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.
Being safely over, Ahmed pulled up his horse and called down to Sherdil
to hear if he was hurt.
"A sprained ankle, no more, Allah be praised," his friend replied.
"And the horse?"
"I am feeling his joints. Do not wait, Ahmed-ji; ride after the sons of
perdition. Hai! It will not be I that am made a dafadar, but you a naik.
It is fate. Go on; we will follow."
Ahmed at once set his horse to a gallop. The palki-wallahs were out of
sight now, hidden by a slight wooded undulation of the ground. Eager
that they should not escape him, and fired with the excitement of the
chase, Ahmed did not wait to see how the rest of his comrades fared, but
pressed on as fast as he could. He glanced round once and saw that the
troopers had halted on the further side of the nullah; but he had no
doubt that they would soon find a means of crossing or skirting it and
follow at his heels.
As he reached the crest of the rising ground, he saw the fugitives
hurrying across the plain not more than half-a-mile distant. Apparently
they were aware of the chase, for they were straining every effort, and
the horsemen every now and then plied the flats of their swords
vigorously on the bearers' backs to encourage them. Again they
disappeared from Ahmed's view, entering a small copse. He gave Ruksh a
touch of the spur, followed the party through the copse, and caught
sight of them again, now no more than two hundred yards away.
The two horsemen were at some little distance apart. They were both
somewhat corpulent, and there was no look of the warrior about them. One
of them turned, and, catching sight of the figure in khaki coming at
speed, he shouted to his companion and then dug his spurs into his horse
and rode with all haste towards a patch of woodland beyond. Ahmed set
him down as a cowardly Hindu, yet felt some surprise at his flight.
Surely six men might have the courage to try conclusions with a single
horseman. If he had had time to think he might have concluded that the
runaway was not aware that his pursuer was for the moment alone; but
having previously seen the whole party of Guides, feared that they were
close behind. Whatever his thoughts may have been, his companion was
made of sterner stuff. He disregarded the other's warning shout; at the
very instant when his companion fled, he wheeled his horse and stood to
face the attack.
Ahmed now saw that the man had a pistol in one hand and a talwar in the
other. But it was clear that he was not a practised combatant. Had he
taken aim without flurry he could have shot Ahmed with ease, for the
lad's carbine was empty, all his powder and shot having been used up
during the recent fight. The horseman took a hurried snap-shot at him,
and missed. At the moment when the man fired Ahmed was approaching him
from the near side. By a slight touch on the flank of his horse--a touch
so slight that an ordinary horse in full gallop would have been quite
unaffected by it--he changed the direction of the arab and came up on
the off-side of his adversary. The man seemed bewildered by the sudden
change in the point of attack. Before he could swing round to parry the
stroke, Ahmed's sword caught him at the shoulder; he toppled sideways
from his saddle to the ground; and his horse bolted.
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
The Missy Sahib
During this little encounter the bearers had done what might have been
expected of men of their class. They had set the palki down, and stared
in open-mouthed confusion, irresolutely watching the course of events.
When Ahmed had disposed of his opponent, who lay groaning on the ground,
they laid hands on the poles as if to make an attempt to escape with
their burden. But Ahmed called to them to stand fast. He used words of
Urdu, the common language of Hindustan, though to him it was a foreign
tongue. The Guides, being drawn from many different races of the
north-west, had developed a patois of their own--a strange compound of
hill dialects with Urdu and even English. Ahmed in his early childhood
had learnt to prattle in Urdu with his ayah and the other servants, and
in Hoti-Mardan he had quickly picked up more than he had known before,
so that his cry was quite intelligible to the bearers. But even if they
had not understood his words, they could have been under no
misapprehension of the meaning of his tone. They let the palki fall
again, and stood trembling.
"What have you got in the palki?" asked Ahmed sharply.
The men remained silent, looking one at another: it was as though none
cared to accept the responsibility of being spokesman. Ahmed had
contemptuously sheathed his sword after the fall of his adversary, the
cringing bearers being of no account to a Pathan. But now he made a
movement as if to draw it again. It was enough. The four men made haste
to speak at once, and in faltering tones confessed that there was a
person in the palki.
"The headman?" cried Ahmed quickly.
"Not so. It is not a man."
"One of his wives, then?"
"Not so, O strong one: verily it is a person of the Feringhis; a missy
sahib."
A missy sahib! This was strange news. Ahmed scarcely knew what to make
of it.
"How comes the missy sahib here?" he asked.
"Thy servants tell the truth," said one of the men. "The missy sahib was
taken this very morning by the master that now lies on the ground."
"Taken? Where from? What means this? Speak the truth, and quickly, or
verily, thou son of a dog, my sword will taste somewhat of thy jellied
flesh."
"This is the truth," said the man. "The missy sahib was in the city of
the king, but she escaped the killing by the aid of an ayah and a
khitmutgar, who took her to the housetop of a man that was friendly to
the sahibs. But there were some that suspected he was not faithful to
the true king Bahadur Shah----"
"Dog, remember that I serve the sahibs, and name not that master of
cut-throats to me."
"Have mercy, O right-hand of the sahibs, we are but poor men. It was as
thy servant said: some suspected him of favouring the sahibs, and the
housetop was no longer a safe place for the missy sahib. So the ayah
clad her as our women are clothed, and put ornaments about her arms and
feet, and a veil over her face, and by ill-luck they passed through the
gates----"
"By ill-luck, thou dog! 'Twas by the favour of Heaven."
"How should our humbleness know? They came through the gates--by the
favour of Heaven--the missy sahib being called the new wife of one of
the princes. We were even on our way--the missy sahib, and the ayah, and
the khitmutgar, and we hired bearers also--to Karnal, when behold we
were met by a zamindar of the village which your mightiness has laid
waste this day. To him--it is even he that lieth now at the point of
death--the khitmutgar said even as I have told, that in the palki sat
the new wife of one of the princes of Delhi, supposing that he would
salaam and pass on with reverence. But he saw through their pretence,
and demanded that the cover should be lifted that he might see the noble
lady with his own eyes. And behold, the missy sahib, being hot and in a
great fear, had taken the veil from her face, and sat even as the
shameless women of the Feringhis----"
"Son and grandson of dogs," cried Ahmed, "tell thy tale without this
insolence, or verily I will slice thee and leave thee for carrion."
"I but repeat the words of the zamindar, O merciful. He cried out with
great laughter when he saw the white face of the missy sahib, and bade
us carry the palki to his village. And but a little after we had entered
came one running, to say that your mightinesses were riding fast upon
the place. The zamindar is not a man of war, and he lay for a time in
his house, hoping that if his face was not seen by the Feringhis he
would escape the edge of the sword. But when it was told him that the
men of Lumsden Sahib had entered and were burning, he stowed some jewels
in his pockets, and placed more in the palki--they are even beneath the
cushion whereon the missy sahib sits--and he bade us hasten out of the
gate with the palki, purposing to reach Gungah, ten koss to the
north-east, and there dwell with his brother. And then thou didst come
upon us like a swift breath, and the zamindar hath not escaped the edge
of the sword. It is fate: who can strive against it? I have spoken the
truth."
"Well for thee!" cried Ahmed. "And what became of the ayah and the
khitmutgar?"
"Truly we left them in the house, and without doubt they are burnt up in
the flames kindled by the Feringhis' servants."
Ahmed was nonplussed. He looked round for Sherdil and his party; there
was no sign of them. The sooner he rejoined them the better. Suddenly he
heard a voice from the interior of the palki; it was thrown open, and
turning, he saw the face of a young English girl.
"You are a friend of the sahibs?" she said in faltering Urdu.
"Truly," said Ahmed, and then stood speechless. Into his mind came a dim
recollection of having seen ladies such as this long years before, when
he was a tiny child, before that terrible day when his father had been
killed in his tent. The girl's voice recalled other voices; he seemed to
hear them speaking to him, and to see tall ladies with unveiled faces
bending over him, and--yes, surely one of them had given him the wooden
sword which had so much amused Rahmut Khan when he had first seen him,
and another had given him a little horse, on which his ayah used to draw
him about the room.
"You will help me?" said the girl again in the native speech.
"Yes!" Ahmed was on the point of telling the girl that he was English
like herself; she would then have greater confidence in him. But he
checked himself; it was not time for that, especially with Hindus in
hearing and possible danger all around. "I will help the missy sahib,"
he said. "What would the missy sahib wish me to do?"
"Oh, I do not know. I cannot tell what would be best. My father and
mother were killed in Delhi" (her speech was broken by sobs), "and many
of my friends, and I do not know whether even one of them escaped. If
you take me to the sahibs you shall have much bakshish."
"I am of the Guides of Lumsden Sahib," said Ahmed simply. And then he
bade the men lift the palki with its fair burden and follow him. They
left the zamindar where he lay.
He reached the nullah about half-an-hour after he had left it. To his
surprise, Sherdil and his comrades had disappeared. Examining their
tracks he saw that they must have gone back the way they had come. Why
had they deserted him? He felt uneasy. It was already late in the
afternoon; Karnal, so far as he could judge after his riding across
country, was at least three koss distant; and no doubt between that town
and the place where he now was there were scores of villagers whose
homes had been burnt, but who had themselves been more lucky than the
zamindar, and escaped.
He made for the shelter of an adjacent copse, so that the party might at
least be safe from observation while he decided what to do. When they
were among the trees, Ahmed ordered the men to squat down beside the
palki and beware of his sword if they attempted to move. A sudden rush
of four men upon one would have been dangerous; but these palki-wallahs
were not enterprising, and Ahmed's bold and contemptuous attitude did
not encourage them to run any risks. Keeping a wary eye on them,
however, he went a little apart to consider.
It was drawing towards night, and he was, as he guessed, several koss
from Karnal, the nearest place where he knew there were white men. He
could not ride thither and bring help for fear of what might happen
during his absence. If the party set off to walk, they might easily lose
the way, and possibly encounter bands of hostile villagers or even
roving mutineers. In a few hours the Guides would no doubt leave Karnal
for their usual night march, and his duty was to rejoin them as soon as
possible. It seemed on the whole best to remain in hiding until darkness
fell, and then attempt to reach the Delhi road, so as either to
intercept the Guides, or, if they had already passed, to follow in their
tracks. Whether he could gain the road in the darkness would depend
mainly on the knowledge of the palki-wallahs, for though his own sense
of locality and direction was keen, as became one accustomed to wander
among the hills of the Afghan border, his course had been so erratic
since he left Karnal with the Guides in the morning that he was now
quite at a loss.
There was one risk to be guarded against: the escape of any of the men
in the darkness. If one of them should get away, he might bring the
whole countryside down upon the party. A few minutes' thought sufficed
to settle that problem. As a preliminary, Ahmed made the men hand over
their knives to him; the rest of his device he would put in operation
when the time for starting came.
The party was not unprovided with food. Ahmed had already seen the men
eating chapatis, which they had taken from their wallets, and when he
went up to the palki to acquaint the missy sahib with his purpose he
found her eating some fruit. The zamindar had shown forethought in thus
providing against a possibly prolonged march. Ahmed found it rather
difficult to explain his design to the girl, whose stock of Urdu
extended little further than the ordinary phrases used between masters
and servants. The girl acquiesced in his plan; she was indeed too
frightened, and too anxious to gain a shelter with white people, to be
able to criticize or suggest.
Before it became completely dark, Ahmed collected some long strands of a
creeping plant that grew plentifully in the copse. With these he tied
the bearers two by two together, in such a way that while their
movements in carrying the palki would not be sensibly impeded, any
attempt to take flight would be hopeless. The legs of the two men who
went in front were fastened to those of the two behind, so that when
they set off they would have to keep step. He had never seen a
three-legged race; but if they tried to run away the result would be not
unlike that when two boys insufficiently practised in that sport attempt
to run: one would trip the other. The ends of the strands were so firmly
knotted that they could not be undone easily, and Ahmed would have
plenty of time to catch the men if they were so ill-advised as to bolt.
These preparations having been made--not without sundry complaints and
protests on the part of the men--Ahmed asked them whether they could
find their way to the Delhi road. They eagerly professed that they knew
the way perfectly; they were, in fact, so desirous of getting rid of
this masterful Pathan that they would have agreed to lead him anywhere.
He made them understand that any attempt at treachery would be fatal to
them, while, on the other hand, there would be much bakshish if the
missy sahib was brought safely to her friends. Then, a little after
darkness had fallen, he mounted his horse, which had meanwhile been
quietly browsing, bade the men take their places at the poles, and gave
the order to start.