href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@32102@[email protected]#GLOSSARY" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">GLOSSARY

THE BOY'S NEW LIBRARY

CHAPTER THE FIRST

The Raid

Ahmed, son of Rahmut Khan, chief of the village of Shagpur, was making his lonely way through the hills some three miles above his home. He could see the walled village perched on a little tract of grassy land just where the base of the hills met the sandy plain. It was two thousand feet or more below him, and he could almost count the flat-topped houses clustered beyond his father's tower, which, though actually it rose to some height above them, dominating them, and affording an outlook over miles and miles of the plain, yet appeared to Ahmed, at his present altitude, merely a patch in the general level.

Between him and the village lay three miles of grey rugged hill country, scarred with watercourses, and almost void of vegetation. A mile away, indeed, there was a long stretch of woodland, lying like a great green smudge upon the monotony of grey. It was a patch of irregular shape, narrowing here, broadening there, filling a valley which bent round towards the village. Ahmed was accustomed to shoot there occasionally, but he preferred the more exciting and more dangerous sport of hunting on the hills, where he might stalk his quarry from crag to crag, leaping ravines, swarming up abrupt and precipitous cliffs, always in peril of a fall that might break his limbs even if it did not crash the life out of him. For Ahmed was of a daring disposition, fearless, undauntable, yet possessed of a certain coolness of judgment by which he had hitherto brought himself unscathed through sixteen years of adventurous boyhood.

He was a tall, slim, lissom fellow, with very black hair and a swarthy skin, which set off the spotless white of his turban. He wore the loose frock and baggy trousers of the country. Yet one observing him would have marked certain differences between his features and those of the Pathans among whom he dwelt. His nose was arched, but it was thinner than was usual among his countrymen. His lips were not so thick as theirs, nor was his mouth so large, and his eyes, instead of coal-black, were of a curious steely-grey. And any one who saw him bathing with the lads of his village (itself a strange pastime, for the hill-men have no great partiality for water) would have been struck by the paleness of his skin where it was protected from the sun and the weather. The observer's conclusion would probably have been that Ahmed was a Pathan of a particularly refined type, and in all likelihood an offshoot of some noble family which time's vicissitudes had reduced.

Ahmed stood for a few moments looking down at Shagpur, then turned to pursue his way. He had a fowling-piece slung at his back; his intention was to ascend the hills for perhaps another thousand feet, to a spot where he would probably come upon a small herd of black-buck. But he had not mounted far from the place at which he had paused when he halted again, and, putting his left hand above his eyes to shield them from the sun's rays, gazed steadily in a direction away from the village. Below him the plain stretched for many miles, bare and desolate, though when the rains came by and by it would be clothed with verdure. Scarcely a tree broke its level, and so parched was it now that no beast could have found sustenance there. But far away Ahmed's keen eye had descried what appeared to be a speck upon the horizon, and he watched it intently.

There was nothing unusual in the sight itself. Many a time he had seen just such a speck in the sky, watched it grow in breadth and height, until it stretched across the plain like an immense wall, thirty miles long, a thousand feet high. He had seen it approach like a monstrous phantom, driving before it, as it were, circling flights of kites and vultures, enveloping the bases of the hills, shutting out the sun with yellow scudding clouds. But such a dust-storm ordinarily swept over the plain southwards: Ahmed had never seen one approach from the west; and after a long and steady gaze at the speck, which grew slowly in size, he suddenly dropped his hand, uttered an exclamation in the Pashtu tongue, and turning his back began to retrace his course, at a speed vastly greater than that at which he had formerly been moving, towards his distant village.

The moving speck had resolved itself into a band of horsemen. They had been too far away for him to distinguish individuals and know who and what they were; but, considering the quarter from which they were coming, his instant thought was that they were an enemy, and it behoved him to give his people warning. In that wild country of the border raids were frequent enough. Especially was a warning necessary to-day, for the village was in poor condition to defend itself. Only the day before, Rahmut Khan, his father, had ridden out with all the younger men to raid horses on the British frontier. Ahmed shrewdly suspected that tidings of this expedition had been conveyed to Minghal Khan, the chief's inveterate enemy and rival, and Minghal had taken advantage of it to make the attack for which he had no doubt long awaited a favourable occasion. And what occasion could be more favourable than the absence of the old warrior on an enterprise from which, if at once successful, he could not return for five or six days, and which, if he found himself at first baulked in it, might occupy him for a fortnight?

Ahmed was well aware of the danger in which Shagpur lay. The village had a high wall; but he had no belief that the gates could withstand the assault of a determined enemy. It would be something to the good, however, if the assailants could be checked for a time, and they might be checked by the shutting of the gates. But the villagers could not see from the walls the advancing band; unless there was some one on the tower, or Ahmed himself should give warning, the enemy would be upon them before the gates could be closed, and then it would be a tale of rapine and massacre. He knew that, make what speed he might, he could not, if he followed the way he had come, reach the village before the mounted men. The only chance was to gain the wood, through which, being on a level, he could run fleetly. Swerving, therefore, from the direct line to the village, Ahmed scrambled down the rough hillside, leaping little chasms, springing from rock to rock with the agility of a mountain goat, yet with circumspection, for should he miss his footing a sprained ankle would be the least of his mishaps, and Shagpur was lost.

Down and down he went, stumbling, slipping, barking his shins, but never heeding such slight mishaps so long as nothing brought him to a check. And now, just as the dark woodland seems at his very feet, he pulls up with a sudden cry of "Hai!" for in front of him there yawns a ravine, four or five paces across, and many feet deep. He glances to either side: a little to the left it narrows slightly, but only by reason of a jagged spit of rock that juts out—a spit so small as barely to afford resting-place to a foot. At every other spot the ravine is even wider than where he was brought to a halt. He waits but a moment—long enough to reflect that he dare not go the toilsome way round, lest he arrive too late; and then, setting his teeth and clenching his fingers so tightly that the nails press deep into his palms, he takes a leap. Misjudgment of the distance by an inch would dash him into the chasm below; but practice has given him perfect command of his muscles; he springs lightly, confidently; his right foot lands on the precariously narrow spit of rock, and as he stoops his body he brings the left foot against the right; then, just as it would seem that the momentum of his