"Teach me what?"
And then Sherdil explained Lumsden"s way of filling the vacancies as they occurred. He held a compet.i.tion among the candidates, and took them to the rifle range to shoot it off among themselves: the best shots got the places.
"And if there are some who shoot equally well, what then?" asked Ahmed.
"Oh, then he does as Hodson Sahib did. He makes them ride unbacked horses, and the man that rides furthest before being thrown off, that is the man for the Guides."
"I can shoot, and I can ride, Sherdil," said Ahmed, with a smile. "I do not fear the tests."
"That may well be: but you are young, we have no boys in the Guides. Yet it may be possible. If we could give you a moustache and the beginnings of a beard!"
"That may not be until Allah wills."
"Nay, there is a very cunning magician in the bazar at Peshawar, who with some few touches of a stick can make the semblance of hair on the face. So we might add a few years to you till the tests are over: after that it will be as Heaven wills."
Ahmed thought over this suggestion for a minute, and then said--
"Nay, it cannot be so, Sherdil. Dost thou want me to be shamed? What if the shooting and riding be good and then it is proved that the hair is false? It would make my face fall before my countrymen."
"Thy countrymen! Hai! If thou thinkest so, better go straightway to Lumsden Sahib and say, "I am a Feringhi, of the sahib-log like yourself.
Give me clothes such as the sahibs wear, and a portion of pig to eat.""
"Silence, son of a dog!" cried Ahmed. "I will tell all at a fitting time. And thou, Sherdil, wilt lock thy tongue and say nothing of these matters, or verily it will be a sad day for thee. Swear by the grave of thy grandmother."
Sherdil looked astonished at the sudden vigour of Ahmed"s speech. He took the oath required. Then ensued a long conversation, at the end of which Ahmed rode back to Peshawar and Sherdil sought an interview with his commander.
"Well, what can I do for you?" shouted Lumsden in his breezy way as Sherdil stood before him, saluting humbly.
"If it please the heaven-born," said Sherdil, "I have a friend who wishes to put on the khaki and serve the k.u.mpani."
"Aha! another son of a dyer, like Sherdil, son of a.s.sad?"
Sherdil gasped. Was his origin known after all?
"The heaven-born knows everything," he said, with a sigh. "No; this friend is of high caste and the son of a chief--a good man."
"His name?"
"Ahmed, son of Rahmut Khan."
"The villain we chased not long ago!"
"The heaven-born says; and the same villain is my own chief, and is now laid up in the sahibs" prison, and can make no more trouble; but there is trouble in the village----"
"Disputed succession, I suppose?"
"Hazur! Dilasah, a fat rascal, makes himself chief until I can slay him, and Ahmed wishes to serve the heaven-born until such time as his father is mercifully set free."
"How old is he?"
"I cannot tell that to a day, heaven-born. He seems somewhat younger than Sherdil thy servant, but he is well-grown, and can ride a horse and hit a mark. Moreover, he is exceeding skilful in the nazabaze."
"Well, well, I have put his name down. He makes the thirty-second. Is he here? Is he the boy I saw with you on the parade-ground?"
"Heaven-born, how could it be? Ahmed is in Peshawar: that boy was his cousin." Sherdil lied without a blush.
"Well, take yourself off now. I will let you know when a vacancy occurs, and then your friend must take his chance with the rest."
And next day, in the serai where he had put up in Peshawar, Ahmed learnt from Sherdil that his name stood thirty-second on the list of candidates for the Guides.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
A Compet.i.tion Wallah
Sherdil did not do things by halves. He was now as keen as Ahmed himself that the boy should become one of the Guides. During the next fortnight he devoted every spare moment to coaching him in the shooting tests.
Ahmed had never shot with a carbine, but only with the heavy jazail of the tribesmen. Sherdil sought out a secluded spot among the lower hills where practising could be carried on without attracting attention, and lent Ahmed his own carbine to practise with. And since it was impossible to obtain ammunition belonging to the corps, he spent some of his saved pay in buying powder, shot, and percussion caps in Peshawar, and refilled some old cartridge cases. He drew a rough target on the face of a rock, and diligently played musketry instructor until he could declare that Ahmed was as good a shot as any of the candidates was likely to be at various ranges.
About three weeks after Ahmed"s arrival, Lumsden Sahib announced one day that there was a vacancy in the cavalry. One of the men had overstopped his leave, and was summarily dismissed. It appeared later that the trooper had employed his leave in hunting down a hill-man whose father had spoken disrespectfully of his own grandmother, and until the slight was avenged the man had no other object in life.
Sherdil lost no time in conveying the news to Ahmed. There was great bustle among the candidates and their friends, and as the day appointed for the compet.i.tion drew near, the camp outside the walls of the fort became monstrously swollen with relatives of the compet.i.tors and people who had come from Peshawar for the mere pleasure and excitement of the event. Among them were representatives of every race of the borderland, speaking a variety of dialects, and keen partisans of the men of their own blood among the compet.i.tors.
The men of the Guides were as much excited as the rest. The corps was divided into companies, each of which consisted of men of one race; and though all were as loyal as any European soldiers could be, and had as high an ideal of soldierly duty and the honour of the corps, the men of one company would, on slight provocation, have flown at the throats of those of another if they met when on leave. The vacancy being for a cavalryman, the compet.i.tors were almost all exceptionally tall, strapping fellows, and the little Gurkhas among the candidates were vastly disappointed that the defaulting Guide had not been an infantryman.
On a fine October morning, with a light cold wind blowing down from the hills--herald of the winter--the compet.i.tors marched to the rifle range, accompanied by three of the English officers--Lumsden himself, Quintin Battye, the second in command, and Kennedy, commandant of the cavalry.
Behind them came a rabble of spectators, laughing and yelling with excitement, and almost the whole of the corps. Arrived at the range, the compet.i.tors, twenty-five in all, were drawn up in line--Afridis and Sikhs, Hazaras and Waziris, Afghans and Pathans of different clans--and answered to their names as Lumsden Sahib called over the list. Ahmed"s name came last, and as he, like the rest, answered "Hazur! I am here,"
he caught the eyes of all the officers fixed on him, and felt a strange nervousness under the scrutiny.
"Where is that rascal Sherdil?" cried Lumsden.
"Hazur! I am here," replied the man, saluting as he stepped out from the throng, and looking very like a dog that expected a whipping.
"What does this trick mean? This Ahmed of yours is a mere boy; you said he was a little younger than yourself. You seem to be playing up for a flogging, my man."
"Heaven-born, is it a time to be unjust? Did I not answer truly? I said I would not tell his age to a day, and the heaven-born would not have had me say he is older than I. That would have been very foolish."
"But this is a boy: his beard is not grown; we have no place for such in the corps."
"As for the beard, heaven-born, that will come. If I shave my beard and moustache--which Allah forbid!--my face will be even as Ahmed"s. Shoes are tested on the feet, sahib, and a man in a fight. Behold him; his forehead is bright, since his sword-tip is red with blood. He has slain beasts and men; did he not come with me and blow up Minghal"s tower? And then, to be sure, he had a moustache and the shadow of a beard, and if the heaven-born pleases we can get the conjurer in Peshawar to furnish him very quickly with the necessary hair. And he can shoot; if I do not offend to say it, he can shoot as well as the heaven-born himself; and he is a good shikari; and as for riding a horse--wah! let Kennedy Sahib judge of that. Look at a man"s deeds, heaven-born, not whether he is tall or short. The thorn which is sharp is so from its youth, and----"
"Chup!" said Lumsden, who, with the other officers, had scarcely been able to keep his countenance during this address. "You have a moist tongue. You quote your proverbs at me; I"ll give you one: "A closed mouth is better than talking nonsense.""
"True, sahib," said Sherdil quickly, "and there is yet another: "If you are not a good judge of beasts, choose a young one.""
At this, and Sherdil"s sententious look, as of one who says "That"s a clincher," Lumsden laughed outright.