Chapter 4
"But why, O Sherdil, hast thou given up the dress of thy forefathers--the chogah, and the blue trousers drawn in at the ankles, and the sandals? Why dost thou wear this strange garb, like the dust of the plain or corn of the fields in colour?"
"Eha, that is a strange story too," said Sherdil, and he drew himself up. "I am a servant of the sahib-log."
"Hai! hai!" gasped the company in astonishment. "A servant of the sahib-log! the accursed Feringhis! sayest thou, O Sherdil?"
"'Tis true. My coat is the colour of corn, say you? yes, but it is the colour of the lion also. Is not my name Sherdil? A great sahib, his name Lumsden, heard of me; he knows everything; no man who does brave deeds escapes him. Having heard of my great daring in the hills, he sent one to me who had served him long and was as brave as myself, and begged me, if it were not too much trouble, to go and see him. And then he spoke fairly to me: the sahibs are just and speak true; he told me that he had learnt somewhat of my doings, and asked whether it would suit my honour to join a company of warriors like myself--Afridis and Gurkhas, Sikhs and Hazaras, Waziris and even Kafirs, many bloods but one spirit. And before I made my answer he showed me them at their sports, and verily, brothers, never did I see such skill among so many men. I saw them throw the spear at a mark, and doing nazabaze, which is, to fix a stake of a span length in the ground and take it up on the spear's point when passing at a full gallop; and, for another sport, putting an orange on the top of a bamboo three spans high, and slicing it through with the sword as they ride by at full speed. 'By my beard!' I thought, 'these are fit mates for me;' and I asked the sahib whether I might try the nazabaze myself. And he allowed me, and when I caught up the stake on my spear point he smote his hands together and said words in his tongue to Hodson Sahib that stood by him, and then he offered me good wages to be one of his men--Guides, they call them. And I agreed, and therefore it is, my friends, that I wear this garb, which being of the colour of earth cannot be seen from afar so clearly as our own garments."
Assad, for the first time in his life proud of this son of his, swelled with gratification.
"Well did I name thee Sherdil, my son," he said. "But tell us, what dost thou do for the pay these Feringhis--curst unbelievers--give thee? Assuredly it is easy work, or thou wouldst not do it."
Sherdil laughed.
"You ask what we do, my father--we of Lumsden Sahib's Guides. We do what 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