King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of AdventureMundy, Talbot
History
King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure
Mundy, Talbot
British -- India -- Fiction; Historical fiction; India -- History -- Sepoy Rebellion, 1857-1858 -- Fiction; Love stories; War stories
“Who gave you leave to come?” King asked.
“None! He told us of the pardons and we came!”
“Aye!” said the Orakzai Pathan, drawing King aside. “But she gave me
leave to seek them out and tempt them!”
“And what does she intend?” King asked him suddenly.
“She? Ask Allah, who put the spirit in her! How should I know?”
“We will march again, my brothers!” King shouted, and they streamed
along behind him, now with no advance guard, but with the Orakzai Pathan
striding beside King's horse, with a great hand on the saddle. Like the
others, he seemed decided in his mind that the hakim ought not to be
allowed much chance to escape.
Just as the dawn was tinting the surrounding peaks with softest rose
they topped a ridge, and Khinjan lay below them across the mile-wide
bone-dry valley. They all stood and stared at it, leaning on their guns.
All the “Men with New Eyes” saw it now for the first time, and it held
them speechless, for with its patchwork towers and high battlements it
looked like a very city of the spirits that their tales around the fire
on winter nights so linger on.
And while they watched, and the Khinjan men were beginning to murmur
(for they needed no last view of the place to satisfy any longings!)
none else than Ismail rose from behind a rock and came to King's
stirrup. He tugged and King backed his horse until they stood together
apart.
“She sends this message,” said Ismail, showing his teeth in the most
peculiar grin that surely the Hills ever witnessed. And then, omitting
the message, he proceeded first to give some news. “Many of her men who
have never been in the army, are none the less true to her, and she will
not leave them to the mullah's mercy. They will leave the Caves in a
little while and will come up here. They are to go down into India and
be made prisoners if the sirkar will not enlist them. You are to wait
for them here.”
“Is that all her message?” King asked him.
“Nay. That is none of it! This is her message. THOU SHALT KNOW THIS DAY,
THOU ENGLISHMAN, WHETHER OR NOT SHE TRULY LOVED THEE! THERE SHALL BE
PROOF, SUCH AS EVEN THOU SHALT UNDERSTAND!”'
“What does that mean?”
“Nay, who am I that I should know?”
Ismail slipped away and lost himself among the men, and none of them
seemed to notice that he had been away and had come again. On King's
advice a dozen men climbed near-by eminences and began to watch for the
mullah's coming. The Khinjan men murmured openly; they wanted to be off.
“But no,” said King. “Go if ye will, but she has sent word that other
men are coming. I wait for them here.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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