Barclay of the Guides Part 28

Fazl Hak stopped; he looked surprised, then took Ahmed a little apart.

"There is no news, sepoy," he said in a low tone, "later than this command of the king."

"Hast thou not heard of the fifteen elephants taken from the English yesterday?"

"Nay, I had not heard of that."

"Hai! that is strange. Nor that a fakir departed from the city yesterday to travel to Peshawar, and cut the throat of Jan Larrens?"

"Sayest thou?"

"Nor that a black-bearded banijara selling shawls was lately stripped of his beard and shown to be as smooth of cheek as I myself--a wretched spy of the Feringhis?"

"Hai! I know of such a banijara, and I could have said he would prove but a broken reed as a spy."

"And dost thou not know that our great Bakht Khan has driven a hundred mines beneath the Ridge, and when the moon is full the Feringhis will all be blown to little pieces?"

Fazl Hak threw a keen sidelong look at this informative sepoy.

"Though I would not counsel thee to write word of that on thy little scrolls to Hodson Sahib," added Ahmed, lowering his voice to a whisper.

The maulavi started; an angry flush suffused his cheeks.

"Thou misbegotten son of----!" he exclaimed; but Ahmed interrupted him.

"Let it be peace, good maulavi," he said. "There is little thou dost not know; thou knowest now that the Pathan trader was not such a sorry spy, since I am he. It is pardonable for a man to prove himself, to one of such honoured merit as thou."

"Thou sayest well," said the maulavi, somewhat mollified. "When the troubles are over, come to me; I will pay thee well."

"Nay, I have other service. But if thou hast aught now that thou wouldst send to Hodson Sahib, deliver it to me; I go to him."

Without hesitation Fazl Hak took from beneath his thumbnail a tiny scroll of paper, which he handed secretly to Ahmed, and then with a negligent salutation he walked slowly away.

Ahmed's conversation with the maulavi attracted little attention among the sepoys. And when, after a delay of two hours, the order came to march, he went with them out from the Ajmir gate, and into Kishenganj.

At dead of night he crept out very stealthily, stole along the tree-shaded road until he reached the Jumna ca.n.a.l, then stripped off his tell-tale red coat, and swam across. Hastening along the further bank for half-a-mile, he struck northward through the gardens on the outskirts of Sabzi Mandi, and just before dawn reached a picket of Irregular Native Cavalry. Half-an-hour later he was in Hodson's tent, relating his discovery of Craddock Sahib, and much more that Hodson regarded as of greater importance.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH

Nikalsain

Ahmed's return to the corps set his comrades' tongues wagging.

"Why, where hast thou been, Ahmed-ji?" cried Sherdil, when they met.

"Verily the sight of thee is as ointment to sore eyes."

There was now no reason why the men should not know the errand on which he had been, saving such particulars as were confidential with Hodson Sahib. So Ahmed related to Sherdil and a group of Guides his adventures since he had first left them. Two facts he omitted: his disguise, and his share in the fight with the rebels as they returned from Alipur. The men listened with amazement, and Sherdil frankly declared his envy.

"Though Allah has been good to me too," he added; "am I not now a dafadar? He who has patience wins. Thou canst not now be a dafadar before me."

Ahmed congratulated him warmly on his promotion. Then he asked what the Guides had been doing during his absence, and heard of almost daily encounters with the enemy. He learnt also that Hodson Sahib was no longer in command of the corps. He had raised a new body of hors.e.m.e.n, of whom the Guides were somewhat jealous.

"There goes one of them," cried Sherdil, pointing to a tall figure in khaki, with a scarlet sash over the shoulder and a huge scarlet turban.

"We call them flamingoes, for they are very like. Thou shouldst see them on horseback, some of them who have ridden little; it is a sight to make you crack your sides."

"And who is now our commander, then?"

"Shebbeare Sahib, a good man: has he not been twice wounded? But it seems as though our commanders change with the moon, so short a time do they abide with us."

And then he told of what men had been killed, and what wounded. He himself had been incapacitated for a week through a sabre cut. Ahmed asked if any new men had joined the corps.

"None, though there was a man of good promise who came with us into that fight I told you of towards Alipur; a silent man, with a n.o.ble beard.

Some of us thought he was a candidate; some, a sahib--thou knowest how the sahibs love strange adventures; but I have never looked upon him since."

"Of what sort was he, Sherdil?"

"A straight man, with a grave face, and a good seat on horseback."

"Was he anything like me?"

"Hai! Thou art a stripling: he was a _man_, I say. Maybe if thou live long enough thou wilt have a beard like his. Truly thou wouldst have rejoiced to see him that day. Did he not smite, Rasul? Did he not cleave his way through the Purbiyas with clean thrust and stroke? I would fain look on him again."

"Thou hast seen him this day, Sherdil."

"Sayest thou? Where? I knew it not."

"Thou seest him now."

Sherdil stared.

"Dost thou not remember how thou didst thyself give me a moustache that day we went as traders to Mandan? Even so I got for myself the beard, in Karnal."

The men laughed, and chaffed Sherdil uproariously on his failure to recognize his prize pupil.

"Wah!" cried the new dafadar; "but those who said the man was a sahib----"

He stopped, checked by a look from Ahmed. Then they talked of the prospects of the siege, and the merits of the new general, Archdale Wilson, who had succeeded General Reed. In common with the rest of the little force on the Ridge, they were restive under the long delay in a.s.saulting the rebel city.

"But we shall see something soon," said Sherdil. "Nikalsain is here."

"Who is Nikalsain?"

"Dost thou not know Nikalsain? Wah! He is a man! There is not one in the hills that does not shiver in his pyjamas when he hears the name of Nikalsain. Thou couldst hear the ring of his grey mare's hoofs from Attock even to the Khaibar, and the folk of Rawal Pindi wake in the night and tremble, saying they hear the tramp of Nikalsain's war-horse.

There are many sahibs, but only one Nikalsain."