Barclay of the Guides. Herbert Strang

but the old chief, while he allowed the boy to take part in his hunting expeditions, would never permit him to share in the raids which he sometimes made on the villages of his neighbours, nor in the horse-stealing enterprises he ventured in the British lines. He seemed to be beset by a fear lest the boy should be snatched from him, and in particular he dreaded lest any contact with the British should awake dormant recollections in his mind and be the means of carrying him back to his own people. The only experience Ahmed had of contests with men had been gained in occasional attacks on caravans of merchants as they passed between Persia and Afghanistan. But now that the boy was sixteen, Rahmut thought it was high time, he should be married in accordance with the customs of his country, and was looking about for a suitable bride. The old chief argued that when Ahmed was married there would be less likelihood of his ever wishing to leave his tribe, and he might then be given a greater freedom and take a full share in all their activities.

      Though Ahmed thus had few enemies in Shagpur itself, there was one in Minghal's village of Mandan who caused Rahmut Khan some anxiety. This was his nephew Dilasah, a man near forty years old. Dilasah had expected to succeed his uncle in the chiefship, but he was an idle, ill-conditioned fellow, not without a certain fierce bravery when roused, but little inclined to bestir himself without great cause, exceedingly fond of eating, and very fat. For him Rahmut had the deepest contempt. There was a stormy scene between uncle and nephew when the Feringhi boy was brought to the village and formally adopted by the old chief; Rahmut poured out his scorn upon Dilasah, and the latter withdrew in high wrath and indignation from the village and joined himself to Minghal's folk. Rahmut was at first glad to be rid of him, but as years passed, and Minghal, by cunning wiles and stealthy diplomacy, increased his influence in the country and drew more and more men into his tribe, the chief of Shagpur foresaw that one day he might have serious trouble with his rival, and that the succession of Ahmed would be disputed. But he hoped that he would live long enough to see the boy develop into a full-grown warrior, able to hold his own by force of arms if the need should arise.

      If he had guessed that his absence on the horse-stealing expedition would be taken advantage of by his enemy, he would without doubt have remained at home. But he had heard that Minghal had gone westward to intercept a caravan of cloth merchants on the road to Kabul; it was a trick of Minghal's to draw the old man out of the way; and thus it happened that the village was so poorly defended when Minghal made his attack.

CHAPTER THE THIRD

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      Old Ahsan, the gate-keeper, looked gloomily out of the lattice window and watched the proceedings of the invaders. He had spied Dilasah, his master's nephew, among them, and knew that the incident was more than an ordinary raid. Minghal's men gave no sign of any intention to collect the villagers' property—whether in goods or in animals—and afterwards burn the village; it was clear that the chief meant either to seize the place as his own, or to set his henchman Dilasah at the head of it. And that Ahsan had rightly guessed was proved when Minghal himself came to the foot of the tower and summoned all within it to descend and salaam to their new lord Dilasah.

      Ahmed drew the gate-keeper back and put his head out.

      "What dost thou think of us, Minghal Khan?" he cried scornfully. "Are we asses or even as camels? Know that we hold this tower for our rightful lord Rahmut, and thou had best return to thy little dwelling while there is yet time."

      The Pathan's face darkened with anger.

      "Thou darest mock me, Feringhi dog!" he cried. "Come down at once, or we will burn thee alive and send thee to the Pit."

      But Ahmed only laughed. Talk of burning was mere foolishness, for the tower was of stone, and though they might burn the door, there was nothing else inflammable within their reach, save only the barricade which had been thrown across the winding stair, and even a Pathan's courage might shrink from attacking that in face of sturdy defenders armed with jazails on the stairs. Of this barricade, however, Minghal was as yet unaware, and his reply to Ahmed's scornful laugh was to set his men to make an assault upon the door. But they had no sooner approached it than a matchlock flashed from a narrow slit in the wall, and one of the assailants staggered back with a bullet in his leg. Furious, Minghal shouted to the other men to do his bidding, but another shot fell among them as they crowded about the door, and since they could not see who had fired, nor had any chance of hitting if they shot back, they made haste to flee out of harm's way, and Minghal himself saw that the task he had set them was impossible. The door was of stout and massive timber, and could not be broken in without a deal of hard battering; it would be folly to lose lives in that way when his purpose might be achieved by means of a charge of gunpowder. So he called off his men and bade them search the village for powder, not having brought more with him than was contained in his men's powder-flasks.

      At this Ahmed chuckled: all the powder lay in two large bags in one of the upper rooms of the tower, whither it had been conveyed at the first alarm. The men's hunt through the village was fruitless. But Ahsan sighed heavily a little later when he saw two leave the village and gallop at a hot pace in the direction of Mandan.

      "Minghal has sent for powder, Ahmed-ji," he said. "Without doubt we shall all be blown up."

      "No, no; they cannot get back before morning," replied Ahmed, "and every day favours us. Maybe my father will come back earlier than we suppose."

      "And if he does not?"

      "Why, then we must defend ourselves as long as we can. Suppose they bring powder: they cannot lay a charge against the door in the daytime, for we could fire into them and blow them up with their own stuff. And when night comes, the moon will light up the inner wall for some hours, so that they would still be in great danger. And if, when the moon goes to the other side, they contrive to place their charge and blow in the door, it will only be to find us with our jazails at the barricade, and they will never get beyond it."

      Ahmed's cheerfulness inspirited the old gate-keeper and the rest of the garrison. The women and girls had been conveyed to the upper chambers, and Ahmed at the fall of night went up to them and did what he could to reassure them. Once or twice during the night, after the moon had gone down, there were sounds from below indicating that another attempt was to be made on the door; but a shot from the window was sufficient to send the men scuttering back to the houses, and the hours from midnight to dawn passed undisturbed. The garrison snatched a little sleep, and were roused by the morning cry of the mullah in the village mosque calling to the faithful to awake: "Prayer is more than sleep!"

      It was afternoon when the two men who had left the village were seen returning with three others, their horses loaded with bags, which no doubt contained gunpowder. They were received with shouts of "Wah! wah!" from their comrades as they entered the gate. Ahmed, watching them with Ahsan and others, saw them convey the powder to a lean-to beside the gate-keeper's hut against the wall. There was great cheerfulness among Minghal's men, who had idled away the day in gambling. Early in the morning Ahmed had seen three of them leave the village in the opposite direction from Mandan; and going to the top of the tower, he watched them ride for some two miles until they reached a hillock whose summit rose a little higher than the tower roof. There they dismounted and led their horses into a thin copse. They did not reappear, and Ahmed guessed that they had been sent there as an outpost to guard against any surprise from the sudden return of Rahmut Khan. It was clear that Minghal was resolved to carry through his design to the uttermost.

      Confident as he was in appearance, Ahmed in reality felt no little anxiety. The quantity of powder brought into the village by Minghal's messengers was large enough not merely to blow in the door and the barricade, but even to make a breach in the tower wall. He knew very well that if the enemy once forced their way into the tower the case was hopeless; for the men he had with him were all well on in years, and with the fatalism of their race they would regard the first success