve as an additional bond between Ahmed and
the villagers and strengthen his consideration with them, gave his
consent.
"Go, my son, and God go with thee," he said, laying his hands fondly on
the boy's head. "But come back to me, for I am well stricken in years,
and I would fain go to the grave happy, knowing that thou wilt be lord
of Shagpur, and not Dilasah."
CHAPTER THE FIFTH
Reprisals
At sunset of the day on which Sherdil's plan was adopted, the little
party of seven set off from Shagpur in the opposite direction from
Minghal's village. Their goal was a small town on the frontier, many
miles away, where in the bazar they might obtain the articles necessary
to their proper equipment as traders. Sherdil, who had doffed his khaki
uniform and assumed the native dress of his village, thought it best to
start at night so as to evade any spies whom Minghal might have placed
in the neighbourhood.
The journey was to have a great importance in the life of Ahmed, son of
Rahmut Khan. He rode close beside Sherdil all the way, and when they
halted at roadside serais for rest and refreshment, those two ate
together and squatted or lay side by side. The things of which Sherdil
had spoken at his father's feast had fired Ahmed's imagination. Though
the impressions of his early childhood had become dim, and the people
among whom he had then lived were mere shadows, he remembered that he
was of English birth, and Sherdil's words had stirred within him a
desire to know more about his own people. In the first days of his life
at Shagpur he had sometimes thought of running away, but he soon found
this to be impossible, and of late the desire had quite left him. The
old chief, he knew, had saved his life on that terrible day when his
real father was killed. That was a tie between them which could not
easily be broken. And he had now become so thoroughly imbued with Pathan
ideas and customs that he never thought of any other destiny than that
of Rahmut Khan's successor. But his contact with a man who was actually
in the service of the sahibs had roused within him a curiosity to see
the people to whom he rightly belonged, and he plied Sherdil with
questions about them.
Further, Sherdil's references to great fights in which the corps of
Guides had been engaged appealed strongly to his spirit of adventure,
and he pressed the man to tell him more.
"What was that fight at Multan of which you spoke?" he asked, as they
took their siesta in the hot hours of the next day.
"Ah! the fight of Fatteh Khan," replied Sherdil. "'Tis a brave tale, and
I will tell it thee. 'Twas seven years and more ago. We were in the
trenches before Multan. Lumsden Sahib was absent; there were only three
sahib officers with us. One day a kasid galloped into our camp with news
that a party of the enemy's horse, some twenty strong, had driven off a
herd of camels from their grazing near the camp of General Whish. Fatteh
Khan was our risaldar, and he called to us to mount and follow him to
punish those marauders. We galloped off, no more than seventy, the kasid
going before to show the way. And lo! when we had ridden three miles,
and came to the place he had spoken of, we discovered, not twenty, but
the whole host of the enemy's cavalry, full twelve hundred men. They had
been sent, as we learnt, to cut off a convoy of treasure which was said
to be on the way to our general's camp; but they failed in this, and
were now wending back to their own city.
"Did Fatteh Khan bid us halt and return? That is not Fatteh Khan. Wah!
he cried to us to ride like the wind, and the enemy, seeing us, halted,
not knowing what this strange thing might be. And straight through them
we rode, with sword and lance, and when we had come out on the other
side we wheeled about and clove through them again. Wah! they were like
a flock of sheep, witless, huddling together, springing this way and
that without any sense. Again we rode into them, though our arms were
weary and our horses much spent. And then that great host, crying on
Allah to preserve them, broke apart and fled for their lives, and we
pursued them up to the very walls of their city. That is one of the
deeds of Fatteh Khan with Lumsden Sahib's Guides, of whom I am not the
least."
With other stories like this Sherdil beguiled the hours of rest, and
Ahmed became more and more eager to do something in emulation of the
Guides. Perhaps this expedition on which he was soon to be engaged would
provide him with an opportunity; he vowed that if it came he would not
let it slip.
Four days later the party of seven was returning. But it presented a
very different appearance now. The men had changed their costume so as
to appear like peaceable traders. They wore white turbans and long coats
girt about with a sash. All weapons save long talwars slung at their
belts--for even traders must be prepared to make some defence of their
wares--had disappeared. They had two camels, loaded with bales which
might very well contain cloth. The youngest of the party, who, when he
left Shagpur, was a smooth-cheeked youth with a ruddy duskiness of
complexion, was now a shade or two darker in hue, and bore a thin black
moustache on his upper lip.
These transformations had been effected within a day's march of
Minghal's village. The party made their slow way between hill and plain,
so timing themselves that they came to the gate a little before sunset.
To the customary demand of the gate-keeper that they should say who they
were and what their business, Sherdil replied--
"We are traders from Rawal Pindi to Cabul, but a small party, as you
see, and we dare not encamp for the night in the open, lest some
accursed sons of perdition fall upon us and rob us. All the world knows
of Minghal Khan's benevolence to strangers, and we beg a refuge for the
night, O gate-keeper."
"And what do ye offer in return for this favour?" asked the gate-keeper.
"'Tis unworthy of your chief's illustriousness, we fear," said Sherdil
humbly, "but such as it is we make it with grateful hearts. 'Tis indeed
a quantity of cloth, of good weaving, and such as the Amir of Cabul
approves; therefore, unworthy as it is, we yet hope it may find favour
in the eyes of Minghal Khan."
The gate was thrown open without more ado. The traders were led to the
village change-house, where they stalled the camels and their horses,
Sherdil then immediately setting out with one of the men to convey the
present of cloth to Minghal. When he returned, he reported with great
satisfaction that the chief was residing in his tower, which was distant
no more than eighty yards away. And then, with Ahmed's assistance, he
unloaded from the back of one of the camels a small wooden case, which
they carried carefully into the one large room of which the
guest-portion of the change-house consisted. There were only two other
travellers in the room--big bearded Afghans, one of whom inquired
curiously what was the contents of the case which the new-comers had
brought with them.
"Porcelain from Delhi," replied Sherdil at once. "Care is needed, lest
it be shivered to atoms." And he laid it down in a corner near the
charpoy placed for him, and covered it with a roll of cloth.
The travellers ate a simple supper, and conversed freely with the
Afghans; then they all laid themselves down, and there was silence save
for some few snores and the grunting of the camels, which was heard very
clearly through the thin wooden wall.
Some hours later, about three o'clock in the morning, there was a slight
and almost noiseless scuffle within the change-house. The two Afghans
were suddenly awakened from sleep by rough hands laid upon them. The
flickering oil lamp gave little light; the Afghans' sleepy eyes but half
apprehended the meaning of what they saw; and their tongues suffered
from a sudden impediment, for, as they opened their mouths to cry out,
gags were slipped in, and fierce voices muttered in their ears a warning
to be quiet and lie still, or worse would befall them. Their
fellow-guests, the apparently peaceable dealers in cloth and porcelain,
with wonderful dexterity and speed tied their feet and hands together,
and the Afghans had not recovered from their amazement when they saw two
of the merchants creeping out of the door, carrying the small case of
precious porcelain between them.
Meanwhile the other members of the party, after a little fumbling among
their bales of merchandise, had withdrawn from the folds of innocent
cloth a musket apiece, and after the departure of their fellows stood
just behind the door in the attitude of men awaiting a call. One of them
peered round the door; another slightly drew aside the slats of the
adjacent window--an unglazed opening in the wall--and looked eagerly
across the street. There was no moon; the village was in darkness; but
the forms of the two men who had gone out could be dimly seen as they
crept stealthily along by the wall in the direction of the tower between
them and the gate.
The two reached the foot of the tower and laid their burden
down--gently, as befitted a box containing precious porcelain--at the
door. Then one of them stooped lower, and appeared to thrust something
into a hole near the bottom of the box. The watchman on the wall must
have been half-asleep, or he would have noticed a sudden spark at the
foot of the tower. It flashed but for a moment; then the two men,
bending low, hastened back stealthily by the way they had gone, came to
the change-house, and slipping in by the still half-open door, closed it
behind them.
They waited for perhaps a minute, and there was not a sound within the
guest-chamber save the slight smothered grunting of the Afghans through
their gags. Then from without there came a sudden roar; the ground
trembled, the building rocked as if it would fall about their heads, and
the waiting men, drawing a long breath, threw open the door and ran with
great nimbleness towards the tower The street was filled with acrid
fumes; here and there men were crying out, but the merchants paid no
heed, but rushed through the smoke and plunged into the yawning chasm
where the tower door had been. The opening was clogged with burning wood
and fragments of masonry; the intruders stumbled over these, coughing up
the smoke that entered their lungs, and groped their way up the narrow
winding stairway.
Cries from above assailed them. At the top of the first flight of steps
stood a man armed with a long spear. The stairway was so narrow that
only one man could pass at a time, and the man at the head of the
mounting party, coming too suddenly upon the spearman, received a thrust
in the breast and toppled backward. But the man behind him slipped aside
to avoid his falling body, and caught the spear before it could be
withdrawn, dragging the spearman forward. Two others--they were Sherdil
and Ahmed--seized the occasion to squeeze past him; but they gained the
top of the flight only to see the two men who, behind him, had been
content to let him bear the brunt of the attack, dash back across the
narrow passage to a door on the other side. The passage was lit by a
small oil lamp--a wick floating in a shallow saucer. By its light
Sherdil and Ahmed saw the men fling themselves through the door into the
room beyond. They sprang after them, but the door was slammed in their
faces and the bolt shot.
And now great shouts floated up the stairway from below. They were cries
of surprise and fear, calls for arms, mingled with the fierce war-shout
of Pathan warriors. Some little while after the party of merchants had
found entrance to the village, Rahmut Khan with all his fighting men had
come up in the darkness and lain in hiding beyond the walls. The
explosion had been the signal for an attack on the village. They had
dashed forward; some had forced the gate, others had scaled the walls,
and they now held the village at their mercy, for the explosion had been
so startling, and the attack so sudden, that any effective defence was
out of the question.
Meanwhile, Sherdil and his band, finding themselves blocked by the
bolted door, had sought for some means of breaking it down. Their
chief's quarrel was with Minghal Khan, and it was Minghal Khan whom they
were most eager to secure. Some minutes passed before axes could be
found, then with a few shattering blows the door was broken in. Sherdil
sprang into the room, followed closely by Ahmed and the rest. The birds
had flown. The room was small, with one narrow window in the outer wall.
A rope hung from it; the men had descended by this and made their
escape. Ahmed rushed down the stairs to inform his father, and to send
men out in pursuit. Sherdil hastened to the upper apartments in the hope
that Minghal might not have been one of the two who had escaped. But he
found no one in the tower except the women and children.
The surprise had been entirely successful save in this one matter of the
escape of Minghal. The village had fallen to Rahmut almost without a
blow. Indeed, save for the one man who had been speared at the head of
the steps, and one who had been shot by the sentry before he himself was
cut down, the victory had been bloodless. Rahmut's men patrolled the
streets until dawn. Then he called the people to a meeting and reassured
them as to his intentions. Without doubt they had been led away, he told
them, in their attack on Shagpur, by the evil designs of their chief,
Minghal. Minghal was now gone--had fled away to escape disgrace and
humiliation. But his cowardice was a disgrace still greater. None but a
coward would have taken flight thus, leaving his men without a leader
and his family defenceless.
"Minghal has a serpent's cunning, but the heart of a hare," cried the
old chief. "He is not fit for rule. He tried to take my village, and
failed; and we have shown that even at tricks we can beat him. I will
punish no man for Minghal's ill-doings. I myself will be your chief, and
you shall be my people."
The men sent out in pursuit of Minghal returned by and by unsuccessful.
In that hilly country there were many hiding-places where he might
dwell. In the afternoon Rahmut returned to Shagpur, leaving one of his
principal lieutenants in charge with a score of men, and taking a like
number of Minghal's men with him for safety's sake.
Sherdil received great praise for his skilful stratagem. Rahmut wished
to keep him at Shagpur, offering him great inducements to remain. But
Sherdil was not to be tempted. He had eaten Lumsden Sahib's salt, he
said, and when his furlough was over he would return to his duties at
Mardan, the head-quarters of the Guides. Perhaps later on, when his term
of service had expired and he was granted a pension, he might settle in
his native village; but for the present he was content to remain one of
the Guides and serve the sirkar. And when, a few days later, he donned
his khaki again and rode away to rejoin his comrades, no one in Shagpur
was sorrier than Ahmed. Sherdil's departure had left a blank.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH
In the Nets
The capture of Minghal's village gave such an accession of strength to
Rahmut Khan that he was soon emboldened to plan an expedition of greater
importance than any he had undertaken before. He heard that the chief of
a small hill village had refused to pay the Government revenue, and that
Sir John Lawrence, the Commissioner in Peshawar, would shortly dispatch
a force to the village to enforce the payment. The community being a
small one, it was not likely that the British force would be numerous;
and Rahmut conceived the idea of laying an ambush for it on its return
and running off with the revenue. He had a motive beyond that of the
mere acquisition of wealth. He felt that a successful attack on a
British force would greatly enhance his prestige, and strengthen his
hold on the allegiance of his new clansmen.
The project was talked over in council, and the only man who ventured to
oppose it was old Ahsan the gate-keeper, who, since his defence of the
tower, had enjoyed a much higher consideration with the chief. Ahsan
warned Rahmut against measuring his strength with the British. It was
one thing to make an occasional raid on the frontier stations for the
purpose of stealing horses, and quite another to attack a properly
equipped force. But his warning fell on deaf ears, and no one more
vehemently opposed him than the chief's nephew Dilasah, who, since
recovering from the wound he had received in the attack on the village,
had professed repentance and left nothing undone to win his uncle's
favour. The old man, being of a frank and unsuspicious disposition,
freely pardoned Dilasah for his former ill-behaviour and his dealings
with Minghal, and was greatly delighted one day when the man told him
that he gave up all pretensions to the chiefship and admitted Ahmed's
claims. Dilasah had a certain reputation for shrewdness and bravery, and
his voice, being unhesitatingly in favour of the scheme Rahmut proposed,
outweighed what was regarded as the more timorous counsel of Ahsan.
The expedition having been decided on, Rahmut sent Dilasah himself to
Peshawar in the disguise of a pedlar, to discover what he could of the
composition of the British force and the date of its setting out.
Meanwhile he was troubled by the request that Ahmed had made to be
allowed to join the expedition. The boy had shown himself brave and
resourceful; and Rahmut felt that if he took arms against his countrymen
the last link would be removed between him and them. On the other hand,
he did not fail to see that the expedition would be a dangerous one, and
though he believed that he could carry it through successfully, he was
anxious to keep Ahmed out of harm's way, and especially to run no risk
of his falling into English hands. If Ahmed should be taken prisoner,
the old chief feared lest the contact with Englishmen should awaken race
feelings now dormant, and the boy be lost to him. So, after much
hesitation and much pleading on the part of Ahmed, the old chief told
him kindly enough that he was not to accompany him, but to be left in
charge of the village during his absence.
Ahmed was deeply disappointed. Rahmut gave him no reasons for his
decision; he was a wise old man; reasons could be combated and overcome.
When Ahmed asked Ahsan why his father was so loath to let him try his
manhood, Ahsan confessed that he did not know, which was true and yet
untrue; for, though the chief had not told him, Ahsan had made a shrewd
guess.