The Advanced-Guard BY SYDNEY C. GRIER AUTHOR OF ‘HIS EXCELLENCY’S ENGLISH GOVERNESS,’ ‘THE WARDEN OF THE MARCHES,’ ETC., ETC. (_Third in the Modern East series_) _SHILLING EDITION_ WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MCMXII _All Rights reserved_ CONTENTS. I. LADY HAIGH’S KIND INTENTIONS II. THE AUTOCRAT III. A BLANK SHEET IV. UNSTABLE V. COLIN AS AMBASSADOR VI. MOUNTING IN HOT HASTE VII. EYE-WITNESS VIII. SEEING AND BELIEVING IX. COUNSEL FOR THE PROSECUTION X. ARRAIGNED XI. JUSTIFIED XII. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN XIII. THE DIE IS CAST XIV. INTO THE TERRIBLE LAND XV. A LAND OF DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH XVI. “ENGLAND’S FAR, AND HONOUR A NAME” XVII. THE STRENGTH OF TEN XVIII. THE ALLOTTED FIELD XIX. A WOUNDED SPIRIT XX. THE ISLE OF AVILION XXI. FIRE AND SWORD XXII. TAKEN BY SURPRISE XXIII. PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES XXIV. RAHMAT-ULLAH XXV. THE RIGHT PREVAILS XXVI. “FOR THINE AND THEE” XXVII. AFTER TOIL--TOIL STILL FOOTNOTES THE ADVANCED-GUARD. CHAPTER I. LADY HAIGH’S KIND INTENTIONS. Fifty years ago the great port of Bab-us-Sahel was in its infancy. The modern ranges of wharfs and breakwaters were represented by a single half-finished pier, and vessels still discharged their passengers and cargo a mile from shore, to the imminent peril of life and property. The province of Khemistan had only recently come under British rule, by an operation which was variously described as “the most shameless piece of iniquity ever perpetrated,” and “the inevitable working of the laws of right and justice”; and the iron-willed, iron-handed old soldier who had perpetrated the iniquity and superintended the working of the laws was determined to open up the country from the river to the desert and beyond. His enemies were numerous and loud-voiced and near at hand; his friends, with the exception of his own subordinates, few and far away; but he had one advantage more common in those days than these, a practically free hand. Under “the execrable tyranny of a military despotism,” the labour of pacification and the construction of public works went on simultaneously, and although the Bombay papers shrieked themselves hoarse in denouncing Sir Henry Lennox, and danced war-dances over his presumably prostrate form, no one in Khemistan was a penny the worse--a fact which did not tend to mollify the angry passions concerned.