.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 42417
   :PG.Title: The Air Patrol
   :PG.Released: 2013-03-26
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Herbert Strang
   :MARCREL.ill: Cyrus Cuneo
   :DC.Title: The Air Patrol
              A Story of the North-west Frontier
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1913
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE AIR PATROL
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   .. _`Cover`:

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      :alt: Cover

      Cover

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   .. _`NURLA BAI ASCENDS`:

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      :alt: NURLA BAI ASCENDS.  See page 405

      NURLA BAI ASCENDS.  See page `405`_

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      THE AIR PATROL

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      *A STORY
      OF THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER*

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      BY
      HERBERT STRANG

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      *ILLUSTRATED BY CYRUS CUNEO*

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      LONDON
      HENRY FROWDE
      HODDER AND STOUGHTON
      1913

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      RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
      BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.,
      AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

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   PREFACE

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It needs no gift of prophecy to foretell that in
the not distant future the fate of empires will
be decided neither on land nor on the sea, but in
the air.  We have already reached a stage in the
evolution of the aeroplane and airship at which a
slight superiority in aircraft may turn the scale
in battle.  Our imperial destinies may hinge
upon the early or later recognition of the
importance of a large, well-equipped, and well-manned
aerial fleet.

In *The Air Scout* I endeavoured to illustrate
the part which an air-service may play in a
combined naval and military campaign.  The
scene of the present story is laid among the vast
mountain ranges of Northern India, where the
issue of a great war may depend upon the aerial
equipment of the opposing armies.

Some two thousand years ago a handful of
devoted Greeks held the narrow pass of
Thermopylae against the myriad host of Xerxes, in the
noble effort to save their country from the
Persian yoke.  The following pages tell the story
of a new--and a more fortunate--Thermopylae,
an episode in a great struggle for the mastery
of India.  I am among those who believe that
the spirit which animated the Spartan heroes of
old burns in our British youth to-day.  Only
opportunity and a great occasion are needed to
evoke it to glorious use.

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   HERBERT STRANG.

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   CONTENTS

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`INTRODUCTORY`_

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CHAPTER THE FIRST
   `THE RUINED REST-HOUSE`_

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CHAPTER THE SECOND
   `BEYOND THE PALE`_

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CHAPTER THE THIRD
   `MR. APPLETON'S MINE`_

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CHAPTER THE FOURTH
   `THE AEROPLANE ARRIVES`_

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CHAPTER THE FIFTH
   `THE LIGHT IN THE GALLERY`_

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CHAPTER THE SIXTH
   `NURLA BAI DISAPPEARS`_

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CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
   `NURLA AT BAY`_

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CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
   `THE EDGE OF THE STORM`_

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CHAPTER THE NINTH
   `A FLIGHT BY NIGHT`_

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CHAPTER THE TENTH
   `A FATEFUL DISCOVERY`_

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CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
   `THE FIGHT AT THE BRIDGE`_

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CHAPTER THE TWELFTH
   `A SKIRMISH ON THE BANK`_

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CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
   `THE REVOLT OF THE KALMUCK MINERS`_

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CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH
   `RALLYING THE PATHANS`_

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CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH
   `NURLA BAI SLIPS THE NOOSE`_

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CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH
   `NO THOROUGHFARE`_

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CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH
   `A CRY IN THE NIGHT`_

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CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
   `THE TOWER IN THE HILLS`_

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CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH
   `STALKED`_

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CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH
   `A FRIEND IN NEED`_

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CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST
   `THE FRONTIER HOUSE`_

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CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND
   `DITTA LAL INTERPRETS`_

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CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD
   `CAPTURING A GUN`_

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CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH
   `A CHECK`_

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CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH
   `THE FIGHT AT THE BEND`_

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CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH
   `THE DEATH TRAP`_

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CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH
   `AD INFIMOS`_

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CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH
   `THE LAST FIGHT`_

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CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH
   `REUNION`_

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   LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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`NURLA BAI ASCENDS`_ (see page `405`_) . . . . . . *Frontispiece*

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`THE AMBUSH AT THE REST-HOUSE`_

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`THE ATTACK IN THE GALLERY`_

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`A CHECK IN THE PURSUIT`_

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`RECONNOITRING IN THE AEROPLANE`_

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`GUR BUKSH DEFENDS THE MINE`_

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`THE KALMUCKS MAKE A PRISONER`_

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`LAWRENCE DROPS A BOMB`_

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.. _`INTRODUCTORY`:

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   INTRODUCTORY

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A summer afternoon was dwindling to night
over a wild solitude among the borderlands of
Northern India.  The sun had already left the
deep spacious valley, wherein, as the light
waned, the greens changed to browns, the
browns deepened to black, and the broad silver
band that denoted a stream flowing along the
bottom was dulled to the hue of lead.  On the
west, the harsh and rugged features of the
mountains, towering to incalculable heights, were
softened by the increasing shade; while the snowy
summits, flushed by the declining rays, were
scarcely distinguishable from the roseate clouds.
Away to the east, where the sunlight still lingered,
the huge mountain barrier showed every gradation
of tone, from the greenish-black of the pine
forest at the foot, through varieties of purple
and grey, to the mingled pink and gold of the
topmost crests.  Every knob and fissure on the
scarred face was defined and accentuated, until,
as the curtain of shadow stole gradually higher,
outlines were blurred, and the warm tints faded
into drabs and greys.

Along the front of the mountains on the west
there was a road--a track, rather, which might
have seemed to the fancy to be desperately
clinging to the rugged surface, lest it were hurled
into the precipitous valley beneath.  It followed
every jut and indentation of the rock, here
broadening, narrowing there until it was no
more than a shelf; with twists and bends so abrupt
and frequent that it would have been hard to
find a stretch of fifty yards that could have been
called straight.

Three horsemen were riding slowly northward
along this mountain road, picking their way
heedfully over its inequalities, edging nearer to
the wall of rock on their left hand as they came
to spots where a false step would have carried
them into the abyss.  To a distant observer it
would have appeared as though they were
moving without support on the very face of the
mountain.  They wore European garments, and
the briefest inspection of their features would
have sufficed to tell that they were Englishmen.
Behind them, at some little distance, rode eight
or ten bearded men of swarthy hue, whose
turbans, tunics, and long boots proclaimed them
as sowars of a regiment of Border cavalry.  Still
farther behind, in a long straggling line, came a
caravan of laden mules, each in charge of a
half-naked Astori.  The tail of this singular
procession, perhaps a mile behind the head, consisted
of two native troopers like those who preceded them.

It was now nearly dark.  Presently the three
Englishmen halted, and the eldest of them,
turning in his saddle, addressed a few words in
Urdu to the dafadar of the sowars behind.  The
riders, English and native alike, dismounted,
and led their horses up a slight ascent to the left,
halting again when they reached a stretch of
level ground which the leader had marked as
a suitable camping place.  A thin rill trickled
musically down at the edge of this convenient
plateau, forming a small quagmire in its passage
across the track, and plunging over the brink
to merge in the broader stream, now obliterated
by the night, hundreds of feet below.  The three
Englishmen tethered their horses to some young
pines that bounded the level space, then sat
themselves upon a neighbouring rock, lit their
pipes, and looked on in silence as the dusky
troopers removed their saddle-bags and stood in
patient expectancy.

By and by the head of the mule train appeared
along the winding track.  They came up one by
one, and now the evening stillness was broken
as the muleteers stripped their loads from the
weary beasts, and with shrill and voluble
chatter spread about the impedimenta of the
camp.  Quickly a tent was pitched, cooking pots
were set up; and the Englishmen felt that
comfortable glow which envelops travellers at
the near prospect of supper after a long and
toilsome march.  The meal was almost ready
when the end of the caravan arrived, and the two
rearmost sowars rejoined their comrades, with
no other sound than a guttural grunt of satisfaction.

The Englishmen were eating their food, too
hungry and fatigued to talk, when one of them,
looking southward along the track, suddenly
pointed to a figure approaching on foot, scarcely
discernible in the fast-gathering darkness.  On
this lonely road, which they had ridden the
whole day long without meeting a single human
being, the appearance of the stranger had for
them something of the curious interest which
one passing ship has for another in the ocean
solitudes.  They watched the figure as it grew
more distinct--a tall gaunt man, naked save for
a strip of cloth about his loins, long hair flowing
wild over his shoulders, no staff in his hand,
neither pack nor wallet upon his back.  There
was something weird and fascinating about this
solitary figure, as it stalked on rapidly with long
even stride, the head turning neither to left nor
right.  The newly-pitched camp was fully in his
view, but the pedestrian gave it no heed.  He
came below it on the track, but neither altered
his pace nor looked up when one of the muleteers
shouted a salutation.  Even when the eldest of
the Englishmen, in the tone of one accustomed
to be obeyed, challenged him sharply in the
native tongue, and demanded whither he was
going, the man did not turn his head or slacken
speed, but merely lifted his lean right arm and
pointed ahead, where the path disappeared in
the gloom.

"What is your business?" asked the Englishman again.

And the reply came faintly back from the man,
who had already passed by, and spoke without
checking his step.

"I AM A SHARPENER OF SWORDS!"

And he vanished into the night.





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.. _`THE RUINED REST-HOUSE`:

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   CHAPTER THE FIRST


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   THE RUINED REST-HOUSE

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The travellers proceeded with their meal
almost in silence.

The two younger men had felt subdued and
chastened ever since they had left Rawal Pindi,
some days before.  Major Endicott was too good
a fellow to insist on the disapproval with which
he regarded their company, but they were
conscious of being on sufferance, which was the
more irksome because of the whole-hearted
admiration they were ready to lavish upon him.
His mission was a delicate one,--one which, to
any but a political officer of the frontier, would
have appeared not a little hazardous; and he felt
that it was gratuitously complicated by the
journey of two young civilians through so wild
a region at this particular time.  A tribe in one
of the valleys west of the mountain road, some
three days' march from the spot on which the
travellers were now encamped, had been giving
trouble of late.  It had always been troublesome.
Only once had it been visited by a white man,
Major Endicott himself; yet, accompanied by
no more than a dozen troopers, he was venturing
alone among these wild hill-men, to demand the
payment of a fine in expiation of a recent raid
upon their neighbours, and security for their
future good behaviour.  The alternative was an
expedition in force, and Major Endicott had
preferred to take whatever personal risks a visit
might involve, rather than recommend a hill
campaign, with all its difficulties and its heavy
cost in money and men.

But he did not relish the accidental responsibility
cast upon him by the presence of these two
young Englishmen, little more than lads, who
had no concern in his business, and were indeed
strangers to the country.  He regarded it as a
very unfortunate coincidence that they arrived
in Rawal Pindi at the moment of his setting out,
and that the road they proposed to follow in their
further journey northward would be for several
days the same as his own.  They were travelling
at their own risk; it was no part of his duty to
safeguard them; but he could do no less than
suggest that they should accompany him over
so much of the road as was common to their
party and his.  Privately he wished them at Halifax.

His attitude was after all more political than
personal.  Great changes had recently occurred
in the politics of Central Asia.  The fall of the
Manchu dynasty and the establishment of a
Republic in China had resulted in the secession
of the princes of Mongolia.  They had first placed
themselves under the protection of Russia, only
to find that they had exchanged King Log for
King Stork.  Russia had sufficiently recovered
from the staggering effects of the Japanese war
to recommence her forward movement in Asia,
which for long had seemed as gradual and as
irresistible as the encroachment of the tide upon
a sandy beach.  The Mongols soon came to
loggerheads with their adopted protector, and
were beginning to experience the same process of
assimilation that had in previous generations
been the fate of Bokhara and Western Turkestan.
A sudden conflagration in which Russia became
involved in Europe, together with the rise to
power of a prince of exceptional ambition and
capacity, gave the Mongols an opportunity of
striking for complete independence, of which they
were not slow to take advantage.  The advance
of a Russian army of 20,000 men was checked
near Urga for want of supplies from the north.
With an Austro-German army threatening
Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Russian
government recalled the greater part of their
Eastern forces, leaving the Mongolian expedition
to extricate itself as best it could.  It might still
have proved equal to the strain but for a
Mussulman rising, which, after long smouldering, now
broke into flame in the conquered Khanates
eastward of the Caspian.  The revolt spread
with the rapidity of a prairie fire from Khiva to
Tashkend, paralysing any efforts that might
have been made to relieve the army destined
for Mongolia.  A raid of many thousands of
Tartars who cut the railway at Irkutsk turned
the check into a retreat.  The first sign of
wavering brought against the Russians every man
who possessed a pony and a rifle from the Great
Wall of China to the Altai mountains.  Under
this pressure the retreat became a rout, and the
rout a slaughter.  Within a year Mongolia
became the most powerful of the Central Asian
States, and with the guns and equipment of the
annihilated Russian army as a nucleus, the
Mongol Napoleon set about building up a new
empire extending from the shrunken frontiers
of the Chinese Republic to the shores of the
Caspian.  Five years had sufficed to transform
the political aspect of Central Asia.  Russia,
exhausted by a three years' struggle with her
western neighbours, was powerless to stem the
flood of Mongol conquest.  For the moment
the tide had apparently spent itself on the
eastern border of Asiatic Turkey, and the
mountain chain dividing Persia.  There had
been a lull for more than a year, during which the
world wondered with no little apprehension
what would happen next.  Some thought that
the Mongol prince who had inspired this
recrudescence of the Tartar spirit might now be
content to consolidate his empire.  Others looked
for a new movement still more stupendous, for
there were not wanting many in Europe who
trembled at the name of Ubacha Khan as their
forefathers in bygone centuries had trembled
at the names of Genghis Khan and Timur.

Little wonder, then, that Major Endicott was
perturbed at the thought of two young Englishmen
journeying to the fringe of the vast territory
in the breasts of whose peoples were stirring
aspirations after a greatness which their
forefathers had enjoyed, and which was celebrated in
stories handed down by long tradition, and in
songs that were still sung at village festivals and
country fairs.

Robert and Lawrence Appleton, aged nineteen
and eighteen respectively, were the sons of the
retired lieutenant-governor of an Indian
presidency.  The elder had just entered Sandhurst,
the younger was on the point of competing for a
scholarship at Oxford, when the sudden death of
their father put a summary check upon their
careers.  He had enjoyed a good pension, but
his investments having proved unfortunate, when
his pension died with him they found themselves
almost without means.  The army for Robert,
the Indian Civil Service for Lawrence, were now
equally out of the question, and they saw
themselves faced with no brighter prospects than
clerkships or junior masterships presented, when
a letter from their uncle Harry in Asia came
like a ray of sunlight in the gloom.

Their uncle had been something of a rolling
stone.  He had left home when a mere youth,
and for many years his family had wholly lost
sight of him.  Gossip said that he had made and
lost several fortunes in remote parts of the globe
before he finally "struck oil," literally as well as
figuratively, in Mexico.  One day he turned up
unexpectedly at the headquarters of his brother,
the lieutenant-governor, told him that he had
"made his pile" and retired from business, and
now wanted to amuse himself.  Sir George did
what he could for him, but Harry soon wearied
of the mild excitements of Indian social life,
had his fill of tiger shooting and pig-sticking,
and looked about for some other means of
employing his time.

Happening to learn that it was a difficult
matter to get permission to cross the north-west
frontier, with characteristic obstinacy he set his
mind on overcoming official reluctance.  It was
a period of some restlessness among the frontier
tribes; and the government of India, never very
willing to grant permits to non-official travellers,
however good their credentials, refused his
application, although his brother's influence was
employed in his behalf.  This was enough for a
man of Harry Appleton's adventurous
temperament and independent spirit.  Resolving to
crack the nut himself, he suddenly left India,
disappeared for many months, and then emerged,
to the no small embarrassment of the Russians,
on the border at Wakhan.  He had slipped
across the Persian frontier, and before the
Russians were aware of his presence, was
half-way to the Pamirs.  Then he had disappeared
for a time into Afghan territory, exploring
districts in which it was believed that no other
white man had ever set foot, and, much to the
wonderment of his friends, coming out alive.
When he was again heard of, he had entered
British territory far up in the Chitral country,
laden with shooting trophies in the shape of many
heads of ibex and *Ovis poli*, the large long-horned
sheep characteristic of the hill country.  His
intention was to return to civilisation by way of
Gilgit and Kashmir, but he was held up for a
time at Gilgit while telegrams passed between
the local officials and the government at Simla.
There had always been something a little
ridiculous, perhaps, in the government's barring the
Gilgit road against the use to which roads are
commonly and suitably put--travel and trade.
The government had only two courses open to
them: to turn him back over the Pamirs under
escort, or to allow him to pass.  It was the latter
alternative which they wisely adopted.

Pluming himself not a little on his victory
over red tape, as he considered it, Harry Appleton
returned to London and remained there for two
or three years, interesting himself in all sorts of
fantastic schemes which were alike in two
respects: they cost much money, and they failed.
His friends learnt by and by without surprise
that he had lost the greater part of his Mexican
fortune, and when they heard that he had
suddenly left London again, to retrieve his
fortunes by mining in the Hindu Kush, they
regarded it as only one more of "poor old
Harry's" crack-brained adventures, and
wondered what would be the end of it all.  It was
consequently a cause of some wonder when,
after his brother's death, he invited his nephews
to join him in the mountain wilds, promising
them a fair income to begin with, and possible
wealth later on.  Why on earth a man should
have gone to the Hindu Kush to mine for copper,
which could only be brought to market over
hundreds of miles of difficult and dangerous
country, was a question that puzzled even those
who were prepared for almost any sign of
insanity in "poor old Harry."

These were the circumstances which had made
the two Appletons travelling companions of
Major Endicott in this eventful summer.

So far the journey had been without incident.
The caravan marched from dawn to dark every
day, and the two Appletons found even the
rugged majesty of the mountains pall upon them.
The pleasantest hours were those spent in camp,
when the heat and burden of the day were past.
In social circles Major Endicott was regarded as
something of a stick; ladies said he had "no
conversation"; but in the silent evenings about
the camp fire the lads hung upon his lips as he
related, in slow sentences, punctuated by puffs
from his pipe, some of the incidents of his career.
They conceived an admiration not far short of
hero-worship for this quiet soldier, who knew
so much, and had done so much, though his own
achievements were never the prime subject of
his discourse.

To relieve the monotony of the journey, the
two lads sometimes ventured to stray from the
track, knowing that the speed of their sturdy hill
ponies would enable them soon to catch up the
rest of the slow-moving caravan.  For these
divagations the opportunities were few, unless
they should turn themselves into mountaineers,
and scale on foot the precipices on either side.
But now and then there was a break in the hills
to right or left, where a small mountain stream
joined the larger river that flowed through the
valley, above which the road pursued its winding
course.  The Major had warned them not to
wander far on these occasions, and his warnings
became more peremptory as they approached
the quarter in which he feared that trouble might
be brewing.  But high-spirited youth is
impatient of control, and the two lads were inclined
to make light of the sober caution of their elder.

Two days after they had encamped on the
mountain side, as already related, they were
tempted to try what appeared to be a kind of
track leading up into the hills to the east.
Taking advantage of a momentary preoccupation
of Major Endicott with the sowars, they
turned their ponies into this track, and began
to scramble up.  The gradient was steep, and
the path rose higher and higher above the road
they had left, but for some distance did not
greatly diverge from it.  At times they could
see it winding away northward beneath them,
although it was concealed from them for long
stretches by the contour of the ground, and was
sometimes difficult to distinguish from the hillside
itself.

The track appeared to lead nowhere, and after
following it toilsomely for nearly an hour, they
began to think it was time to return.

"I hate going back the same way," said
Lawrence.  "Can't we manage to cut straight
down, Bob?"

"Rather risky, don't you think?" replied his
brother.  "This track goes up and up; there's
no path down that I can see, and we don't want
to risk our ponies' knees.  We could do it on foot."

"Well, look here; we ought to be able to get
a good view of the ground between us and the
road from that rock yonder.  Just hold the ponies,
will you, while I go and take a squint?"

He slipped from the saddle, placed the bridle
in Bob's hand, and scrambled up the side of a
high rock jutting out from the path.  As he
expected, when he reached the top he found the
country beneath clearly mapped out.  He could
follow the course of the road for some distance
in each direction, except where it was hidden by
crags and promontories.  At the moment the
caravan was out of sight.  Between him and
the road the ground was much broken, showing
many narrow seams, and falling away at
places into sheer precipices.  It was evident
that any attempt to descend here on horseback
was bound to end in disaster.

As he cast his eye northward, he suddenly
became aware of a group of motionless figures
about a mile away, between him and the road.
Impelled by some instinct of caution, perhaps
acquired during his training in the school cadets,
he moved stealthily behind a jutting spur of
the rock, and examined the group through his
field-glass.  He counted fourteen hill-men on
horseback.  There was no movement among
them, and their attitude, with their heads
towards the road, suggested patient expectation.
They were too far away for him to determine
accurately the configuration of the ground, but
it appeared to him that they were gathered in
a slight hollow about a quarter of a mile east of
the road.  And as he moved his glass over the
intervening space, he caught sight of a small
building which had hitherto escaped his notice,
so like was it in colour to the rocky ground
surrounding it.  In general shape it reminded
him of the little wayside shelters which, called
dak bungalows in India, were known beyond
the borders as rest-houses.  But this building
was apparently fallen into disuse.  It was
roofless, and much of the stonework of the walls was
broken away.

.. _`THE AMBUSH AT THE REST-HOUSE`:

.. figure:: images/img-026.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: THE AMBUSH AT THE REST HOUSE

   THE AMBUSH AT THE REST HOUSE

While Lawrence was still examining the ruins
and the group behind, he heard the rapid clatter
of a horse's hoofs on the hard rock below.  At
first he could not see the horseman, who,
however, presently emerged into view from behind
a shoulder of rock to his right, and discovered
himself as a hill-man galloping northward.  Having
come abreast of the rest-house, he wheeled to
the right, quitted the road, and made straight
for the hollow in which the group of fourteen
was waiting.  On joining them, he appeared to
give them a message; they closed about him,
and after a brief consultation they all
dismounted, tethered their horses to some stunted
trees at the edge of the hollow, and then moved
quickly towards the rest-house.  All except one
entered the ruins; the one went a little distance
from them, and took up a position behind a
rock from which presumably he could look up
the road.  It was as if he was waiting to signal
some one's approach.

The observer now shut his glass, clambered
down from the rock, and hurried back to his
companion.

"Well?" said Bob.  "You've been long enough."

"Don't speak so loud.  Every sound carries
in these hills."

In a whisper he went on to tell what he had seen.

"Looks fishy, eh?" said Bob.  "We must
warn the Major.  Can we do it in time?"

"Come on," said Lawrence shortly.

He remounted, and the two began to make
their way back along the path, slowly at first,
lest they should be heard, but more rapidly as
they increased their distance from the
rest-house.  They had not ridden far when they
caught sight, through a gap in the rocks, of a
portion of the caravan.  They were still a long
way from the spot where the hill-track left the
road; the head of the caravan would have drawn
much nearer to the rest-house before they could
overtake it, if they kept on their present course.
To give warning by a shout would but alarm
the hill-men.  They could save time only by
hazarding a direct descent.  Turning sharply off
the track, they began to scramble down the
hillside, trusting themselves to their sure-footed
ponies.  In their excitement they gave no thought
to the risks they ran, and only became partially
aware of them when, reaching the road, they
were met by Major Endicott, who had for some
minutes been watching their venturesome feat
with growing wrath and indignation.

"You young fools!" he cried.  "Of all the
idiotic, asinine, torn-fool tricks I ever saw----"

"But, sir----" Lawrence interrupted.

"I thank my stars I shall soon be rid of you,"
the Major went on unheeding; "you'll take no
warning, listen to no advice, and will either
break your necks or be potted by hill-men before
I get quit of you."

"Really, sir, it's no joke," said Bob as soon
as he could get a word in.  "There's a nice
little crowd ahead waiting to get an easy shot
at you."

"*What's* this?" demanded the Major.

"Oh, I just happened to spy a gang of armed
hill-men sneaking into a half-ruined rest-house
a mile or so ahead," said Lawrence.  "We came
down to warn you; it's a pity we didn't think
of our necks."

"Just describe them to me, will you?" said
Major Endicott, now the cool, alert soldier again.

"I couldn't see them very well, but they
seemed all alike, big fellows with black beards,
dressed in dark-brown, with skin hats of some
sort.  I counted fifteen altogether.  One is on
the look-out, the rest are hiding in the ruins."

"You didn't see a larger body anywhere, nor
single scouts in the hills?"

"Neither."

"And how far ahead?"

"Well, about a mile as the crow flies from
where I caught sight of them; we've come back
a mile or more, and what with the windings
of the road, I should say they're something over
two miles away."

The Major had halted; the sowars sat their
horses motionless a few yards behind; the
mule-train was still straggling on far in the rear.
The march was now resumed, Major Endicott
pondering in silence the news brought him.  He
had no doubt that the men whom the lads had
seen belonged to the tribe he was on his way to
visit.  His coming was almost certainly known
to them, for news spreads through the hills
almost as quickly as if it were flashed by
telegraph.  The fact that the ambuscade--such it
clearly was--was so small seemed to show that
the tribe as a whole was not in arms; but, as the
Major well knew, many a frontier war had been
precipitated by a few hot-heads, who had forced
the hand of their community by some impetuous
action.  He foresaw trouble, but he was not the
man to be diverted from his purpose by such
a difficulty as this.  Having set out to pacify
the tribe, he meant to complete his journey;
but obviously the news brought him was not to
be disregarded.

He decided that he must see for himself the
nature of the ambuscade, but it was necessary
to act in such a way as to awaken no suspicion
among the tribesmen, if, as was possible, there
were watchers on the hillside.  Ordering the
sowars to continue their march slowly, the Major
rode back with the Appletons and his native
orderly until he reached the first mules of the
caravan.  In obedience to his command, one of
the muleteers loosed the girths of the animal
he led, and let the baggage it carried slip down
a gentle slope at the roadside.  This brought the
caravan to a halt, and the wondering Astoris
were instructed to go very leisurely about the
work of recovering and restrapping the load.
Then with Lawrence and the orderly he galloped
back to the spot where the hill-track branched
from the road, and turning into this, hastened on
until he reached the rock whence the lad had
made his observations.  There taking a swift
glance at the rest-house below, he came to a
sudden resolution.

"If anything happens to me," he said to
Lawrence, "ride back as fast as you can, and
make the best of your way up the road with the
caravan until you reach the nearest fort."

"But what are you going to do, sir?" asked
Lawrence rather anxiously.

The Major did not reply, but spoke a few
words in Urdu to the orderly.  Then, leaving
his horse with the two, he began to clamber
down rapidly, yet with caution, in the direction
of the rest-house.  His course was tortuous, as
much to avoid obstacles as to escape observation
from the ruins, or by the man on the look-out
close at hand.  Every now and then he vanished
from sight, and Lawrence watched nervously for
his reappearance.  He could not guess the Major's
intentions, and it seemed to him that, foolhardy
as his own exploit had been in riding down the
hillside, the soldier's action in approaching alone
the scene of the ambush was stark madness.
When, after a long interval during which the
Major had been lost to view, he suddenly
emerged within a few yards of the rest-house,
Lawrence caught his breath.  Probably the
situation was far more trying to him who watched
than to the man who was apparently taking his
life in his hand.

The Major was drawing near to the ruined
building by a path somewhat northward of the
spot from which the hill-men had entered it.
Lawrence saw at once that his approach was
covered from them, and from the watcher on
the south side, by what remained of the north
wall of the building.  Tingling with curiosity and
apprehension mingled, he beheld the tall soldierly
figure move swiftly towards the gap which had
once been the doorway, enter, and disappear.

"Good heavens! what is he about?" he thought.

He looked round at the orderly, but the man's
dusky face was devoid of any expression; only
his eyes gleamed as they stared fixedly at the
opening by which the Major had entered.

To Lawrence the minutes seemed to lengthen
into hours.  He saw the look-out, a moment or
two after the Major's disappearance, turn round
suddenly, and hasten into the building.  For
some time nothing happened.  There was neither
sight nor sound to indicate that the building was
anything more than what it seemed--an
unoccupied and deserted ruin.  Lawrence became
more and more nervous.  Major Endicott was
not the man to utter a warning lightly; he had
clearly anticipated a possible danger; and the
tension became distressing as the lad waited and
waited, expecting every moment to hear a shot,
or a cry of fierce anger or savage exultation.

"What is he doing?" he asked of the orderly.

The man simply murmured "Sahib!" deprecatingly,
without turning his eyes from the rest-house.

The suspense was becoming unendurable when
suddenly, after what was perhaps ten minutes,
but seemed as many hours, the Major's tall form
reappeared in the broken doorway.  The orderly's
impassivity gave way for the first time; he
uttered a single grunt of satisfaction.  Lawrence
felt unutterably relieved, yet puzzled, for by
the Major's side stood one of the hill-men, and
as they came out into the open they were
followed by all the rest; he counted them as they
filed out; the number was fifteen in all.

The Major signalled with his hand, and the
two watchers, guessing at his meaning, rode on
a little way until they came to the spot where
he had begun his descent.  Dismounting, and
leading the horses carefully, they picked their
way, the orderly leading, down the steep and
rugged hillside.  When they came to the foot,
and joined the party, the Major turned to the
man who had come first out of the ruins with
him, and with a slight smile addressed him in
a strange tongue.  The man drew himself up,
clicked his heels together, and saluted Lawrence
in military style, murmuring:

"Salaam, sahib."

Then the whole party mounted their horses,
and made their way at a walking pace up the
road towards the caravan.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BEYOND THE PALE`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE SECOND


.. class:: center large

   BEYOND THE PALE

.. vspace:: 2

Of all the strange scenes which the Appletons
had witnessed since their arrival in India, none
was more surprising than the immediate sequel
of the ambuscade.  The hill-men rode in high
good-temper behind their intended victims; and
when they met the sowars, their leader exchanged
laughing greetings with the dafadar, and the two
parties became one.  For the rest of that day
they marched together, and at fall of night they
formed a common encampment, the troopers
acting as hosts towards the hill-men, and exerting
themselves to entertain them.

To the Appletons it was all very mysterious.
Lawrence had put a question or two to Major
Endicott as they marched; but finding him
strangely uncommunicative, deferred further
enquiry to the hour after supper, when he was
most often in the mood to talk.  Even then the
young fellows' curiosity was rather piqued than
satisfied.

"That man Nagdu, the leader of the hill-men,
was a sergeant of yours, you say, sir?" said
Lawrence.

"Yes, years ago he was a dafadar in my troop."

"But he was laying an ambush for you!"

"He is paid by the government to guard the road."

"Oh!"

"Didn't know it was you, perhaps, until he
saw you," suggested Bob.

"He *was* rather surprised to see me," said the
Major, and a slow smile gathered upon his face,
and passed.

"My heart was in my mouth when I saw you
go alone into the rest-house," said Lawrence.
"And I couldn't get a word out of your man."

"Pretty close, isn't he?" said the Major.
"But look here, my lads, I called you a couple
of young fools a while ago.  I take that back,
for without you I shouldn't have had the
opportunity of enjoying the surprise of Nagdu and
his crew.  All the same, you *were* fools, you
know," he added reflectively.

While this conversation was proceeding
beneath the extended flap of the tent, another,
of quite a different tenor, was going on at the
nearest camp fire, fifty yards away.  There
Ganda Singh the dafadar and his old comrade
Nagdu were seated, gazing into the glow, with
their rifles across their knees.

"Hai!  Ennicott Sahib is truly a very great
man," said Nagdu.  "We were there in the little
house, with our guns on the wall, looking up the
road, when there came a soft voice behind us.
'Twas like cold water trickling down my back,
O Ganda.  And when I turned and saw the
huzur's two eyes like little bits of blue steel, I
felt my soul shrivel up inside me: that is true,
old friend.  'You are keeping good watch upon
the road, Nagdu,' said he, and I shivered, and
my voice was like a woman's when I said my salaam."

"Keeping watch upon the road!" repeated
the dafadar with a sly look at the other.  "Do
you know, Nagdu, if any harm had come to
the sahib-ji I would have put a bullet there, and
there."

He touched the man's neck and breast.

"Hai! what harm could come to the huzur?"
said Nagdu protestingly.  "He is heaven-born,
and knows.  'Keeping good watch upon the
road,' he said, and when I stammered out my
'Salaam, sahib,' he went on: 'It is well.  There
are rascals about.  I go to hold a talk with your
people on that very matter, and 'tis good luck
I met you, for you can take me to your village.'  And
I said the huzur's face was like the sun
shining upon the hills, for by that time my soul
was come to me again, and after a little talk we
came out.  Hai!  Truly is Ennicott Sahib a very
great man."

"Ay, he knows the heart of you hill-men.  You
have a little heart, Nagdu; the huzur's is a very
great one.  His word is a sword."

"And his eyes are like fires that burn.  Is there
anything he does not know?  He did not see us
go into the little house: we were quiet as mice
in the corn; yet he knew we were there----"

"Keeping watch on the road," said Ganda
Singh with a low chuckle.  "You are indeed a
mouse, Nagdu; would you measure yourself against
a lion?"

Nagdu protested that he had no such thought,
and then turned the conversation into an easier
channel.

Next day on the march Lawrence Appleton
found an opportunity of having a little private
talk with Ganda Singh, who knew just enough
English to make himself understood.  Lawrence
asked point-blank whether the hill-men had been
lying in wait for the party, intending to fire upon
them from their ambush.  The dafadar neither
denied nor affirmed, but contented himself with
retailing the substance of what Nagdu had told
him.  Putting two and two together, the
Appletons arrived at a very fair estimate of what had
actually taken place.  They realised that the
hill-men, who would have shot down the Major
without ruth if they had been unseen behind a
wall, had been completely cowed when he appeared
alone in their midst.  Nagdu was a bold fellow,
and had proved his mettle in many a border fray;
but the habit of discipline and the impression
made upon him by the Englishman's dominant
personality had acted like a cold douche upon
his purpose.  It was the victory of a stronger
nature over a weaker; and the lads formed a new
idea of the Major's personal influence, and the
unerring instinct with which he had probed the
character of the natives.

That day the caravan came to the parting of
the ways.  Major Endicott's road struck off
westward among the hills; the Appletons had
still several days' northward march before them.
The lads, if they had consulted their own tastes,
would very willingly have gone with the Major;
but they knew it was out of the question.  They
thanked him warmly for allowing them to
accompany him so far.

"That's all right," said he.  "Look me up if
you ever come south.  By the way, I've told off
three sowars to see you to the frontier: there I
dare say your uncle will meet you."

"But you can't spare them, sir," said Bob.
"You've few enough all told."

"We aren't a fighting force, my boy.  If it
comes to a scrap we shan't stand the ghost of a
chance, and the fewer there are of us the better.
Keep to the track.  My salaams to your uncle.
Good-bye!"

The Appletons watched the Major and his
party until the sowars who brought up the rear
were out of sight: then they turned their faces
once more to the north, feeling somewhat
depressed.  Their own portion of the caravan
consisted of only five or six mules, whose loads
were for the most part goods for their uncle.
For two days they climbed higher into the rugged
mountains that encompassed them on every side.
In the day-time it was hot, though the heights
were crowned with snow: but the nights were
bitterly cold; icy blasts swept through the gorges,
causing the lads to desert even their camp fires
for the snugger blankets.  They could not help
wondering, with a certain misgiving, what the
winter in these heights was like, if such wintry
conditions could exist in the summer.

On the morning of the third day after leaving
Major Endicott they were met at the British
frontier by two stalwart and well-mounted Sikhs,
who had been sent by their uncle to conduct them
over the remaining stages of their journey; and
the Major's three sowars returned to overtake
their master.  That night they had only just got
into camp when they experienced for the first
time the full rigours of a mountain storm.  Dense
clouds rolled down from the heights, enveloping
them in a drenching icy mist.  A cutting wind
sprang up, and soon a hurricane of sleet and
snow burst upon them, with lightning and thunder,
and other rumblings which, as they learnt from
their guides, were caused by avalanches and
landslips among the mountains.  All next day
they were storm-bound, remaining rolled up in
their blankets in the tent, and feeling more
low-spirited than ever.  On the following
morning, however, the sun rose in a cloudless sky,
and they set off again through a narrow pass
dangerous at any time, but doubly dangerous
now that the track was almost obliterated by
snow-drifts.  They felt a pang of commiseration
for the scantily clad coolies who trudged along
barefoot in snow and slush by their mules; but
the men were cheerful, laughing and singing as
they marched, and the Appletons envied their
hardiness and vigour.

Leaving the Pamirs on their right, they
threaded their way through the mountains
towards what had once been the Russo-Afghan
frontier.  Slowly, steadily they marched on for
three days, the track leading gradually
downwards.  Then one morning, soon after they had
left camp, they saw in the far distance two
horsemen riding slowly towards them.

"The huzur, sahib!" said one of the guides.

The lads lifted their glasses, and were then
able to discern that the one of the two riders
who wore a grey suit and a solah helmet was
their uncle himself.  They hastened on in front
of their party, and in a quarter of an hour uncle
and nephews met.

"How do?" cried Harry Appleton, gripping
them in turn by the hand.  "You've grown
since I saw you last: I should hardly have known
you."

"You look the same as ever," said Bob.

"Wait till you see me with my hat off.  Hair
doesn't grow on brains, they say.  But I'm
glad to see you, boys: you are looking
uncommonly fit too.  Have you had a pleasant
journey?"

"Pretty good, bar a snowstorm.  Major
Endicott came with us best part of the way.  He's
gone to interview a troublesome tribe.  He
sent his salaams to you, Uncle."

"Much obliged to him.  He thinks I'm mad,
you know.  Don't look it, do I?"

The boys laughed.  Their uncle was a sturdy
man, rather under middle height, hard and
muscular, his brown face half covered with a
thick moustache and beard turning slightly
grey.  His blue eyes were bright and piercing,
with an expression of alertness and humour.  He
certainly did not look mad.

"Your caravan is rather smaller than I
expected to see," he went on, as the mules came
straggling up.

"Their loads are mostly your stuff," said
Lawrence.  "We've only brought a couple of
bags apiece."

"Very sensible of you.  I was afraid you
might bring out a lot of rubbish, and wished I'd
sent you a caution.  But I needn't have worried,
evidently."

"Well, there are one or two things coming
after us," said Bob, with a shade of misgiving.
"We sent them ahead by slow steamer, and as
they hadn't arrived when we reached Bombay,
we thought we'd better come on."

"Humph!" their uncle grunted.  "It'll be
a month before my next consignment comes
up, so it's to be hoped you're not in a hurry for
your stuff.  I suppose there's not much of it.
What is it?"

"There's my cricket-bag, and a couple of
tennis rackets, and a set of golfing sticks," said
Lawrence.

"You didn't happen to bring turf too, I
suppose?" said their uncle with twinkling eyes.
"The ground hereabout is all bunkers.  Anything
else useful?"

"There's my aeroplane," said Bob.

"Your what?"

"A monoplane.  I was going into the flying
corps, you know, if--

"Yes, yes," interrupted Mr. Appleton.  "It
must have been very disappointing, my boy, but
you must cheer up.  But an aeroplane!"

"It's very light and portable--perhaps a
couple of mule loads at the most."

"I wasn't thinking of the mules," replied his
uncle dryly.  "An aeroplane in these hills will
be just about as useful as a Dreadnought in a
millpond.  You didn't realise that the Hindu
Kush is not exactly like the South Downs.  Well,
it can't be helped now.  Anything else?"

"Nothing of any importance," said Bob,
feeling a little dashed.  He had looked forward
to many hours of flying in his spare time, and it
was rather dispiriting to find that the expense of
shipping his aeroplane was to be wasted.

"Well, we'll get on," said Mr. Appleton.
"With good luck we shall reach the mine before
dark.  You won't be sorry, I expect, to spend
the night under a roof again."

They rode on, the track running generally to
the north-north-west.  About an hour after they
started, their uncle pointed to a narrow cleft in
the hills on their left hand.

"You see that path?" he said.  "It runs into
Afghan country.  About six months after I
started operations the mine was raided by a horde
of ruffians who came that way."

"I say!" cried Bob.  "What happened?"

"Luckily I had been put on my guard against
an attack from that quarter by one of my Pathan
miners.  I had twelve hours' grace, and when
the raiders arrived they found they'd got a
tougher nut to crack than they expected.  They
only made one serious rush.  We beat 'em off,
and they moved some distance up the valley,
sniped us for a day or two, and then cleared
out.  We've had no trouble of that sort since,
though they've played highwaymen once or twice
with my caravans, and in one case got a certain
amount of loot.  Among other things they collared
a boiler that I was bringing up at huge expense
from India.  I don't suppose they knew what it
was, but for the sake of the metal they tried to
carry it through the difficult pass into their own
valley.  But it proved too cumbersome, as you
might expect, and they had to leave it.  I found
it some time afterwards when shooting in the pass,
at the bottom of a deep nullah, where it had rolled
from the track above.  It took me nearly a
fortnight to recover it and bring it home, but I was
glad to get it at the price."

"Things aren't all beer and skittles, then,"
said Bob.

"Oh, there's a little excitement sometimes,
but we are well placed, as you will see, and I
fancy nothing short of a regular train of artillery
could do us much damage."

What the boys heard from Mr. Appleton during
that march whetted their curiosity to get their
first view of his mine, but they were disappointed,
for twilight fell while they were still some distance
from it.  In the gathering dusk they saw a
number of distant lights, which their uncle
explained were the camp fires of the miners.  The
red glow, growing larger as they proceeded, lent
a romantic touch to the night.  The fires were
somewhat below them; and, viewed from the high
ground from which they were approaching, the
settlement appeared to be situated in a huge
cleft between two steep mountain barriers.  They
could just see, swirling along the bottom, a
torrential stream, which their uncle told them
was unusually high just now, being swollen in
summer by the melted snow from the mountains.
It was, he said, a tributary to one of the
headwaters of the Oxus.

They had just arrived at the outskirts of the
settlement when the silence of the evening was
suddenly broken by a great hubbub, and they
saw a number of dark figures hurrying towards
one of the camp fires.  In a moment the open
space was filled with a shouting swaying crowd;
but before the boys had time to realise what was
happening, or even to ask a question, their uncle
urged his tired horse towards the scene, and
dashing into the midst of the crowd, scattered
the men to right and left.  When the boys
galloped up behind him, they found him sternly
questioning one or two of the men in their own
tongue.  They returned sullen answers,
whereupon he addressed them in tones of rebuke,
concluding with a sharp word of command at
which they turned away towards a number of
huts ranged in rows beyond the camp fires.

"What is it all about, Uncle?" asked Lawrence.

"We'll see in the morning.  It's too late now.
Slip off your horses; I'll call a fellow to take
charge of them."

A man came up in answer to his call, and led
the horses towards the stables beyond the huts.
Then Mr. Appleton gave a loud hail, and led his
nephews to the left.

"Look after your feet," he said, taking a small
electric lamp from his pocket.

They now saw that they were at the edge of
the ravine.  Below them they heard the gurgle
and rush of the river.  A few steps cut in the side
of the chasm led down to a narrow platform, and
upon this the three stood waiting.  Mr. Appleton's
call was answered from the opposite side,
and immediately afterwards the boys heard a
creaking sound, as though a machine of some sort
were being wound up.  Then a dark mass
appeared to detach itself from the wall of rock
across the gap, and descend towards them.

"My drawbridge," said their uncle.

It sank slowly and with much groaning and
squeaking until the nearer end rested on the
edge of the platform where they stood.  They
stepped upon it, followed by the Sikhs who had
acted as their guides, and in a few strides came
to the other side.

"Welcome to the Appleton mine," said
Mr. Appleton.  "And now for supper.  Our menu
isn't elaborate, but if you're as sharp set as I
am you won't be dainty.  Come along!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MR. APPLETON'S MINE`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE THIRD


.. class:: center large

   MR. APPLETON'S MINE

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Appleton led the way across a sort of
yard, littered with mining debris, towards a
building in the upper part of which lights were
burning.  To the left sheds and a chimney stack
loomed up in the darkness, scarcely distinguishable
against the background of rock.  They
passed through a gate, and found themselves in
a less cumbered enclosure, at the farther corner
of which stood the illuminated building.  This
proved to be a compact square edifice, the lower
storey of stone, the upper of wood.  The door
stood open, and in the entrance appeared a grave
turbaned servant, who salaamed as the boys
went in.

"Chunda Beg, my khansaman," said Mr. Appleton.
"Come upstairs and see your room.
We haven't over much space, but we've done our
best to make you comfortable."

The boys followed their uncle to the upper
floor, which was one large apartment divided
into three by matchboard partitions carried up
to within a foot or two of the ceiling.  In the
first room, the dining-room, they saw a table laid
for supper.  Passing through this they entered
Mr. Appleton's bedroom, a small chamber
furnished only with a narrow camp bed, a chair, a
towel-horse, a tin basin on a stand, a chest of
drawers, and a zinc bath; a Persian rug lay on
the floor at one side of the bed.  Beyond the
further partition, which had evidently been newly
erected, was the boys' bedroom, about the same
size as their uncle's, similarly furnished, but with
two camp beds separated by the width of a
Persian rug.

"No luxuries, you see," said Mr. Appleton,
"but I think you'll find it cosy.  I believe there's
a looking-glass somewhere on the premises if you
want to shave.  That's a thing I haven't done
for many years; Chunda Beg gives me a
trimming every now and then when I'm getting too
shaggy.  As a follower of the Prophet, he wouldn't
cut his own beard for a pension.  He'll send you
up some hot water and soap, and when you've had
a wash, come in to supper."

The menu was not so scanty as Mr. Appleton
had led the boys to believe.  There was a roast
joint that tasted three parts mutton and one part
venison--the flesh of an ibex shot by Mr. Appleton
himself.  The vegetables were mushrooms,
onions and lotus beans; the sweets a rice pudding
and stewed peaches; and the beverage a kind of
elderberry wine diluted with hot water.

"You've got a good cook, Uncle," said
Lawrence, when the khansaman had brought coffee.
"We haven't had so good a meal since we left
Rawal Pindi."

"Well, Shan Tai does his best.  He's a Chinaman,
of course.  We grow our own vegetables in
a patch of ground down the valley.  In fact, we
do most things ourselves.  The gas is acetylene,
made on the spot.  Most of the furniture in your
room is home-made, as I dare say you noticed.
We're what you may call self-contained."

"What rooms have you got below?" asked Bob.

"We use the ground floor only for stores.  In
the dark you didn't see, I suppose, that the walls
are loopholed.  The stone's very thick, and in
that little trouble I told you about we found them
a capital fortification.  The kitchen is outside;
the servants have their own out-houses.  The
cook is Chinese, as I said; the khansaman is a
Pathan; there are one or two other fellows whose
nationality is an unknown quantity.  Chunda
Beg is a treasure, as grave as a judge, and as
resourceful as a Jack-tar.  You'll take most
interest, I expect, in my storekeeper, Ditta Lal,
a Bengali--what's commonly called a Babu.  I
wager you haven't spoken to him for more than
two minutes before he tells you he is a B.A. of
Calcutta University, and he'll tell you the same
thing ten times a day until he chokes."

"Why should he choke?" asked Lawrence.

"Because he's getting so disgustingly fat.  I
really mustn't raise his screw--he calls it
emoluments--any more.  When he first came to me he
was thin and weedy like many of his kind; but
he made himself extremely useful, and I've
increased his pay rather often.  You'd be surprised
at the result if you could compare him as he is
with what he was.  Upon my word, with every
rise he swells visibly.  I shouldn't like to say
what his waist measurement is now.  I told him
the other day that I really couldn't raise him any
more, for fear it proved fatal, and he smiled in
my face and said, 'Ah, sahib, God tempers the
wind to the shorn lamb,' which you won't beat
for a piece of delightful inconsequence."

Talking thus, Mr. Appleton interested and
amused the boys for an hour or two until it was
time to turn in.  The night was cold; but
snuggled under thick blankets they slept like
tops, and did not waken until the khansaman
entered with water for their morning tub.

At breakfast Mr. Appleton announced that
his first business for the day was the holding of a
durbar to enquire into the scuffle of the night
before.

"My discipline is as easy as possible," he said;
"there are few rules, but I see that they are
obeyed.  The men represent some of the most
unruly tribes of the frontier, but they know I
mean what I say, and on the whole I've had very
little trouble with them.  Of course they get
good pay; that's the first condition of good work
and contentment."

"The second is good holidays," said Lawrence
with a smile.

"Ah, you've just left school!" said his uncle.
"But the men haven't anything to complain
of on that score.  They get holidays all the
winter.  We stop work for four or five months.
What with snowstorms and the river frozen hard
we could scarcely exist here in the winter months,
so the men go off to their homes and no doubt
play the heavy swell among their people, and I
betake myself to Bokhara, or pay a round of visits
among my Chinese friends, or go on a hunting
trip, returning in the spring.  But there's the
bugle; come and see me in my part of unpaid
magistrate.  Then I'll take you over the place."

On leaving the house, the boys saw a number
of men filing through the gate between two ranks
of tall bearded Sikhs armed with rifles.  Those
who came first were of the Mongolian type, with
broad, flat, yellowish faces, wide noses and
narrow eyes.  What little clothing they wore was
ragged and stained a deep indigo blue.  These
men, numbering about eighty, formed a group on
the left-hand side.  After them entered more
than a score of swarthy black-haired fellows of
more symmetrical shape and more powerful
physique, their features more sharply cut, some
of them having almost a Jewish cast of
countenance.  Their garments were marked with
streaks and stains of yellowish-green.  Mr. Appleton
explained that they were for the most part
Pathans from the Afghan border; but they
included also several Punjabis, a couple of
Baluchis, three or four Chitralis, and a sprinkling
of men of Hunza and Nagar.  They formed up
on the right-hand side.

At the door of an outhouse on the same side
stood a very fat man whom the boys easily
recognized as the Bengali storekeeper.  His podgy
olive cheeks were almost concealed by a bushy
growth of black hair, and the loose white garment
he wore, encircled with a sash of brilliant red,
emphasised the vast unwieldiness of his bulk.

When all were assembled, the gate was shut,
and Mr. Appleton, standing before his door,
called for Gur Buksh.  One of the armed Sikhs
stepped forward, a tall, finely-proportioned,
grey-bearded man, who, as the boys afterwards
learnt, had been a havildar in a native Border
regiment of the British army, and had seen
considerable service on the frontier.  He stood at
attention, saluted, and gravely awaited the
sahib's questions.  The young Appletons looked
on with curiosity, wishing that they could
understand the conversation that ensued.  Lawrence
made up his mind to devote his spare time to a
study of the native languages.

After Gur Buksh had made his report, Mr. Appleton
called up two other men, one from each
of the groups.  The first was a young Kalmuck,
whose yellow face would have been absolutely
expressionless but for a keen look in his restless
eyes.  The other was a big hook-nosed Pathan,
with strong, determined features and fierce low
brows from beneath which his coal-black eyes
flashed with truculence.  The Kalmuck, answering
to the name of Nurla Bai, gave brief and almost
sullen answers to his master's questions;
Muhammad Din, the Pathan, on the contrary, spoke
at length, fiercely and volubly, with much play
of features and hands.  Having heard them both,
Mr. Appleton made a measured speech in fine
magisterial manner, and then dismissed them.
At the close of his speech the boys noticed that
the two culprits threw swift glances at them,
the Kalmuck's eyes narrowing, and giving no clue
to his thoughts, while the Pathan's indicated keen
interest and searching enquiry.  The whole
company marched out of the gate, and the silence
which they had hitherto preserved gave way to
excited talk as they went off to their work.

"So much for that," said Mr. Appleton.  "It
appears that, taking advantage of my absence,
the Kalmuck fellow, Nurla Bai, got into the
Pathan section of the mine works, against my
express orders.  Muhammad Din stood up for
law, rather zealously, and it would have come to
a free fight if Gur Buksh hadn't stepped in.  At
night, when they knock off work, both parties
cross the drawbridge to their huts on the other
side, and the quarrel was just breaking out again
when we had the good luck to come up.  Nurla
was clearly in the wrong, and I fined him a week's
pay."

"He took it well," said Bob.  "The fellow's
face was like a mask."

"He was not so much unmoved as you think,"
said Mr. Appleton.  "I know the fellow pretty
well, and I could tell by the look of him that he
was perfectly furious.  I find my system answers
very well.  I punish all breaches of the regulations
with fines, which are pooled and distributed
every month among the men who haven't
offended.  Most of the men are quite keen to get
these additions to their pay; in fact, I've known
some of the rascals try to egg on a simple-minded
mate to commit some slight misdemeanour, so that
he'll lose his pay for their benefit.  They're
queer fish....  Good-morning, Ditta Lal."

The Bengali, who had been hovering about,
gradually drawing nearer to his master, and
casting sheep's eyes at the two young strangers,
now waddled up, his face one broad smile.

"Good-morning, sir: good-morning, young
gents," he said in a breathless wheeze.  "'Full
many a glorious morning have I seen, flatter the
mountain tops with sovran eye,'--pat quotation
from sweet Swan of Avon, whose sonnets I
got up, with notes, for final exam, for
B.A. degree, Calcutta University.  Lovely morning, sir."

Mr. Appleton's eyes twinkled as he introduced
his nephews, who were looking at the Babu as at
some strange specimen.

"You'll find several mule loads of stuff we
ordered on the other side, Ditta Lal," said Mr. Appleton.

"They shall be attended to instanter, sir.
And I shall esteem it signal honour on fitting
occasion to act as guide, philosopher and friend
to young gents, show them my stores; in fact, do
them proud, and all that."

He bowed, puffed, and waddled away.  The
boys laughed when his back was turned.

"What a treasure!" said Lawrence.  "Our
old school porter at Rugton was pretty big about,
but this fellow would make two of him.  What a
rag the chaps would have if we could transport him!"

"I can't spare him.  He's an abiding joy.
But come, let me take you round."

The next hour was spent in going over the not
very extensive settlement.  The boys found that
the portion on the west side of the gorge was
divided into three.  The first contained
Mr. Appleton's dwelling-house, the engine-house and
stores, and a set of small stamps, together with
sheds for assaying, and a number of huts occupied
by the personal native servants and the Sikh
garrison.  The dwelling-house was built in an
angle of the cliff, which rose sheer behind it.
Between house and cliff, however, was a space
of about three yards filled with heavy beams,
which were all loopholed.  The whole of the
enclosure in which the house stood was
surrounded by a bank of earth about six feet high,
formed of "tailings" from the mine.  This
bank was broken only in two places, one for the
gate leading into the second enclosure or
compound, the second for the drawbridge connecting
with the east side of the gorge.

The second compound was somewhat smaller
than the first.  Here were to be seen barrows,
trucks, and other implements; a line of rails led
into a cave-like opening in the hillside, which,
Mr. Appleton explained, was the entrance to a
vein or lode sloping upwards into the heart of the
mountain.

"It was lucky I hadn't to sink shafts," he said,
"considering the difficulty of bringing mining
appliances to this remote region."

"What led you to pitch here?" asked Bob.

"Well, you may call it accident, or you may
put it down to my being possessed of a roving
eye.  I was hunting hereabout some years ago,
and caught sight of what seemed to be an
outcrop of copper ore.  I poked about rather
carefully, and collected a number of samples of this
and other ores, which I had tested by a capital
fellow in Peshawar.  His assays confirmed my
suspicions, and I thought I couldn't do better
than try my luck."

"Who does the place belong to?" asked
Lawrence.  "Do you pay rent?"

Mr. Appleton smiled.

"I'm afraid I'm a squatter," he said, "not
unlike the ancestors of some people I could name
nearer home.  The natives, I believe, used to
pay tribute to the Amir, and also to the Chinese
emperor--a little gold dust (where they got it
I don't know)--a dog or two, and a basket of
apricots: some trivial thing like that; and as
the people are nomads, their suzerains, I dare say,
thought they were lucky to get anything.  Then
the Russians came along, and among other
unconsidered trifles snapped up this little no-man's
land.  They had a small military post a couple
of marches across the hills to the north.  This
was raided by the Afghans when they got news
of the Russian smash-up in Mongolia.  The
Mongols turned out the Afghans; then the post
was destroyed by another Afghan raid; and
since then nobody has troubled about it.  It
would puzzle even an international jurist in a
Scotch university to decide who is the rightful
sovereign of this tract of hill country; and
meanwhile I'm on the spot, and I'll stay here and get
on with my work until I'm turned out.

"This gallery here is worked by the Kalmucks:
you saw some of them at the stamping presses
as you came up.  The slope makes it easy to
dig the ore out, and also drains what little water
there is: there's only a trickle, as you see.  Come
into the next compound."

He unlocked the door in the stout fence, and
led the boys into a third enclosure, like the
second, and having another line of rails leading
into a gallery.

"This is the Pathan section," said Mr. Appleton.
"There are not quite half as many Pathans as
Kalmucks."

"I suppose you keep them apart for fear of
ructions," said Bob.

"Partly," said Mr. Appleton, smiling a little
as he added: "But there's another reason; I'll
tell you that later.  We are not treating the ore
from this gallery at present.  Look here."

He led them to the further fence, in which
there was a gap, and bade them look down.
They saw a heap of greenish rock lying in a
deep saucer-shaped hollow between the yard and
the river below.  A line of rails ran from the
mouth of the gallery to the gap, and while the
three men stood there a couple of Pathans
emerged from the hill, pushing a laden  truck
before them.  On arriving at the fence they
tilted up the truck, and the contents fell crashing
upon the heap beneath.

"Now we'll go over the bridge and have a
look at the miners' quarters on the other side,"
said Mr. Appleton.  "I have to inspect them
frequently: I'm magistrate, sanitary inspector,
a regular Jack of all trades."

"Why did those two miners look at us so
curiously when you were jawing them?" said
Lawrence.

"I had just told them who you were, my
nephews and the new superintendents.  You've
got to earn your living, you know.  Bob will
be responsible for the Pathans, and you for the
Kalmucks.  Of course you've a lot to learn."

"They looked as if they didn't much like their
new bosses," said Bob.

"I daresay; but you'll be a comfort to me.
I'm not troubled with nerves, but at times, I
confess, I have felt what the old ladies call
lonesome for want of a white man to talk to.
The Babu is all very well, but now and again
he worries me.  When I'm tired and bothered
he'll expound a knotty passage of Browning or
some other incomprehensible poet; and when I
should enjoy a little stimulating conversation, he
'havers,' as the Scotch say, in a mixture of high
falutin' and outrageous slang.  Now that you
are here I've no doubt he'll be nothing but the
joy I find him in my cheerful moods.  I'm very
glad of your company, boys."





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.. _`THE AEROPLANE ARRIVES`:

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   CHAPTER THE FOURTH


.. class:: center large

   THE AEROPLANE ARRIVES

.. vspace:: 2

During the next three weeks the younger
Appletons were fully occupied in studying the
working of the mine.  Dressed in calico overalls
they penetrated into the torch-lit galleries and
watched the miners at their work.  They saw
the process of crushing the ore, but Mr. Appleton's
operations went little further, for owing to
his distance from civilisation and the limited
space at his disposal, he left the final stages of
purification to be performed in India.  The boys
were rather curious to know why the colours of
the stains upon the clothing of the two bands
of miners differed, but they forbore to question
their uncle, guessing that he would tell them all
in good time, and would meanwhile be pleased
by their showing patience.  In this they were
right.  Mr. Appleton had no wish to keep any
secrets from them; he was only waiting until
he had learnt something of the characters of the
two young fellows, whom he had not seen for
several years, and at no time had had many
opportunities of studying.

They both soon showed their bents.  In the
evenings, when work was done, there was little
to occupy them.  Mr. Appleton's books were
few; they were mainly books on mining and
grammars and dictionaries of the local dialects.
Robert seized on the former; Lawrence devoted
himself to the latter; and their uncle was very
well pleased, for each of these studies would
prove useful.  Their recreations were for the
present confined to an occasional game of chess
or cards, a still rarer shooting expedition in the
hills, and the reading of the rather dilapidated
magazines which had come at odd times from
India and home.  Lawrence missed his cricket,
and Bob his golf; but in spite of what
Mr. Appleton had said about the impossibility of
using the aeroplane when it should arrive, they
both looked forward privately to trying their
wings by and by.

Lawrence soon became popular with the natives.
He had a turn for languages, and managed to
pick up quickly a little Turki and scraps of the
other tongues spoken by the very mixed crowd
that constituted the mining staff.  Robert had
not the same quickness in learning languages,
but he made himself useful on the engineering
side.  He had been accustomed to spend part of
his holidays in the engine shops of the father of
one of his schoolfellows, and found his experience
valuable.  Once, for instance, when there was a
breakdown of the somewhat crazy engine that
worked the stamping presses, he was able to
make the necessary repairs more quickly than
Mr. Appleton himself, or the regular engine man,
could have done.  Mr. Appleton was a very good
prospector and an all-round man in general, but
he had no particular gift in the direction of
mechanics, while the engine man had picked up
from his master all he knew.  He was a Gurkha,
a short, compact little fellow, of hard muscles
and a very quick intelligence.  His race is
more accustomed to military service than to
machinery, and Fazl, as this man was named,
had never seen a steam engine before he came to
the mine.  Mr. Appleton had found him wandering
half starved in Turkestan two seasons before,
and out of sheer kindness of heart put him on as
cleaner.  Some time after, the Mohammedan
Bengali who had hitherto driven the engine
asked leave to go home and bury his
grandmother, and Fazl was promoted to his place.
The Bengali, of course, never returned, and Fazl
was still engine man.

One evening after supper Mr. Appleton said--

"Don't get your books yet, boys; I want to
show you something."

He placed a Bunsen burner on the table, and
brought a blowpipe and a piece of charcoal from
a cupboard.  Then he took from his pocket a
small lump of ore, which he laid on the charcoal
with a little powdered carbonate of soda, and
proceeded to treat in the Bunsen flame.  The
boys watched his experiment curiously.  After
a time they saw a bright bead form itself on the
surface of the ore.  Mr. Appleton laid down the
blowpipe.

"What do you make of that?" he said.

"Is it tin?" asked Robert.

"Well, I have known school-boys call it
'tin' in the shape of sixpenny bits.  It is silver.
Now I'll let you into my secret.  The ore obtained
from the farther gallery, and dumped down into
that very convenient cavity, contains almost
pure silver; there's method in my madness, you
see.  Nobody knows it but yourselves; though
I can't say what some of the men may suspect.
I don't attempt to work it for the simple reason
that I don't want the news to get about.  If it
became generally known that I have struck
silver, somebody might put in a claim to this
neglected region, and I should either have to
decamp or be in constant fear of attack.  As
it is, I think I am pretty secure; and when I
have got a sufficient quantity of the ore I shall
close down, dismiss the men, and carry the stuff
to India."

"But isn't there silver also in the other
gallery?" asked Bob.

"No.  The two metals, so far as I can discover,
lie in parallel vertical streaks, with a band
of quartz between them, and the men who are
working at the copper know nothing of the silver
a few feet away.  You see now the reason why
I keep the Kalmucks and the Pathans apart.
The Kalmucks work the copper; they belong
more or less to the neighbourhood; but the
Pathans come from far distant parts, and if they
should discover that their ore is silver, they are
not at all so likely as the Kalmucks to bring
unwelcome visitors upon me.  I confess I was a
little uneasy when I heard the explanation of
that scrimmage we happened upon as we rode
down.  I wondered whether Nurla Bai's presence
in the Pathan section was due to some suspicion
of the truth.  But he has given no more trouble,
and I hope that I was wrong."

"He's a sulky beggar," said Lawrence.  "I
can't get a word out of him, and I don't like those
ugly eyes of his."

"I'm watching him," said Mr. Appleton.
"He works well, and has a great influence with
the other Kalmucks.  He's certainly far and
away more intelligent, and he has brought in a
good many labourers.  In fact, I had to put a
stop to his recruiting.  I wanted to keep the
Kalmucks pretty equal in number to the Pathans,
but, as you see, they already outnumber them by
more than two to one.  One great nuisance is their
possession of firearms.  I tried to induce them
to hand them over when I engaged them, but
in these regions the hillmen are as tenacious of
their guns as our sailors are of their knives.
Without my police Pathans and Kalmucks
would be at each other's throats."

A few days after this conversation, the caravan
which the boys had for some time been expecting
arrived.  It was larger than that which had
accompanied them, and Mr. Appleton threw up
his hands with a dismay that was not wholly
feigned when he saw how many additional
mules had been required for the transport of the
aeroplane.

"You said two or three," he remarked to Bob
as the laden beasts defiled along the path; "but
I'm sure there are seven or eight more than my
stuff needed."

"I expect it's the petrol," said Bob humbly.

"You didn't mention petrol."

"No; but of course we couldn't work the
engine without it, and I left word to send up a
good quantity.  I didn't suppose you had any
on the spot."

"And wasn't there a single sensible creature
to tell you that you can't go skylarking with an
aeroplane in the Hindu Kush?  Whoever sold
you the petrol must have laughed in his sleeve."

"He seemed uncommon glad to sell it, anyway,"
said Bob, a trifle nettled.

"Of course he was.  There are no end of
sharks always on the watch for a griffin.  He
sold the petrol, and he sold you.  And the
expense of it!  D'you know how much it costs to
bring a mule from India here?"

"You can dock it out of my screw," growled Bob.

"And money absolutely flung away.  You
have seen for yourself that there's no level space
hereabout for running off.  And even supposing
you could use the thing, it would be madness to
do so.  You'd be bound to come to grief; all flying
men do sooner or later, and at the best you might
find yourself landed thirty or forty miles away,
with nothing but peaks and precipices between
you and home.  There are no repairing shops
to fall back upon; no garages 'open day and
night,' or anything of that sort.  In short----"

"Don't rub it in, Uncle," said Lawrence.
"The thing's here now, and we've got to make
the best of it.  Come on, Bob; let's go and look
after the unloading; those fellows are sure to
smash something."

The mules were led across the drawbridge to
the west side of the gorge, and the separate parts
of the machine were stacked near the dwelling
house until a new shed could be constructed.

"What on earth we're to do with the petrol
I don't know," said Mr. Appleton.  "We daren't
have it within reach of the native workmen.
They're as careless as they are inquisitive, and
we don't want a flare up."

"Isn't there room for the cans in the dynamite
shed?" asked Lawrence.

The explosive was kept in a specially devised
cache.  The space between the house and the
cliff was boarded in.  A doorway led from the
house into this space, which was divided by a
partition, in which another door opened into
a kind of strong room excavated in the hill side.
There was room for the cans beside the boxes
of dynamite.

"I shan't sleep at night now that we've got
two explosives at our doors," said Mr. Appleton.

"Why didn't you store the stuff farther from
the house?" asked Bob.

"Well, as a matter of fact wherever it was
stored in the neighbourhood of the mine the result
would be pretty much the same if it exploded.
The best chance of safety was to have it under
lock and key where nobody could get at it but
myself.  In for a penny, in for a pound.  Trundle
your cans through: if I'm not a false prophet
they'll stay there until doomsday untouched."

When the boys entered the dark chamber
between the house and the cliff, following
Mr. Appleton, who carried an electric lamp, Bob
uttered a sudden exclamation.

"I say, hanged if there isn't a machine gun!"

He pointed to a corner of the room, where the
muzzle of the gun protruded from a nest of boxes.

"A very neat little machine," said Mr. Appleton.
"I got it as a precaution against a second
raid, and the difficulty of smuggling it through
turned my surviving hairs grey.  It came in
parts among some engine fittings; the invoices
are very interesting!  A clear case of gun running,
of course; but there was no other way;
the government would never have allowed it to
pass complete.  Nobody here knows of it but
you; I put it together myself; and if you know
anything about such things, Bob, I'll be glad if
you'll overhaul it one of these days, and see
if my amateurish efforts have been successful.
Some of those boxes contain ammunition:
smuggled in as dynamite.  Now stack your
cans, and when you've finished bring me the
key.  I'll have duplicates cut for you."

Later in the day the boys had a consultation.

"It's no good putting the aeroplane together
until we've found a starting-place," said Lawrence.

"I know.  I've looked all about, and can't
find one.  It's pretty rotten, and the old man is
so ratty about it that I almost wish we'd never
brought the thing."

"Oh, he'll come round.  I bet you what you
like that he'll be as keen as mustard if we can
only get the thing going.  We'll go out exploring;
we're sure to hit on some place by and by."

They spent the spare time of two or three days
in ranging up and down stream in search of a
suitable starting-place.  Every morning at
breakfast Mr. Appleton dropped some quizzing remark
that sorely tried Bob's temper.  "How's the
white elephant?" he would say; or "When is
the ascent to take place?"  Meanwhile the
dismembered aeroplane lay under tarpaulin at
the side of the house, and the Babu irritated
Bob by kind enquiries.

"Will tender plant suffer, sir?" he asked
one morning, when a sprinkling of snow lay upon
the ground.

"What do you mean?" said Bob.

"Packages were marked 'fragile with care,'
sir, and having been myself once fragile, delicate
infant, sir, I have fellow feeling, that makes me
wondrous kind."

"Well, be kind enough to shut up," said Bob.

At length, after much searching, they
discovered a spot which, so far as space was
concerned, promised the solution of their difficulty.
About a hundred yards up stream, at a
somewhat higher level than the ledge upon which
the mine buildings were situated, there was
a similar ledge of about the same extent and
on the same side of the gorge.  But it was very
difficult of access.  It could not be approached
from the mine, owing to the sheer wall of cliff
that separated the two ledges.  Nor could it be
gained by bridging the river, for not only was
the stream at this point much broader than lower
down, but there was no rock in mid-channel
that would serve as support.  After a good deal
of cogitation, Bob hit upon a plan which he
determined to attempt.

On the way up, their caravan had crossed a
stream by means of a bridge constructed on the
cantilever principle, as is common in that
country.  It occurred to Bob that there was a
possibility of constructing a walk along the face
of the cliff on the same principle.

"It will be a series of bridges made of
overlapping planks," he said to Lawrence when
explaining his idea.  "There's plenty of timber
in the shed."

"Which Uncle won't allow to be used."

"I'll talk him over."

"But I don't see how you're going to manage
it.  There are no supports."

"They are easily managed.  All we've got to
do to is drive beams into the rock, say twenty
feet apart."

"Exactly; but how are you going to make
holes in the rock?  There's nothing to stand on,
and we can't rig up scaffolding from the bottom
of the river."

"I think we can do it all the same.  What we
have to do is to go to the extreme edge of the
ledge of the silver mine, bore a couple of holes
in the rock level with our heads, and drive in
poles strong enough to support a swinging
platform.  You've seen house painters use them on
house fronts at home.  We can extend that with
some planks, and so reach a position where
similar holes can be bored a little farther away,
and so on until we reach the farther ledge.  A
couple of stout miners on the platform can easily
bore the holes, level with it, that we require for
the larger beams, and when they are placed it
will be a comparatively simple matter to lay
planks upon them, and carry our cantilever walk
the whole way.  We can use the upper poles too:
connect them by a rope, which we can cling to as
we push the parts of the machine along on
trolleys."

"It will take a very long time," said Lawrence
dubiously.

"Not so long as you think if we can only
persuade the old man to let us have a couple of
men to work at it continuously.  I'll tackle him
to-night after supper when he's comfortably
settled with a cigar."

Mr. Appleton happened to be in a very amiable
mood when Bob broached the subject, and though
he uttered doleful warnings and foretold broken
limbs, and declared that he washed his hands of
all responsibility, he told the boys that they might
do as they pleased.  Next day they invited
volunteers from among the Kalmuck miners, and
were somewhat surprised when Nurla Bai was
the first to offer his services, explaining that he
was an expert in carpentry.  Taking this as a
sign of grace, Bob engaged the man, and told
him to choose his own assistant.  Nurla at once
suggested a dwarfish man named Tchigin, a
thick-set, muscular fellow with a huge head
covered with jet-black hair.  Mr. Appleton
called him Black Jack.  They began work, and
Bob was well pleased with their industry and
skill.  Before night there was a row of half-a-dozen
of the smaller poles in position, and all
was ready for the drilling of the larger hole for
the first of the stout beams that were to support
the wooden path.

On the subsequent days, with the number of
workers increased to six, the work was carried
on even more rapidly.  The greatest difficulty
encountered was a bend in the cliff a few yards
before it opened out on to the ledge on which the
aeroplane was to be put together.  It cost a good
deal of labour to shape the planks to the curve,
and to fix the beams; and the boys regarded it
as a further disadvantage that the ledge would
be out of sight from the mine.  Not that they
could suppose that the aeroplane, when set up
in its hangar there, would be in any danger of
molestation, for the only approach was from the
Pathan compound, and Mr. Appleton thought
that the Pathans might be trusted.  But they
would have preferred that their flying machine
should always be in sight.  However, there came
a time when they were very thankful for the
projecting corner of the cliff which had given
them so much extra toil.

Their proceedings naturally caused a good deal
of curiosity and excitement among the miners
and the domestic staff.  No one was more deeply
interested than Ditta Lal, who numbered among
his many accomplishments a smattering of
theoretical engineering picked up in the course
of his studies at Calcutta University.  He talked
very learnedly of strains and stresses, and often
laid before the boys scraps of paper on which he
had worked out magnificent calculations and
drawn elaborate diagrams for their guidance.
This amused them at first, but it became rather
exasperating as the work progressed.  He had a
formula for everything; taught them exactly,
to the fraction of an inch, how far the timbers
should project from the ends of those supporting
them, and what strain each portion of the
structure could bear.  As the successive bridges
were completed, he proved, as he supposed, the
accuracy of his calculations by venturing his
own portly person upon them, at first with some
timidity, but with more and more confidence
as time went on.  Mr. Appleton, on the other
hand, watched the work from the security of
the compound until it passed from sight round
the shoulder of the cliff.

"You're a heap braver than I am," he said
once to Ditta Lal.  "I wouldn't trust myself
on the thing for a pension, and you're heavier
by three or four stone."

"Ah, sir, conscience makes cowards of us all,"
replied the Babu; "by which I understand
immortal bard to mean, ignorance makes you
funky.  With my knowledge of science, imbibed
from fostering breast of Alma Mater, Calcutta
University--of which, as you are aware, I have
honour to be B.A.--I know to a T exact weight
planks will support, all worked out by stunning
formulæ, sir.  Knowledge is power, sir."

"Well, if you quote proverbs at me, I'll give
you one: 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.'"

"A thousand pardons, sir, and with due
respect, you have made a bloomer:
misquotation, sir.  Divine bard wrote: 'A little
*learning* is a dangerous thing;' and I understand
him to mean, if even a *little* learning in a
man is dangerous to critic who tries to bowl
him out, how much more dangerous is a fat lot!"

Mr. Appleton found it necessary at this point
to break away, and Ditta Lal's further exposition
was lost.

One evening, when the work of the bridge
makers was nearing completion, the accepted
explanation of Pope's line was brought home
to the Babu by a rather unpleasant experience.
He had walked along the finished portion of the
pathway, which consisted of two lines of stout
and broad planks supported by the cantilevers,
these resting on the thick beams firmly embedded
in the rock.  The workmen on their swinging
platform, Nurla Bai and Black Jack, had just
laid the planks forming one bridge section across
the gap, and were about to knock off work for
the day.  Ditta Lal was so eager to prove the
soundness of his calculations, and demonstrate
the valuable share he believed himself to have
had in this engineering feat, that he took it into
his head to walk across the planks to the
other side.  He had sufficient caution to hold
on to the rope which had been carried along
the smaller poles just above the level of his head.

"Hi, Ditta Lal!  Come back!" shouted Bob
from behind him.  "The planks aren't nailed
down yet."

The Babu halted and looked round with an air
of pained astonishment.

"Sir," he said, "it is as safe as eggs.  Planks
are held firm by my own avoirdupois.  I have
worked it out."

Still holding the rope with one hand, with the
other he drew from his pocket a sheet of paper
on which he had made his last calculation.

"The weight which these planks will tolerate,"
he continued, "is eleven hundred and eighty-six
pounds fifteen point eight ounces gross.  My
weight is two hundred and forty-four pounds
and a fraction nett, by which I mean my own
corpus without togs.  Q.E.D.  Suppose I jump,
even then energy I develop is innocuous.  I
demonstrate the quod."

He replaced the paper in his pocket, took the
rope in both hands, and lifting his feet, to
the boys' horror came down ponderously on the
planks.  The result was alarming.  One of the
planks was jerked off the beams on which it
rested, and fell with a splash into the swirling
river below.  The other turned up on its edge;
Ditta Lal sought to keep his footing, but his feet
slid off, the plank fell, and he was left hanging on
the rope alone, which sagged deeply under the
tremendous strain.

The boys shivered as they saw the portly man
dangling over the river.  They expected every
moment that the rope would break and plunge
him into the depths, carrying with him the
workmen on their platform below.  It seemed
impossible to give him any aid, for a gap of
sixteen feet, now unbridged, separated them from
him.  But luckily there was lying near them a
plank intended for use farther on.  They caught
it up, and pushed it within reach of the workmen,
who hastily threw it across the gap in such a
way that the Babu could just reach it with his
knees.

The description of his appearance which the
boys afterwards gave made their uncle laugh
heartily.

"His face was positively green," said
Lawrence, "and his eyes were rolling like the eyes
of a giant in one of those moving magic lantern
slides.  He was yelling at the top of his
voice--invoking strange gods by the sound of it.  When
he felt the plank beneath his knees he began to
shuffle along sideways, but away from us instead
of towards us; he was in such an awful state of
funk that he didn't know which way he was going.
When he got to the beam he threw his legs across
it and sat there shaking, with the rope under his
arms.  We couldn't get him to budge even when
we had laid another plank across, so that the way
back was perfectly safe.  He looked just like a
'varsity stroke pumped out at the end of a
race--bar the complexion, of course.  We tried to
persuade him to get up and walk back, but he did
nothing but shake his head and moan.  He
wouldn't speak for a bit; at last he said that he
must wait till morning light.  'Buck up!' I said:
'make an effort!' but he only rolled his eyes
and groaned and sighed.  You can't do anything
with a chump like that."

Ditta Lal indeed refused all entreaties, and
kept his perch through the cold night.  Lawrence
sent him a bowl of soup, but he declined to
unwreathe his arms from the rope.  Only when,
early next day, the planks had been firmly
nailed to their supports did he allow himself
to be wheeled in a trolley--for his limbs were
numbed and useless--back to the mine.  For the
rest of the day he was not seen.  For a week he
avoided the boys, and made no more calculations
except the elementary addition and subtraction
of his store book-keeping.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE LIGHT IN THE GALLERY`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE FIFTH


.. class:: center large

   THE LIGHT IN THE GALLERY

.. vspace:: 2

The cliff pathway being at last completed,
the boys cleared the farther ledge of accidental
obstructions, and so formed a fairly smooth
surface about sixty yards in length by half as
many in breadth.  While the workmen were
erecting a shed at one end of the space, the boys
themselves carried over the parts of the
aeroplane, and set about putting them together,
with the assistance of Fazl the Gurkha.  It was
a monoplane of a recent type, with a length of
thirty feet and a span of forty-three, the area
of the main planes being about three hundred
and fifty feet.  The fabric-covered fuselage was
of approximately stream-line form, deep enough
forward to accommodate the pilot so that only
his head protruded above the cockpit.  This
was arranged to seat two, the pilot in front, the
passenger in his rear.  The elevator was of fixed
monoplane design, with rotating ailerons.  The
engine, a four-cylinder machine of 100 h.p.,
being of the water-cooled variety, a radiator
was necessary: this was incorporated with the
lower sloping front of the body.  Bob had
provided himself with a second carburetter, so
that paraffin could be used if petrol ran short.
The landing chassis was composed of oval section
steel tubes, which ran together at two apexes.
At each of these, on a universal bearing, was a
laminated spring split into two arms at the
rear, with a rubber-tyred wheel between them.
The forepart of the spring was attached by
an elastic rubber shackle to the top of the
chassis, and a similar attachment connected the
single wheel with the rear-part of the machine.
The material employed in the construction of
the machine was mainly wood, which was more
easily repairable than steel.  Its total weight
was about 1000 lbs. and its maximum speed
seventy miles an hour in still air.

It was a great day at the mine when the young
airmen essayed their first flight.  Mr. Appleton
had looked forward to it with a nervousness he
did his best to conceal.  He had ceased to joke
about the matter, and wore a grave and thoughtful
look during the week in which the boys made
their final preparations.  Their enthusiastic
discussion of details at meal-times and in the evening
set his nerves on edge; but he was too wise to
let his nephews see how they were distressing
him, and they did not know until long afterwards
how nearly he had come to an absolute prohibition
from using their machine.  Only as they
left him, to try their wings, did he venture on a
word of caution.

"I say, you fellows, you'll be careful, you
know," he said.

"Of course, Uncle," said Bob.  "I've got my
certificate, remember."

"And Ditta Lal had his calculations!" he
muttered.

"Well, they gave him a night out," said
Lawrence, quite unconscious how his light answer
jarred upon his uncle.

They walked along the path and disappeared
from sight.  It was an hour before they were
seen again.  Then from round the shoulder of
the cliff there suddenly came into view a thing
resembling a monstrous grasshopper in flight, and
through the air sounded a low grinding hum.
The servants rushed into the compound; the
miners at work in the open uttered a shrill cry,
which brought their comrades in a flock from the
galleries; and they stood at gaze as the strange
machine wheeled into the gorge, and flew,
skimming the river, until it was lost to sight.

"Marvellous achievement, sir," said Ditta Lal
at Mr. Appleton's elbow.

Mr. Appleton did not answer: there was a
look of anxiety upon his face.

"I perceive, sir," said the Babu, "that your
countenance is sicklied o'er with pale cast of
apprehension.  Nothing is here for tears; in
short, there is nothing to be afraid of; I have
worked it out.  Engine makes 1500 revolutions
per minute: propeller geared down to 750:
ascensional velocity, by my calculations----"

"Your calculations be hanged!" cried
Mr. Appleton, whose wonted urbanity gave way
under the strain of Ditta Lal's loquacity.  "Get out!"

Ditta Lal looked hurt, but tried to smile.
It was an hour before the aeroplane reappeared,
and another hour before the boys rejoined their
uncle.

"We made a splendid flight," said Bob, who
was in the highest spirits.  "Everything worked
perfectly.  You must come for a trip yourself,
Uncle."

"No, thank you.  I am vastly relieved to see
you back safe and sound.  The Babu has begun
calculating again, and got on my nerves."

"Calculating, is he?" said Lawrence.  "I
should have thought he had had enough of that.
I wonder if we can cure him."

He called to Ditta Lal, who was standing at
the door of his store-shed.

"What weight do you suppose the aeroplane
will carry?" he asked.

"I do not suppose, sir," replied the Babu.
"I have worked it out.  Permit me to express
jubilation at successful trip, sir.  You ask about
weight."  He drew a paper from his pocket.
"Here are correct figures.  You can carry fifteen
hundred and eighty-six pounds six ounces, with
four decimals of no account."

"What do you scale, Bob?" asked Lawrence.

"Twelve stone two."

"I'm eleven stone eight: together we make
about three hundred and thirty pounds.  Ditta
Lal, *there's just room for you*!"

For a moment the Babu looked puzzled.  Then
he said:

"It is human to err, sir.  I must have made
trifling error in my additions.  I revise my
calculations."

And he went away, evidently determined to
discover either that the aeroplane would not
support so great a load as he had calculated, or
that his own weight considerably exceeded twelve
hundred pounds.

A daily flight became part of the boys'
programme.  They did not tell their uncle of the
difficulties they had to contend with, but these
were real enough.  To start from and alight on
so narrow a platform as the ledge furnished was
in itself a severe test of airmanship; but the
problems of actual flight were still more serious.
The gorge was so narrow that it gave them
little room for evolutions.  There were only one
or two spots, either up or down stream, at
which they could turn with safety; and when
the wind came in sudden gusts down the
mountain side the act of turning, even in these
comparatively open spaces, was attended with much
danger.  They could only avoid the peril by
ascending to altitudes which as yet Bob was
unwilling to attempt.  But a few weeks' practice
developed in them a kind of instinct for dodging
the risks to which the circumscribed space rendered
them liable; and though they had one or two
lucky escapes they met with no real mishap.

All this time they got a good deal of quiet
amusement out of their uncle's attitude.  At
first he affected to regard the aeroplane as a
plaything, and a somewhat dangerous plaything,
much as an elderly person watching a child
playing with fireworks expects him sooner or later
to burn his fingers.  In the early days of their
flying he was indeed genuinely nervous, and tried
by means of hints and warnings to wean them
from their sport.  But as time passed, and
none of his fears were realised, they perceived
that he was becoming less uneasy and more and
more interested.  One day he actually
accompanied them to the shed, which he had never
yet visited, and watched them as they drew the
aeroplane out on to the ledge, made a methodical
inspection of the engine, and prepared for their
flight.

"A neat piece of mechanism," he said.  "Much
stronger than it looks from a distance."

Lawrence surreptitiously winked at Bob.

"Yes, it's strong enough," said Bob, smiling
as he continued his task of cleaning one of the
cylinders.

"What load can you carry?" asked Mr. Appleton
presently.  "I don't trust the Babu's
calculations."

"A thousand pounds or more," replied
Lawrence, who was examining the gearing of
the propeller.

"You've only two seats," Mr. Appleton went
on, after an interval of silence.  "Some machines
will carry three, I suppose."

"Oh yes," answered Bob.  "We could easily
rig up a third seat.  Pity you dislike the thing so
much, Uncle."

Mr. Appleton did not reply.  When the boys
got into their places, he did not warn them to
be careful, as his habit was, but bade them
good-bye as unconcernedly as if they had been going
for a short train journey.

"He's fishing for an invitation," said Lawrence
to his brother as they rose into the air.  "Bet
you what you like we have him with us within a
week."

But the period proved to be even shorter.
Before leaving the aeroplane that evening, they
spent an hour or two in making a third seat.
Two days later, when Mr. Appleton again crossed
to their ledge to see them fly off, he noticed the
addition.

"Who's your second passenger?" he asked.

"Gur Buksh said that he'd like to try a
flight," replied Bob: "but knowing how much
you disapprove of the machine, he hasn't ventured
to ask your permission yet."

"Humph!  I don't think I can allow that--at
any rate, until I have tried it myself."

"You don't mean it, Uncle!"

"Well, having an hour to spare, I think
perhaps--I've a very open mind, you know."

"Come *on*, sir!" cried Lawrence, slapping him
on the back.  "That's sporting, upon my word."

"Don't fly away with me," said Mr. Appleton,
as he got into his place.  "One hour: no more."

But when they were soaring northward down
the river, and came to where the valley broadened
out into the plains of Turkestan, Mr. Appleton
forgot altogether about his time limit.  The old
adventurous spirit was still strong in him; after
the first few minutes he was quite at his ease,
and even when Bob "banked" the machine in
wheeling round, or when a sudden gust swept
through a rent in the mountain and made the
aeroplane heel over slightly, he showed no
nervousness.  The flight lasted two hours, and
as they walked back along the pathway,
Mr. Appleton said--

"If the country were only flatter, I might be
tempted to go in for flying myself.  It's most
exhilarating.  But I'm afraid I'd never be much
good at it.  I fancy it ought to be learnt young,
like golf."

After that both Mr. Appleton and Gur Buksh
were occasional passengers with the boys.  One
day, as Lawrence was watching from the
compound the flight of Bob accompanied by the
Sikh, Ditta Lal came to his side.

"I am consumed with envy, sir," he said:
"envy, eldest born of hell, as blind poet sings."

"Why, what's wrong?"

"Why, sir, that unlettered Sikh learns secrets
of empyrean hidden from me, B.A. of Calcutta
University."

"Well, we'll take you, any time you like."

"Alas, sir!  I am, through no fault of my own,
fat and scant of breath, and rapid transit through
rarefied atmosphere would blow me out--I mean,
put disastrous strain upon my panting lungs."

"D'you know, Babu, I think you're a funk."

"I repel charge with honest indignation, sir.
I am bold as a lion, king of beasts--on terra firma,
sir."

They had been using the aeroplane for about a
fortnight when a convoy of provisions arrived.
The leader of the caravan brought news which
gave interesting material for discussion at the
supper-table, and which was talked over with
scarcely less eagerness among the natives.  The
man reported that he had had great difficulty
in getting through.  Apparently an embargo
had been laid on all food stuffs.  Armed and
mounted men were flocking south-west from all
parts of Mongolia, and the talk of the country
was that another great movement against Russia
was in preparation.

"They'll have a tougher job this time," said
Mr. Appleton, in the quiet hour before bedtime.
"It was easy enough to lop off one of the
extremities of the empire, but they'll find things
more difficult as they near the European border,
if that's what they are aiming at.  I don't know
whether you know anything about history----"

"I know Napoleon's campaigns, not much
else," said Bob.

"Well, you can take it from me, then, that
when the Mongols were at their strongest they
couldn't keep a permanent footing in European
Russia.  But there's such a lot of them, all
mounted, too, that there's just a chance they
may sweep across the southern plains as their
forefathers did.  Russia is in a bad way; they
know that, of course.  This long war with
Germany has broken her credit; she's seething
with unrest and rebellion; Finland's in revolt at
last, and I shouldn't wonder if the Poles make a
move now: they wouldn't before, because they
don't love the Germans.  It'll be rather curious
if the Mongols do cut a slice out of the bloated
monster."

A night or two after this, when the caravan
had departed, Bob awoke in the small hours,
and feeling rather thirsty, got up for a drink.
The day had been very hot, and before returning
to bed he sat at the open window to inhale the
fresh cool breeze that blew along the gorge.
Everything was very still.  All that he could hear
was the gurgling of the stream, now swollen to
its full extent by the melted snow from the
mountains; and the occasional whinny of a horse
from the sheds that served as stables on the other
side.

He had sat thus for a few minutes drinking
in the beauty of the night when his eye was
caught by a faint glow in the distance.  It
seemed to be near the entrance of the Pathan
gallery, his own section of the mine.  The glow
flickered; it was not strong enough to light up
the surroundings.

"That's very curious," he thought, and was
on the point of awaking Lawrence, when it
occurred to him that he would look rather foolish
if it proved to be nothing but a colony of
glow-worms.  He knew nothing of natural history,
or he would not have suspected the possibility
of finding glowworms in such a spot.  But he
was sufficiently curious to feel that he must find
out the cause of the light.  He could not leave
the house without passing through his uncle's
room, and unwilling to disturb the household,
he made up his mind to climb out of the window,
which was at no great distance above the ground.
The timbers of the upper part of the house were
rough; and a practised climber would find no
difficulty in descending by availing himself of
their inequalities until he reached the stone part
and could drop.

He pulled on his socks, thrust his arms into
his smoking jacket, and clambered out.  The
sound he made in reaching the ground was so
faint that it did not disturb the doorkeeper,
slumbering Indian fashion on the threshold thirty
feet away.  Crossing the compound on tiptoe,
he came to the fence, and regretted that he had
not thought to bring his key of the gate: there
was nothing for it but to scale the obstacle.
This he did, and crossed the Kalmuck section in
the same way, moving very quietly, for he did
not wish to attract the attention of the sentry
on duty at the drawbridge or to rouse the settlement.

From the time of his dropping from the window
until he had crossed the second fence and stood
in the Pathan section, the glow had been hidden
from him.  It now revealed itself as originating
in the mine gallery.  The glow was diffused
through the opening, though the source of light
was not visible.  No one had any business there
after the bugle had sounded the time for ceasing
work.  Thinking that perhaps the Pathan
foreman, Muhammad Din, had forgotten to extinguish
one of the torches that were employed for lighting
the miners at their work, Bob was about to cross
the ground and enter the gallery without
precaution.  But he was checked by the thought
that the explanation might not be so simple.
He threw a glance round the compound.  All
was dark and quiet.  Then he stole across to
the mouth of the gallery, and after a moment's
pause entered it.

Some little distance from the entrance a torch
was burning in its socket on the wall.  Nobody
was in sight.  If there was indeed a trespasser
in the mine, he was either behind one of the
beams supporting the roof, or farther down the
gallery.  This was straight from the opening up
to the torch, which was so placed as to light a
further stretch that bent a little inwards.  Bob
went along carefully, looking behind every beam
and into every recess, but without discovering
an intruder.

Having come level with the torch, he stopped,
and glancing round the curving wall, was surprised
to see another light about twenty paces ahead.
It was burning but dimly; the ventilating
apparatus was not at work; but the illumination
was sufficient to reveal the figure of a man
bending to the floor, engaged apparently in
gathering small fragments of rock.  Bob could
not identify the man, whose back was towards
him.  Whatever his object was, there was
something suspicious in his having chosen the dead of
night for carrying it out; and Bob at once made
up his mind to steal upon the man, seize him, and
haul him before Mr. Appleton.  He crept
forward; there were only about a dozen paces
between the two.  But while he was in the very
act of making his leap, he was conscious of a rush
of feet behind him.  Next moment he was struck
by a heavy object, and fell on his face to the floor
of the gallery.  His head hit the hard rock;
there was one instant of intense pain, and then
his senses forsook him.

.. _`THE ATTACK IN THE GALLERY`:

.. figure:: images/img-090.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: THE ATTACK IN THE GALLERY

   THE ATTACK IN THE GALLERY





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`NURLA BAI DISAPPEARS`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE SIXTH


.. class:: center large

   NURLA BAI DISAPPEARS

.. vspace:: 2

Bob never knew how long he lay unconscious
on the floor of the gallery.  When he came to
himself he was in darkness: only the smoky
atmosphere remained to bear witness to the
reality of the torches.  He rose dizzily to his
feet, feeling sick and giddy as the result both of
his blow and of the close air, and groped his
way slowly to the entrance.  There the cool
breeze somewhat revived him; but he found
it difficult to make his way past the obstacles
which had given him no trouble before.  To
scale the fences cost much labour, and he was
near fainting by the time he reached the house.
Having no key with him, he had to waken
the darwan who lay wrapped in rugs on his mat
before the door.  The man was much surprised
to see him, but said nothing as he gave him
admittance.  Bob crept upstairs quietly; his
uncle's door was open, and he managed to cross
the room without waking him.  Then he dropped
on to his bed and nudged his brother.

"You're a juggins," said Lawrence rather
unfeelingly, when he had heard the story.
"That's the sort of thing they do in the school
stories, when the bold bad bully climbs down
the gutterpipe and sneaks off to the pub to play
cards and swill swipes.  But I say, you're not
hurt, old man?"

"The whack on the head rather crumpled me
up," replied Bob.

Lawrence was out of bed in a trice, lit his
candle, and bent over his brother.

"There's a bump as big as a duck's egg," he
said.  "Jolly lucky your head's hard, old chap!
Turn over, and I'll bathe it."

In getting the water-can he stumbled over his
boots, making a slight noise.

"It's time you fellows were asleep, came a
muffled voice through the door.  Mr. Appleton
had awoke, and fancied that the boys had not
yet settled down for the night.

"Shall we tell him?" said Lawrence.

"I meant to wait till morning, but as he's
awake--yes, I think we had better."

Lawrence opened his uncle's door.

"I say, Uncle," he said, "Bob fancied he heard
burglars and went prowling without a knuckle-duster----"

"Go to bed," growled Mr. Appleton, only half awake.

"It'll keep till morning, but I think you had
better hear it now.  I'll tell you through the
doorway while I bathe Bob's head."

"What's wrong with his head?"

When Lawrence explained how Bob had seen
a glow from the window, in the Pathan section
of the mine, Mr. Appleton sat up, now
thoroughly awakened.  He listened to the rest of
the story in silence.  At its conclusion he said:

"Just cut downstairs and tell that fellow at
the door to hold his tongue about it.  Why on
earth didn't you wake me at once, Bob, instead
of playing that schoolboy trick?"

"I didn't want to disturb you."

"That's all very well, though you wouldn't
have hurt an old campaigner like me.  You
ought to have told me at once, and then we
might have caught the rascal.  I'm afraid there's
trouble ahead, and I've a shrewd suspicion who's
at the bottom of it.  You didn't recognize the
man in the gallery?"

"No; his back was towards me."

"What's it mean, Uncle?" asked Lawrence, returning.

"It means that some one--Nurla Bai, I
fancy--suspects that I've found silver, or at
any rate something better than copper.  You
remember how he'd been trespassing on the
night you came.  But how did he get across?
You saw all the men off the premises at bugle
call, Bob?"

"Yes."

"Then he's either in league with the sentry,
or caught him napping, though I don't
understand how Gur Buksh and his men could have
slept through the groaning and creaking of the
drawbridge."

"Perhaps it wasn't Nurla at all, but some one
on this side," suggested Lawrence.

"I don't believe it for a moment.  The Sikhs
are perfectly trustworthy; the servants too; and
the Babu, though as inquisitive as a monkey,
is quite honest and knows nothing about
ores--though I daresay he wouldn't own it.  Look
here! we must say nothing whatever about this
matter.  To refer to it publicly would only stir
up unrest among the workmen, and might lead
to disturbances between the Pathans and the
Kalmucks.  Each set would accuse the other.
We must keep quiet for a day or two, and watch.
You had better not show up to-morrow, Bob.
To see you with your head bandaged would set
every one talking."

"I shall be all right in the morning," said Bob.

"I hope so.  By the way, you were struck
from behind, you say?"

"Yes: there are evidently two men in it."

"So much the better.  There'll be two quaking
in their shoes, and we may be able to spot signs
of guilt in their manner.  Keep your eye on
Nurla and Black Jack, who follows him like a
shadow.  You made the darwan understand he's
not to talk, Lawrence?"

"He won't say a word, I'm sure."

"Then get to bed.  I see you've bandaged
Bob's head in a workmanlike way.  Where did
you learn that?"

"Ambulance work in the school cadet corps, Uncle."

"Ah!  They manage things better than when
I was young.  Good-night, boys."

Bob found himself much better in the morning,
and declined his uncle's suggestion that he should
remain in bed.  But his wound was too painful
to allow of his wearing a hat, and his appearance
bareheaded, and with a strip of sticking plaster
on his neck just behind his ear, caused many
curious eyes to be turned towards him.  Only
the Babu made any reference to it.  Inquisitiveness
was his failing, and he could never keep his
tongue still.

"I perceive, sir," he said, "that you are not
in your usual salubrity.  Your countenance is
pale, and I opine from patch upon your neck
that all is not O.K.  Pardon me, have you
abraded the cuticle?"

Bob looked at him.

"Because, sir," the Babu continued with great
deference, "I have in my store sticky plaster,
powdered alum, gold-beater's skin, sweet olive
oil, cold cream scented with roses, all things
warranted to make epidermis blooming and good
as new.  Item and in addition, perhaps a little
cooling draught may reduce inflammability and----"

"Oh, shut up!" said Bob, and the Babu went
away smiling but sorrowful.

The three Englishmen went about their usual
occupations as if nothing had occurred.  They
watched the workmen narrowly for signs of guilt,
but could detect nothing.  The Pathans were
frankly curious and sympathetic; the faces of
the Kalmucks were as expressionless as they
always appear to Europeans.  Nurla Bai, who
was the special object of Mr. Appleton's attention,
was inscrutable: there was no change in his
demeanour.

Convinced that his assailant had in some way
crossed the river in the darkness of the previous
night, Bob was at a loss to guess how he had
accomplished the feat.  In the interval at
mid-day, when the men had trooped across the
drawbridge for their meal, he suggested to Lawrence
that they should walk along the pathway to
the ledge on which they kept the aeroplane,
and see if there were some fordable place which
had escaped their uncle's notice.  On the way
they examined every foot of the cliff below them.
It rose sheer from the bed of the river, so steep
and smooth as to afford no foothold for man or
beast.  Even if the river had been swum or
forded, it would have been impossible for any
one to climb up to the level platform on which
the mine works were situated.  Nor could the
most hardy and adventurous stranger have
approached from above, for the slope was too
steep to give foothold to a mountain sheep.
In the other direction, down-stream, access was
equally impossible, and for a time both the boys
felt thoroughly baffled.

At length, however, Lawrence made a
discovery.  In retracing his steps towards the
plank pathway he climbed out upon a huge
buttress of rock that projected some feet into
the river.

"Take care!" cried Bob, feeling some alarm
at the risk his brother was running.

"All right, old man," returned Lawrence.
"It's rather a fine view down the gorge from
here.  You'd better try it yourself when your
head's mended."

He picked his way carefully over the somewhat
uneven rock, and had gone three parts of
the way round its circumference when he
suddenly stood fixed, staring at something in front
and a little below him.

"By George!" he ejaculated in an undertone.
Then he lay flat on the summit of the rock,
wriggled forward to the edge, until his head
projected, and peered downwards.

"What is it?" asked Bob from his position
several yards in the rear.

Lawrence did not answer until he had crawled
backward and once more stood erect.

"I've solved the puzzle," he said.  "The
fellows have got courage at any rate, and must
be as agile as monkeys.  There's a rope hanging
down from the last beam,--down the cliff into
the water."

"A rope!"

"Yes, one of our stoutest, cleverly stained so
that it's hardly distinguishable from the rock
itself.  I caught sight of something swaying,
and it took me a few seconds to be sure what it
was.  Whoever it was that knocked you on the
head--Tchigin very likely--he must have climbed
the rope, twisted himself up on to the planks,
and so got to the mine.  It's a trick I shouldn't
care to attempt."

"But how on earth did he get to the rope from
the other side?  He couldn't have forded, and
the strongest swimmer couldn't get across with
the torrent rushing down at something like eight
miles an hour."

"That wants thinking out.  Meanwhile we'd
better get back.  If we were seen here we might
put somebody on the alert."

"Yes.  I tell you what: we'll cross the bridge
and stroll up the other side; perhaps we may
get a clue there."

They walked back without hurry along the
planks, spent some little time in their respective
sections of the mine, and then, taking their shot
guns, crossed the bridge and walked up the
narrow road as they had done many times before
when shooting.

"I've been trying to work it out," said Bob as
they went.  "If I wanted to make for a
particular spot on the other side, I should plunge
in a good way higher up--you know, where the
stream widens and isn't quite so swift.  Then
I should strike diagonally across and trust the
current to carry me where I wanted to go."

"It would sweep you past.  You couldn't be
sure of hitting the rope."

"I don't know.  We'll see when we get
opposite it."

They sauntered on side by side, giving no signs
of the carefulness with which they were
examining the base of the cliff on the farther side.
The bank beneath the road on which they were
walking was not precipitous like the opposite
cliff.  Here and there the rocks shelved down to
the water's edge, but there was no continuous
perpendicular barrier.

Their course brought them presently opposite
the buttress by which hung the rope.  They
did not pause, but as they strolled on Bob said--

"You see that in the angle formed by that
buttress and the cliff there's a sort of backwater:
not exactly a backwater, of course, but the force
of the current is much diminished there.  If a
swimmer got to that point, he could make
headway against the stream."

"That's just where the rope hangs.  Did you
see it?"

"No; I only took a passing glimpse.  We'll
turn in a few minutes and take a better look
going back."

They went on.  Lawrence shot a ptarmigan
which would give colour to the ostensible object
of their walk.  Then they turned and retraced
their steps.  As they passed the buttress Bob
looked carefully for the rope, and could just
discern it by its slight motion against the
background of rock.

"You might pass a dozen times and never
notice it," he said.

Facing in the same direction as the current
they were now able to take a more comprehensive
view of the gorge.

"Where would you make your plunge if you
wanted to swim across?" asked Bob.

Lawrence looked along the bank.

"There!" he said after a little, indicating a
rock a few feet below and beyond them, that
jutted out into the river.

"Well, let's go and take a look from there."

They left the track, climbed on to the rock,
and sat down there with their knees up, flinging
pebbles aimlessly into the water.

"I think you're right," said Bob.  "Allowing
for the strength of the current it's just about
here that I should take the plunge.  The oblique
distance between this and the rope would make
the diagonal--parallelogram of forces, you know."

"I don't suppose Nurla knows anything about
that," said Lawrence with a smile.  "But look
here: don't these bushes look as if they'd been
disturbed recently?"

He nodded his head towards some scrubby
bushes at their right hand.

"You'd think so, certainly," said Bob.  "Still,
we may be wrong.  I remember old Colonel
Fanshawe warning us against the danger of seeing
what we wanted to see."

After sitting a few minutes longer, keeping up
the appearance of aimlessness by careless tossing
of pebbles into the water, they rose and
resumed their walk.  But just at this moment
Lawrence caught sight of a dark object among
the bushes that grew sparsely on the hillside
above the track, twenty yards away.  At the
distance, partially concealed by the foliage, the
nature of the object was not apparent; but
Lawrence clambered up by means of the bushes,
and discovered a long coil of thin strong cord,
lying between two inflated water-skins.  He
left them where they were, and returned to the track.

"It's clear as daylight," said Bob, when he
had heard his report.  "The fellow fastened the
cord to the rock and held on to it when he took
the water.  He supported himself on the skins,
and when he got to the other side, attached cord
and skins to the dangling rope.  When he came
back, he hauled himself hand over hand against
the stream, and pulled in the cord after him.
That cord will, metaphorically speaking, hang
the fellow, but he's clever enough to have
deserved a better fate."

They returned slowly to the compound, well
pleased with the result of their investigations.

A few minutes after they had gone, a small
figure rose from among the bushes within a few
yards of the spot where the cord was placed.
Clambering up the hillside, and screening
himself as much as possible behind clumps of vegetation,
and by the natural inequalities of the ground,
the little man made his way rapidly in the same
direction as the Englishmen, and descended
unseen among the huts of the Kalmuck miners.
His narrow little eyes were gleaming with
excitement.  The men were just returning to work.
The Pathans had already crossed the drawbridge;
the Kalmucks were crossing.  Black Jack pushed
his way into the throng, apparently in a great
hurry.  He overtook Nurla Bai at the entrance
to the mine gallery, and together they disappeared.

The boys lost no time in communicating their
discoveries to Mr. Appleton.

"This is getting warm," he said.  "We can
do nothing yet.  Act as though nothing had
happened: to-night we'll talk things over.
You're sure none of the men suspect you?"

"There's no sign of it," said Lawrence.
"They saw us go, and come back with a bird:
a very ordinary thing, that.  I flatter myself
that a Scotland Yard detective wouldn't have
guessed from our manner that there was any
other object in our walk."

The day passed like every other day.  At
sundown the bugle's note drew the men from
their work.  They returned to their several
quarters, and after their evening meal settled
down to their games of chance or skill.

After supper, when pipes were lit, Mr. Appleton
returned to the subject.

"I haven't a doubt that Nurla is the man,"
he said.  "You remember his industry when you
were building your bridges.  The scoundrel's
motive is clear.  The question is, what is he
after?  It can't be mere inquisitiveness.  He
suspects that the Pathans are mining something
more valuable than copper, and if he can prove
it, he'll sell his knowledge, I suspect, and we
shall have trouble.  I only hope that your
appearance last night disturbed him before he
had had time to get any samples."

"If it didn't?" said Bob.

"He'll probably try again.  The fact that he
hasn't absconded seems to show that he isn't
satisfied.  If he had got enough for his purpose
he would have been over the hills before this.
We must keep a strict watch, and if we catch him
making any further attempt of the same kind
it's the sack at once."

"Wouldn't it be best to sack him now?"
Lawrence suggested.

"I'm rather loth to act without definite
proof.  We should make an enemy of the fellow
needlessly, and he has such influence with the
Kalmucks that he might call them all out."

"Would that matter?  The silver's the thing,"
said Lawrence.

"Not at all.  If I went on mining without
them it would be a clear proof that I could
afford to leave their gallery unworked, and
there'd be trouble all the same.  There'll
probably be trouble anyhow, but I'd rather keep the
Kalmucks working quietly as long as possible.
Meantime we'll take precautions.  I'll put a
Sikh in the Pathan section to keep guard through
the night, and withdraw him before dawn, so
that nobody is any the wiser."

Early next morning, a few minutes after the
bugle had sounded réveille, the Englishmen were
disturbed in their dressing by the sound of a
great uproar from across the river.  They flung
on their coats and hurried out.  The drawbridge
had not been lowered; half an hour would elapse
before the bugle called the men to work.  But
at the farther end the Pathan miners had
assembled, and were gesticulating in much
excitement, shouting lustily for the huzur.
Mr. Appleton ordered the drawbridge to be let down,
and hastened across to meet the men.

For some time he found it impossible to gather
anything definite from their frenzied clamour.
Then, singling out one man as a spokesman,
and bidding the rest be silent, he heard a
startling story.  Muhammad Din, the Pathan
foreman, had been discovered in his hut with a knife
in his throat.  Mr. Appleton had a great liking for
the man--a rough uncouth fellow, but an excellent
workman and very popular with the men of his
race.  He at once gave orders that Muhammad
should be carried across the bridge to the house,
and announced that he would hold an inquiry
after breakfast.

In knocking about the world he had picked up
a knowledge of rough and ready surgery and
medicine, and had more than once treated sick
men.  A short examination showed that the
wound in the unconscious Pathan's throat was
serious, though not necessarily mortal, and he
set to work at once to cleanse it with antiseptic
lotion and to bind it up.  While he was still in
the midst of this task, more surprising news was
brought from the other side.

Quarrels between the Pathans and the
Kalmucks had been so frequent in the early days
of the settlement that Mr. Appleton had had to
devise a plan for minimizing the risk of such
outbreaks.  The quarters of the two parties
were separated by a neutral zone nearly a hundred
yards in breadth, which they were strictly
forbidden to cross.  They used it in common only
when going to and from their work, and then at
different times, the Pathans leaving first and
returning last.  If a Pathan wished to go down
the river, he had to climb the hillside and come
down to the track beyond the Kalmuck camp.
If a Kalmuck wished to go up the river, he had
to make a similar circuit.  The stables were
placed in the neutral zone.

When the attack on Muhammad was
discovered, and the Pathans rushed to the
drawbridge, the Kalmucks were aroused by the din,
and flocked to the fence marking the boundary
line.  But they were unaware of what had
happened until their turn came to cross the
bridge and they heard the story from the Sikh
on duty.  A few minutes afterwards, however,
it was discovered that neither Nurla Bai nor his
dwarf henchman was among their party.  No
sooner was this reported than the head stableman
rushed excitedly across the bridge, to announce
that the ponies on which the two boys had ridden
to the mine had disappeared.  These successive
discoveries threw the whole community into a
state of seething agitation.  Instead of going
to their work, the men gathered in groups,
discussing the strange thing that had
happened to their foreman.  Already the Pathans
were shouting accusations of Nurla Bai across
their fence, and Gur Buksh with his armed
squad stood ready to intervene if the wild
passions of the miners led from recrimination
to blows.

Mr. Appleton did not allow these events to
interrupt his ministrations to the injured Pathan.
When Muhammad, with his wound well dressed,
had recovered consciousness, and was laid in
one of the outhouses belonging to the domestic
staff, Mr. Appleton and the boys returned to
their rooms to finish dressing and breakfast.

"It's all as plain as a pikestaff now," said the
elder man.  "Nurla has got all he wanted; he
must have guessed that he was suspected, and
very wisely decamped.  And he paid off his old
grudge against Muhammad before he left.  He's
got your ponies too.  That's what they call
robbery with violence, I think."

"What shall you do, Uncle?" asked Lawrence.

"Go after him, of course.  I couldn't
otherwise hold the Pathans for an hour.  They know
I'm just, and as good as my word.  If I
tell them that Nurla shall be caught and
punished they'll believe me and remain as
quiet as Gur Buksh can keep them.  Otherwise
they'd desert in a body and hunt the hills
themselves."

"Nurla's got a good start: it won't be easy to
catch him," said Lawrence.

"You forget Bob's aeroplane, my boy," said
Mr. Appleton.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`NURLA AT BAY`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE SEVENTH


.. class:: center large

   NURLA AT BAY

.. vspace:: 2

If Mr. Appleton had wished to atone for the
coldness of his former attitude to airmanship,
he could scarcely have shown more eagerness
to make use of the aeroplane in hunting down
the fugitive malefactor.  He was blind to the
difficulties.  To guard against a disappointment,
Bob ventured to point out the disadvantages
under which the pursuit would be conducted--the
few landing-places and fewer starting-places
which the rugged country offered; the ease with
which the men, even if discovered, might
conceal themselves in some woody ravine or some
inaccessible cleft in the mountain side: the
likelihood of their escaping notice altogether.
There was every chance indeed that they would
be espied, if at all, upon some tract of country
where to make a descent would be impossible;
and before the pursuers could reach a suitable
spot, there would be plenty of time for the men
to alter their direction and elude the most careful
search.  The one point in favour of the pursuit
was that Nurla was accompanied by Black Jack:
it would not be so easy for two as for one to
escape notice.

Mr. Appleton ignored all Bob's well-meant
hints of failure, and was only anxious to be off.
He summoned the Pathans and explained to
them what he was about to do, warning them
against misbehaviour in his absence.  He gave
instructions to Gur Buksh to maintain strict
discipline, and flattered the Kalmucks into good
temper by assuring them of his belief in their
loyalty.  Then, having arranged that a small
party of Pathans should ride northwards down
the track, he hurried after the boys, who had
already gone to prepare the aeroplane for flight.

He had no doubt that Nurla had fled northward,
in the direction of his own people.  For at least
forty miles the fugitives would be obliged to
keep pretty closely to the valley, for, as far as
Mr. Appleton and any of his people knew, there
was no practicable way over the hills for horses.
After that the country began to open out: the
river broadened and was fordable in several places,
and the fugitives would have the choice of
several routes, either to the right or the left.
It was therefore necessary to overtake them
and hold them up while they were still in this
forty-mile stretch of rugged river valley.
Mr. Appleton's idea was to fly ahead of them as
soon as they had been sighted, land at the first
convenient spot, and hold them in check until
the mounted party had had time to come up.
It was impossible to tell how many hours' start
the men had had; but even if they had left the
settlement soon after dark their progress along
the rough and dangerous track must have
been slow, and it seemed hardly likely that they
could reach the open country before the
swift-flying aeroplane overtook them.

The boys rapidly overhauled the engine and
tested the steering and controlling gear.  Bob
felt a trifle anxious when he noticed how rapidly
the clouds were racing before the wind, which
blew from the west.  Flying in the valley, the
aeroplane would be protected from the full
lateral force of the wind by the high mountain
barrier on each side.  But there was considerable
danger of encountering gusts and eddies sweeping
through clefts and gorges here and there, and it
was impossible to calculate at what precise angle
the aeroplane might be struck by a sudden
blast.  However, the conditions were no worse
than they had already been in some of his practice
trips, and he only felt a little additional
nervousness because Mr. Appleton had never yet
accompanied him except in absolutely calm weather.

Just as they were preparing to start it occurred
to Mr. Appleton that some unforeseen contingency
might prolong their absence from the mine.

"Run back," he said to Lawrence, "and tell
some of the men to bring over enough food for
a couple of days and two or three skins of water,
in case we don't get a chance to draw some
from the river.  You had better tell the Pathans,
too, to take food in their saddle-bags.  It's just
as well to be prepared for emergencies."

All arrangements having been made, they took
their places.  Chunda Beg and the Babu were
among the men who had walked to the ledge
to witness and assist in the start.

"I wish good luck and safe return," said the
Babu impressively.  "As for that villain of
deepest dye, I approve of strongest measures.
There is varied choice of punishments--pistol,
rope, et cetera: the best, in my humble opinion,
is to let him dangle from rope until death comes
as merciless release."

"If you don't skip, Babu," said Bob, "you'll
be caught by our wings, and either be carried up
to the heavens or dashed over the edge into the
river."

Ditta Lal instantly picked up his skirts and
fled, not halting until he reached a safe distance.
There he watched the ascent of the aeroplane until
it disappeared round a bend in the gorge.  Then
he returned to the compound, following Chunda
Beg, to whose back he discoursed on the velocity
of the wind, the native iniquity of the Kalmuck
race, and the various tortures to which Nurla
Bai might conscientiously be put when he was captured.

Bob steered the machine along the middle of
the valley, keeping low in order to avoid the wind.
On either side rose the lofty mountain barrier,
here overhanging the river, there receding; at
some spots an almost perpendicular wall, at
others broken into peaks and parapets, with
deep hollows in which a scanty vegetation
struggled for existence on a thin soil.  Now
the valley narrowed so that there seemed barely
space for the aeroplane to pass: now it widened
into a series of rocky terraces, seamed by fissures
in every direction.  The track on the right bank
followed the winding course of the river for
many miles, then dipped to a ford and reappeared
on the left.  Some miles farther on it recrossed
the river by a crazy bridge of rope, and
continued along the right bank past the foothills
and out into an extensive plateau.

Bob as usual acted as pilot.  By flying pretty
close upon the river he not only avoided danger
from gusts, but enabled his companions to keep
a sharp observation upon the ground.  Here and
there, where this wound behind the rocks
between the bank and the hillside, he left the
river, planed a little higher, and steered a course
exactly over the track.  The recent invention of
planes which could be lengthened or shortened
at will rendered it possible to travel at more
varied speed than had formerly been the case,
and when he was several miles from the mine
he reduced speed to the minimum.  Even then,
however, the aeroplane moved so swiftly that
there was some danger of the watchers passing
their quarry without perceiving them.  This
was not likely where the track was closely
hemmed in between river and hillside.  The
risk was greatest where the latter receded from
the course of the stream, leaving large areas of
rough country, sometimes covered with bush, in
which the fugitives could without much difficulty
hide out of sight of any one not passing
immediately above them.

The ford at which the track crossed the river
was about twenty miles from the mine.  Coming
to that point without having seen the fugitives,
Bob followed the track along the left bank.  Here
the open spaces became more frequent, and it
would have been impossible to examine the
ground thoroughly without circling.  For the
present Bob hesitated to do this, feeling that it
was more important to keep to the track for so
long a distance as the fugitives might have
covered had they started at the earliest likely
moment, twelve hours before.  Another twelve
miles brought him to the rope bridge, where he
again crossed the river, and so continued until,
ten miles farther, the foothills were reached,
and the country began to open out.

It was obvious to all three occupants of the
aeroplane that the only means of thoroughly
searching the comparatively open country at
which they had now arrived was to rise to a
greater height and sail about in widening
circles.  Bob therefore adjusted his elevator;
and as the machine swept round, the other two
peered over on opposite sides, using their glasses
to scan the ground beneath.  The fugitives
being presumably mounted on the stolen ponies
could hardly be otherwise than conspicuous;
and when, after more than half an hour's careful
observation, nothing had been seen of them, the
pursuers came to the conclusion that the men
could not yet have quitted the valley.  This
was a very reasonable inference, considering that
they had covered in less than an hour a distance
of nearly fifty miles, which the fugitives, even
on horseback, must take many hours to traverse.
The natural conclusion was that the horsemen,
warned by the whirring of the propeller, if not
by the actual sight of the aeroplane, had taken
shelter in one of the more rugged or more thickly
wooded places until the pursuers had passed.
There was nothing for it but to turn back and
hunt up the valley again.

The aeroplane was crossing the plateau
obliquely towards the opening of the gorge when
Lawrence suddenly caught sight of a number
of round objects resembling bee-hives, clustered
in a secluded dell.  He pointed them out to
Mr. Appleton, who examined them through his glass.

"They are akois," he said: "the portable huts
used by the nomad tribes in these parts, made
of a circular wooden framework covered with felt.
But I've never before seen so many in a group."

As they looked, the intervals between the
akois became filled with a dense crowd of men,
who stood gazing up in astonishment at the strange
machine flying high above their heads.  The
airmen had no particular interest in wheeling
about to make a careful inspection of the camp,
for it was inconceivable that Nurla and his man
had come so far and joined their compatriots,
if such these people were.  They had soon left
it far behind, and descending gradually as they
neared the gorge, they re-entered this at an
altitude of not more than a hundred feet above
the river to renew their search.

Bob found it by no means easy to follow a
course that would enable his passengers to
obtain a clear view of the more rugged portions
of the valley.  Here and there, at the wider
parts, he was able to wheel round and cover
wide areas; but in the narrow stretches he
was forced to fly straight ahead without the
possibility of turning, unless he should rise to
a great height.  This would involve a loss of
time which could be ill afforded.  Once or twice,
in attempting to circle, he almost shaved the
rocky sides; and deciding that such attempts
were too dangerous, he concluded that he had
better leave certain parts imperfectly explored
rather than risk injury to the aeroplane.  He
compromised matters by steering a serpentine
course, thus covering as much as possible of
the ground on both sides of the river.

The aeroplane was approaching the rope
bridge when Mr. Appleton suddenly called out
that he saw two men on horseback on the track
beyond.  In another moment he recognized them
through his glass as the men of whom they were
in pursuit.  They were nearly a mile distant,
entering a stretch of the gorge that was
particularly rugged, and no doubt afforded plenty of
cover.  It had been prearranged that as soon as
the men were sighted Bob should make a descent
as near as possible ahead of them--that is,
down-stream--but it was no surprise to Bob--indeed,
it was only according to the ill-luck that
seems to rule on such occasions--that no suitable
landing place offered itself.

He remembered, however, that in flying
downstream he had noticed, two or three miles above
the bridge, a place where the valley widened
sufficiently to allow the aeroplane to circle.
He decided to fly direct to this spot, turn, follow
the men, outstrip them, and land at a spot some
distance down-stream, where a landing had seemed
feasible.  Lawrence suggested that he or his
uncle should take a flying shot at the men as
they passed above them, but Mr. Appleton would
not consent.

"Punishment before trial won't do," he said.

By this time the fugitives had disappeared
behind a sort of parapet of rock just above the
bridge, which spanned the river at a height of
twenty or thirty feet.  On first sighting them,
Bob had caused the aeroplane to descend
until it was almost level with the bridge.  As
they came to it, Mr. Appleton rose in his seat
behind the pilot, to see, if he could, the precise
spot in which the fugitives had concealed
themselves.  He had just done so, and was leaning
slightly to the right, when there came in rapid
succession the crack, crack of two rifles.  And
then Lawrence, in the third seat, was horrified
to see his uncle pitch forward, lose his grip on
the stay he was clutching, and fall headlong into
the river.  It all happened so instantaneously
that the boy had no time even to reach forward.
He sprang up, almost over-balancing himself,
but before he could stretch out his hand
Mr. Appleton was whirling in mid-air.

At the moment of the accident Bob was
made aware that something had happened by
the lurch which the sudden loss of weight caused
the aeroplane to give.  A cry from Lawrence
apprised him of the nature of the accident.  For
a few moments both the boys were dazed by
the shock of their uncle's disappearance, so
sudden, so unexpected, so terrifying.  Bob had
instinctively moved his controlling lever to
counter-act the lurch.  As soon as he knew what had
happened, instinct again prompted him to bring
the aeroplane round; but reason coming to his
aid, he corrected the movement just in time
to avoid dashing the plane against the rocky
barrier on his left hand.

"Keep straight ahead!" shouted Lawrence in terror.

But before the words were out of his mouth
the danger of a fatal smash was avoided.  The
aeroplane flew at full speed up-stream.  In a
few minutes it would reach the wider space
where turning was possible.  Only then could
the direction of its flight be reversed, and the
fate of Mr. Appleton be ascertained.

In their anxiety for their uncle, both the boys
had now forgotten the very existence of the
Kalmuck miscreants.  It did not occur to them
that in repassing the same spot on their flight
down-stream they might be in danger from the
same concealed marksmen.  As the aeroplane
turned, Lawrence called to his brother to descend
still lower, so that they might the more easily see
their uncle's body if he were still floating in the
stream.

"If I see him, I'll dive in," he said.  "You go on,
land where you can, and come back to my help."

With his eyes fixed on the water below he was
unconscious of anything but the swirling flood,
and the intense strain of searching the surface
as the aeroplane flashed by.  Neither Bob nor
Lawrence noticed the movements of the two
Kalmucks.  They, as soon as they had fired their
shots, vaulted into the saddles of the horses
that stood beneath a tall rock, and dashed
at headlong speed along the track towards the
bridge.  The horses, urged by their riders, and
terrified by the increasing sound of the aeroplane
rushing swiftly behind them, took the bits in
their teeth and galloped on, completely beyond
control.  They wheeled on to the bridge.  At this
moment the aeroplane was only about two
hundred yards behind them, and Bob was
intending to pass under the bridge.  But the
weight of the horses was too much for the frail
and clumsy structure.  It broke in the middle, and
horses and riders plunged into the river.  Bob
had just time to move his elevator and skim
over the confused mass of bridge, horses and men.

Only for a moment was Lawrence's attention
diverted from his quest.  Hitherto he had fixed
his eyes from a rapidly diminishing distance
upon the spot where his uncle had fallen, and the
river beyond.  Now he had passed the spot
itself, and in a few seconds covered the whole
distance down which, even allowing for the speed
of the current, the body could have been carried.
There was no sign of it, and Lawrence felt with
horror and despair that the shot had been only
too well aimed--that Mr. Appleton had been
killed outright, or so grievously wounded as to
be unable to keep himself afloat.  He could not
endure the suspense and uncertainty.

"I am going in," he cried.  "Come back for me."

To make a clean dive from the narrow seat of
an aeroplane flying at the rate of thirty miles
an hour was impossible.  It was a dangerous
feat to attempt at all, but Lawrence did not
think of that.  He fell rather than plunged, at
the imminent risk of striking a half-submerged
rock in mid-stream.  The shock of hitting the
water after a haphazard fall of thirty feet was
so great that for a time, even after he had risen
to the surface, he was too much dazed to be able
to distinguish his surroundings.  With the
instinct of a practised swimmer he trod water until
his senses returned to him.  Then he saw that he
was far below the ruined bridge, and being rapidly
carried down-stream.  The aeroplane was out of
sight.  Neither man nor beast was visible on either
bank.  The Kalmucks must have clambered up
the bank and taken to flight.  He realized that
if his uncle was still in the river he must have
overtaken him before the dive was made.  It
was necessary to husband his strength, and either
try to swim against the stream, or make his way
to some rock on one side or the other, whence
he could watch the current as it flowed past him.

He turned, and for some time breasted the
stream until he descried a rocky shelf at the
base of the right bank which would prove at
once a resting place and a convenient watch post.
Nearly exhausted, he dragged himself on to it, and
crouched there, intent upon every billow and
eddy of the swollen river.  Fed by the mountain
snows, it flowed on with turbulent tide.  The
water was bitterly cold, and Lawrence shivered
as he waited there minute after minute, hoping,
yet dreading, to see his uncle's form rolling past.

Presently he heard the hum of the returning
aeroplane.  Bob shouted as he sped by, but
what he said was indistinguishable.  Lawrence
felt more and more despairing until with a
gleam of hope he wondered whether his uncle
had swum to one bank or the other and climbed
to safety.  He looked at the bank behind him.
It was steep, almost perpendicular, but marked
by fissures that promised to give him foothold.
With teeth chattering and limbs trembling with
cold he essayed to clamber up.  At another
time he would have found the feat easy enough:
now he was amazed at the tax it put upon him.
Every now and then he stopped, clung on with
his hands, and turned his head to glance again
at the stream.  At last, on gaining the top, he
looked along the track in both directions.
Nobody was in sight.  The aeroplane had again
disappeared from view.  Hesitating a moment
he began to walk up the track.  A new fear
assailed him: what if the aeroplane had met with
an accident!  What if the engine had failed,
or the pilot had been too venturesome, and in
attempting to wheel in too narrow a space had
crashed against the rock!  Shivering as much
from anxiety as from cold, he felt a glow of
extravagant delight when he heard a cheery
shout, and Bob came hasting towards him from
round the corner of a jutting rock.

"Any sign of him?" asked Bob anxiously
as he met his brother.

"No.  What can have become of him?"

"I fear the worst: but even if--if he is drowned
he must come up some time.  We had better walk
up and down for a bit."

"Where's the machine?"

"A few yards above the bridge.  It was a
risky thing, coming down there, but I thought
I'd venture, and luckily didn't come to grief."

"Let us get our field-glasses.  We can then
examine every crevice in the other bank.  We
can't get to the other side and examine this.
By the way, how did you get across?"

"One of the ropes that formed the hand-rails
of the bridge is uninjured.  It sags a bit, but it's
just taut enough to swing over by."

For some time they marched up and down,
above and below the spot where their uncle
had fallen.  Bob stripped to his shirt, and
swam along with the current below the track,
searching every cranny into which he thought
the body might have been carried.  No
discovery rewarded his care except a primitive
fishing net, the meshes of which had caught
upon the jagged edges of a rock.

"Do you think the Kalmucks got hold of him?"
said Lawrence when they again met.

"Upon my word, I had almost forgotten
them.  They may have done so.  It's clear that
they got out of the river, and their horses, too.
I didn't see them as I flew up.  What more can
we do?"

"I don't know.  I'm dead beat.  I can't help
thinking that the Kalmucks must have captured
him, alive or dead.  When we have rested we
had better get our rifles and go and meet the
Pathans.  They ought to be near by this time.
With them hunting on horseback and ourselves
in the aeroplane we can scour the country.
But we must tell our men; it's no good starting
without them."

"I think you're right.  We'll get something
to eat, and by the time you've had a rest, no
doubt the men will arrive."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE EDGE OF THE STORM`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE EIGHTH


.. class:: center large

   THE EDGE OF THE STORM

.. vspace:: 2

They swung themselves across the river hand
over hand on the rope.  On returning to the
aeroplane Bob opened a box of sardines and
took out of a biscuit tin some of the flat
bread-cakes baked by the Chinese cook.  But neither
he nor Lawrence had any appetite.  After a
few minutes Lawrence got up.

"It's no good," he said.  "I can't eat, and
I can't rest.  It would be different if we knew
for certain that the old man was gone; it's the
uncertainty that's so wearing.  Do you see
anything of the Pathans?"

Bob took his field-glass and went to the edge
of the track, whence he had a scarcely
interrupted view of a mile or more of the valley.

"No, they're not in sight," he said after a
minute or two.  "Shall we go and meet them?"

"I'm more inclined to go down-stream, on
the off-chance that we may find something."

"All right.  Better take our rifles, perhaps."

"Why?  Nurla has got clean away by this
time, whether Uncle is with him or not.  You
may be sure he wouldn't wait about."

"Well, we'll take our revolvers; it's just as
well to have something handy.  For all we
know he may be resting behind some rock."

"With a rifle!  Revolvers wouldn't be much
use against that."

"Nor would rifles, now you mention it.  He'd
pot us before we saw him if he wanted to.
All the same, we'll take our revolvers."

They swarmed across by the rope, gained the
farther bank, and walked slowly down the
track, scanning the rocky recesses as narrowly
as before.  They had scarcely any hope of
finding their uncle's body; but while it remained
undiscovered they were ready to search again
and again.  It was now near midday, and the
sun beat fiercely upon them.  For a time they
were unconscious of the heat in the intentness
of their occupation, and the foreboding anxiety
that filled their minds; so that they had walked
much farther than they supposed when they
became alive to the fatigue induced by exertion
in such a temperature.  Then, wiping their
perspiring brows, they sank down to rest on a
flattish boulder overhanging the stream.

"We must give it up," said Bob wearily.
"Unless Nurla has got him he's either at the
bottom of the river, or else washed down miles
by this time."

"I don't care about caving in altogether,"
said Lawrence.  "It would be some satisfaction--a
mournful one--to recover his body and give
him decent burial."

"Poor old man!  He wouldn't care a bit
about that.  What's more to the point is to
hunt down the blackguards who killed him.
That's what I propose to do as soon as our
men come up.  Some of them are sure to
know the country, and with them on horseback
and ourselves in the aeroplane, I'd take long
odds that we find Nurla in time."

As they talked, they kept their eyes on the
river, more from the habit engendered during
the previous few hours than with any strong
hope of their search being rewarded.  Presently
Lawrence, following with his eyes the foaming
ripples as they swirled down-stream, caught sight
of something that caused him to spring to his
feet with a sudden ejaculation and lift the
field-glass to his eyes.

"What is it?" asked Bob, rising also.

Lawrence handed him the glass.  Far away
he saw, rounding a bend in the track, a party
of horsemen marching slowly in single file towards
them.  Their costume proclaimed them as
Kalmucks, and though they were too far distant
for their features to be distinguished, the shape
of the foremost seemed to be that of the dwarf,
Black Jack.

The watchers suddenly remembered the
encampment over which they had flown earlier in
the day.  The same thought flashed simultaneously
through their minds: the stealthy proceedings
of Nurla in the mine and his subsequent
disappearance had not, then, been prompted by
an indefinite hope of gain; they had been
deliberately planned, either in the knowledge of the
proximity of a body of his fellow countrymen,
or even in concert with them.  There could hardly
be a doubt that, as once before, an attempt was to
be made to dispossess Mr. Appleton of his mine.

The boys stood watching only for a moment
or two; then they dropped down, feeling
instinctively that it behoved them to keep out of
sight.  But brief though their gaze had been,
it was long enough to assure them that the
approaching party was a numerous one.  They
counted a dozen men; others were coming round
the bend, and they were strung out along the
track.  Every man had a fire-arm of some sort,
a carbine, or a rifle, or a long musket like the
Afghan jazail.

For the moment even the fate of their uncle
was obliterated from the boys' minds by this
astonishing discovery.  They realized that their
own lives and the safety of the mine were in
danger.  Hitherto their anxious thoughts had
been fixed on one object alone; now they saw
themselves faced with a much more complicated
problem.

"We must get back," said Bob, insensibly
lowering his tone of voice.  "We can do nothing
at present for Uncle.  We must at least return
to the aeroplane and wait to see what happens.
I'm pretty sure I'm right: those fellows are being
led by the dwarf--and Nurla too, I suspect--to
the mine.  Luckily we've plenty of time to
fly back in the aeroplane and give warning."

"What then?  If all those men we saw in the
encampment are coming along, we haven't half
enough men to prevent anything they like to do."

"I don't care about that.  Uncle beat off an
attack once, and if those fellows want the mine,
by Jove! they shall have a fight for it."

"You're talking through your hat," said
Lawrence, whose tastes and temperament were
quite unmilitary, and who did not know his
brother, perhaps, as well as might have been
expected.

"Well, we'll get back, at any rate," rejoined
Bob, ignoring the accusation.  "And, if possible,
without being seen."

They got up, and set off up-stream at a run,
keeping as near as possible to the left-hand side
of the track in order to escape observation.
Only now did they discover how far they had
come.  The bridge was quite out of sight.  They
had not timed their walk, and had no means
of knowing how many yards or even miles they
had to cover before they should reach the
aeroplane.  The distance was in fact more than
two miles, and the Kalmucks were only
three-quarters of a mile behind them.  The roughness
of the track lessened the horsemen's advantage
in being mounted; but the boys feared that, if
they had been seen, the Kalmucks, pressing on
the small, hardy ponies, accustomed to rough
country, might overtake them before they had
time to make good their escape across the river.

They were not long left in doubt whether they
had been seen and were being pursued.  They
had been bounding along a straight stretch of
the track, perhaps half a mile in length.  Before
they gained the farther end of it they heard the
shrill shouts of the Kalmucks rising above the
droning bass of the river.  As they turned the
corner, and passed out of sight, the sharp crack
of rifles followed them; but the pursuers had
not dismounted to take aim and had fired a
thought too late.  The only effect of the shots
was to make the boys increase their speed, for
they knew that the ponies must rapidly gain on
them over the straight and fairly level portion
of the track which they had just left.  They
pushed on gamely, hugging the cliffside as
closely as possible, but being forced sometimes
to diverge towards the river by the nature of
the path.  They looked anxiously ahead for a
sight of the ruined bridge, and felt the shock of
dismay, when, catching a partial glimpse of it
at last, they found that they had still at least a
mile to go.

The pursuers began to close in upon them.
A scattered volley proved that they had again
been seen.  The Kalmucks were firing and
loading as they rode--a mere waste of ammunition,
as it might have seemed, but for an instant
proof that these warriors of the steppes were no
mean marksmen, even in full career.  Bob's
cap was struck from his head, and he discovered
only by the blood trickling down his neck that
he had been wounded.  Lawrence, glancing over
his shoulder, saw that it would be quite impossible
to reach the bridge before the pursuers came
up with them.

"We can't do it!" he gasped.

Bob said nothing.  His mouth hardened, and
he looked intently ahead.  At a few yards'
distance a jutting rock encroached upon the
track, rendering it only just wide enough for a
horseman to pass.  On rounding it he halted.

"Down on the ground!" he panted.  "Out
with your revolver!  There's nothing else for it."

They threw themselves down with their faces
to the enemy, and covering themselves as well
as they could with the corner of the rock, they
held their revolvers ready to fire at the foremost
of their pursuers.

"Wait till they are within a few yards of us,"
said Bob.  "No good wasting shots at long
range.  They are bound to go slow."

They waited in breathless excitement.
Lawrence the pacific was now as warlike as
Bob himself.  The enemy drew nearer.  The
narrowing of the track caused them to reduce
their pace from a gallop to a trot, then to a
walk.  In the ardour of the chase their order
had been changed; Black Jack was no longer in front.

The boys had just had time to pull themselves
together when the first man came within range.

"Now!" said Bob, springing to his feet.

Showing themselves on the narrow path
between the rock and the brink of the river they
emptied four barrels rapidly, almost pointblank
at the horsemen.  The first two men dropped;
the others, taken utterly aback, reined up, but
were thrown into a huddled mass by the men
pressing on behind.  There was a moment's
pause--a pause emphasized by cries of pain and
fear, and the shrill screams of horses.  Then the
confused throng began to wheel about.

"Hold your fire!" whispered Bob, at the
same moment emptying his two remaining barrels
into the medley.  Another man fell.  It was
enough.  Reckless of everything but his own
safety, each man urged his steed back along the
track, and in a few moments all had passed out
of sight.

"We win the first trick," said Bob, glancing
at his brother.  "Why, you're as pale as a ghost!"

"So are you," returned Lawrence.

"Well, it's our first experience of war, so I'm
not surprised.  But we must cut it.  For one
thing, my revolver's empty, and I've no more
cartridges here.  For another, those fellows will
come back as soon as they've got over their
surprise, and even if they funk a frontal attack,
I dare say they can manage to clamber round
somehow and turn our flank.  Our only chance
is to make a break for the bridge and get over
if we can before they're fit to come on."

.. _`A CHECK IN THE PURSUIT`:

.. figure:: images/img-130.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: A CHECK IN THE PURSUIT

   A CHECK IN THE PURSUIT

They started at once, and ran up the track,
taking much comfort from the knowledge that the
projecting rock would for some distance conceal
them from the enemy.  But after a few hundred
yards the track both ascended and wound
slightly to the right, bringing them once more
into full view.  They had no sooner reached
this point than loud shouts behind them
announced that the pursuit had been resumed.
They glanced back, then ahead, measuring with
their eyes the gaps that separated them from
safety on the one hand, and capture on the other.
A couple of bullets whistled over their heads,
but the firing ceased, and they guessed that the
enemy were confident of being able to overtake
them.  Such assurance was misplaced.  The
track in this part of the ravine, the scene of the
morning's disaster, was particularly rugged, and
gave no advantage to the mounted men.  Moreover,
there were at intervals isolated rocks
behind which the boys could have posted
themselves as they had already done, and the
Kalmucks approached these heedfully, reining
up until assured that they had no similar
ambuscade to fear.

"Lucky they don't know we've only two
shots between us," said Bob as he sprinted along
by his brother's side.  "A good spurt and we're
home."

They were both good runners, though their
want of training showed itself in a certain
shortness of wind.  They gained the bridge, saw at
a glance that the pursuers were still several
hundred yards away, and seizing the rope began
to swing themselves hand over hand across the
stream.  At their previous crossings they had
exercised some little caution, in case the rope
should break under their weight.  Now, however,
they put everything to the hazard, realizing
that to fall into the stream would be no worse
than to be caught.

The Kalmucks had been informed by Nurla
of the destruction of the bridge, and had
anticipated an easy capture.  When they saw the
boys swinging themselves across they gave
utterance to renewed shouts; some flung themselves
from their horses and ran forward to swarm
over in the same way: others reined up and once
more began to fire.  The fugitives were still
some few feet from the farther side, and
momentarily expected to be hit, when there was a sudden
diversion in their favour.  They heard shouts
in the opposite direction, from beyond the rocks
on the other side of the clear space on which
the aeroplane rested.  Immediately afterwards
several rifle shots rang out.  For a second they
halted in their progress, in the fear that they
were the targets of another hostile band.  But
next instant it flashed into Bob's mind that
the volley must have been fired by their own
Pathans, whose arrival they had long expected.

"Come on, Law," he cried.  "We're all right now."

With three more heaves he was upon the
bank.  He turned to assist his brother; then
both scurried across the open space, past the
aeroplane, and dashed into safety behind the
screen of rocks, where they were received with
shouts of delight by the five stalwart Pathans
who lay there in a line with their rifles at their
shoulders.

For the moment they were not aware of the
effect of the volley.  It had brought the
Kalmucks to a sudden check.  One of those who
were scrambling across the rope dropped into
the river; the rest swung themselves round and
struggled frantically in the opposite direction.
Two or three of those who had halted on the
track were wounded; and their comrades, realizing
that they were helpless against marksmen
under cover, wheeled round and made a hurried
flight down the river, not drawing rein until
they had passed the intervening rocks and were
themselves protected.  Those who had followed
the boys sprang to their saddles and galloped
away; but one of them was winged before he
had ridden many yards.  He fell from his pony,
which dashed on in pursuit of the rest and was
soon lost to sight, the man rising and limping
after.

The Pathans chuckled as they rose to their feet.

"That was well done," said one of them,
named Fyz Ali.  "But where is the huzur?"

He turned to the boys, who, feeling thoroughly
exhausted by the stress and strain of this
eventful morning, had flung themselves down,
and lay at full length with their heads resting
on their arms.

At the man's words Lawrence looked up.  He
had learnt enough of the Pathan patois to
understand and to make himself understood,
though he could not yet sustain a lengthy
conversation.  In a few words, haltingly, he explained
what had happened to his uncle.  The Pathans
threw up their hands in consternation, invoking
the name of Allah and pouring out a torrent
of curses upon Nurla Bai and the Kalmucks.
Mr. Appleton was very popular among them,
and the news of his loss, and of the escape of
the assassin, filled them with dismay and rage.

"Beyond doubt the huzur is dead," said
Fyz Ali, pulling at his beard.  "Allah is great!
The huzur could not live, falling wounded into
the swift water.  He sank like a stone, and lies
at the bottom.  We shall cast dust upon our
heads for our father."

"You were just in time to save us," said
Lawrence.

"Allah be praised!  We were riding down,
and came to the wonderful machine, and when
we saw that the bridge was broken we knew that
we must wait until the huzur returned.  Therefore
we got off our horses and were resting and
eating when we heard shots afar off, and believed
the huzur was doing justice upon Nurla Bai.
But looking down the stream we perceived the
sahibs running, and the accursed Kalmucks after
them, and I said we must hide behind the rocks
and fire when the time came.  And by the mercy
of Allah we were able to save the sahibs, and our
hearts are glad; but our joy is turned to grief
by this heavy news.  Our light is become
darkness, and we are as little children."

Lawrence then told in detail, as well as he
could, the events of the morning.  When he
spoke of the encampment on the plateau, Fyz Ali
at once agreed that Nurla Bai must have known
of the proximity of his fellow countrymen, and
that an attack upon the mine was clearly
intended.

"What are we to do, sahib?" he asked.

Before Lawrence could reply, the air was
rent by the crackle of rifles, and a shower of
bullets hissed overhead, some pattering upon
the rocks.  Some of the Pathans had incautiously
shown themselves, and the enemy had opened
fire from their position down the river.  They
instantly ducked under cover, and gathered in
a group about their young masters, to consult
on their course of action.

"How many Kalmucks did you see?" asked Lawrence.

"We did not count them, sahib," said Fyz Ali,
"but there must have been nearly thirty.  There
are not so many now," he added with a grim
chuckle.

"And we number seven all told!" said
Lawrence.  "Look after the men while I talk
to my brother."

"We're in a hole," said Bob.  "The fellows
aren't great marksmen, but we can't move the
aeroplane while they command the space in
front.  They're only about a quarter of a mile
away, and with a score of rifles they couldn't
help hitting us."

"What was your idea?"

"To get aloft and fly down-stream to reconnoitre.
I should like to know whether the rest
of them are coming up from the camp.  But
that's out of the question."

"We're safe for the present, anyhow.  They
can't cross while we command the bridge."

"That's true.  I wonder whether they can
climb the hills, and get at us from above.  You
might ask Fyz Ali whether he knows of a path."

The Pathan consulted with his companions.
One of them said that he knew of a rough path
a mile lower down the river, which led by a
tortuous and difficult course over the hills; but
it involved a round of nearly ten miles, and the
march would take at least five hours.

"By that time it will be dark," said Bob.
"It's something to know that we are safe till
then, and it gives us time to think out a plan.
The one thing that's clear at present is that we
must get back to the mine."

"And Uncle?"

"We can do absolutely nothing more.  In
spite of what Fyz Ali said, I can't help thinking
that he may be still alive.  If he were drowned,
his body must have come up."

"And the Kalmucks would kill him if they found him."

"I'm not so sure.  He'd be a valuable hostage.
They might bring him up to the mine, and make
our surrender a condition of his release."

"With all my heart I hope it is so.  But
suppose they haven't got him?"

"We must get back to the mine and do our
best to hold it.  That's what he'd wish us to
do.  But look here, old chap, we've eaten next
to nothing.  It's no good letting ourselves down.
Ask Fyz Ali to give us some of his tommy; we
can't get our own; and when we've had a feed
we'll decide what's to be done."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A FLIGHT BY NIGHT`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE NINTH


.. class:: center large

   A FLIGHT BY NIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

The afternoon wore away.  For some time
there was complete silence except for the gurgling
hum of the river, and the low tones of the Pathans
as they talked gloomily among themselves.  It
occurred to Bob that the enemy, finding
themselves so completely at a check, might have
retreated, to advance again when they should
guess that want of food had driven the
Englishmen's party back to the mine.  But on
putting it to the test he found that he was
mistaken.  He practised the old device of
drawing the enemy's fire by means of dummy targets.
Two of the Pathans hoisted their turbans on their
rifles until they showed just above the rocks.
The instant result was a volley from downstream,
and one of the turbans on being lowered
was found to have several holes drilled in it.

"They don't mean to let us off," said Bob.
"I've made up my mind what we must do.  When
it's dark we'll creep out, you and I, and start the
engine.  We'll toss who shall fly back to the
mine----"

"No, that's your job," said Lawrence.  "You
can manage the machine better than I."

"Just as you please.  Well, I'll go then, and
have a talk with old Gur Buksh.  You'll stay
here and keep watch on the enemy.  By their
sticking on it looks as if they might try to rush
the position in the night: but as they can't get
across except as we did, by the rope, you ought
to be able to spoil that little game.  I'll tell
the havildar all about it, and get him to make
quiet preparations for an attack.  Then I'll fly
back.  I'll go on down-stream and take a good
look at things.  The enemy may have sheered
off by the morning: in that case we can have
another look for Uncle, and then return to the
mine.  If they've been reinforced from the camp,
and look as if they are coming on, we can get
back all the same.  They'll have to repair the
bridge before they can bring their horses over,
and the Pathans will be miles towards home
before that can be done."

"Don't you think it would be better to bring
down some more men and prevent them from
repairing the bridge?  We could then stave off
an attack on the mine--perhaps prevent it
altogether."

"Too far from our base, my boy.  There's
that path over the hills the men know of.  We
mustn't run the risk of having our rear turned.
But I'll send down some reinforcements.  Of
course without the bridge the enemy can't possibly
cross until they reach the ford miles up-stream;
but they may be good at mountain climbing, and
judging by their pertinacity so far they won't
shirk the journey.  They've got time on their
side: there's no hurry: they know that we're
boxed at the mine, and when they get there
they've only got to sit tight and intercept our
regular convoys of provisions to starve us out
in a month or so.  Things look pretty black,
and our only chance is to strengthen our position
and give them so hot a reception that they'll get
tired of it."

"There's one thing Uncle ought to have done.
He ought to have rigged up a wireless installation,
so that we could summon help in an emergency
like this."

"My dear chap, what would be the good?
We could only get help from India, and they
wouldn't send an expedition out on behalf of an
obstinate crack-brained adventurer, as they regard
him, who's no business here at all.  Poor old
Uncle, when he settled here, knew very well that
he'd taken his life in his hands, and had only
himself to rely on.  We've got to do everything
ourselves."

"Couldn't you fly southward, and see if Major
Endicott is within reach?"

"He's back in Rawal Pindi long ago.  No,
we can't expect any help.  By George!  I thought
I'd lost all chance of seeing some fighting; but
it looks now as if I'm to get a good deal more
than I should have got if I'd come out with a
commission."

"You seem quite cheerful at the prospect.
You're a born soldier, Bob."

"And we'll make you one before we've done
with you, old man.  It's all clear, isn't it?"

"So far as I'm concerned.  But there's one
thing you don't appear to have thought of: how
are you going to alight on our ledge in the dark?"

"Is there no moon to-night?"

"Not till very late, I think; and in any case
we get more shadow than shine in the valley,
unless the moon happens to be sailing directly
above."

"You're right.  I hadn't given it a thought.
It will be a ticklish job.  Owing to that bend the
lights in the compound will be invisible from
beyond the ledge.  But it's got to be done
somehow; I'm glad you mentioned it, because
I don't think it would have occurred to me, and
now I can try to meet the difficulty."

"You won't start back till daylight, I suppose."

"No.  If I find the coast clear when I've had a
look down the river I shall come back and drop
here.  If there are only a few of them we'll wait
for our reinforcements and then see if we can't
drive them off: that will give us another chance
of searching for Uncle.  On the other hand,
supposing a lot more have come up from the
encampment--too many for us to tackle--I'll
show a red flag, and that'll be the signal for
making tracks at once.  There's one thing I'd
recommend.  Get the Pathans to take their
horses a little further up-stream out of range.
We don't want them to be hit.  It's a pity there's
no herbage for the beasts to feed on, their bags
will be empty by the morning.  Still, they'll be
back at the mine by midday to-morrow, all being well."

Dusk fell early upon the river.  It was gloomy
below even while the mountain tops were still
glistening in the glow of sunset, and the sky was
bright.  At last, when the keenest-sighted of
the little party could see scarcely two hundred
yards down the track on the opposite bank of
the stream, Bob decided that it was time to
move.  He ordered three of the Pathans to
creep cautiously out to the end of the bridge, and
lie down behind some flat rocks there, keeping a
sharp look-out for the appearance of the enemy.
They gained their post without attracting attention.

"By the way," said Bob, as he prepared to
walk with Lawrence into the open space on
which the aeroplane lay, "you'll have to set a
guard at the bridge end all night.  Let the men
take it in turns, two at a time.  They're not used
to doing sentry-go: I'm afraid you'll have to be
with them yourself.  If I'd thought of it before
you might have got some sleep this afternoon.
You mustn't let the enemy rush you."

"All right, I'll manage to keep awake.  Hadn't
we better try to clear some of these stones away?
Otherwise you won't get a very good run off."

"Yes, but we can't wait to clear the ground
properly.  Every minute increases the risk of
not getting away safely."

With the remaining two Pathans the boys
moved quickly into the open space, and carefully
lifted the larger fragments of rock from a straight
stretch of about fifty yards.  They were still
engaged in this when the Pathans at the bridge
end opened fire.  Their comrades instantly joined
them, and for some minutes the five men fired
briskly across the river.  The sentries had
discovered a number of the enemy creeping stealthily
along the track.  Their fire was immediately
answered, and bullets began to whistle around,
striking the rocks with a dull thud.  In the
gloom both sides were firing almost at random.
The Pathans, crouching behind the rocks,
escaped injury, and it was unlikely that they
themselves had done much damage among the
enemy; but their fire had checked the advance,
and by the time that the Englishmen had
sufficiently cleared the course for the aeroplane
the firing ceased.

"I hope you won't be bothered with them any
more," said Bob as he got into his seat.

He took his bearings.  The aeroplane was
facing down-stream.  He would have to rise
many hundreds of feet before it would be safe
to turn.

"They may fire at you and hit you before you're
out of range," said Lawrence.

"I must take my chance.  Of course they'll
see me against the sky if they look up; but it
will take them a few seconds at any rate to
collect themselves, and I shall be going so fast
that I fancy they won't hit me if they try.  Here:
take your rifle and cartridges.  You'll keep strict
watch?  Look for me in the morning.  So long!"

He started the engine: Lawrence stood clear,
and the aeroplane darted forward obliquely
towards the river.  In a second or two it was
completely lost to sight, so dense had the
darkness become.  But in a few seconds more it could
be seen like a shadow against the sky, a quarter
of a mile down the river and several hundred
feet above.  There were faint shouts in the
distance.  The enemy's attention must have been
attracted, first by the hum, then by the sight of
the strange machine as it soared higher and
higher.  But there was no sound of firing, and
Lawrence breathed freely when he knew that
his brother had escaped this first danger.  A few
minutes later he saw the aeroplane at a great
height, sailing rapidly towards the mine.

On running off, Bob adjusted his elevator for
the steepest possible ascent in a direct line; the
gorge was too narrow to allow of a spiral ascent.
He felt that he was starting on a race with the
darkness.  He had never attempted a flight by
night in these regions, and he hoped by rising
high to use the last radiance of sunset in
shaping his course.  Within about half an
hour he should arrive at the mine.  But he was
a good deal more concerned than he had allowed
Lawrence to see, at the problem which would face
him at the end of his flight.  The situation of the
mine would be revealed by the camp fires of the
labourers on the right bank, and the lights about
the various outhouses on the left.  But there
were no lights on the landing platform beyond,
and this, together with all the lower part of the
gorge, was already blotted out by the darkness.
It would be impossible, however gently he should
glide down, to hit the exact position of the
platform; and to attempt a landing at random
would be madness.

Bob felt much worried as he flew on in the
fading light, with an immense black abyss
beneath him.  The approach of the aeroplane
would certainly be heard at the mine, but
probably no one would be quick-witted enough to
understand his difficulty.  It might never occur
to them that the darkness would render a landing
impossible.  Bob suspected that not even Ditta
Lal, B.A. of Calcutta University though he was,
would be alive to the position.  Puzzle as he
might, he could not hit upon any solution of
the problem, and at length ceased to think about
it, hoping that chance or some lucky inspiration,
some circumstance that he had not taken into
account, would point the way in due time.

The night was calm and windless, and the
engine worked well, so that his mind was not
harassed by any anxiety about the aeroplane.
His body was less comfortable.  The air was
bitterly cold; he had put on his thick wadded
coat and gloves, but his hands were numbed,
and more than once he rubbed his nose to prevent
it from freezing.  He was glad to think that his
journey was to be a short one.  A little more
than half an hour after he started, he discerned
the lights of the settlement far away twinkling
like glowworms at the bottom of a ditch.  He
waited a few minutes to make sure of his bearings,
then began a gradual descent, looking about him
warily as he sank lower in order to avoid grazing
a jutting crag where the gorge narrowed.  The
lights became more distinct: he was able to
separate those on his left, in the miners' quarters,
from those on the right, in the dwelling houses
and the quarters of the garrison.  Presently he
could just distinguish, in the diffused glow, the
river flowing between, and he steered directly
for this, so as to pass over the drawbridge.
Having shut off the engine for the descent, his
approach had probably escaped notice hitherto;
but he started it again as soon as he came within
thirty or forty feet of the bridge; the sound
was immediately heard, and within a minute
the whole settlement was aroused.  The miners
poured from their huts; all the Sikhs of the
garrison turned out; the servants left their
outhouses, talking shrilly; and even the Babu,
who, as he often did, had retired to rest at
sundown, was wakened by the noise, and rolling out
of bed, threw on a warm dressing-gown of
European cut, and toddled out to welcome his
master and tender any advice that the occasion
seemed to call for.

Meanwhile Bob had flown past, utterly
bewildered, and not a little alarmed.  He knew
the gorge well, but never having before made a
trip through it by night, he was in a state of
nervous terror lest he should lose his bearings and
come to grief.  The darkness was intense,
redeemed from solid black only by a very faint
reflection from the water.  It was quite
impossible to see the landing platform as he sped past,
but when he arrived at the first spot at which
turning was possible, he had a dim hope that,
flying in the opposite direction, he might be able
to see the platform in the diffused light of the
camp-fires, in spite of the bend of the gorge.
But in this he was disappointed.  Not only were
most of the lights intercepted by the bulging
cliff, but all of them, being below its level, gave
no illumination at all for the surface on which
the descent must be made.

Bob flew back again, over the bridge, and into
the blackness beyond.  The men cheered
enthusiastically as he passed; even the Kalmucks,
though they supposed that Nurla Bai had been
caught, were moved to a certain admiration.
Bob got no comfort from the cheers.  His hands
were so numb that he could scarcely control his
levers, and he had the frightful feeling that he
must continue to sail up and down indefinitely,
like a swallow that has strayed into a church, and
flies swiftly back and forth until it becomes dizzy
and dashes itself against the wall.  He had to
go nearly seven miles before he durst turn again.
On coming to the bridge, he shouted at the
top of his voice, asking that some one would
take a light to the platform.  But his words
were unheard amid the din, and the crowd
on the banks, taking his cry for a greeting,
responded with even louder cheers.

Again he flew on up-stream, a second time he
came to the wheeling place, and was nerving
himself to attempt a landing without guidance
in the dark when, as the machine came round,
he saw a sudden burst of flame in the distance
at a spot where no light had been before.  It
brightened moment by moment, and he thrilled
with relief as he discerned, to the left of the blaze,
the dim outlines of the shed in which he was
accustomed to keep his tools and other accessories.
Some one, perhaps the Babu, he thought, had
had the presence of mind to guess at his dilemma.
He steered straight for the light, which he now
distinguished as a large fire kindled on the rocky
buttress projecting into the stream.  It
illuminated the whole of the landing place, and he
knew that by once more passing down and up,
and ascending to a sufficient height, he could
time his downward glide so as to come gently
to rest at the desired spot.  Twenty minutes later
he tottered from his seat on to the platform,
almost to fall into the arms of little Fazl, the
Gurkha.

"Salaam, sahib," said the man.  "I knew the
trouble.  The sahib is very tired."

"Dead beat, and half frozen," said Bob.  "You
must help me back to the compound; my legs
are stiff."

Fazl assisted him along the cantilever pathway,
midway in which they met several of the garrison
who were coming, somewhat late, to assist in the
landing.  At the end of the pathway, in the
compound, there was a group consisting of
Ditta Lal, Chunda Beg, Gur Buksh and one or
two more, who stepped forward to welcome Bob;
but when they noticed his worn features and stiff
movements, and the absence of Mr. Appleton
and Lawrence, the words of congratulation
died on their lips.

"Where is the huzur?" asked one.

"Is all well, sahib?" said Chunda Beg.

"Sir, has fortune proved unkind?" murmured
the Babu.

"Go to the house; I will tell you all there,"
said Bob.  "Havildar, silence those noisy
ruffians on the other side.  Tell them nothing.
Chunda Beg, get me some brandy: I am half
dead.  All of you, don't talk.  I want Gur Buksh,
and you, Ditta Lal, to come to the house in a
quarter of an hour.  I shall be all right then,
and I've a great deal to say to you.  You, Fazl,
go back to the aeroplane, give it a thorough
cleaning, and fill the tanks.  Thanks for your
thoughtfulness in lighting the fire."

"Ah, sir, he stole a march on me," said the
Babu.  "If I had not been lapped in slumber,
inspiration would have made me busy.  But
Fazl did very well--very well, that is, for a man
without a degree, hall-mark of acumen, sir."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A FATEFUL DISCOVERY`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TENTH


.. class:: center large

   A FATEFUL DISCOVERY

.. vspace:: 2

It was an oddly assorted conclave that met
in Mr. Appleton's dining-room a little later.  Bob
had had a hot bath and a large bowl of coffee, which,
Chunda Beg--not partial to stimulants--assured
him, would do him more good than brandy.  He
sat now muffled in his dressing-gown in an
armchair before the stove, his legs and feet swathed
in blankets.  On one side stood the tall dignified
old Sikh Gur Buksh, straight as a dart, his face
grave, his hands clasped upon the hilt of his
sword, whose point was on the floor.  Between
Bob and the havildar sat Ditta Lal, who had
requested permission to seat himself, on the
ground that he was one of those "who fardels bear."

"In other words, sir," he said, "I turn scale
at eighteen stone, and too much standing on
pins is one of many causes of varicosity according
to little homoeopathic vade-mecum."

Bob was apt to be impulsive, but he had
determined to give no information on his side
until he had learnt how things had gone at the
mine during the day.  He asked Gur Buksh to
report.

"I have done what the huzur said, sahib,"
declared the havildar in deep measured tones.
"No work has been done to-day.  We have kept
the Pathans and the Kalmucks apart.  They
have reviled each other; blood has been hot,
and I feared they would use their guns upon each
other; but some of my men have patrolled the
ground between them, and kept the peace."

"You have done well," said Bob; "though if
the men had been kept at work they could not
have got into mischief."

Gur Buksh pointed out, however, that it would
not have been safe to allow the miners to cross
the bridge.  They would certainly have come
into collision, and with guns, picks and hammers
in their possession they could have overwhelmed
the little garrison if it had come to fighting at
close quarters.

"Very well," said Bob.  "Now I have grave
news for you.  We overtook Nurla Bai and his
man nearly fifty miles down the river.  As we
flew over them one of them fired and hit the
Burra Sahib, who fell into the stream."

"Hai! hai!" ejaculated the Babu.  Gur
Buksh was mute.

"We wheeled round as soon as we could, to
look for the Burra Sahib.  We could not find
him.  Either he was mortally wounded and sank
to the bottom" (the Babu groaned), "or he was
washed down and fell into the hands of the
enemy, for the two ruffians had joined a band of
Kalmucks who had come up from an
encampment we had previously seen on the plateau some
miles farther on.  We came down and landed
the aeroplane just above the bridge, and walked
a long way down the track.  We saw no sign of
the Burra Sahib, and were chased by the
Kalmucks on horseback, and only escaped because
the Pathans had arrived in our absence, and
opened fire from an ambush behind the rocks.
They could not cross, because the bridge was
broken by Nurla Bai and Tchigin galloping across
it; my brother and I had to swing ourselves
over the river by the single rope that was left
uninjured."

"Hai!  Wonders will never cease!" murmured
the Babu.

Bob related the incidents of the afternoon, and
explained the impossibility of removing the
aeroplane until nightfall, and the arrangements
he had made with Lawrence.

"We cannot help believing that the Kalmucks
intend to attack the mine," he said in conclusion.
"To-morrow morning I shall fly back, and send
all the Pathans to join their mates.  If I should
find that the enemy have gone, we shall renew
the search for the Burra Sahib.  If they are a
band we can tackle, we shall drive them off, or
at any rate hold our ground there.  But if, as I
fear, they are but an advanced guard of the
larger force we saw at the encampment, we can
do nothing but return here and defend ourselves."

There was silence.  Ditta Lal had for some
time ceased to make any sound; if Bob had not
been so much preoccupied with his thoughts he
would have noticed that the Babu was looking
exceedingly uneasy.  Gur Buksh stood like a
statue.

"Now what are we to do, havildar?" said
Bob.  "Can we defend the mine?"

"We can but try, sahib."

"As soon as it is light I want you to do all
you can to strengthen the position.  The northern
wall must be fortified.  There are plenty of empty
provision bags in your stores, I believe, Babu?"

Ditta Lal started, and looked at his questioner
vacantly.

"Pardon, sir, my mind was busy with great
problems, and I did not catch what fell from
your lips."

"I asked if you had plenty of empty bags in
your storehouse."

"Heaps; a regular lot of them, sir."

"You must fill them with earth, havildar,
and pile them against the wall.  Make an
embrasure in the middle for the machine gun."

"What, sir?" said the Babu, surprised.

"I forgot: you did not know about it.  In
the little chamber behind the house there is a
machine gun, with plenty of ammunition.  We
will get it out in the morning."

"It is good, sahib," said the havildar.

"You knew about it?" said Bob, catching a
curious expression on the Sikh's countenance.

"I knew about it, sahib.  I saw the parts unpacked."

"And locked your knowledge in your silent
bosom," said the Babu, with an aggrieved look.
"That was cruelty to animals, sir.  With
knowledge of so ingenious a weapon of defence we
should all have slept more securely in our beds."

"All this must be done as quietly as possible,"
continued Bob, ignoring the Babu's indignant
protest.  "We must try not to let the Kalmucks
on the other side know that anything out of the
ordinary is going on."

"That will not be easy, sahib," said the
havildar.

"Perhaps not, but you must do the best you
can.  I said just now that I would send all the
Pathans down the river, but you will want some
of them to work.  Will they be loyal?"

"The huzur is their father, sahib.  They will
fight for him and for you.  To them the Kalmucks
are sons of pigs."

"How is Muhammad, by the way?"

"His wound is healing; he will be well
to-morrow--well enough to fight the Kalmucks."

"I will see him in the morning.  I am rather
troubled as to what to do with the Kalmuck
miners.  They will side with their countrymen
if they come up in force, and every man extra
will add to our difficulties."

"The sahib should send them away," said
Gur Buksh.

"But we can't send them down-stream until
my brother comes back, and that's their natural
way.  They won't go without their arms, and
Lawrence Sahib and the Pathans might be
attacked then on both sides; and they would
certainly refuse to go in the opposite direction,
away from their homes."

"Permit me to interpose, sir," said Ditta Lal,
who had for some time taken no part in the
discussion.  "I have suggestion for cutting
Gordian knot.  Many years ago, sir, my uncle,
member of celebrated Hunza Nagar expeditionary
force, made proposal which, if taken at the flood,
would have led to fortune.  British force
would have triumphed over dastardly foes, and
many valuable lives would have been saved to
honour and glory of king and country."

"Cut it short, Babu," said Bob.  "What is
your proposal?"

"Perpend, sir.  Our friend and comrade Gur
Buksh will cross bridge--or better Shan
Tai--gather Kalmucks about him, and offer to beguile
tedium of inaction by great feast, Chinese
delicacies, stews and all that, regular blow out.
While he engages Kalmucks in this artless
conversation, make mouths water galore, one of
noble garrison steals behind their backs into
huts, inserts dynamite and fuse into walls, and
retires with careful slowness, as if nothing was
up, and he were merely strolling for constitutional.
Then in midst of jollification huts all
blow up like one o'clock, and scoundrels wallow
in their gore."

"That was your uncle's suggestion, was it?"
said Bob.

"That was it, sir, and my respected uncle was
hurt in inmost soul when advice was contumeliously
rejected.  Such was his military ardour
that he had made profound study of all books
extant on art of war and duty of soldiers, and he
assured me with tears welling out of dove-like eyes
that nowhere did he find regulation forbidding
adoption of artful dodge."

"Well, you'd better follow his example--only
weep quietly."

"My word is this, sahib," said Gur Buksh.
"Wait until Lawrence Sahib is back; then send
the Kalmucks away.  They will join their friends;
who can resist Fate? we must fight them all.  And
I say too, sahib, send some of the Pathans this
night to join Lawrence Sahib.  They will go with
great gladness of heart."

"That's a good idea.  They will get to him
before I start in the morning.  But how can we
get them off without making the Kalmucks
suspicious?  Some one would have to cross the
bridge to give them orders.  The bridge can't
be let down without a good deal of noise, and
that would certainly bring them out to see what
was going on."

The havildar thought for a minute, then
suggested that Bob in his company should pay
a visit of inspection to each of the camps.
Mr. Appleton had several times done this at night,
and if Bob were to make his inspection as formal
in appearance as possible, nothing would be so
likely to lull their suspicions.  To this proposal
Bob agreed.  He dressed quickly, and in a few
minutes left the house, with the havildar marching
behind.

They visited the Kalmuck camp first, going
from hut to hut, in which the men were engaged
in various games.  Some of them looked up in
stolid silence as the sahib glanced round, uttered
a word or two, and passed on.  Others were
sufficiently curious to ask what was happening
down the river, and why the huzur had not
returned.  Bob fenced with their questions, and
when he left them felt that he had only heightened
their curiosity, even though he had given no sign
that anything was amiss.  Then, to keep up the
pretence, he went to the stables, finally crossing
to the Pathan camp, where he found a still more
eager curiosity.  Calling out the man who was
next in authority to the wounded Muhammad,
he told him quietly what he wished him to do,
without informing him of the disappearance of
Mr. Appleton.  The man was delighted with the
opportunity of leading a night march against
the hated Kalmucks.  A sudden and secret raid
is the breath of life to a Pathan.  He selected
a dozen men to accompany him.  Gur Buksh,
without attracting attention, supplied them with
arms, better than their own, from the mine
armoury; and before nine o'clock they left their
camp stealthily, making their way in single file
up the hill path that skirted the Kalmuck quarters.

Bob and the havildar returned to their own
side of the gorge and waited anxiously to assure
themselves that the movement was not detected
by the Kalmucks.  The place at which the
Pathans must descend to join the track was
something less than two hundred yards north
of the Kalmuck camp, and if one of them chanced
to set a stone rolling, or struck his rifle against
the rock, the sound would almost certainly be
heard below.  But not a click disturbed the
stillness; no sound was added to the rustle of
the river; and after waiting at the end of the
drawbridge for about half an hour, Bob
concluded that the men had reached the track
safely, and returned with the havildar to the house.

There they remained for an hour discussing
the measures which the havildar was to take
next day.  Ditta Lal had retired to his own
quarters, to pass, it is to be feared, a very uneasy
night: he was bold only when the odds were
heavily on his side.  Presently Fazl came to the
house to report that he had cleaned the engine,
replenished the tanks with petrol and lubricating
oil, and examined all the gear.  A thought struck Bob.

"I shall fly down-stream again as soon as it
is light," he said.  "Are you willing to come with me?"

"The sahib orders," said the man, smiling
with pleasure.

"Then get Shan Tai to give you two or three
baskets of food and take them to the ledge.
Meet me there as soon as there's any light in the
sky.  Bring your kukuri."

Fazl smiled again.  No Gurkha goes abroad
without his national weapon, half bill-hook, and
half falchion.  He departed, salaaming cheerfully.

"He'll be useful in looking after the machine
if I'm otherwise engaged," thought Bob, as he
went wearily to his room, to snatch a few hours'
rest before he set off again.  "Poor old Lawrie!"
he said to himself.  "I'm afraid he's desperately cold."

In the hurry of departure he had forgotten to
hand out the wadded coat which Lawrence, like
himself, wore when flying.  Whether the little
party at the bridge were disturbed by the enemy
or not, he feared that his brother must pass a
very uncomfortable night.

Up before daybreak, Bob, after a hurried
breakfast, paid the promised visit to Muhammad,
to whom, however, he told nothing.  If the man
was to be of any use in the fighting that might
be in store, it was necessary that he should recover
his strength, and such recovery would only be
retarded by excitement.  Then Bob supplied
himself with plenty of cartridges, borrowed a
red handkerchief from Chunda Beg, and made
his way along the path to the aeroplane platform.
Fazl was already there: everything was in order:
and as soon as the grey light of dawn began to
creep over the hill-tops, the two men got into
their places, and with a hum and swish the
aeroplane set forth on its flight down-stream.

Bob's experience of the previous night was
reversed.  Then, the curtain of shade had rolled
up from the valley, ever higher, until sky and
earth were mingled in one blackness.  Now,
the dark crept gradually downward, every
minute uncovering a few more feet of the barren
hill-sides.  But during the brief flight from the
mine the depths of the valley were scarcely
penetrated by the feeble rays of morning, and it
was not until the aeroplane came to the
neighbourhood of the bridge that the river and the
track upon its bank were distinguishable.  Bob
knew not what he might have passed during that
forty minutes.  Once, when he judged that
about two-thirds of the flight was completed,
he thought he heard a shout from below, and
guessed that the Pathans, marching down the
track, had caught the sound of his propeller,
and had called to let him know that all was well.

The twilight had banished darkness from the
bottom of the valley by the time he came in sight
of the bridge.  He looked anxiously down for
his brother's party, and was on the point of
shifting the elevator so as to drop a little nearer
earth when he saw puffs of smoke just beyond
the bend in the left bank, and immediately
afterwards heard the crack of rifles.  Evidently the
enemy were still in position.  Reversing his
movement, so as to rise instead of falling, and
avoid the fate that had overtaken his uncle, he
glanced down at the rocks near the bridge head,
and saw grouped there a number of figures among
whom he thought he recognized Lawrence.  At
the same moment a vociferous cheer reached him
through the throbbing hum of the engine, and
the greeting relieved him of anxiety about his
brother.

Rising as quickly as possible, he held on his
course, and in half a minute flew directly over
the Kalmucks, and came in sight of the reach
of the river beyond the bend.  As he searched
the banks, running the gauntlet of a fusillade, he
was conscious of a feeling of dismay.  For a
full mile the river bank appeared to have been
turned into a Kalmuck encampment.  At
irregular intervals above and below the winding
track, the hill-side was dotted with tents and
akois.  Advantage seemed to have been taken
of every square yard of level space to erect these
portable shelters, which could be put up and
taken down within a few minutes.  It was clear
that he had to reckon, not merely with the small
party who had pursued him up-stream, but with
a much larger number who had come up from the
distant encampment during the previous
afternoon and night.  Horses were grouped wherever
there was standing room for them.  On the track
and about the tents men were gathered, all
gazing up into the sky, some taking shots at the
aeroplane as it flew over them.  It was flying
swiftly, however, and with a vertical as well as
a horizontal movement, so that even a practised
sportsman, accustomed to shoot birds on the
wing, could scarcely have hit his mark.  Bob
heard two or three bullets whistle past, but none
struck the aeroplane or either of its occupants.
Having seen so much, he determined to pursue
his reconnaissance down the valley; it would be
worth while to see if the camp on the plateau
had been struck, for he would then be sure that
the mine was indeed the objective of this force,
and as he flew back be able, perhaps, to estimate
its size.  For the next few miles only a few
straggling horsemen were visible, riding slowly
up-stream.  Then for a mile or two the track
was bare, and he suspected that the men he had
last seen were the rear of the enemy's force.  Still
flying on, he came at length to the place where
the valley broadened, and finally to the plateau
which had been the limit of his flight on the day
before.  Here he swept round several times in
ever widening circles, carefully scanning the
ground.  The camp had completely disappeared.
Thinking that in so wide an area the small object
which the encampment would present at so great
a depth might escape his notice, he wheeled again
and again, until he assured himself that no trace
of it was discoverable.  Then he was setting his
course to return to the valley, looking southward
to pick up his bearings, when there was a sudden
shout from the Gurkha.  He glanced round: the
man was pointing excitedly to the north-west.

Slowing down a little, but without altering his
course, Bob looked in the same direction.  The
country was now bathed in sunlight; the air was
clear; but he could perceive nothing to account
for his companion's excitement.  He had faith
enough in the man's intelligence, however, to
wheel round once more, and steer away from the valley.

"What is it, Fazl?" he asked.

"Tents, sahib; many tents, like flowers in a field."

It was at least a minute before Bob's less keen
eyes were able to confirm the man's strange
announcement.  Then he recognized that a huge
brown patch, which he might well have mistaken
for an outcrop of rock, or some other natural
feature of the landscape, was in reality an
aggregation of nomad tents, similar to those which
he had passed on the hill-side behind.

If he had felt dismay at the sight of the force
assembled in the valley, his feeling now bordered
on stupefaction.  His brain was in a whirl.  The
misdeeds of Nurla Bai were as a pebble cast into
a pond.  The spreading circles had embraced a
troop of Kalmuck horsemen, then a regiment,
finally what appeared to be an army.  The
motive had developed from the spite and revenge
of a single man to the greed of a company, and
now--to what?  Surely the inhabitants of this vast
array of tents were not assembled for the puny
purpose of snapping up a solitary silver mine.
What design had brought them to this remote
and barren tract in a desolate land?

.. _`RECONNOITRING IN THE AEROPLANE`:

.. figure:: images/img-164.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: RECONNOITRING IN THE AEROPLANE

   RECONNOITRING IN THE AEROPLANE

These were questions to which Bob was utterly
unable to guess at the answers.  His surprise
and alarm did but increase as he approached the
scene.  Around a point where a small tributary
joined the river from the south-east, extended a
large bare space several miles in area.  Of this
open tract a portion that must have been at least
a square mile in area, bounded on one side by the
left bank of the tributary and on the other by the
right bank of the river, was dotted with a series
of encampments, arranged in regular order, and
looking in the distance not unlike a kind of
chess-board.  Counting them as he drew nearer, Bob
found that there were twenty of these separate
camps.  As he approached the nearest, he tried
to number the rows of tents, and the individual
tents in each row.  But his pace was too swift
and his mind too bewildered to allow of an exact
reckoning.  His impression was that there were
twenty rows of tents about ten deep.  The tents
were apparently small; if he were not deceived
by the distance, none of them could harbour
more than five or six men.  But as his eye
ranged over the whole encampment, and he made
a rapid calculation, he came to the staggering
conclusion that the total force there on the
ground beneath him could not be far short of
twenty thousand men.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE FIGHT AT THE BRIDGE`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH


.. class:: center large

   THE FIGHT AT THE BRIDGE

.. vspace:: 2

In the first moments of this amazing discovery,
Bob's mind was confused by the multiplicity
of his sensations and imaginings.  There were
several problems all clamouring at once for
solution: his uncle's fate, the plight of Lawrence,
the future of the mine.  But he soon realized
that no good result would come of aimless
conjectures; "One thing at a time, and concentrate
your attention" had been the motto dinned into
him by one of his schoolmasters.  The one
insistent thing now was to learn all that he could
about this encampment--too large to be a
fortuitous gathering of nomads, too regular to
be other than military in its organization.

Bob flew straight for the camp, and when he
came above its centre he began to circle round
and round with the object of getting a clear
and orderly idea of its nature.  Observation
from the great height to which he had risen was
not easy, and the necessity of keeping part of his
attention upon the aeroplane was a drawback.
Naturally he could not entrust the machine to
Fazl, who was making his first flight.  On the
other hand the Gurkha, who was wholly without
nervousness, could devote himself entirely to
the task of observing.  Thus, combining what
Fazl reported with what he was himself able to
see, Bob obtained in the course of twenty
minutes a pretty good notion of the disposition
of the camp and the various movements that
were going on.

To the north, a large body of horsemen, who
were exercising when he first caught sight of
them, came to a halt, and were evidently intent
on watching the flying machine.  Still farther
northward, long trains of primitive ox wagons
were lumbering towards the camp, with a
caravan of camels here and there.  Attached to
the body of cavalry on the plain there were no
fewer than six batteries of field artillery.  There
was no regular road into or out of this solitary
region, but from the appearance of the ground it
was clear that the army had reached its present
position from the north-west.  There was a
narrower and fainter track leading from the camp
in the direction of the valley--no doubt the route
followed by the men now posted on the river bank.

It was inevitable that the sight of the
aeroplane, wheeling over the encampment in regular
circles, should arouse lively curiosity and
excitement among the throngs of men below.  Its
appearance was greeted at first with shouts
either of surprise or alarm.  Bob had twice
made the circuit before any action was taken:
apparently the spectators had not made up
their minds as to the nature of this strange
visitor, or were waiting for orders.  But as
he began to circle for the third time a change
came over the scene.  His systematic movements
forced upon the men the notion that he was
scouting, spying upon them; and as soon as
this was realized they came to the conclusion
that he was an enemy who must be dealt with.
At first there were a few scattered shots; then
regular volleys; at last an almost continuous
crackle of musketry.  By this time Bob had
discovered all that was possible from his altitude,
and feeling that nothing was to be gained by
running risks, he decided to swing round and
head for the valley.

The marksmanship of the enemy's riflemen
had not been such as to alarm him hitherto;
but it was a different matter when, soon after
he turned, the aeroplane became the target of
one of the field batteries.  Hearing the deeper
crack of two of the guns, he instantly steered to
the left, to gain a minute's grace while the guns
were being trained in the new direction.  No
third shot was fired; the gunners evidently
recognized that the odds were all against their hitting
him.  At the same time a troop of horse who
had started at a gallop in pursuit reined up;
since the guns were ineffectual it was not worth
while chasing him on the chance of a sudden
mishap bringing him to the ground.

Another five minutes brought him to the
entrance of the valley.  He still maintained a
great height until he had passed over the
encampment on the lull-side; then, instructing
Fazl to wave the red handkerchief as they flew
over the bridge, he executed a steep vol plané
down to the neighbourhood of the rocks held
by Lawrence and the Pathans.  It went
altogether against the grain to skim over the open
space without landing; but he knew that he
could not have done so without becoming the
mark for hundreds of bullets.  No other course
was open to him than to adhere to the plan
already arranged with Lawrence, and sweep on
up the gorge towards the mine.

Another cheer greeted him from the little
party below.  All, then, was still well with them.
Accepting the signal of the red flag, Lawrence
would now withdraw his men, and hasten up the
track as swiftly as possible.  No doubt he would
get a mount behind one of the Pathans.  That
pursuit by the enemy would be doubly difficult
Bob recognized when he noticed--what had
escaped his observation as he flew down-stream--that
the handrail of the bridge had now
disappeared.  There was no means of crossing the
river at this point.  He supposed that Lawrence,
during the night, had taken the precaution to
cut the rope.  This was reassuring; it seemed to
show that Lawrence, though without military
training and, as he himself had said, without
military instincts, yet was possessed of readiness
and common sense, qualities of much value both
to soldiers and civilians.

At the same time Bob was rather loth to leave
his brother to deal with the enemy alone, in
case they managed in some unimaginable way
to cross the river.  He felt tempted to land
somewhere within a few miles of the bridge,
and return on foot to take command of the
party.  But on second thoughts this seemed to
him a short-sighted policy.  Though he could
not conceive that this army corps was directed
against the Appleton mine, the situation clearly
demanded that he should return and assist in
completing the havildar's arrangements for the
defence.  The capture of the mine might be
regarded by the enemy as a trifling exploit by
the way.  It was particularly important that
the large force of Kalmuck miners should be
disposed of.  They, if they realized the position,
held the key of the situation.  There was little
doubt that with a sudden rush they could scatter
the few Pathans now left at the mine, in the
teeth of the Sikh garrison.  They would then be
able to cut off the retreat of Lawrence and his
party, trapped between the Kalmuck miners
and their countrymen advancing up the valley.
It was imperative, then, that he should get back
to the mine as quickly as possible, and his
uneasiness at leaving Lawrence was partially
removed when, a dozen miles from the bridge,
he met the party of Pathans whom he had
dispatched overnight.  Yet, if he could have
foreseen the events of the next few hours, he
would have cast to the winds all questions of
policy, and risked a descent.

As he flew over the bridge, there had been
nothing, except the broken rope, to indicate that
any change had taken place in the situation
since he left the spot on the previous evening.
But Lawrence, during the hours of darkness, had
in fact passed through the most exciting
experience of his life.

When Bob sailed away up the gorge, and as
soon as the humming of his propeller could no
longer be heard, Lawrence began to carry out
his instructions for the night.  He felt no little
anxiety; indeed, it was a trying position for a
lad who found himself, for the first time in his
life, faced with difficulties and dangers for which
he had had no preparation.  But after all, it is
character that tells.  Lawrence was naturally
cool and level-headed; he had been known at
school as a "sticker" at cricket; he could wear
out half-a-dozen bowlers.  His school had taught
him lessons of self-reliance, and though he had
never been very enthusiastic in the cadet corps,
he had won the mark of efficiency, could shoot
straight, and had learnt to think quickly and act
with promptitude.  So, in spite of a natural
nervousness, he saw quite clearly what he had
to do, and had grit enough to make up his mind
to do it.

He stationed two men behind the rocks near
the bridge head, ordering them to fire if they saw
the least sign of an attempt to cross.  They were
to be relieved every two hours.  Mindful of
Bob's advice, he determined to keep watch all
night himself: there was no one to relieve him.
Very soon, as night settled deep upon the valley,
he began to feel the cold, and thought regretfully
of the thick coat lying on his seat in the aeroplane.
After the fatigues and wearing anxieties of the
day he was not in a condition to face the added
strain of a long vigil in the freezing air.  He had
great difficulty in keeping awake, and when one
of the Pathans lent him a saddle cloth in which
to wrap himself, he soon discarded it, lest the
deceitful warmth should overcome his watchfulness.

He dared not move about, but sat crouched
on the ground beside the Pathans with his
rifle across his knees, listening for any sign of
the approach of the enemy.  More than once
he had to stir up his companions when they
dozed, until he grew tired of it; he would rely
on himself, and wake them at the first threatening
of danger.  But he found it increasingly
difficult to resist the soporific influence of the
cold, and of the monotonous lullaby sung by
the river as it flowed past at the foot of the
shelving bank beneath him.  Every now and
then he got up, stretched himself, and sat down
again, not venturing even to slap himself with
his arms for fear of putting the enemy on the
alert.  He gazed up into the sky, and tried to
count and to identify the stars, which, in this
deep valley, appeared to him, he thought, as
they would appear to an observer at the bottom
of a well.  From time to time he exchanged
a few whispered words with his companions,
until this resource failed him through their
slumberousness.  When, at the end of the first
two hours, the men were relieved, the circumstances
of the change had the effect of rousing
him a little; but the second pair were even more
sleepy than the first, and he lacked the energy
to be continually prodding them.

At length, when, in spite of his utmost efforts,
he was nodding with drowsiness, his ear was
suddenly caught by a slight sound beneath
him.  He pulled himself together, and listened
intently.  There was no repetition of the sound.
He began to think that he had been mistaken,
or that the sound had been made by some
small animal scurrying along the bank.  But
a few seconds later he heard it again; it was like
that of a small stone rolling down the rocky
shelf.  Now fully awake, he nudged his
companions and in a whisper bade them keep quiet
and listen.  The Pathan passes from profound
sleep to complete wakefulness in an instant.
They sat erect, all their senses on the alert.
For a few moments nothing was heard but the
gurgling rush of the river; then with startling
suddenness the three watchers were aware that
men were scrambling up the slope.  They sprang
up.  Dark shapes were dimly outlined beyond
the rocks.  The Pathans fired, aiming as it were
at shadows.  Their shots did not check the rush.
In another moment, clubbing their rifles,
Lawrence and they were raining blows upon a
swarm of figures that seemed to spring out of
the black depths beneath them.

Neither Lawrence nor either of the men
could afterwards give a lucid account of the
confused scramble that ensued.  All that they
were sure about was that, if they saw a form
between them and the river, they hit out at it.
It soon became impossible to distinguish friend
from foe.  In spite of their swift and weighty
strokes the enemy, whose number seemed only
to increase, pressed ever more closely upon them.

Lawrence had just brought the butt of his
rifle down with a rattling thud upon what he
hoped was a Mongol skull, when the weapon was
seized, and he felt himself jerked forward.  He
clung to the barrel tenaciously, but in trying
to hold his own in this tug-of-war he lost his
footing, let go the rifle perforce, and found
himself rolling, or rather jolting, down the bank.
Grasping at the sharp knobs of rock, he checked
his fall before he came to the water's edge,
and lay for an instant to collect himself.  It
was perhaps a minute since the tussle had begun.

Hitherto the enemy had preserved a remarkable
silence.  The two Pathans, on the other
hand, had raised lusty shouts, calling to their
companions by name.  Roused by the shots,
and urged on by their comrades' cries, the
Pathans behind the rocks some little distance
up-stream came bounding to the rescue.
Lawrence heard scrambling footsteps above him;
he was kicked in the side by a man coming
hastily down the bank, and the sound of splashes
near at hand seemed to show that the enemy,
in full retreat, were plunging into the river.
Their surprise having failed, they had lost heart.
Climbing the bank on all fours, Lawrence found
his whole party assembled above.  Just as he
reached them, the newcomers opened fire upon
several figures which they saw swinging themselves
over by the rope.  At the first shot these
men halted, turned, and began frantically to
work themselves back towards the farther side.
Then Fyz Ali sprang forward on to the tangled
debris of the bridge, and with two sweeping
strokes of his knife cut the rope in twain.  There
was a mighty splash, a howl of rage, and then
silence.

"What orders, sahib?" said the Pathan.  In
the short, sharp, confused struggle, the men
were unaware of Lawrence's narrow escape, and
were no more concerned about him than about
themselves.  Every one of them bore some mark
of the conflict--bruise, abrasion, or knife-cut.
Lawrence felt bruised from top to toe.  But in
the dark no man could see his fellow's wounds,
and it would have been thought childish to talk
of them.

"We had better stay here for the rest of the
night," said Lawrence, in reply to Fyz Ali's
question.  "You have quite done for the bridge,
and it's no use to anybody.  But those
badmashes got over some other way, and they
would do it again if we weren't here to stop
them."

"That is true, sahib--if they like to put their
fingers into the fire."

"How did they get across?  They could
hardly swim up against the current."

"Mashallah!  Who can say?  But we shall
know in the morning, sahib."

There was no more dozing that night.  The
whole party sat nursing their rifles and chatting
quietly.  Lawrence got the men to relate some
of the experiences of their life, and though he
could not understand very much of what they
said, he recognized that there was a rich mine
of anecdote to be drawn upon as soon as he had
sufficient command of their language.

The remaining hours of darkness were
undisturbed, and at dawn there was no renewal
of hostilities.  The daylight gave a clue to the
means by which the enemy had crossed the river.
At the foot of the rocks south of the bridge, near
Lawrence's rifle, lay several inflated water-skins.
Fyz Ali guessed that the men had crept along the
opposite bank to some distance above the bridge,
then taken the water, and supporting themselves
on the skins, had steered themselves over.

Lawrence wondered whether the enemy had
evacuated their position beyond the bend in
the track.  Attempts to draw their fire were
unsuccessful, and he remained in doubt until
the passing of the aeroplane overhead was
saluted with a volley.  His doubts being now
removed, he waited anxiously for Bob's return.
His uncle's fate, never for long absent from his
mind, made him uneasy as to his brother's
chances of escaping scot-free.  As time passed,
and there was no sign of the aeroplane, he grew
more and more restless, imagining all sorts of
mishaps that might have occurred.  He
expected Bob to return within half an hour; it
would not take longer to fly to the plateau and
back; and his watch having stopped through
his immersion on the previous day, he could
only guess at the flight of time, with the result
that he supposed Bob's absence to have been
longer than it really was.

His intense relief when at last he saw the
aeroplane in the distant sky, gave way to
disquietude again when Bob swooped down towards
the bridge within range of the enemy's fire.
The fluttering of the red flag was welcome to
him, even though he understood it as a sign
that the enemy were in considerable force.  It
was also a signal to retreat to the mine, and he
was glad of the chance of stretching his limbs
and of soon rejoining his brother.  He at once
gave orders to the men to return to their horses.
They crossed the open space at the double until
they gained the shelter of the screen of rocks.
No shots followed them.  There was no horse
for Lawrence, but Fyz Ali assured him that his
own mount was capable of bearing a double
burden, and he decided to ride behind him until
they had got some distance up the track, and
then to walk.

He felt that there was no serious risk of
pursuit at present.  Although the enemy had
shown that they could cross the river with the
aid of water-skins, they would have great difficulty
in bringing their horses over.  So he reckoned
on getting a long enough start to meet the
reinforcements that Bob had promised to send
down.  Then the combined party, taking
advantage of the many defensive positions which
the broken ground afforded, could make good
their retreat to the mine even against a more
numerous enemy in pursuit.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A SKIRMISH ON THE BANK`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TWELFTH


.. class:: center large

   A SKIRMISH ON THE BANK

.. vspace:: 2

Lawrence, riding behind Fyz Ali, reflected
with rueful amusement on the fate which had
made him a sort of soldier in his own despite.
"I'm not cut out for this kind of job," he thought.
"Bob would be elated at having shivered through
a night watch, and beaten off an attack.  I don't
feel particularly jolly; in fact, I feel thoroughly
rotten; and there's more to come, worse luck."

It is said that the greatest commanders have
felt depressed rather than exalted after a victory;
so that, remembering the hardships and anxieties
of the past twenty-four hours, one can
sympathize with Lawrence Appleton.  It did not occur
to him that he had come through his recent
ordeal with much credit, and he was quite
unaware that the Pathans ahead were discussing
him as they rode, summing him up, and deciding
that the chota sahib was a first-rate fighting man.

After riding at a trot for about half a mile,
Lawrence said:

"Now I'll get off and walk, Fyz Ali.  The
pony's lagging."

"Not so, sahib," replied the man.  "I will
walk; the sahib is used to a softer life."

"The more reason why I should harden myself."

"That is true, sahib; but it is foolishness to
yoke a calf to an ox-wagon."

By which Lawrence understood that this
stalwart man regarded him as still an ungrown
boy.  He made no more objection; Fyz Ali
dismounted, and kept pace with him over the rugged
ground to which they had now come.

Thus the little party marched for another mile.
They went for the most part in single file, the
track only rarely widening so much as to give
them room to ride abreast.  It was at one of such
broader stretches that a sudden demand was
made upon Lawrence's quickness and resource.
He was riding in front with two of the Pathans;
the other two mounted men were a few yards
behind, with Fyz Ali on foot between them.
Quite suddenly, about two hundred yards ahead,
there came into view from round a high rock a
band of at least a score of men, marching towards
them.  Lawrence had been expecting to meet
the Pathan reinforcements from the mine, and
he might at the first moment have mistaken the
strangers but for a savage yell from the men at
his side.  Then he recognized in a flash that they
were Kalmucks.

Both parties had momentarily halted; each was
as much surprised as the other.  Then, as
Lawrence saw some of the Kalmucks lifting rifles
to their shoulders, he became instantly alive to
the situation.  Without a moment's hesitation
he dug his heels into the flanks of his pony, and,
shouting to his men to come on, he rode straight
at the enemy.  It was the psychological moment.
The Kalmucks were apparently without a leader;
or their leader, if they had one, was a shade
less quick-witted than the Englishman.  With a
spirited captain the warlike Pathans will go
anywhere and do anything.  Responding to his call
with a true mountaineer's yell the men urged
their steeds to a gallop, and swooped down upon
the still hesitating enemy.

Lawrence could not have decided better if
all the circumstances had been known to him.
Some of the Kalmucks, after the failure of their
night attack, had crossed the river some distance
below the bridge, and marching on foot for long
hours in the darkness over the difficult and
tortuous path through the hills, had turned
back along the track to take the defenders in
the rear.  They were weary: they had no regular
leader; and being accustomed to fight on
horseback they were demoralized at the sight of
mounted Pathans, few as they were, galloping
straight at them.  With a well-directed volley
they might have annihilated the little band; but
they let the opportunity slip.  A few stood their
ground and fired; the rest took flight, and while
some scurried up the hill-side, seeking cover in
the broken ground, where horses could not well
follow them, others turned tail and bolted straight
back along the track.

The few shots thus wildly fired missed all the
Pathans save one, and he was only scratched.
Lawrence and his men pressed their advantage.
Two of the Pathans wheeled to the right, and in
spite of the steepness of the hill-side and the many
natural obstacles, they dashed up in pursuit of
the fleeing Kalmucks, cutting down several with
their terrible tulwars before they could reach
safety.  Lawrence rode straight at the men who
had fired.  He overturned one by the impact of
his horse, struck another down with his clubbed
rifle, and then led his men after the others, who
were running, some up, some down the bank.
Two or three Kalmucks sprang into the river;
within ten minutes the whole body was
completely scattered.  Only at the last did one who
had climbed to an inaccessible crag on the hill-side
and recovered from his panic, take good aim and
roll a Pathan from his horse with a mortal wound.

The charge was over; the victory was
complete; and Lawrence reined up his panting pony.
Not till then did he remember that Fyz Ali
was not mounted, and must have been left far
behind.  What had become of him?  Lawrence
turned and looked back along the track.  He was
not in sight.

"Stay here," he said to the Pathans; "I'll
go back and look for Fyz Ali."

"Hai, sahib!" said one of the men, "it is
foolishness.  See, Ayoub is dead.  Some of the dogs
of Kalmucks are hiding behind the rocks above;
they will shoot you even as they shot Ayoub."

"Nonsense: I'm riding Fyz Ali's horse: I
can't leave him in the lurch."

He rode back along the track, and after a
moment's hesitation one of the Pathans followed
him.  Warned by the fate of Ayoub they
proceeded with caution, scanning the hill-side for
signs of the enemy.  For half a mile or more they
saw neither foe nor friend, except the bodies of
those who had fallen in the fray.  Then they
came in view of a strange procession.  At this
point the hill-side to the left of the track rose so
steeply as to be unscalable.  It was here that
the Kalmucks, hard pressed, had flung
themselves into the river.  A few hundred yards
ahead they saw two men approaching them,
walking slowly backward.  One of them was
Fyz Ali, the other a Kalmuck.  Fyz Ali had the
man by the middle, holding him so that he
formed a screen against a dozen Kalmucks who
were slipping from rock to rock on the hill-side
some distance beyond.  Evidently they were
watching for a chance to take a shot at the
Pathan, but were baffled by his ingenious device.
By keeping the prisoner constantly between him
and them, he rendered it impossible for them to
fire without the risk of hitting their own man.

Smiling with appreciation of Fyz Ali's
manoeuvre, Lawrence dismounted, and ordered his
man to dismount also.  Then leading the ponies
behind a rock, they knelt down, took aim at the
distant Kalmucks, and fired.  It was doubtful
whether their shots took effect, but they checked
the pursuit, and Fyz Ali seized the opportunity
to hasten his retreat.  Hugging the perpendicular
wall, he came nearer and nearer, never loosing
his hold of the Kalmuck, nor allowing his own
person to be exposed.

The Kalmucks beyond returned Lawrence's
fire, but they made no attempt to advance.
They were not equal to the desperate venture of
leaving their cover among the rocks and running
the gauntlet along the open space which Fyz Ali
and his prisoner were now traversing.  In another
two minutes the Pathan had joined his master.

"That was well done," said Lawrence, welcoming him.

Fyz Ali, breathing hard, set his prisoner against
the rock, and holding him there with his left
hand, drew his tulwar.

"No, no," said Lawrence hastily.

"Why, sahib?  He is a Kalmuck," said Fyz
Ali, and his eyes glared as he looked round.

"It is not our way," said Lawrence, "to kill
prisoners.  And he is unarmed."

"But I am not!" growled the Pathan.
"Would he not kill me?  Did not Nurla Bai try
to kill Muhammad, unarmed and sleeping?  It
will be short, sahib."

"No, I can't allow it.  Tie his hands together
so that he can do no mischief; then we'll leave
him to his friends."

Fyz Ali muttered between his teeth, but
obeyed.  He tore off the man's coat; it was
dripping wet; the Kalmuck was one of those who
had sprung into the river, and he had clambered
up the bank in the nick of time to serve the
quick-witted Pathan as a screen.  With a few strokes
of his tulwar Fyz Ali slit the coat into shreds,
with which he bound the trembling man's hands
together.  Then, striking him heavily on the
face--the Pathan is not chivalrous towards his
enemies--he hauled him to the top of a rock, and
left him there.

Lawrence and the two Pathans then hastened
back to the place where they had left the others.
These had given their dead comrade burial in
the river.  Then all resumed their march.  They
looked back whenever they reached a spot where
they could get a view of the track behind them,
but there was no sign of pursuit.

"They must have come over the hills in the
night," said Lawrence, walking beside Fyz Ali,
whom he had insisted on remounting.  "Where
does the hill-path join the track?"

"I know not, sahib," replied the man.  "The
Kalmucks know the path: it is their country."

"Well, keep your eyes open as we go, and see
if you can find it.  We may as well know."

They scanned the hill-side narrowly, and about
twenty minutes later Lawrence noticed a narrow
cleft in the precipice above the track which might
possibly be the lower end of the hill-path.  He
stopped and examined the ground at the entrance,
but it was so hard that the skin boots of the
Kalmucks could have left no trace on it.  Had
they been mounted, the hoof marks would have
been easily discoverable.  Lawrence glanced up
the winding cleft.  It seemed an unlikely enough
passage-way; indeed, at a height of several
hundred feet above the track it appeared to come
abruptly to an end.  Lawrence deliberated for
a few moments whether to climb and satisfy
himself one way or the other; but decided that he
had better not delay.

Ten minutes later they met the reinforcements
from the mine.  The men had heard firing in the
distance and hurried on at full speed.  On
learning from their comrades of what had happened,
they were eager to push on and annihilate the
surviving Kalmucks, and one of them, when
Lawrence refused to go back, muttered under his
breath that the Englishman was afraid.  Fyz Ali
caught the words, and turned fiercely on the man.

"I'll slit your throat if you talk foolishness,
Hosein," he said.  "The chota sahib is a man;
get that into your silly head.  Did he not fight
at the bridge?  And when we met those
Kalmuck pigs, did he not in a twinkling see what was
to be done, and ride straight at them, cheering
as the sahibs always do?  And when I was left
behind, he came back for me, though the dogs
were hidden among the rocks and had just killed
Ayoub.  He is a man, I tell you; mashallah! what
he says is good, and what he does is better,
and I will cut your hand off if you do not swear
to follow wherever he leads."

"Peace, brother," said the man.  "How was I
to know?  His beard is not yet grown.  Allah is
great!  All the sahibs are men, even in the cradle."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE REVOLT OF THE KALMUCK MINERS`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH


.. class:: center large

   THE REVOLT OF THE KALMUCK MINERS

.. vspace:: 2

While Lawrence was thus making his first
essays in an apprenticeship to soldiering, his
brother had found work to do which outran the
little military experience he had gained.

After giving Lawrence the signals agreed on,
Bob steered straight up the valley.  His mind
was very busy during the half-hour's flight to
the mine.  The management of the aeroplane
had become so much a matter of habit and
instinct that he was able to give a good deal
of attention to his thoughts and imaginings.
Telling Fazl to keep a good look-out, he sought
to grapple with the strange problems so suddenly
thrust upon him.

First and greatest of them all was the meaning
of the concentration of troops at the mouth of
the valley.  He dismissed as patently absurd
the idea that their objective was his uncle's mine.
The gathering of so large a force for so trifling
an end would be like employing a steam-hammer
to crack a nut.  He could not avoid the
conclusion that their presence was quite independent
of Nurla Bai, though on the other hand Nurla
Bai's actions had probably been calculated with
the knowledge or suspicion that a body of his
countrymen was at hand.

What then was the explanation of the muster?
The direction of their march, and the fact that
they had thrown forward an advanced guard into
the valley itself, seemed to indicate an intention
to proceed through the valley to some further
goal.  What was that goal?  He remembered
the intelligence that had come in at odd times,
of a levy *en masse* of the Mongols, and his uncle's
suspicion that the Mongolian prince was meditating
an attack on Russia.  But this was not the
way to Russia.  Could it be that Afghanistan
was the object of an invasion?  Bob's knowledge
of the geography of the region was not very
extensive, but he knew that, if Afghanistan was
their objective, this valley was one of the most
toilsome and indirect routes they could have
chosen.  The passes of the Hindu Kush to the
westward offered few or no obstacles to an
invading force; it was by these passes that the
Mongolian hordes had always made their inroads,
from the earliest times.  Not only would the
nature of the valley render the advance of a large
army extremely arduous and prolonged; if the
invaders should traverse it successfully, they
would find themselves at what was probably
the most intricate and inaccessible portion of the
Amir's dominions.  It would be like marching
from London to Chester through the Welsh
mountains, with every difficulty monstrously
exaggerated.  Wellington's passage of the Pyrenees
was a slight operation compared with it.

What other end could they have in view?
The valley ran southward, and led ultimately
of course to India, but an invasion of India by
this route was too ridiculous to be considered
seriously.  Ambitious as the Mongol prince was,
it was scarcely conceivable that he could
entertain such a notion, unless he had taken leave
of his senses.  The twenty thousand men now
encamped at the mouth of the valley would need
to be multiplied ten or twenty times before
there would be the slightest chance of success.
There might, in truth, be many more such army
corps massed farther northward; but the task
of pushing an invading force, adequate to the
undertaking, through the narrow gorges of the
valley, where for long stretches three horsemen
could not ride abreast, with the necessary artillery,
ammunition wagons and commissariat, would
prove too much for the most consummate
military organizer.  It would take so long that
a defending force on the north-west frontier
could cut up the more advanced sections long
before the rest could move up to their support.
In short, the whole idea was fantastic, and Bob
called himself an ass for even thinking of it.

Giving up this question as beyond his
conjecture, Bob bent his mind upon the problem
that immediately concerned him.  This was a
sufficiently hard nut to crack.  The Kalmucks,
whatever their ultimate intention might be,
were clearly to be regarded as enemies.  On
that point their actions were quite conclusive.
Whether he owed their aggressiveness to Nurla
Bai or not, they were a menace to the mine and
its owners.  Nurla Bai would certainly take
advantage of their proximity to attempt to
capture the settlement, and no doubt could
command the assistance of as many men as he needed.

It is not surprising that Bob's heart sank with
dismay as he reckoned up the puny force he
had to pit against such overwhelming numbers.
Of all his people, only the handful of Sikhs were
trained to war.  The Pathans were warriors by
nature, but he doubted how far he could rely on
their loyalty.  At present, it was true, they were
deeply incensed against the Kalmucks; but
whether they, if called upon, would take definite
sides against their racial enemies in face of
the enormous odds arrayed against them, was a
matter on which there was room for grave doubt.
The Kalmuck labourers at the mine were a
further complication.  They would certainly
make common cause with their own countrymen
as soon as these came within striking distance.
Alone they out-numbered the Sikhs and Pathans
by two to one.

The more Bob thought of all this, the more
anxious and depressed he became.  He wondered
whether it was wise to attempt to stem the
human torrent that would soon be pouring up
the valley.  Would not the better course be to
come to terms with the Kalmucks, abandon the
mine, and set off with all speed for India?
Hitherto, it was true, the enemy had given
him no opportunity for negotiating.  They had
been the aggressors, unprovoked; and his
determination hardened when he remembered the
fate of Mr. Appleton.  But as there was just a
possibility that no sort of concert existed between
the Kalmuck army and Nurla Bai, the idea of
making terms with the former was not wholly
negligible.

So far as his immediate duty was concerned,
Bob was quite clear in his mind.  It was to
secure the retreat of Lawrence and his little
party.  In order to reach the mine they would
have to pass the quarters of the Kalmuck miners.
The bridge down-stream being broken, Bob could
not suppose that Lawrence would be so hotly
pursued as to endanger his return.  But with
temper high among the workers at the mine,
some care might be needed to prevent an
explosion when the Pathans came up.  The first
thing to be done was to devise some means by
which Lawrence and his men could reach the
settlement in safety.  Allowing for the
difficulties of the track, they could hardly, even
though mounted, arrive until late in the
afternoon.  He had the whole day in which to make
his preparations.

Bob did not think out the position as
consecutively as his thoughts are presented here.
His busy mind flitted from one point to another
doubling on itself, as it were.  And his reflections
were suddenly interrupted by an exclamation
from his companion.  The Gurkha, having no
mental puzzles to work out, had been able to
give undivided attention to his master's
instructions.  As before, his keener eye had detected
what Bob, even if less preoccupied, could scarcely
have perceived so soon.  Far ahead, over the
valley, there lay a long dark streak which in a
less clear atmosphere than that of this highland
region might have been taken for a wisp of
cloud.  But Fazl made no such mistake.

"Smoke, sahib!" he cried.

The words gave Bob a shiver of apprehension.
Was it possible that the mine-buildings were
on fire?  He felt almost overwhelmed at the
thought.  With every succeeding second in his
swift flight it became more and more likely that
this was the explanation.  While still many
miles distant, he recognized that the smoke must
have its origin somewhere at least in the
neighbourhood of the mine.  Fast as the aeroplane was
flying, he wished that for a few minutes he could
double its speed.  But when at last he opened
up the reach of the river bordering the mine,
he saw with joy that the smoke was rising, not
from the compounds on the right, but from the
miners' quarters on the opposite bank.

A slight breeze was blowing from the
north-west, carrying the smoke up the valley.  In a
few more seconds Bob saw that the conflagration
was confined to the Pathan portion of the camp.
As he turned a slight bend and had a view of the
whole settlement, a hasty glance assured him
that there was no sign of injury in the mine
compounds.  Flying on, he noticed a number
of figures in the compounds below, apparently
the Sikhs on guard.  The Kalmuck camp was
deserted; between it and the burning huts of the
Pathans, and up the bank of the river, he caught
sight of a number of prostrate forms here and
there.  Then above the whirr of the propeller
he heard, far in the distance, the sound of firing.
It came from up the river.  At that moment
Bob felt as a small schoolboy feels when suddenly
plunged into a new subject--say the binomial
theorem before he has mastered quadratic
equations.  Here was a fresh problem before
the others were solved.  But he held on his
course, wheeled round at the usual place, and
flying back alighted once more on his platform.

"Just see to things while I go on," he said to Fazl.

When he was half-way along the cantilever
pathway he caught sight of Ditta Lal waddling
towards him at a pace dangerous to a man of
apoplectic habit.

"Oh, sir," gasped the Babu as they met,
"horrors upon horror's head accumulate.  Pelion
is heaped on Ossa.  Misfortunes come, not as
single spies, but in battalions."

"What has happened?" said Bob shortly: he
was always impatient of the Babu's determination
that no one should forget he was a Calcutta B.A.

And then Ditta Lal, driven to brevity by
shortness of breath and the difficulty of keeping
pace with Bob's long strides, related the
occurrences of the past hour.

Very shortly after Bob had left the mine in his
aeroplane, when the domestic staff were at
breakfast, and the Sikhs were engaged in carrying out
his instructions, a clamour had suddenly broken
out on the other side of the river.  Looking across,
they had seen the whole body of Kalmuck
miners rushing tumultuously over the neutral
ground into the Pathans' quarters.  Before Gur
Buksh could order his men to fire, the two parties
were inextricably mixed.  For a few seconds
there had been a wild, fierce conflict; then the
Pathans, taken by surprise and hopelessly
outnumbered, fled like deer up the track, pursued
by the Kalmucks.  Some of these paused for a
little to fire and plunder the Pathans' huts,
then sped after their comrades.  By this time
Gur Buksh had lined his men up near the
drawbridge and ordered them to fire at the Kalmucks.
Several of them dropped, and there lay with
them on the ground a few of the Pathans who,
unable to get away in time, had fallen to their
enemies' knives.

Gur Buksh had been ordered not to leave the
mine with his men, and true to his military
discipline he had obeyed his instructions to the
letter.  But Chunda Beg had sent over some of
the servants to bring in the wounded men, among
whom were several Kalmucks.  The former were
now being tended in the outhouses; the latter
were locked up in one of the sheds.  Meanwhile
the Pathans and their pursuers had disappeared
along the track.  Ever since, sounds of firing
had been heard intermittently, growing fainter
and fainter.  It was clear that the Pathans were
still in retreat, and also that, in spite of the
surprise, some of them at least had managed to
snatch up their arms before they ran.  By this
time they must be several miles away.

"What was the cause of the outbreak?"
asked Bob.

Ditta Lal could only suggest that it was due
to sudden madness inspired by the Furies.  Bob
left him, to consult the havildar.  He was utterly
perplexed.  It seemed as though there were
electric communication between the Kalmuck
miners and their countrymen down-stream, for
they could not have heard already of what had
happened forty miles away.

It was not merely perplexing, but a staggering
blow.  Bob had reckoned on employing the
Pathans to garrison the mine if resistance should
be considered possible, or at least on forming a
compact body to accompany his retreat if he
should feel it necessary to abandon the place.
Apparently they were now hopelessly dispersed,
and he could not help thinking that such of
them as escaped the guns of their pursuers would
hasten up the valley towards their homes.  At
that moment he almost made up his mind that
his only course was to follow them as quickly
as he could: the defence of the mine seemed
utterly impossible.

Then another element of the situation forced
itself upon his tired brain.  The Kalmucks, when
they had driven the Pathans away, would
doubtless return.  If they were allowed to get
past the mine, Lawrence and his party would
be completely cut off.  They could scarcely
arrive before nightfall; there was ample time for
the Kalmucks to hurry back, and force their
way past, even though the rifles of the Sikhs
might account for some of them.  The
interception of Lawrence must be prevented at all
costs, and in the necessity of devising some means
to this end Bob had no leisure to acquaint
Gur Buksh with his morning's discovery.

"We must keep the Kalmucks off till Lawrence
Sahib is back," he said.  "How can we do it?"

"Bring the machine gun to the south wall,
sahib," replied the old Sikh.

"Yes; you'll have to make an embrasure.
The gun will command the track for half a
mile along the straight, and they won't face it.
There's another thing, havildar.  Send some
men over to the other side to bring in all the
food they can collect, and any arms they may
find.  The horses too: there are only three or
four left, and we must make shift to keep them
on this side.  Just set about it at once."

The havildar saluted and withdrew.

Bob lighted a cigarette, and paced up and
down, thinking hard.  If only Major Endicott
or some other experienced soldier were at hand
to advise!  He felt weighed down by his
responsibilities; yet beneath all his anxieties,
there was a large reserve of courage and
resolution.  He watched the Sikhs dragging
the machine gun across the compound.
Undoubtedly it would check the Kalmucks as they
marched back towards the mine.  But he
wondered whether it would be wise to use it.  It
would cost many lives; the slaughter of the
miners would infuriate their fellow-countrymen,
and destroy any chance there might be of making
terms with them.  Yet there seemed no other
means of assuring his brother's safe return.

Following in imagination the pursuit along the
river bank, he thought of the Pathans and their
fate.  He listened for rifle-shots; but the sounds
had ceased.  By this time, no doubt, the chase
had gone beyond hearing.  Perhaps it had ceased;
perhaps the Pathans were all slaughtered by their
more numerous foes; perhaps the Kalmucks were
content to have driven them away, and the
survivors were trudging a weary march to the
borders of their own land.  What would their
fate be?  They had no food: the country was
barren: they must surely fall a prey to fatigue,
exposure and famine, or to hostile tribes *en
route*, long before they could hope for
hospitality.  This dismal prospect made Bob very
uncomfortable.  After all, these men were the
most loyal and law-abiding of his uncle's workers;
it seemed cruel to let them go without lifting a
hand to help them.  Yet what could he do?
No doubt if he were to lead the Sikhs to pursue
the Kalmucks in their turn, with their military
training, few as they were, they might crush the
undisciplined rabble.  But he dared not thus
leave the mine ungarrisoned.  It would be long,
indeed, before the Kalmucks could arrive from
the north unless the unexpected happened; but
so many unexpected and inexplicable things
had happened during the last twenty-four hours
that he could not take any action that would
involve risk either to Lawrence or to the
non-combatants at the mine.

As he paced to and fro, watching the Sikhs
going quickly about their work, and the servants
returning over the drawbridge, laden with what
they had gathered from the miners' quarters,
it occurred to him suddenly that if only the
aeroplane were equipped for war some of his
difficulties would be solved.  He had intended
to qualify for the aerial corps in the British
army, but that dream was over: flying had been
to him merely a sport.  Could he have foreseen
the strange circumstances of the last few days,
he would have adapted his machine, not merely
for pleasure trips and observation, but for
actual offence.

One idea leads to another, and next minute
Bob was asking himself whether even now he
could not make an attempt to turn the aeroplane
to military uses.  A few bombs dropped among
or near the Kalmucks would put an effective
check upon their pursuit of the Pathans.  He
had no bombs; could he improvise some?
There was plenty of dynamite in the little
recess behind the house.  And in another
moment a plan flashed upon his mind.  Flinging away
the end of his cigarette he hurried to Ditta
Lal's store shed.

"Babu, have you got any small empty tins?"
he asked, bursting into the room.

Ditta Lal jumped.

"My nerves are in terrible state, sir," he said.
"Tins!  Yes, to be sure: coffee, preserved pears,
condensed milk, sardines--or more correctly,
bristlings: tins of all sorts, quite an embarrassment."

"Get me a dozen or two tins with lids: there
are several tobacco tins in the house.  Fill them
nearly to the top with small stones, with a few
percussion caps among them: you'll get them
from the havildar.  Be as quick as you can."

"Pardon me, sir, are you intending to lay a
mine, floating or otherwise?"

Bob had not waited for the conclusion of the
question, but hurried to the little private store
behind the house, from which he returned
presently with a quantity of dynamite.  The
Babu was too slow for him.  He sent Chunda Beg
and Shan Tai hunting for tins, and as they were
prepared according to his directions, he carefully
filled them up with dynamite and securely
fastened the lids.  When he had fifteen ready,
he put them into a basket, and carried them
himself along the pathway to the aeroplane.  Fazl
had meanwhile got everything ready for another
flight.

"You know what a bomb is, Fazl?" said Bob.

The Gurkha grinned.

"Well, these tins are bombs.  Put them just
below your seat: take care not to drop one.  We
are going up the river: give me the tins one by
one as I ask for them."

They started.  For the first mile or two Bob
kept very low over the river, seeing here and there,
at long intervals, traces of the fight waged
between the Pathans and the Kalmucks--figures
lying prone and motionless, others sitting with
their backs against the rocks, one or two limping
painfully along.  Presently he heard the dull
cracks of rifles, though as yet he could not see
the combatants.  As the sounds grew louder,
he rose higher: with his explosive cargo on
board it was more than ever necessary that he
should keep out of range.  Experience had
already shown him that the aeroplane in full
flight was a very difficult object to hit with
ordinary weapons; but nothing must be left
to chance now.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`RALLYING THE PATHANS`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH


.. class:: center large

   RALLYING THE PATHANS

.. vspace:: 2

Six or seven miles above the mine the gorge
contracted, leaving a space that barely exceeded
twice the breadth of the aeroplane.  In his first
flights along the river Bob had felt rather nervous
in threading this narrow passage.  It was here
that he found the two parties of miners.  He
reduced the speed of the aeroplane as much as
he could, and at the altitude to which he had
now ascended he was able to get a pretty good
general view of the position of affairs as he flew
over.  It was impossible to distinguish details.
The figures of the men were like dots on a map.
The track and the adjacent ground seemed
absolutely flat and level, though Bob knew that
it was really much broken, and of constantly
varying height.  But he made rapid inferences
from what he saw, and by the time he had passed
over both the parties of combatants he was in
no doubt as to his course of action.

What he saw was, up-stream, a small group,
stationary, in the narrowest part of the valley:
some little distance from them, down-stream,
a larger group, also stationary, and a number of
scattered individuals, moving southward, looking
like flies crawling slowly over a dish, but all in
the same direction.  The inference he drew
from these observations was that the Pathans,
having been kept on the run to this point, had
taken advantage of the nature of the ground
to turn at bay, either in desperation, or to snatch
a rest before continuing their retreat: and that
the Kalmucks had separated, one party holding
the track, the other scaling the hill-side above
in order to turn the Pathans' flank.  At the
moment of his passing over he heard a faint
crackle like the rustling of paper, and saw puffs
of smoke among each band of combatants.  The
men were firing briskly, no doubt from behind
the shelter of rocks.

It was obvious that there could be but one
end to this fight.  The Kalmucks were much the
more numerous.  While the Pathans might very
probably repulse a direct attack if their
ammunition lasted, they could have no defence against
the men creeping round upon their flank.
Within a short time they would be surrounded,
unless, indeed, they perceived the flanking
movement and beat a hasty retreat.  Even then
they would be in danger of annihilation, for the
Kalmucks could rush the position they had
evacuated, and from behind the rocks sweep
the southward track with their fire.  Unless
a diversion were almost instantly made, the
Pathans were doomed.

By the time that Bob had realized this necessity
for intervention he was half a mile south of the
position, in a wider stretch of the gorge.  He
wheeled round, flew back at full speed through
the bottle-neck, then wheeled again at the
northward end.  It seemed to him that the
crackling of rifle fire was now more continuous: the
Pathans had in fact taken heart on seeing the
machine soaring high above them, and were
defending themselves with renewed vigour.  The
chota sahib was with them!  They knew not
what he could do for them, but his mere presence
gave them hope and courage.

Bob saw that in order to carry out his plan
successfully he must descend.  He had had no
practice in bomb dropping.  No amount of
theoretical knowledge of the velocity of falling
bodies under the action of gravity, or of the
curve made by a body moving under both
horizontal and vertical forces, could avail him
now.  There was great risk of the aeroplane or its
occupants being hit if the Kalmucks fired at
them, but he felt that he must take his chance.
Swooping down, and reducing speed at the same
time, he steered so as to pass, at the height of a
few hundred feet, as exactly as possible over
the heads of the party skirmishing up the hill-side.

They were in loose order.  At closer quarters
Bob was now able to see that they were taking
advantage of all the cover furnished by the
crags and protuberances of the rocky slope.
Steering with one hand, he called to Fazl to give
him one of the tins, which he poised in his other
hand.  He still felt a shrinking from bloodshed,
and instead of dropping the bomb in the midst
of the Kalmucks, he waited until he had just
passed the man nearest to the Pathans, then let
it fall.  In a few seconds it struck the ground.
There was a sharp report, and Fazl, looking
back, cried out that the Kalmucks were almost
hidden by an immense cloud of dust.  The
sound of rifle fire ceased, and a strange quiet fell
upon the gorge.

"Have they stopped?" asked Bob.

"Yes, sahib.  One has gone back: they are
talking among the rocks."

"They've got something to talk about,"
thought Bob.

He felt that this bolt from the blue, falling
upon them at such a dramatic moment, must
have startled the Kalmucks, and would almost
certainly cause them to modify their plans.
As miners they would realize the nature of the
bomb dropped within a few yards of them, and
the danger to which they were exposed when
dynamite was rained upon them from the sky.
The first bomb might be followed by others, and
though it had done them no hurt, its successors
might not so fortunately spare them.  Bob had
no doubt that he could count upon an interval
of inaction while they were reckoning up the
new situation, and determined to seize the
opportunity of communicating with the Pathans.
Accordingly he flew southward along the gorge
until he reached a spot where the track widened
sufficiently to afford a landing-place, and then
sank to earth.  It was out of sight from both
Pathans and Kalmucks.

"Come along with me," he said to Fazl.

He took his revolver and rifle, and hastened
back along the track, followed by Fazl with his
kukuri.  There was still no resumption of the
firing.  As he walked, he scanned the hill-side
anxiously, but saw no sign of the Kalmucks.
Slipping along close to the base of the rocky cliff
he presently caught sight of the turbans of two
or three of the Pathans, who were peering over
the top of a rock two hundred yards away,
evidently looking for the return of the aeroplane.

"Can you call to them without letting the
Kalmucks hear?" he asked of Fazl.

"I can, sahib."

"Then ask one of them to slip down and meet me."

The Gurkha made a slight clucking in his
throat, at which the Pathans lifted their heads
and looked eagerly along the path.  Then Fazl
held up one finger, and beckoned.  The heads
disappeared, and in a moment two of the Pathans
came round the corner of the rock.

"Only one," said Bob.

Fazl made them understand by gestures.  One
of the men returned, the other came on.

"Allah is great, sahib!" he said in his own
tongue as he met Bob.  "But why is the sahib
on foot?  A few more such thunderbolts would
send the dogs to Jehannum: have you no more
in the wonderful machine?"

Bob wished that he had Lawrence's facility
in picking up strange languages.  Fortunately
Fazl could act as interpreter.  He first asked
the man if he could explain the sudden outbreak
of the Kalmucks.  The Pathan thought that no
explanation was necessary: it was due to their
own vile passions and the presence of Nurla Bai.

"Nurla Bai!" exclaimed Bob.  "Is he among them?"

"Of a truth he is, sahib, and his black monkey too."

To Bob this was incomprehensible.  Nurla
Bai and his man, when last he heard of them,
were forty miles and more down-stream.  But
he had no leisure for guessing: the situation
demanded all his thoughts.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"We are going to our homes, sahib," replied
the man.  "The dogs are too many for us.  We
did but stop to take a little rest, and kill a few.
We cannot go back to the mine: the talk is that
the huzur is gone; who will pay us now?  We go
to our own country, and some day will come back
and deal with these children of Shaitan.  Not a
man of them shall be left alive.  But now we can
do nothing; it is vain to kick against the goad.
If the sahib had more little boxes we might kill
them all; but he has none, or he would not be here."

Bob felt himself in a difficulty.  He wanted
to retain the Pathans; but in their present
temper they would not be likely to remain with
him if they knew that a huge army was advancing
up-stream.  On the other hand it would not be
fair to withhold that information from them, and
bring them back to the mine under false
pretences.  Reflecting rapidly for a few moments
he determined to make a clean breast of it, but
to lead up to the important point as diplomatically
as he could.

"Have you any food?" he asked.

"Bismillah, sahib, we are empty as bladders.
The dogs fell upon us even as we were filling our
pots for the morning meal.  We have eaten
nothing."

"And what will you do for food on the way
home?  Is it a smiling country?  Does millet
grow on the rocks?  Will you find grapes on
thorn bushes?"

"True, sahib," said the man uneasily: "but
there are ibex and other clean animals for our
guns."

"You have plenty of ammunition then?"

"Enough to shoot beasts for our food."

"And to shoot the Kalmucks too?  If I
cannot stop them, and they pursue you, you will
have no time to shoot ibex, and no bullets to
waste.  And you may meet enemies in the hills.
You may be caught between two fires, and,
outnumbered as you are already, you will be
slaughtered like sheep."

The Pathan looked more and more troubled.

"I will go and talk to my brothers," he said.
"With many counsellors there is wisdom."

"No, that won't do.  You would waste a lot of
time, and perhaps wrangle.  You must act as head
man, and what you and I decide the others will do."

"What does the sahib order?"

"I order nothing.  I want you to make up
your own mind.  Now listen.  I see a way to
bring you out of your present awkward position,
and take you safely back to the mine.  You do
not know that Lawrence Sahib with Fyz Ali
and the rest is in danger."

"Mashallah, sahib, what is this you tell?"

"We were attacked yesterday at the bridge
down-stream, and beat off the enemy.  Lawrence
Sahib had to keep guard all night: he may have
been attacked again, but he is now marching back."

"And who was the enemy, sahib?  Only
Nurla Bai and his monkey left the mine, and they
are now among the dogs that have been barking
at us beyond."

"The enemy are a large force of Kalmucks,
a great army, who are coming up the valley,
for what purpose I know not."

"Hai, sahib, but then there is the more need
for us to go!"

"Yes, if you are willing to be cowards and
faithless.  Must I believe that you will sneak off
and leave your comrades to face danger alone?"

The man was silent, plucking his beard.  Bob
offered him a cigarette, which the man accepted
mechanically, lighting it at the match with
which Bob lit his own.

"Is it a great army, sahib?" he said at length.

"A very great one.  Very likely we shall find
it impossible to save the mine.  It is true that
the huzur is gone: Nurla Bai shot him; he fell
from the machine into the river, and I have no
hope that he is yet alive.  But his loss only
leaves the more for us to do.  We must first
save Lawrence Sahib and your friends.  When
we are all met again, we can decide what is best.
Perhaps we shall have to abandon the mine;
but then, you see, we shall form one large party,
with plenty of provisions and cartridges; and
you will have a much better chance of reaching
your homes than if you go as you are, hungry,
with no food, and little hope of defending
yourselves if attacked by enemies in the hills."

The Pathan puffed away gravely.

"There is truth in what the sahib says.  He
has a very big mind, and sees very far.  We
Pathans are not cowards, as the sahib knows;
Fyz Ali is a good man, and the chota sahib will
be a great man when his beard is grown.  But
how can we go back?  As the sahib says, we
are but a handful against the pack of dogs
yonder, and the sahib has no more little boxes."

"I didn't say so.  As a matter of fact, I have
several."

"Inshallah!" cried the man joyfully.  "Why
did not the sahib say so before?  If the sahib
will go up in his machine, and drop the little
boxes upon the heads of the Kalmucks, we will
charge home upon them with great fury, and
there shall not be left one man alive to tell the
tale."

Bob knew that it would be useless to attempt
to make the man understand why he could not
consent to this wholesale butchery.  He merely
pointed out that, flying swiftly overhead, he
could only drop one or perhaps two bombs that
would certainly hit the enemy.  The survivors
would be goaded to desperation, and before
the aeroplane could return and the manoeuvre
be repeated, there would be a terrible fight, in
which the Pathans, even if successful, would lose
heavily.

"What I want to do is to gather all the loyal
men safely at the mine," he said.  "I do not
want to lose one of you.  I can do this, I believe,
if you obey my orders: otherwise who knows
how many of you will be left alive?"

"As the sahib commands," said the Pathan.

"This is what I command.  You will remain
here with your men while I drive the Kalmucks
away.  You will not fire upon them unless you
are yourselves attacked.  Impress that upon the
men.  When the Kalmucks are out of sight,
you may march up towards the mine, but halt
if you come in sight of them again."

"I will give the sahib's orders to the men,"
said the Pathan.  "I hope the sahib will drive
the dogs away quickly, for we are very hungry."

He salaamed and returned to his companions,
who had been keeping one eye on the enemy,
the other on the curious scene two hundred yards
up-stream.  It was indeed a strange position:
the two men calmly smoking and discussing
their plans, while at no great distance lurked a
ferocious band ready to leap to the attack at
any moment.  They too had been consulting
together, but their imagination was not active
enough to lead them to any satisfactory
conclusion.  The dynamite bomb had been intended
to check them: that was evident; and they
decided that it would be wise to wait patiently
for developments.  Nurla Bai was very much
annoyed.  He had undergone great exertions
and endured much fatigue to achieve his
object--the slaughter or dispersal of the Pathans; and
it was exasperating to find himself at a check
just when he had them at his mercy, through the
ingenuity of an Englishman and the astounding
swiftness of his flying machine.  He began to
wish that, instead of picking up bits of rock in
the gallery on that dark night, he had made his
way to the platform and done some vital damage
to the aeroplane.  Perhaps a lucky shot would
bring it down when it again passed over the
position.  But he hoped there would be no more
dynamite bombs.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`NURLA BAI SLIPS THE NOOSE`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH


.. class:: center large

   NURLA BAI SLIPS THE NOOSE

.. vspace:: 2

And now began the strangest game of chevy
chase that was ever played.  In a few minutes
Bob and the Gurkha were flying northward.  As
they approached the area upon which the
Kalmucks were assembled, Bob steered to the
right, so as to cross the position obliquely.
Some of the men were in the act of covering
the aeroplane with their rifles, when the sight
of a bright red object descending from the sky
struck them with a sort of paralysis.  The
coffee tin fell almost midway between them and
the Pathans.  Dust and splinters of rock flew
in all directions, and the Kalmucks, with one
consent, scampered along the track towards the
mine.  Bob listened for rifle-shots; he knew
that the Pathans' obedience would be put to
a severe test when they saw their enemies in
flight.  Not a shot was fired.

The Kalmucks did not yet perceive the real
object which Bob had in view.  After running
a short distance, they halted again, unable to
decide whether it was safer to advance or retreat.
When they saw the aeroplane soaring towards
them from the northward, they broke apart,
each man striving to find some crevice or nook
among the rocks where he might shelter himself.
All believed that the Englishman's purpose
was slaughter.  But when another bomb was
dropped on their southward side, not near enough
to do them harm, some of them, as they ran,
began to suspect the meaning of the device.
For three or four miles they were thus driven
down the track.  Wherever the gorge was wide
enough, Bob wheeled backwards and forwards
across it in their rear, swooping down whenever
he saw them lagging, with the result that they
did not wait for another bomb, but hurried
along like a flock of frightened sheep.  Once
or twice they took shots at the aeroplane, but
gave it up when it was patent that their
marksmanship was unequal to the feat of hitting the
flying target.  And all the time the Pathans
marched steadily behind them, much amused
at the sahib's method of shepherding, but a
little chagrined because they were not allowed
to assist.

Meanwhile Bob had been thinking out his
further proceedings.  He must not let the
Kalmucks draw too close to the mine.  Lawrence
could not arrive yet for several hours; it was
important that he should come safely home
without a collision with the enemy.  When,
therefore, they had arrived within about two
miles of the mine, he decided that it was time
to arrest their course.  They could no longer be
in doubt about the meaning of his signals
hitherto--he would give them another.  Flying
ahead, then wheeling round, he dropped a tin,
this time in front of them.  At the explosion
they halted, and after a brief consultation began
to move on.  Another bomb, falling in front
again, but now a little closer, conveyed its
warning; like fog signals on a railway-line,
these explosions plainly indicated that the track
was not clear.  They halted again, and posted
themselves behind rocks, facing up-stream, to
guard against attack by the Pathans.

How long they would remain stationary Bob
could not tell; but he thought he had them
sufficiently well in hand to give him time to
fly to the mine and act on another idea that had
occurred to him.  On reaching the house, he
ordered Shan Tai to put up in two or three
baskets a quantity of food, then scribbled a note
bidding Lawrence push forward at his utmost
speed.  This he placed under the lid of a tin
weighted with stones, but free from caps or
dynamite.  Then telling Gur Buksh to keep a
careful watch on the track southward, and fire
if the Kalmucks showed themselves at the turn
half a mile away, he went back to the aeroplane,
carrying the tin, and set off down the river.
He was anxious that Lawrence should arrive
before dark.  In the daylight the dynamite
bombs might be relied on to bar the road to the
Kalmucks; but they might easily take advantage
of the darkness to slip past the mine, if not
by the track, at any rate by the hill-path above,
and the bombs would lose half their terrors.
The possibility of a collision between the
Kalmucks and his brother's party filled him
with anxiety; for the former, infuriated by their
chevying, would wreak their vengeance upon
the smaller band coming up-stream.

Bob discovered Lawrence and his men taking
a rest about half-way between the mine and
the broken bridge.  They greeted him with a
cheer.  He flew for some minutes up- and
down-stream in the search for a landing-place, but
the track being too narrow here, and the
neighbourhood too rugged, he swooped down, and as
he passed over the group, he got Fazl to drop
his tin within a few feet of them.  The Gurkha
uttered a cry of incredulous amazement when
he heard the order, but Bob hastily explained
that the tin contained only a chit.  Too busy
himself with steering to watch the result, Bob
asked Fazl what had happened, and he reported
that the tin, rolling down the bank towards the
river, had been retrieved by Lawrence Sahib
himself.

Bob flew straight back to the mine, thence over
the Kalmucks, who were still halted where he had
left them, and beyond them to the Pathans.
The country was here much less rugged, but it
was some little time before he found a spot
where he could alight without risk, nearly half
a mile south of the party.  On landing, he and
Fazl between them carried the baskets of food
to the Pathans.

"The sahib is a light to our eyes," said the
head man.  "The men were becoming restless."

"I dare say.  Well, here is some food for
them.  This will keep up their courage.  I am
glad to see that they have obeyed my orders,
and before long I hope we shall all be safe at
the mine."

"Allah be praised!" cried the man.  "Food
is what we need, and my brothers will delight
in the sahib's care."

Indeed, Bob could have hit upon no more
effective means of attaching the Pathans to his
cause.  This evidence of the sahib's thoughtfulness
profoundly impressed the men, and as they
made ravenous onslaught on their rations they
were loud in praise of their young master, whom
it was good to serve.

By this time Bob was very tired of his continual
journeys up and down the river; his petrol, too,
was running low, and it was with a feeling of
great relief that he set off on what was to be
his last flight for many a day.  When Lawrence
had returned, Bob meant to hold a serious
consultation with him as to the possibility
of holding the mine.  If it were decided that
this was hopeless, he would have to make
immediate arrangements for evacuation.  The
thought of leaving the aeroplane gave him a
pang.  That he must leave it seemed inevitable,
for he felt that his presence would be necessary
as leader of the march.  He might, indeed, fly
miles ahead, alight, and wait for his little force
to reach him; but it seemed more important to
share his brother's difficulties than to secure
the safety of the aeroplane.

After replacing the machine in its shed, he
returned to the house and called for dinner.
For several hours there was nothing to be done.
When he had finished his meal, he lit his pipe
and settled himself in an easy chair to think over
the position.  It was the first opportunity of
rest and quiet meditation since Nurla Bai's
defection had so fatally disturbed the peaceful
life of the settlement.  Of his uncle he could
now think only as of one irrevocably lost.  It
was the end of mining in the Hindu Kush.
Whatever the immediate future might bring
forth, it was clear that Lawrence and he must
seek some other career.  And when he reckoned
up the chances, he felt more and more doubtful
whether either of them would escape from this
valley of tragedy with their lives.

Yet Fate had been kind to them, even through
the instrumentality of Nurla Bai.  But for that
man's villainy, there would have been no pursuit
down the river, no discovery of the army
encamped forty miles away.  They would have
had no warning of the approach of this great
host, and defence and flight would have been
equally impossible.  Such chances as they had
of weathering the storm were due to Nurla Bai.

Bob's thoughts centred on that wily Kalmuck.
His presence among the men halted half a mile
off was puzzling.  Bob did not guess that Nurla
Bai and his henchman had been among a band
who had crossed the river in the night, and
attacked Lawrence and his Pathans.  These
two men alone of the party had not recrossed
when the rest were beaten back.  They had
slipped up the bank under cover of the darkness,
and marched all night along the track.  Warned
by the sound of horses' hoofs they had hidden
until the Pathan reinforcements had passed,
then hurried on to the mine.  Arriving there at
dawn, they had instigated the attack on the
Pathans, of whom Nurla Bai had led the pursuit.

The knowledge that the Kalmuck was within
half a mile of him suggested to Bob the
possibility of capturing him and bringing him to
justice.  The punishment of the offender would
do more than anything else to tighten the bonds
between himself and the Pathans.  Remembering
the Kalmuck prisoners whom Gur Buksh had
taken, Bob hit on a plan for getting Nurla Bai
into his power.  He would send one of them
as a herald to the miners, promising to allow
them to depart northwards if they would deliver
up their arms and hand over Nurla Bai and
Black Jack.  With the Sikhs on one side of
them, and on the other the Pathans, eager for
an opportunity to wipe off old scores, they must
recognize their helplessness, and probably would
be willing to purchase the safety of the whole
band at so cheap a price.

About two o'clock in the afternoon, therefore,
Bob sent for one of the prisoners, and with
Fazl as interpreter, gave him his instructions.
If the terms offered were accepted, Nurla Bai
and his man were to come to the mine under
escort of not more than four of the party,
unarmed.  The drawbridge was lowered, and raised
again after the man had departed on his errand.

Bob waited patiently for the result of this
mission.  Lawrence ought to arrive about four
o'clock, by hard marching.  By that time the
Kalmucks should have made up their minds.
Of course, under Nurla Bai's influence, they
might reject his terms, preferring to wait for
darkness to give them an opportunity of creeping
past without surrendering either their leader
or their arms.  In either case Lawrence would
then be safe, and the doings of the Kalmucks
need give him no further concern.  Nurla Bai
would escape his deserts, but that could not be
helped.

Less than an hour after the envoy's departure,
a group of six men were seen approaching the
mine from the Kalmucks' encampment.  In a
few minutes Bob was able to recognize among
them Nurla Bai and Black Jack.  Somewhat
surprised, after all, at their compliance, he
congratulated himself on the satisfactory working
of his plan.  It was not long, however, before
he saw that his jubilation was premature.  The
men were apparently unarmed, but calling
Gur Buksh to his side, Bob ordered him as a
precautionary measure to place the Sikhs at the
inner end of the bridge, and cover the Kalmucks
with their rifles, so as to guard against treachery.
The whole staff of domestic servants and the
few Pathans left at the mine assembled in
the compound to watch the proceedings.  Bob
ordered the Pathans to lay aside their rifles, for
their rage against Nurla Bai was such that he
could not trust them to refrain from firing on
their foe, even though he was unarmed.

The Kalmucks came opposite the bridge.  At
Bob's command Fazl shouted his instructions
across the river.  When the drawbridge was
lowered, Nurla Bai and his man were to cross.
The escort were to return to their companions,
and explain that later on, at a signal given by
rifle-shots, they were to come forward ten at a
time, hand their weapons to the Sikhs stationed
at the bridge end to receive them, and pass
down the track.  The miners made no response,
but stood motionless on the farther bank.

At a word from Bob, the bridge-man turned
his windlass, and the bridge, with much creaking,
began slowly to descend.  The end had almost
reached the platform on which it rested when,
with a suddenness that took everybody by
surprise, Nurla Bai and Black Jack dived off
the bank into the river, sheltered by the
descending bridge.  Next moment several rifle-shots
rang out; the Sikhs had fired, rather because
they felt that they must do something than
because there was any real chance of hitting the
fugitives.  Then they ran along by the wall,
to watch for the two men to reappear.

Bob followed them; the crowd of servants and
Pathans, shouting with excitement, rushed in the
same direction.  Ditta Lal waddled breathless in
the rear.

At this, the narrowest part of the valley for
many miles, the current rushed through the
gorge like a mill-race.  Nurla Bai had chosen his
moment well, reckoning on the rapidity of the
stream to bear him out of harm's way.  Some
seconds passed before a black head was seen
bobbing on the surface of the swirling flood a
hundred and fifty yards away.

"Don't fire!" shouted Bob.

He was only in the nick of time, for the Sikhs
already had their rifles at the shoulder, pointed
at the black object in the water.  With soldierly
obedience they kept their fingers from the trigger,
though they were amazed at the order.  Bob was
astonished at himself.  His command had been
almost involuntary; only after he had spoken
was he conscious of the motive impelling him.
It was a sportsman's admiration for pluck and
resourcefulness.  Of course the Kalmucks had
tricked him, but he was young enough to admire
their courage more than he resented their trickery.

In another moment the head had disappeared.
It was now too late to change his mind, even if
he had wished it.

"They are gone!" screamed the Babu.  "Sir,
you have allowed them to bunk.  Why this
fatal hesitation?  Why this neglect of precious
opportunity?  You cast pearls before swine,
sir--and by pearls I mean mercy and ruth and all
that.  They will turn again and rend you.  Sir,
I repeat----"

Here Bob cut in.  As a rule he was disposed to
humour the Babu, whom he found amusing at
times, and whom he believed to be well-intentioned.
Now, however, he had neither time nor
patience to argue, even if any amount of
argument could have made the Bengali understand
his point of view.

"Get back to your stores," he said sternly,
and Ditta Lal, who was always abashed and
rendered speechless by a rebuff, shuffled off
disconsolately.

Bob was not disposed to let the two Kalmucks
escape altogether.  No amount of pluck or cleverness
could wipe out his recollection of their crimes.
To bring them to justice was a duty he owed
himself and the Pathans.  Less than a minute
after they had disappeared he ordered two of the
Sikhs to cross the bridge and pursue them along
the track.

"Don't shoot them: march them back to the
mine," he said.  "There I will deal with them."

The men set off to do his bidding.  Meanwhile
the four miners of Nurla Bai's escort had
remained where they stood when their leader took
his plunge.  They fell back when they saw the
Sikhs approaching them, crying out that they
had been ignorant of Nurla's intention.  Bob
saw no reason to doubt them, but as he sent them
back to rejoin their fellows up the river he
reflected that he had done wisely in arranging
to let only a few men pass at a time.

He had little doubt that the two fugitives would
be caught.  For a distance the stream ran too
swiftly for runners on the bank to keep up with
it, but farther north, with the widening of the
channel, the rate of the current diminished.
Then, whether the men continued swimming
or climbed up to the track, they would be equally
at the mercy of their pursuers.  The threat to
shoot them could hardly fail to bring about their
surrender; while if they trusted to their speed
along the track, they would fall into the hands of
Lawrence and his party, who must now be very
near.  He therefore dismissed the crowd, ordered
Gur Buksh to keep good watch both up- and
down-stream, and returned to the house to snatch a
brief nap until his brother arrived.

It was a few minutes before five when Chunda
Beg woke him, and told him that the chota sahib
was at hand.  He ran down to the bridge, and
saw with great thankfulness that Lawrence and
all his party were safe.  But he was disappointed
to notice that, though the two Sikhs were among
them, they were without Nurla Bai.

There was great shouting and handshaking
among the crowd when the weary men rode over
into the compound.

"Jolly glad to see you, old chap," said Bob to
his brother.  "You look awfully biffed.  Chunda
Beg has got a good meal ready for you; just
cut into the house and have a rest while I dispose
of a little matter in hand--then I'll come and
tell you what has been going on."

Lawrence was only too glad to rest.  He had
never in his life felt so utterly tired.  The
Pathans, too, hardy and capable of long
endurance as they were, showed signs of the fatigue
of their double march and the fight *en route*.
They took their horses into their own section of
the mine, and, throwing themselves on the ground,
were soon asleep.

Meanwhile Bob was arranging for the passage
of the Kalmucks down-stream.  He posted half
of the Sikhs at the wall, ordering them, without
reserve, to fire on the miners if there was any
sign of mutiny among them.  Then he sent
Gur Buksh with the rest to the farther end of
the bridge to receive the men's arms as they came
up.  Just before half-past five the rifle-shot was
fired as a signal to the first batch of ten men to
approach.  Very soon they were seen marching
sullenly towards the mine.  They had been
without food during the day, and hunger is a
famous reducing agent.  At the bridge they
handed over their weapons without demur to
the havildar and his Sikhs, and passed on.

Within an hour the whole party had been thus
disarmed and sent on their way.  When the last
of them had disappeared, Bob sent a Sikh to bring
in the Pathans who had been waiting with such
patience up-stream.  Dusk had already fallen
over the depths of the valley, and it was dark
before the men marched over the bridge amid
uproarious greetings from their friends.

Bob felt that he had reason to be satisfied with
his day's work.  His brother was back; he was
surrounded by Pathans of whose loyalty and
devotion he was now assured, and he had got
rid peacefully of the malcontents whose presence
would have been a continual menace.  Only one
thing disappointed him: the failure of his men
to capture Nurla Bai and Black Jack.  The
Sikhs had pressed rapidly along the track until
they met Lawrence and his party; but neither
on land nor water had they caught a glimpse of
the fugitives.  The Kalmucks had already shown
surprising resourcefulness; there could be no
doubt that they had discovered some hiding-place
in the bank or on the hill-side above the
track.  As a sportsman, Bob gave them
ungrudging admiration: as a soldier he was
chagrined, for Nurla Bai not only ought to have
received his punishment, but he might have
proved a useful hostage in the future.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`NO THOROUGHFARE`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH


.. class:: center large

   NO THOROUGHFARE

.. vspace:: 2

"We seem to have lived an age during the
last two days," said Bob on greeting Lawrence
again in the dining-room.  "'One crowded hour
of glorious life,' begad!  But why aren't you
asleep, young man?"

"I can hardly keep my eyes open, but I
shan't sleep till I know where we are.  What
did your flag mean?"

"Of course, you don't know.  It seems stale
news to me.  There's a whole army corps
encamped ten miles beyond the bridge--twenty
thousand men at a guess, with field-guns, all
complete.  I saw hundreds of transport-wagons
rolling up, camel caravans too.  It's a big
thing."

"But what's the game?  They don't need an
army corps to bag this mine."

"Hanged if I know.  It seems clear they
intend to march up the valley; it was probably
an advanced outpost that we came into conflict
with.  So far as I know the valley leads only to
Afghanistan and--India."

"Those Mongols we have heard about, then,
are going to have a slap at Afghanistan?"

"Or India!"

"That's tosh.  Twenty thousand men are no
good for invading India, and they wouldn't come
this way in any case."

"That's just what I said to myself.  Of course
Afghanistan is much nearer, and they might
catch the Amir napping by choosing this unusual
road.  But after all, what concerns us is our
position here."

"Yes.  What have you been doing all day?"

"Flying up and down like a swallow--or
wasn't it an eagle that dropped something on
a Johnny's bald skull--in the classics.  I haven't
done that exactly, but I've had a little practice
in bomb dropping."

He related the manoeuvres by which he had
checked the pursuit of the Pathans and driven
the Kalmucks down-stream, and the subsequent
adventurous flight of Nurla Bai.

"Would you have let them shoot at him?"
he asked.  "The Babu was mad with me."

"I don't think I would.  It wouldn't be
cricket, do you think?  The Babu wouldn't
learn that sort of thing at Calcutta University!"

"Have you had any trouble?"

"Quite enough, I can assure you.  In the
small hours they tried to cross at the bridge,
some of them floating themselves on water-skins.
We beat them off at the cost of a few knocks.
But some must have got past us over the
hills--a mighty big round.  We met a crowd of them
on foot.  Luckily it was all very sudden, and a
charge scattered them.  We lost one man, but
we polished off a lot of them; the Pathans are
perfect demons at fighting."

"Well done, old chap!  Charging was the very
thing.  These beggars can't face it.  I remember
that in the Mutiny our men never charged
without success.  But what about the future?
We've two courses open: to pack up and cut our
sticks before the Mongols arrive, or to hang on
and make the best defence we can.  Candidly,
I don't see how we can hold the place with our
little lot against such a host."

"What about Thermopylae and Leonidas?"

"Yes, but Xerxes hadn't any artillery.  Besides,
if I'm not mistaken, Leonidas and his three
hundred were cut up, to a man."

"Only because a traitor showed the Persians
a way round to their rear.  Still, you know best."

"I'll send for old Gur Buksh.  He's seen a
lot of service, and has a cool head.  We're better
placed than Leonidas in one respect: traitor or
no traitor, we can't be got at from the rear."

When the havildar arrived, Bob put the position
to him exactly, omitting no detail, and glossing
over none of the difficulties.

"Now, havildar," he said in conclusion, "shall
we run, or shall we fight?  We ought to have
plenty of time to get away.  The enemy can't
advance in force until they have repaired the
bridge, and they'll have to do that thoroughly
if they wish to bring their artillery across.  It will
take them at least a day, probably longer.  We
can reckon on twenty-four hours' start."

The havildar, a fine soldierly figure, stood in
silence before the two lads, pondering deeply.

"The men are very weary, sahib," he said at
length.  "They could not start before morning.
There are not horses for all: the march would
be slow, and the journey would be long.  We
should not be safe for a hundred miles, and if
the enemy is so numerous, they would pursue us
not only along the track, but over the hills, and
outstrip us, and we should not escape."

"And what if we remain here?"

"Who can tell?  If we die, we die.  But we
are safer here, sahib.  The enemy cannot haul
their guns up the heights opposite.  The gorge
is narrow; with our gun and our rifles we could
prevent them from passing the bend northward--so
long as our ammunition lasts."

"And how long will that be?  And what
provisions have we?"

"There are plenty of cartridges, sahib, and we
have those the Kalmucks left behind in their
huts.  Our provisions would have lasted three
weeks for us all; now that the Kalmucks are
gone, they will last longer."

"I say, Bob," said Lawrence, "why not
block up the track?  With a good charge of
dynamite we could bring down tons of rock on
it, and though that wouldn't block the way for
ever against twenty thousand men, it would give
them a few days' work to clear it."

"The chota sahib speaks words of wisdom,"
said Gur Buksh.  "The track is narrow where it
bends a little to the north--that is the place to
do what the sahib says."

"A jolly good notion," said Bob.  "We'll
set about it to-morrow.  Also, havildar, we will
strengthen the wall.  You have already, I see,
lined it with bags of earth, as I ordered.  You
must throw up behind them a mound of the
tailings from the mine.  Cover that with earth,
and beat it down hard, and we shall have a triple
fortification.  It won't be very scientific, Lawrie,
but it ought to be of some use.  Can you think
of anything else, havildar?"

"That is all, sahib.  Has the sahib told the
Pathans what he has told me?"

"Oh yes.  The men who were chased by the
Kalmucks intended to go home, but I told them
everything, and I'm sure they will stick to
us.  You have arranged the sentries for the night?"

"That is done, sahib."

"Then we'll get to bed, Lawrie.  We both
want a good sound sleep.  Wake us if anything
happens, havildar."

But Gur Buksh had not been gone five minutes,
and Bob had not yet taken off his boots, when he
was struck with a sudden uneasiness.

"I say, Lawrie," he exclaimed, "what if the
beggars came up during the night?  We couldn't
use either the machine-gun or our rifles with any
effect in the darkness, and they might easily
slip past; not without some loss, of course, but
not enough to stagger them."

"But you said yourself just now that it would
take them a whole day to repair the bridge.
They couldn't get here before morning."

"It would certainly take them a day or longer
to make the bridge strong enough to bear their
artillery.  But we've only the advanced guard
to deal with, not the main army, and in two or
three hours they could rig up a bridge good
enough for themselves and their ponies.  They
may be only a few hours' march away.  I wish
we had a searchlight.  We could then light up
the track at the bend yonder, and give them such
a dose that they wouldn't try it again."

"Why not try a bonfire?  Light a big one just
on this side of the bend.  That would give us
enough light."

"A good idea!  We'll do it, and to make
perfectly sure, we'd better blast the rock at once,
and not leave it till the morning.  I'll see to it,
however; you have a good sleep."

"Not a bit of it.  I should fall asleep in two ticks
if I had nothing to do, but I'm not going to leave
you to bear the brunt of everything.  We share
and share alike."

"Thanks, old chap.  You see to the dynamite
and get a wire spliced for the current while I get
the bonfire started."

.. _`GUR BUKSH DEFENDS THE MINE`:

.. figure:: images/img-231.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: GUR BUKSH DEFENDS THE MINE

   GUR BUKSH DEFENDS THE MINE

In a few minutes a large fire was blazing on a
ledge of rock a few feet south of the bend, and a
number of Pathans were drilling holes in the cliff.
An hour's work by experienced miners would
suffice, Bob thought, to prepare for the charge
of dynamite.  Meanwhile, in the compound,
under Lawrence's direction, other men were
splicing together several lengths of the wire used
for conveying the current from the small electric
battery to the mine galleries.  A number of boxes
were broken up to provide fuel for the bonfire,
which, however, it would be hardly necessary to
keep alight when once the track had been blocked
up by the fallen rocks.

These operations were all in progress when there
was a sudden commotion among the men drilling
the rock.  After a moment's hesitation, they
dropped their tools and scampered at the top of
their speed towards the mine.  They had barely
crossed the bridge, and this had only been raised
a few feet from its platform, when there came
swiftly round the bend a string of horsemen,
galloping two abreast.  Gur Buksh was at his
post by the machine-gun.  In a few moments it
was rattling its shot in a rapid stream towards the
enemy, and at the same time the Sikhs opened fire
with their rifles.  A number of the enemy were
seen to fall, either upon the track or over the
brink into the river, and the horses of the men
immediately behind them stumbled over the
prone bodies and in one or two cases threw their
riders.  There were a few moments of confusion.
The quiet of the night was broken by cries and
groans and the rattle and hiss of shots.  Then
the stream of horsemen suddenly stopped.
Shouts were heard from beyond the bend, but no
more of the enemy appearing, Bob ordered his
men to cease fire.

Everybody in the mine compound had been so
intent on what was happening within the area
illuminated by the bonfire that only Bob himself
and one or two more had noticed that several
of the enemy had got past the critical point before
fire was opened.  They were now in darkness,
but the clatter of their horses' hoofs could be
heard on the track just beyond the quarters
lately occupied by the Pathans.  At this sound
Bob had much difficulty in preventing his men
from blazing away at random at the cliff opposite.
To allow it would be merely to waste ammunition,
for the enemy were quite invisible; so he
peremptorily ordered them to desist after two
or three shots had been fired.  When quietness
was restored, he heard the horsemen retreating
up the valley, and soon the sound of their
movements died away.

"Lucky we didn't go to bed after all," said Bob
to Lawrence.  "Is that wire ready?"

"Yes, but the rock isn't drilled yet, is it?"

"We'll soon finish that.  The track must be
blocked at once, or we may have this going on
all night."

He called the miners up, and ordered them to
go back to their work.

"Mashallah, sahib, but it is not safe, we
shall all be killed," one of them ventured to say.

"Nonsense.  They won't come on again."

"But some have got past, sahib.  They will
come back and shoot us."

"They won't venture within the light of the
bonfire, and if they do the Sikhs will shoot them
down.  Come on: I'll go with you.  Give me
the dynamite, Lawrence.  Fazl, you take the
end of the wire.  Now then, a few minutes' more
work, and we'll tumble a mountain of rock on to
the track, and be able to sleep soundly for the
rest of the night."

His confident bearing, and the example of his
personal leadership, inspired the men with courage.
The bridge was again lowered; Bob passed over
with Fazl and the miners; Lawrence, Gur Buksh
and the Sikhs posted themselves between the
bridge head and the southern extremity of the
compound to guard against any attack on the
part of the men who had gone up the track.
They could not number more than a dozen or so
at the most, and Bob felt sure that after what
had occurred they would not be very ready to
approach the spot that had proved so fatal to
their comrades.

He ordered the men to move very quietly.
On reaching the place where they had flung down
their tools, he bade them wait a little.  From
round the bend came the sound of voices,
apparently some distance away.  The enemy had
not withdrawn altogether: would they have the
courage to come on again?  The machine-gun
was no protection to the working-party, for it
could not fire without great risk of hitting them.
Bob sent one of the men back to fetch three of
the Sikhs; their rifles might at any rate suffice
to check a rush long enough for the miners to
retreat to the bridge.

As soon as the Sikhs arrived, he ordered the
men to resume their drilling, for which the bonfire
gave sufficient light.  The first sounds attracted
the attention of the enemy.  They raised their
voices, and Bob, grasping his revolver, told the
Sikhs to level their rifles and fire if he gave the
word.  All were concealed from the enemy by
the shoulder of the cliff.  The work went on
without interference from the enemy beyond,
but presently shots began to patter on the rocks
from the rifles of those who had passed up the
valley.  The bonfire was now an inconvenience,
and the danger was greater to Bob and the Sikhs,
who stood erect, than to the miners stretched on
the ground.  But it was a risk that must be
endured, and Bob spoke a cheery word to the
men at his side, and urged the miners to hurry on
with their work.  Unknown to him, at the first
shot Lawrence had led the other Sikhs across the
bridge and posted them on the track, to repel the
Kalmucks if they should venture nearer to get a
better aim.

In a quarter of an hour the drilling was finished.
Bob sent the miners back, and himself laid the
charge of dynamite.  Then he inserted the wire,
and retreated with Fazl and the Sikhs.

"Good man!" he said to Lawrence when he
reached the bridge.  "It's all done.  We've
only to make the contact."

"Nobody hit?" asked Lawrence anxiously.

"Never a man.  I think we'd have done
better.  Now let's get back.  In five minutes
we'll have a little earthquake."

They crossed into the compound, the bridge
was raised, and Bob sent Fazl into the shed where
the battery was kept, to complete the electric
circuit.  The firing had ceased.  Nothing was to
be heard but the rushing water.  In a few
minutes there was a dull, sullen rumble; the
ground quivered, and immediately afterwards a
terrific crash which echoed and re-echoed along
the valley.  The bonfire was suddenly obliterated
as by an extinguisher.

"Another trick to us!" said Bob gleefully.
"And now I think we can go to sleep with an
easy mind.  They won't get past till they've
moved a thousand cartloads of rubbish."

"What about those fellows who got past?"

"We can leave Gur Buksh to deal with them.
They can't get into the compound; if they did
they'd never get out again.  I shouldn't wonder
if they're wishing they hadn't been in quite such
a hurry.  Now, my boy, bed: neither you nor I
will need any rocking to-night.  It's barely eight
o'clock: we ought to get a good twelve hours,
and I can do with it all."

They felt a strange pang as they passed through
their uncle's room.  It was the first time they had
entered it since the fatal morning when they set
out so cheerfully with him in pursuit of Nurla Bai.
Neither spoke of him; his loss touched them now
with a poignancy of feeling that would not endure
expression.  Bob closed the door quietly, as if a
sleeper lay within; and both undressed in silence.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CRY IN THE NIGHT`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH


.. class:: center large

   A CRY IN THE NIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

"What say you, friend?--how will this matter end?"

Chunda Beg seated himself on the wall, against
which the havildar was leaning, peering out
into the darkness.  His rifle lay across his arms.

"Hai, Chunda, is that you?" replied
Gur Buksh, in a low tone.  "I thought you
were snoring on your charpoy.  'Tis a chill night."

"I slept indeed a little--forty winks, as the
sahibs say; then I rose and came out to seek
wisdom of thee, O experienced one.  How will
this matter end, I ask?"

"Who can tell!" said the havildar with a
shrug.  "The gods know; I know not."

"You do not know; of course I did not suppose
you a soothsayer, a man of double sight, though
there are such; I have seen them, and heard
them foretell things that most certainly came
to pass.  But they were fakirs, haggard of cheek
and eye, and dirty--mashallah! how dirty!
What I meant, friend, was that you, being a
man of war, and wise in many things, should
enlighten my simplicity, and say what is the
blossom and fruit of your meditations on these
strange happenings."

Gur Buksh did not turn his head, but gazed
steadily out across the stream.  On each side
one of his men was patrolling the wall; the rest
of the Sikhs were sleeping under blankets on
the ground a few yards away, ready to spring up
at a whisper.

"The Bengali says we shall all be cut into
little pieces," Chunda Beg went on.  "He will
make good carving, being very plump."

"The Bengali is the son and grandson of
asses," grunted Gur Buksh.  "He reads books!"

"The sahibs read books too," suggested the
khansaman.

"That is different.  They read the wisdom
of their own people; the Bengali reads, and
imagines he becomes one of them, and talks
foolishness."

"That is true.  Yet in this case perhaps it is
not foolishness.  There are many hungry beasts
lurking down the track yonder."

"Hyenas!"

"Twenty thousand of them, says Fazl."

"Flat-nosed Kafirs; what are they to us?"

"That is true; they are of very little account.
Still, there is a great number of them,
and--correct me if I am wrong, havildar--a hundred
hyenas are perhaps a match for one lion."

"Look you, khansaman, we have to make
every man here believe that he is a lion.  I do
not deny that we are in a strait place, but what
is that?  I have been in strait places before.
Hai! was I not one of the thirty with a young
sahib in the hills, and did we not defend a post
against a monstrous rabble of Khels, and drive
them off, and strike such fear into the dogs that
they slunk away and troubled us no more?"

The havildar's eyes gleamed as he recalled
that fight.

"And are our young sahibs even as that one?"
said the khansaman.  "The huzur--may he
sleep well!--was a good man, but these two
striplings are very young."

"Hai! but they have red blood in their veins.
They are of the race of the Sirkar: they will
never yield.  Think you of what they have done
in these last days.  Are they not quick and
ready?  Are not their eyes keen and their
minds swift?  They fear nothing, and overlook
nothing.  Fyz Ali told me how the chota sahib
rode back to help him when he was alone and
beset by the Kalmucks, and the chota sahib
is no man of war.  Of a truth, the sahibs know
not what fear is.  And Bob Sahib carried food
to the Pathans up the river; he thinks of their
welfare, and they love him.  What is to come we
know not, but be sure there will be very great
doings here."

"Hark, havildar!  What is that?"

Chunda Beg sprang off the wall, and bent over
it with the havildar, straining his eyes into the
darkness.  A faint cry reached them from the
other side of the ravine.  They listened in
silence, waiting for a repetition of the sound.
In a few seconds they heard it again.

"A trick of the Kalmucks maybe!"
murmured Gur Buksh.  "Get you swiftly to the
house, khansaman, and rouse the sahib.  Say
nothing but that I wish to speak with him."

The khansaman hurried away.  Passing
noiselessly into the boys' bedroom, he touched
Bob on the shoulder and gave his message.
Bob was awake in an instant.

"Tell him I'm coming," he said.

He slipped on his dressing-gown and boots
quietly, so as not to disturb Lawrence, and
followed the man across the compound.  As he
reached the havildar's side, the cry was repeated
again.

"What are the sahib's orders?" said Gur Buksh.

"Did you hear what he said?" asked Bob.

"No, sahib; it was like the cry of a man for help."

"Are the Kalmucks playing a trick on us?
Have you heard anything of them?"

"Nothing, sahib."

"Let down the bridge.  We had better see."

"The sahib will without doubt take lamps?"

"Yes, and your men."

The Sikhs had already been awakened.  In
a few minutes four of them accompanied Bob
across the bridge, the first carrying a candle lamp.

The far side of the bridge rested on a platform
constructed on a rock in mid-stream.  The rock
was connected with the farther bank by a short
bridge supported on timbers and resembling a
rough wooden jetty.  Gur Buksh had said that
the cry seemed to have come from the end of the
bridge, and Bob searched for some time up and
down the track for a few yards in each direction,
listening again for the sound.  It was not
repeated.  He proceeded to range the space
once occupied by the Pathans' huts, but made
no discovery.  Puzzled, and still half suspecting
that the cry had been a ruse to decoy him from
the mine, he returned to the bridge, and was
about to cross, when the man who held the lamp
uttered a sudden exclamation.

"Behold, sahib; here he is!"

He pointed to a man lying across one of the
girders sustaining the platform.  Only his head
could be seen.  Bob knelt down and stooped
over, asking the Sikh to lower the lamp.  He
saw a bearded, turbaned man in uniform, with
arms and legs twined about the girder.

"He is unconscious," he said.  "Lift him
up and bring him into the compound."

The Sikhs had some difficulty in raising the
man, who, in spite of his unconsciousness, clung
tenaciously to the beam.  But they got him up
at last, and carried him across the bridge and
up to the house.  Bob waited to see the bridge
lowered again, then hurried back.

"Cold water, khansaman," he said as he entered.

The man brought a mug of water, which he
set down on the table.  Bob wondered why he
did not himself hold it to the stranger's lips,
until he guessed that caste was probably the
obstacle.  He himself gave the man drink, and
looked at him with curiosity, which became
recognition as he opened his eyes.  It was
Ganda Singh, the dafadar of the sowars who
had accompanied Major Endicott on his mission
months before.

"Salaam, sahib," said the man faintly, when
he saw that Bob had recognized him.

"Feel better now?" said Bob.

Ganda Singh had closed his eyes again.
Bob noticed that he was very pale and haggard,
as one exhausted after a long march.

"Just get one of the Sikhs to prepare him some
food, khansaman," he said.  "I suppose you
won't do it yourself?"

"He is a Sikh, sahib."

"Well, cut away to one of his own race, then.
He's fit for nothing at present."

He considered whether he should wake
Lawrence, but decided to let him sleep on until
the man was able to explain his presence.  He
himself was absolutely unconscious of any feeling
of fatigue.  Ganda Singh's surprising appearance
filled him with overmastering excitement.

Reviving after some hot lentil soup had been
poured between his lips, the dafadar raised himself
slightly from the couch on which he had been
laid.  Bob noticed a twinge of pain as he moved
his arm.

"Wounded?" he said.

"A shot in the shoulder, sahib--very little."

"As you came down the track?"

"No, sahib; before."

He fumbled in his belt, and produced a small
piece of paper, folded.  This he handed to Bob,
who opened it, and read, scrawled on a leaf torn
from a pocket-book, the following lines--

.. vspace:: 1

"*Get back to India at once.  Whole country
ablaze.--H. Endicott.*"

.. vspace:: 1

"Where is Endicott Sahib?" he asked quickly.

"In the hills towards the Afghan country, sahib."

"Near where we left him?  He has not been
there all this time?"

"No, sahib; Endicott Sahib went back to
Rawal Pindi, and came again."

"And he is well?"

"In body, sahib, wherein I rejoice; but very
sick in mind."

"Tell me all about it; slowly, don't distress
yourself.  Here, let me strip off your coat,
gently, and see what's wrong.  Wait a little,
though; I must fetch Lawrence Sahib."

Loth as he was to disturb his brother's rest,
he felt instinctively that the news brought by
Ganda Singh was to affect their destinies vitally.

"Wake up, old chap," he said to Lawrence,
prodding him.  "Slip on your dressing-gown
and come into the dining-room."

"Are they attacking?" asked Lawrence sleepily.

"No.  Major Endicott has sent Ganda Singh
with a message, telling us to clear out.  I'm
afraid things are looking very serious.  Come on!"

Lawrence waited only to plunge his head
into a basin of cold water, then followed his
brother into the dining-room.

"Salaam, sahib," said Ganda Singh with a
smile of friendliness.  Like everybody else he
had a warm feeling towards the chota sahib.

"Now, dafadar, tell us all about it; take
your time."

He bathed and bound up the wounded arm
while Ganda Singh talked.

The story told by him filled the boys' cup of
anxiety and dismay.  He related how Major
Endicott, after pacifying the unruly tribe to
which Nagdu belonged, had returned slowly
to headquarters, visiting on the way several
other tribes within his allotted portion of the
borderlands.  But he had soon been called away
again by news of another outbreak, among the
very people whom he had just reduced to quietness.
Once more he set off, attended as before by his
official escort of twelve troopers.  This time
he had woefully failed to repress their turbulence,
which, indeed, swelled into active hostility.
One day, attacked by overwhelming numbers,
he had been forced to flee for his life.  Before
the little party got away, it had lost several
in killed and wounded, and the Major, refusing
to leave the wounded to the tender mercies
of the enemy, had lost his chance of making
good his escape.  He was headed off, and
galloped for refuge to a half-ruined hill-tower
some little distance west of his route, where he
had been since besieged by the tribesmen.

On the second day of the investment he had
scribbled the chit in his pocket-book, torn out
the leaf, and given it to the dafadar with orders
to leave the tower by night and make all speed
to Mr. Appleton's mine.  Ganda Singh had
crept out and stolen away to the rear, but his
movements were detected, and he had run the
gauntlet of a fusillade.  One shot had taken
effect, but the wound was slight, and he had
pressed on, eluded the enemy's pickets, and
after a long round gained the road that led
ultimately to the mine.  He had carried very
little food with him, and was almost exhausted,
rather by fatigue than by loss of blood, when,
about two miles from the mine, he stumbled
upon a small bivouac of ten or a dozen men.
Luckily he had heard their horses stamping and
champing their bits while still at some distance
from them, and was careful to approach them
warily.  Having no means of telling whether
they were friends or foes, he decided to slip past
them quietly in the darkness.  He could barely
drag himself over the last mile, and on reaching
the platform, being thoroughly worn out, he
stumbled, and only saved himself from falling
into the river by clutching at the girder as he fell.

"How long have you been marching?" asked Bob.

"Three days, sahib."

"And how far have you come?"

"Thirty kos,[#] sahib.  It was bad marching,
but I came as fast as I could."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

   [#] About forty-five miles.

.. vspace:: 2

"It was good of Endicott Sahib to send you,
but why?  We are far away from the
disturbances on the Afghan border."

"Ah yes, sahib, but there is talk of great
doings towards the north-west.  They say in the
bazaars that the Mongols have made friends
with the Afghans, and offered to share the
plunder with them when they make their raid
into the Punjab.  It is foolishness, as Endicott
Sahib said: but the badmashes will do much
evil, and the sahib said that Appleton Sahib
ought to know, so that he might escape to India
while there is yet time."

"And what about the sahib himself?  He
will break through, of course?"

"Hai!  The sahib will not leave the wounded."

"He can hold out?"

"Who shall say?  The sahib has little food,
and the water of the well in the tower is foul.
The sahib will assuredly fight as long as he has one
cartridge left in his revolver; then....  It is
written, sahib; but the huzurs know how to die."

"Good heavens!" ejaculated Lawrence.  "Can't
he send for help?"

"The nearest post is a hundred miles away,
sahib.  There would not be time.  In one day
more, or perhaps two, all the food will be gone.
No help could come to him for a week--no force
strong enough to drive away the dogs that
beset him."

"Why did he think we could escape, then?"

"Because the road is still open, sahib.  The
tribes are not yet moving towards the frontier,
and the hill-tower is far to the west of the
road.  If the sahibs start at once there is just
a chance that they may save themselves--as
one leaves a house before the flood comes up
and washes it away."

The boys felt overwhelmed by this climax to
their embarrassments.  There was no certainty
that they could reach the nearest British post
before the tide of invasion had begun to flow.
The way might already be blocked by hordes
of tribesmen gathering strength for their swoop
upon the Punjab--an adventure which, utterly
absurd as it seemed, and foredoomed to disaster,
would work havoc on the frontier until it was
crushed by the might of the Imperial power.
They saw themselves shut up as in a trap
between the 20,000 men on the north, and the
innumerable host which the scent of plunder
would attract to the Afghans' banner.

"We shall have to stick it now, in any case,"
said Bob to Lawrence.  "Khansaman, take
Ganda Singh to Gur Buksh: he will find him
quarters.  Then go to bed.  I will ring for you
if I want you."

When the two men were gone, Bob threw
himself into a chair.

"Light up," he said.  "There'll be no more
sleep for us to-night."

"What a brick the Major is!" said Lawrence.
"Poor old chap!  He won't cave in without
giving those blackguards something to remember,
but if things are as bad as Ganda Singh says it's
all up with him.  Nothing on earth will induce
him to leave his men, or he might make a bolt
for it.  I wonder if it was too late for him to
send for help?"

"There's not much doubt of it.  A man
couldn't get away quietly enough on horseback
with the tower surrounded, and it would take
him four or five days to foot it.  Then they'd
have to get together an expeditionary force,
and if they've got wind of what's on, they would
hesitate to send out a small light-marching force
that might be smothered.  These political officers
are always taking their lives in their hands.
The Major's a good sort.  I wish to goodness
something could be done for him."

"I say!  I've a notion.  What about the aeroplane?"

"How do you mean?"

"Fly to help him.  A few of those bombs of
yours would work wonders."

"That's all very well, I dare say a little
dynamite would set the besiegers flying in panic;
but to bring the Major away is quite another
matter.  He's in a hill-tower, and if it's like those
we saw occasionally as we came north it'll be
perched in the worst possible place for the
machine to alight."

"We can find that out from Ganda Singh."

"But there's another thing.  Suppose it is
possible to come down, will there be time to get
the Major out and take him on board before the
enemy come back?  Their panic won't last long
when they find they can only be hit from the air."

"It will take some time to discover that, but
I foresee the worst difficulty.  That's the sowars.
As I said, he won't leave them, especially as
some are wounded.  And the biggest cowards in
creation--and the Afghans are not cowards--would
recover their courage and their wits long
before you could fly to and fro with the sowars
as passengers."

"And they'd smash the machine too.  It
would be an easy target most of the time.  I'm
afraid it's no go."

They smoked on in silence, gloomily watching
the rings and clouds eddying out into the dark
through the open window.

"Look here!" exclaimed Bob suddenly.

"I say!" cried Lawrence at the same moment.

"I'm going to try it," Bob continued.

"That's what I was going to say."

"But----"

"Hold hard!  Just listen while I put the case
with my usual sweet reasonableness.  You're
about fed up with patrolling the valley, I should
think."

"But----"

"Let me have my say out: your turn by and
by.  You're a soldier; I'm not.  You're the chap
to defend this place, and, as you said, we've got
to defend it now.  You've a head for strategy
and all that sort of thing: I'm a fool at it.  If
one of us has got to go, I can be best spared."

"You're talking perfect----"

"I know, but I haven't done yet.  I haven't
had quite as much practice in the aeroplane as
you, but I've had quite enough for this job.
And as for shying dynamite bombs, any ass
could do that."

"I back you wouldn't find it easy to hit a
mark," Bob got in.

"Perhaps not, but when the mark is a crowd
of three or four hundred Afghans I ought to be
kicked if I couldn't score at least an outer.
Seriously, old man, this is my job.  I'm not
such a fool as to think it'll be pure fun; it's a
desperately tough proposition, as the Yanks say;
and of course you'd do it better than I could;
but we can't both go, and I'm sure you're the
right man to stay here.  Now have your fling."

"Well, you've put me in a hole with your
beastly logic," grumbled Bob.  "I can't admit
you're right without sort of making myself
out to be a sprouting commander-in-chief!  My
word!  It would be a fine thing to get the Major
here!  He'd take command, and I'd play second
fiddle with the greatest pleasure in life.  All
right: you go, then."

"Thanks, old man.  Just ring for Chunda,
will you?  I must have a talk with Ganda Singh."

"You'll do nothing of the sort.  You'll go
straight back to bed.  You'll want all your nerve
to-morrow, and after what you've gone through
you'll be a limp rag in the morning unless you
sleep.  Go to bed.  I'll arrange everything.
You'll find everything ready for you in the
morning.  I think you had better take Fazl
with you: in fact, you must, for you'll have quite
enough to do with managing the machine without
dropping bombs.  Cut off!"

"All right.  There's only one thing."

"What's that?"

"I hope to goodness the wind won't be blowing
a hurricane in the morning."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE TOWER IN THE HILLS`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH


.. class:: center large

   THE TOWER IN THE HILLS

.. vspace:: 2

There was between four and five hours for
making the necessary arrangements.  Bob soon
had different sets of men working at different
jobs.  Some he ordered to prepare baskets of
food and to fill several water-skins--the want
of good water was perhaps Major Endicott's
greatest peril.  Others he instructed to fill more
tins with stones and caps, in readiness for the
final charge of dynamite, which he would
himself place.  While all this was in hand, he had
a long talk with Gur Buksh and Ganda Singh,
who turned out to be old comrades in arms.
They both agreed that if the chota sahib should
succeed in dispersing the tribesmen now besieging
the tower, and in conveying food and water to
the defenders, Endicott Sahib might be trusted
to extricate himself and his men from their
awkward position.  That the dispersal was
possible Bob had never doubted; no body of
men could hold together under the staggering
effect of bombs exploding in their midst.  And
after his talk with the Sikhs he felt reassured
as to the further success of the scheme.  Major
Endicott was a cool-headed veteran, who would
take things into his own hands on Lawrence's
arrival, so that the plan would not miscarry
through Lawrence's lack of military experience.

On leaving the Sikhs, Bob went along the
pathway to the aeroplane platform.  He could
not trust any one but himself to prepare the
machine for the morrow's flight.  He spent a
couple of hours in thoroughly overhauling it:
cleaning the engine, examining every inch of
the framework and the stays, oiling all the
moving parts.  Satisfied that all was in good
order, he returned to the house.  At this hour
it was hardly worth while to go to bed, so he
bathed, shaved, and dressed, and then sent for
Fazl, to give him instructions.

Lawrence joined him at dawn.  They went
together to the hut where Ganda Singh lay, and
the wounded man, refreshed with food and sleep,
was able to explain more clearly now the
whereabouts of Major Endicott and the operations of
his besiegers.

"You'll tell him, of course, how we are situated
here," said Bob, as they walked away together.
"All being well I shall expect to see him in two
or three days.  You'll fly back in advance and
tell me?"

"I dare say, but I shan't come until I see
him safe on the march.  I only hope I shan't be
too late."

"I don't think you will be.  I gather from
what Ganda Singh said that starvation is the
greatest danger, but they've got their horses
in the last resort.  There's no wind luckily; you
couldn't have a finer day.  By the way, keep
a look-out for the Kalmucks who got by last
night.  Don't drop within range of them."

Rumours of what was afoot had run round
the camp.  Miners and servants were gathering
in the compound to witness the departure of the
aeroplane.  As the boys walked towards the
pathway Ditta Lal joined them.  He wore his
wonted air of cheerfulness.

"On behalf of establishment, sir, I bid you
good luck and au revoir," he said.  "Clouds
have silver lining, sir.  If report is true, we shall
soon have felicity to see famous warrior in
person; with due respect, and no derogation to
present company, full-fledged British officer,
when he takes command, will put rosy complexion
on deplorable situation."

"Paint everything red, you mean?" said Bob
gravely.

"Ruddy hue of health, sir," said the Babu,
missing the point.  "Representative of august
king-emperor, British flag, standard of freedom
and all that----"

"Good-bye," said Lawrence, cutting him short.
"Don't trouble to come any farther."

Bob went with him to the aeroplane platform.

"Good luck, old chap," he said, gripping
Lawrence hard by the hand.  He waited until
the aeroplane had run off and soared out of
sight, then returned in mingled hope and fear
to the mine.

About a dozen miles up the valley Fazl caught
sight of a number of men scuttling to cover
among the rocks above the track.  There was
little doubt that these were the Kalmucks, who,
finding themselves effectually cut off from their
friends to the north, were probably hastening
southward in search of provisions.  Except for
a few wild animals, the neighbourhood of the
valley furnished no means of subsistence.  There
was a small hill-village about thirty miles from
the mine, lying back some distance from the
right bank.  Perhaps the Kalmucks might find
hospitality there.

Lawrence hoped that in the course of forty
minutes he would come in sight of the hill-tower in
which Major Endicott was besieged.  From Ganda
Singh's description he thought it must be identical
with a tower which he had seen in the distance
on one of his early trips with Bob up the river.
It was a conspicuous object in the hilly landscape,
and he had no fear of missing it, considering the
immense expanse of country which lay open to
observation from the aeroplane.

In spite of the particulars given by Ganda
Singh, Lawrence felt that in approaching the
tower his first care must be to reconnoitre the
position thoroughly.  Everything depended on
his finding a convenient spot for landing, and this
might be very difficult in such hilly country.
The appearance of the aeroplane would of course
put the enemy on their guard; but they would
not know what to expect, and would probably
be rather alarmed and mystified than informed.
At the same time it would be a herald of hope to
Major Endicott, and prepare him to take instant
advantage of any diversion which it might effect
in his favour.

When Lawrence had been flying for about
twenty minutes he became somewhat uneasy at a
sudden freshening of the wind, which blew in
uncertain gusts from the mountains on his right.
Since passing the Kalmucks he had kept fairly
close to the river, but when the machine began
to rock under these invisible eddies he thought
it the safer course to rise to a considerable
height.  The morning air was so exhilarating,
and the view of endless snow-capped heights
and pine-clad ravines so superb, that only the
intense cold, of which he was now conscious
in spite of the summer sun, checked his ascension.
On the left stretched the Pamirs, backed by
peak after peak of some of the loftiest and most
majestic mountains in the world.  In front and
on the right the Himalaya range merged into
the Hindu Kush.  Huge masses of cloud rolled
up and down the rugged faces of the mountains,
causing moment by moment wonderful changes
in their aspect.  Some of the peaks seemed to
have covered themselves with an umbrella of
fleecy billowy wool as a shield against the kindling
sunbeams.

The enormous scale of this panorama defied
perspective and gave a false idea of distance.
Lawrence knew that peaks which, clearly limned
against the sky, might be thought to be ten or
fifteen miles away, were in reality more than a
hundred.  But for the urgency of his mission,
he felt that he would have liked to sail on and on
in this empyrean height, exploring regions never
trodden by the foot of man.

All the time, Fazl kept a keen eye on the track
and the river, winding along hundreds, even
thousands, of feet below.  The hill-tower lay
somewhat to the west of the road which the
Appletons had travelled with Major Endicott
several months before, and from this road the
track leading to the mine branched.  The Gurkha
knew the country pretty well.  Fast as the
aeroplane flew, he distinguished without
hesitation the junction of the roads, and at his word
Lawrence altered his course and, leaving the
valley, steered over the hills on his right hand.

Very soon Fazl was able to descry the hill-tower
in the far distance.  The aeroplane was
flying at the rate of at least a mile a minute;
but minute after minute passed, and yet the
tower seemed little nearer.  When at last
Lawrence had come close enough to it to be able
to distinguish its general features, he saw that
it was a single square-built tower of the usual
Afghan type, perched on a small hill that rose
sharply from the surrounding country.  The
side nearest him overhung an almost perpendicular
declivity.  Though solidly constructed
in appearance, it was little more than a ruin.
The top had partially fallen away, and in the
wall facing him there was a long jagged fissure.

While still at some distance, Lawrence heard
rifle-shots, though neither he nor Fazl could as
yet see any signs of the enemy.  He felt his
heart thumping.  He was still in time, then; for
if all was over the firing would have ceased.
Planing down in a long glide, he passed over the
tower, still at a considerable altitude, and then
suddenly caught sight of an encampment in a
nullah on the farther side.  In the brief moment
of his crossing he was not able to get more than
a glimpse of it; the nullah was so deep, and the
encampment encompassed so closely by shrubs,
dwarf pines, and other trees, that he might have
missed it altogether but for a thin column of
smoke arising from a fire in the bottom.  But
his rapid glance was enough for reassurance; the
camp would have been struck if the tower was
captured; it was clear that the Major was still
holding out.

Dropping still lower, he began to sweep round
in a circle.  Before he reached the nullah again
Fazl pointed out to him a number of isolated dots
on the rugged surface below, spread over an
extensive patch of ground.  Some were small,
others larger, and as he flew by Fazl explained
that they were groups of the enemy, who had
posted themselves wherever the nature of the
ground gave them cover from the fire of the
occupants of the tower.  They were disposed
in a rough semicircle about the western wall, in
which there was a door.  The approach on this
side was by a steep slope; on the other side the
tower was apparently inaccessible.

Between the wall and this semicircle of
besiegers were scattered at irregular intervals a
number of dark forms.

"Dead!" ejaculated Fazl.

They were evidently the bodies of men who had
fallen in attempting to rush the place.  Ganda
Singh had mentioned that on the day he left
the Afghans had made a vigorous assault, but
were beaten back with heavy loss.

Bringing the aeroplane round so as to pass
again over the encampment, Lawrence noticed a
number of horses picketed near the rough huts.
The Gurkha cried excitedly that the animals
were kicking and straining at their ropes, and
men were rushing to hold them.  The noise of
the engine had thrown them into a state of blind
terror.  Two or three broke away, and galloped
madly up the nullah.

Several shots were fired at the aeroplane.
Lawrence was somewhat surprised that the men
were not struck with panic, like their horses, at
the appearance of this strange booming monster
of the air.  It did not occur to him until
afterwards that rumours of it must have been carried
far and wide through the country for months
past.  Men who had seen it in its flights had
described it to their neighbours or to wanderers
whom they met in the hills; and although few,
perhaps, of these tribesmen now present had
actually seen it before, doubtless many of them
had heard more or less veracious accounts of it.
The frantic terror of the ponies suggested to
Lawrence an idea on which he acted immediately.
He abandoned his original purpose of making a
preliminary reconnaissance of the whole position
and then retiring to a distance to work out a
plan.  To a mounted force there is nothing so
demoralizing as the loss of their horses.  Lawrence
knew this, and in a flash saw also that the Major,
if he should escape from the tower, would have
little to fear from an enemy pursuing on foot.  He
resolved therefore to attempt to stampede all
the horses, and take advantage of the resulting
confusion.

By the time he had come to this determination
he was some distance past the nullah.  Telling
Fazl to drop a bomb among the horses when he
again crossed it, he rose rapidly to a height of
about a thousand feet, wheeled round, and
swooped down in a long incline towards the
camp.  He scarcely realized that he was taking
his life in his hands as he flew almost within
point-blank range.  Nor had he calculated on
the possible effect of the coming explosion on
the aeroplane.  When he arrested his downward
flight he was so near the ground that the bursting
of the bomb set the machine rocking violently,
and for a few moments he could scarcely control
it.  Cool-headed marksmen could then have
taken fatal aim at him; but the Afghans were
fascinated and paralysed by his headlong descent,
and while they were still wondering and dreading
what it might portend, the explosion of the bomb
within a few yards of them struck them with
terror.

Lawrence swept round to observe the effect of
this bolt from the blue.  A great troop of horses
was galloping wildly along the nullah to the west.
He caught sight of their forms, black, brown and
grey, wherever there were breaks among the
trees.  Farther up the nullah, where the sides
were less steep, the frantic animals were dashing
across the country in all directions.  Beneath, a
few lay motionless on the ground.  Loth as he
was to destroy or maim the unoffending beasts,
he felt that this was not an occasion for half
measures: there was too much at stake.  In their
panic flight it was inevitable that many of the
horses must dash themselves to pieces in the
ravines and fissures with which the country was
seamed.  To prevent the rallying of the rest,
he set off in pursuit.  Sweeping the ground like a
shepherd's dog after a flock of sheep, he flew
backwards and forwards and from side to side
at the heels of the terrified animals.  No more
bombs were necessary.  The whirr of the propeller
behind them drove them on at the same mad rush,
and in a quarter of an hour there was not a
living horse within several miles of the encampment.

On returning towards the tower, Lawrence was
surprised to see that the groups of Afghans had
disappeared from around it.  But as he crossed
the nullah there were bursts of smoke from
among the trees and the undergrowth, and above
the hum of the propeller he heard the characteristic
whistle of bullets.  Later he discovered that
several holes had been drilled in the planes.
The firing ceased as suddenly as it had begun.
Crossing the nullah almost at right angles, the
aeroplane was visible for only a few seconds to
the men hidden in the bottom.

From an embrasure high up in the tower a
white handkerchief was fluttering in the breeze.
Lawrence wished that he had some means of
communicating instantly with the Major; but
the attack from which he had just escaped proved
that he could not venture to alight, nor could he
be of any further service to the little garrison
until the nullah had been cleared.  It was
necessary to drive the men up the ravine in the same
direction as he had already driven the horses.
There might be more difficulty in this, for the
enemy were completely concealed by the trees
and undergrowth, so that he could not tell exactly
where they were.  The only plan that promised
complete success was to fly some distance down
the ravine, and then work up it, dropping bombs
when he approached the spot where the firing
had broken out.

In a few brief sentences he explained his
purpose to Fazl.  Making a wide sweep he came
back to the nullah half a mile to the east; then,
reducing speed to the minimum, but keeping at
a good altitude, he followed the winding course
of the gully.  The enemy played into his hands.
Another burst of smoke revealed their
whereabouts.  Fazl instantly dropped a bomb, and
turning to watch the effect, cried out that a
dense cloud of smoke and dust had arisen from
the scene of the explosion.  Lawrence wheeled
round again, described a wide semicircle, passing
immediately above the tower, and, regaining the
nullah, repeated the manoeuvre.

This time Fazl reported that he saw men
among the trees, running up the ravine.  The
enemy could scarcely have chosen a less secure
shelter.  The explosion of a bomb in so
constricted a space must be many times more
destructive than in the open.  But Lawrence
had no inclination towards needless slaughter.
His object would be achieved if he drove the
men away as he had driven the horses.  Knowing
that they were on the run, he dropped another
bomb to speed their flight; then swept round
again, and pursued the same tactics as had
already proved so effectual.  When the enemy
reached the less wooded part of the nullah, he
found it easy to hover about their rear, and,
without the further use of bombs, to impel them
to the most desperate exertions by the mere
harrying pursuit of the aeroplane.

He was not content until he had driven them
many miles up the nullah.  Whenever they
showed a disposition to break away into the
open country to right or left, a swoop of the
aeroplane in that direction was sufficient to send
them scurrying back.  In their haste and panic
they did not halt to fire again, and Lawrence
was at length satisfied that even if they should
recover their nerve and courage, they were too
far away to trouble the garrison of the tower for
at least a couple of hours.

On nearing the tower, he saw that several
figures had emerged from the door at the foot.
He glided down to within a few yards of it,
and shouted a greeting to Major Endicott, who
waved his hand in response.  Then he sought
for a landing-place.  The ground in the immediate
vicinity was too broken to allow of a safe descent;
but after circling round once or twice, he
discovered a space sufficiently flat and open for his
purpose about a quarter of a mile away.  Alighting
there, he left the aeroplane in Fazl's charge,
and, feeling very shaky on his legs after the
exhausting and nervous work of the past two
hours, he walked back to meet the British officer.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`STALKED`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH


.. class:: center large

   STALKED

.. vspace:: 2

"Masterly cattle-driving," were Major
Endicott's first words as Lawrence joined him.

No one would have supposed from the simple
words and the natural hand-shake that the
meeting marked the end of a tense and perilous
situation.  Five sowars grouped at the door
saluted and gave a shout of welcome.

"I'm jolly glad I'm in time," said Lawrence.

"Jolly good of you to come at all--wholly
unexpected.  I had quite forgotten that you
had brought an aeroplane out."

"I say, are you hungry?"

"We are on our second horse.  We had to
use our own food for the animals.  We are
desperately thirsty, though.  The well water
is putrid."

"I've got plenty of food and water in the
aeroplane."

"That's more than I hoped.  I'll send the
men for it.  Horse-flesh isn't bad, but it lacks
variety; and thirst is torture."

Having dispatched three of the sowars to
fetch the provisions, he said--

"I sent the dafadar on the chance of his
finding you.  Is all well at the mine?"

"We're in the deuce of a fix, Major.  There's
a regular army of Kalmucks forty miles north
of us."

"Kalmucks!  An army of them!" said the
Major in surprise.

"Yes.  Bob estimates the number at twenty
thousand."

The Major knit his brows.  The news evidently
disturbed him.

"Encamped, you say?  Any signs of a movement?"

"They intend marching up the valley.  We
have had two or three brushes with advanced
parties."

"That's very serious."  He reflected silently
for a little; then, as if rousing himself from a
reverie, continued--

"You didn't need my warning, then.  Your
uncle was already preparing to decamp?"

"Uncle's gone!"

"Not left you young--  Why, my dear fellow--you
don't mean that he's----"

Lawrence nodded.

"One of our miners shot him," he said briefly.

"Poor old Harry!  That's a good fellow gone.
I'm awfully sorry for you young fellows.  Is
your brother getting ready to come away?"

"Bob is still at the mine.  It's in a narrow
gorge, and we've blocked up the only path, so
they can't get at us for some little time.  But
what are we to do, Major?  You and your men
will march for the mine, won't you?"

The Major sank again into a brown study.
Lawrence watched his grave face anxiously.

"It's a pity, but I haven't time," he said at
length.  "I must get south as rapidly as possible.
What you tell me confirms the rumours that
have been flying about.  When I started from
Rawal Pindi there was talk of risings in different
parts of the country, and as I came north I
heard about large movements in Central Asia.
I thought they were directed against Russia,
but it seems pretty clear that the imbeciles are
going to break their heads against us.  This
flanking movement will give us trouble.  I must
get back to the nearest post and wire the news
to headquarters, and they'll want me; I've
made an egregious failure here, but I may still be
able to do something among the tribes farther south."

"But it's war now, isn't it?  Ganda said you
had only a few men.  You could hardly fight
your way back if the enemy were across the road."

"I've those five men you see there, and two of
them are wounded.  I started with twelve; six
were killed.  And I almost wish you hadn't
stampeded the enemy's horses quite so thoroughly.
The enemy collared all but three of ours.  We
killed two for food.  On foot we are at a terrible
disadvantage.  The only thing for me to do is to
ride off alone, and trust to luck.  One man might
get through safely where a party would fail.  I
know the ground thoroughly.  The one thing that
bothers me is my wounded.  I was going to
suggest that my men should make tracks for your
mine; they might be of use to you; but the
two wounded fellows can't stand the march."

"I see a way out of that," said Lawrence at
once.  "I can take them in the aeroplane and
be back in a couple of hours or so.  I should
have to leave my Gurkha, but he would come
along with your men."

"The country's clear between here and the
mine, I suppose?"

"Practically; a few Kalmucks got past before
we blocked up the path--we blasted the rocks
with dynamite.  There aren't more than a
dozen, certainly."

"Armed?"

"Yes, but I fancy they're without food, and
in no condition to tackle your men if they meet.
Besides, when I get back I can cover their
march: I've several bombs left."

"Dynamite again, as I saw.  Your mine is
rather useful.  I'll remain here, then, until you
get back, and then leave my men to you."

"But, Major, I don't like to think of you
riding alone over ninety or a hundred miles of
country that may be overrun by the enemy."

"It wouldn't be the first time one of us has
tried it and got through safely.  Anyway, I
see nothing else for it.  This news must be got
through to Simla, and while I'm alive I mustn't
be out of the way."

"I've an idea.  Why not march with the men
to the mine?  Then Bob or I would carry you
across country in the aeroplane.  You'd lose
a day or two to begin with, but after all you'd
get to the post quite as soon as on horseback--without
any of the dangers."

"Aeroplane *perfectly* safe then?" he said
with a quizzical smile.

"Well, we've had no trouble with it yet, and
Bob would take you, I dare say; he's better at
it than I am."

"It's uncommonly good of you to suggest it.
How far is your mine from here?"

"Something over forty miles."

"That means two days' march at least, in
such rugged country and on foot.  Well, I'll
close with you.  I should like to take stock of
the position at your mine.  I might make a
suggestion, perhaps; and if you or your brother
will be good enough to carry me across
country, I shall be grateful, and it'll be useful to
Government.  How far did you drive those
Afghans, by the by?"

"Quite six miles, I should think, so you'll
have a good start.  Even if they buck up and
catch their horses, they won't get back here
before me, and I don't believe they'll come back
at all.  They were pretty thoroughly scared
by the bombs."

"Very well, then, we shall have to carry my
wounded to the aeroplane.  They'll be horribly
nervous.  Can you strap them in?"

"With their own belts.  They'll get over their
nervousness in a few minutes; it's easier travelling
than by railway."

"I'm glad of that.  I was afraid I should be
squeamish myself.  The rest of us will start as
soon as you are off."

The sowars had now returned with the baskets
of food, and the whole party sat on the ground,
with their rifles across their knees, to what was
a sumptuous feast after their recent privations.
When they had finished the meal, the two
wounded men were carried by their comrades
to the aeroplane.  Fazl quietly obeyed Lawrence's
order to give up his seat, though he was clearly
disappointed; and the two passengers having
been securely strapped in, Bob started, with a
cheery "So long!" to the Major.

"Hai, sahib!" said one of the men, who were
overawed by these strange proceedings: "that is
a terrible thing."

"A godsend to us," said the Major.  He then
explained to them his purpose.  One of them
brought his horse from the tower, and ten minutes
after Lawrence's departure the little party started,
the three sowars having strapped on their backs
the water-skins and the baskets, with what was
left of the provisions.  They made their way
down the ravine, to avoid observation from any
of the Afghans who might be still lurking in
the neighbourhood, the Major's intention being
to strike across country to the river as soon as
they were out of sight of the surroundings of the tower.

Lawrence's mind was so busily occupied with
this latest turn of Fortune's wheel that he forgot,
on his flight back to the mine, to keep a look-out
for the Kalmucks.  He would scarcely have seen
them, for they heard the hum of the machine
from a considerable distance, and, mindful of
former happenings, they concealed themselves
behind rocks or among bushes without making
any attempt to check its flight with their rifles.

About ten miles from the mine Lawrence had a
momentary fright.  The engine, which had worked
with perfect accuracy ever since the first
experiments, now suddenly missed fire.  Before he
had time to think of what he should do if it
failed, however, it recovered itself, and gave him
no further anxiety.  On coming within sight of
the platform, he saw with relief that Bob was
there to meet him; it was clear that all was well
at present.  When he alighted he explained the
situation of Major Endicott in a few rapid
sentences.  Bob walked a few yards along the
pathway, round the curve, and hallooed to
Gur Buksh to send some of the men to him.
These carried the wounded sowars to the
compound, and presently returned with more baskets
of food, which Bob had ordered to be prepared
for the Major's party on the march.

"I say, Bob," said Lawrence during the men's
absence, "there was a miss-fire a few miles back."

"Whew! it's beginning to play tricks then.
We've been very lucky so far.  Need you go back?"

"Oh yes!  I told the Major I'd return to cover
his march."

"Let me have a look at it."

He opened up the engine, examined all its
parts, started it.

"It seems to be working all right.  I don't see
any grit; if there was any it's been got rid of.
If it should happen again you had better plane
down and wait till the Major reaches you; but I
don't think you'll have any trouble."

As Lawrence got into his place, he recollected
the bombs that lay beneath the seat that
Fazl had occupied.

"Shift those, Bob, will you?" he said.  "It will
be rather awkward without Fazl if I have to
use them.  Put them as closely within reach
as you can.  I shall have to steer with one hand
and drop them with the other."

"Probably you won't have to use them at all.
The Major and four men will be more than a
match for those Kalmuck fellows, who must
be getting famished by this time."

"The Afghans may be in pursuit, though."

"But the mere sight of the aeroplane might
be enough for them after what has happened.
Still, it's just as well to be prepared.  Bluffing
sometimes doesn't come off, and the aeroplane
is useless for offensive action without the bombs.
If you do find the Major fighting a rear-guard
action don't be too tender.  Strike hard if you
strike at all."

"Well, I'll do what I must.  Don't expect
us before to-morrow night at the earliest.  I
shall have to come down at times, or the petrol
won't last out; and when the Major is within a
few miles I'll fly back ahead of him if all's safe.
So long!"

Bob watched him out of sight.  He felt a
little anxious; he would have been alarmed had
he known that within five miles of the mine the
engine began to give trouble again.  Lawrence
was in two minds whether to return and have
it thoroughly overhauled, or to continue on his
course.  But he felt that delay might be serious
to the Major, and, as before, the engine might soon
right itself.  He kept straight on.  His hopes
were flattered when, after a minute or two of
fitful explosions, the engine worked normally again.

But he had only flown about half-way to the
tower, as he guessed, when the trouble
recommenced.  Hoping against hope, he continued his
flight for a minute or so, until he became
convinced that the engine was on the point of
breaking down utterly.  He had been preparing
himself for the possibility, but found himself in
a serious difficulty now that the problem actually
faced him.  The valley at the point which he
had reached was broader than at the mine, and
not so rocky or broken up as it was in many
other parts.  But it offered few spots where
even the most intrepid and experienced airman
would care to risk a descent.  The banks of the
river were covered with thick scrub and bushes;
here and there on the hill-side there were patches
of brushwood and small clumps of trees;
everywhere the ground was broken.  But it was
no time for picking and choosing.  If he had
not begun to plane down by the time the engine
finally failed, the chances were that he would be
smashed to pieces.

Casting an anxious look on the ground, he
decided to make for an open space between two
belts of woodland.  He could not tell whether
it was as level as it seemed; all that he was sure
of was that it allowed room for alighting and
was free from considerable obstructions.

The problem of descent had so fully occupied
him that not until he had actually begun the
vol plané did he remember with a thrill of
consternation the dynamite bombs at his feet.  For a
moment his brain seemed paralysed; then, as
he realized the full measure of his peril, he braced
himself to deal with it.  If the ground proved
to be less smooth than it seemed, the shock of
alighting might well be severe enough to explode
the dynamite.  Then, instead of a broken chassis
or a wrenched stay, and a few bruises--the slight
mishaps that had befallen many an airman--the
result would be the complete shattering of
the aeroplane and himself.  The only way of
safety was to jettison the bombs, and he instantly
stooped to pick them up one by one and cast
them over the side.  There followed a series of
detonations like pistol-shots much magnified,
each louder than the one before.  The bombs
fell behind the aeroplane as it descended in a
gliding swoop, and Lawrence was now beset by
a new anxiety: whether, maintaining his control
of the machine, he could get rid of the bombs
fast enough to escape risk of damage by the
explosions as he neared the ground.  There
would have been little or no danger if he had been
flying at speed; but his downward course being
at a rather large angle, the closer he came to
the ground, the nearer he would be to the scene
of the last explosion.

A spectator would have had a poor opinion of
the airmanship of the pilot whose machine was
descending so unsteadily.  To control planes,
elevator, and rudder; to keep an eye on the
ground; and at the same time to cast the bombs
overboard: all these simultaneous tasks put
a severe strain upon his nerve, agility, and
judgment.  He got rid of the last bomb within about
thirty feet of the ground, and immediately shifted
the elevator to avoid a too sudden landing.  It
was fortunate that he checked the descent when
he did; but he was too near the ground to escape
altogether.  The force of the explosion set the
aeroplane rocking as in a gale of wind.  He was
enveloped in a cloud of smoke and dust and
fragments of rock.  For a moment or two he
lost control of the machine, and instead of
alighting evenly, one side hit the ground first,
and it toppled over.  Lawrence was flung out.
As he rose dizzily to his feet, he thought
himself lucky to have escaped with a few bruises and
a pain in his left ankle, which had apparently
been turned over as he fell.

When he regained his scattered wits he limped
to the aeroplane, and looked at it ruefully.  At
first sight it appeared to be wrecked, but on
examining it more closely he was relieved to find
that the damage was such as could be repaired
with a little care.  The left side of the chassis
was twisted; some of the stays were broken,
and the left-hand plane was badly ripped.

"A narrow squeak," he said to himself.
"And now what on earth is to be done?"

He sat down and felt his sprained ankle.  It
was very tender to the touch, and he realized
that he could not set off on foot to meet the
Major, but must remain until he arrived.  At a
guess he had come about twenty-five miles
from the mine.  The Major could not be
nearer than ten miles.  He could not expect to
see him for three hours at least.  The whole
prospect was gloomy.  The aeroplane could only
be repaired at the mine, and it was quite
impossible for the three sowars and Fazl to
transport it over twenty-five miles of a narrow and
difficult track.  It seemed as if the machine
must be left where it lay until men could be
fetched from the mine to take it to pieces, and
that would need Bob's superintendence.  The
proposed flight to the British post was out of the
question, and he knew the Major well enough to
be sure that he would revert to his original
intention of making the journey on horseback,
alone.  Altogether it was a desperately vexatious
plight.

And then he remembered the Kalmucks, whom
for the time he had forgotten.  He had seen
nothing of them either going or coming, but
unless they had struck across the hills, which was
unlikely, they must be very near to where he
now was.  They could not fail to have heard
the successive explosions of the bombs, so that
they would be on the alert.  They might have
seen the descent of the aeroplane from their
lurking places among the rocks, and if they
should guess that he had come to grief, they
would have him at their mercy.  As soon as
his thoughts took this direction Lawrence got
up and unstrapped his rifle from the aeroplane.
He took his revolver from his pocket; it was
uninjured.  Then lifting his field-glass he swept
the surrounding country for signs of the enemy.

He had to admit to himself that his position
could scarcely be worse.  The spot on which he
had landed was fairly open, but it was surrounded
by broken ground that would give ample cover
to an enemy.  On two sides, up- and down-stream,
the clumps of woodland approached to
within a hundred yards.  Below him, not far
away, was the river, lined on both banks with a
thick fringe of brushwood and rushes.  Above,
the hill rose gently for a great distance, but it
was very rugged, broken by contorted fissures,
through some of which rivulets zigzagged swiftly
down to the river.  He swept the country again
and again with his glass, and took some comfort
from the absence of any sign of man; but there
were so many places where the Kalmucks might
be in hiding that he thought it wise to seek some
secluded spot himself, where he would be better
able than on the open ground to guard against
surprise.

He rose and limped up the slope of the hill.
After a little search, he discovered a hollow about
forty yards above the aeroplane, from which he
could take a bird's-eye view of the ground, and
where he had a certain amount of shelter.
Thither he carried his rifle, a basket of food and
a flask of water, and lay down to wait with what
patience he might for the coming of Major Endicott.

It was now midday, and the sun was very hot.
For some time he kept a sharp look-out,
examining the country every few minutes through his
field-glass, and creeping from side to side of the
hollow so as to extend and change his view.
Presently, however, the great heat and his failure
to discover any trace of the enemy caused him
to relax his vigilance.  He was very tired;
whenever he moved, his ankle gave him much
pain; and, as at the bridge during his night
watch, an oppressive drowsiness stole upon him,
which he found it impossible to shake off.  He
would nod, recover himself, vow that it should
not happen again, and in another minute his
head would fall forward, and he opened his eyes
bedazed and scarcely realizing where he was.
Then once more he raised the glass to his eyes,
and gazed around almost mechanically, only to
go through the same series of nods and starts again.

Recovering himself after a more prolonged
fit of dozing, he rubbed his eyes, pinched himself,
and threw a glance around.  His sluggish
faculties were quickened by the sight of something
moving in the thin brushwood at the edge of
the northern clump.  He quickly lifted his glass
and directed it at the spot, but saw nothing
suspicious, and supposed that either he had been
mistaken, or that the moving object had been
some animal which he need not trouble about.
But the momentary suspicion banished his
drowsiness; now wide awake, he sat with his back
against the rock, fixing his eyes on the scene in
front of him.

Presently he started.  Beyond doubt a figure
had run from tree to tree on the hill-side to the
right, a little above him.  By the time he had
levelled his glass on the spot the figure had
disappeared.  He reached for his rifle, and
crouched low in the hollow, peering over its edge.
Next moment his attention was again caught by
a movement in the clump of wood where he had
first noticed it.  This time he could see, even
with the naked eye, the form of a man bending
low.  Almost immediately afterwards another
half-perceived movement caused him to look
towards a spot midway between the wood and
the place on the hill-side where he had seen the
first form.  The top of a skin hat was projecting
above a knob of rock there.

"Stalking, by George!" he said to himself.

His first instinct was to seize his rifle; his
second to look around for some way of escape.
It was possible that the Kalmucks had not
yet discovered him, though the aeroplane was
full in their view; and if he could only creep
among the shrubs into some deep fissure he might
yet elude them.  He might even make a dash
for it, gain the clump of trees to the south, and
push on to meet Major Endicott.  The enemy
would probably waste some time in searching for
him--enough to give him a good start.  But
he saw at a glance that he could not reach the
trees without crossing the open ground in sight
of the enemy, and partially crippled as he was
he could not hope to outstrip them, even if they
did not use in the pursuit the horses which they
had had when they slipped past the mine.
His only course was to stay where he was, hoping
with good luck to remain undiscovered.  In
the last resort he could do some execution
among them with his weapons, though the odds
of numbers against him precluded any idea of
his being able to keep them off permanently.

At that moment he was more concerned about
the fate of the aeroplane than about his own.
It would be of no use to the enemy; they would
probably destroy it, and that prospect enraged
him.  For the first time he felt a real desire to
fight and slay, and wondered whether, when the
enemy came into the open, he might not pick
them off one by one.  After all, he thought,
his position in the hollow gave him some
advantage.  They could not take good aim at him,
whereas if they attempted to rush him across
the open space, he could mark them down almost
at his leisure.

His reflections were suddenly cut short by a
rifle-shot.  A bullet struck the ground
unpleasantly near him, and sent up a spurt of earth,
some of which struck him.  He crouched still
lower in the hollow.  Escape was now out of the
question: he must simply wait and take what
opening of defending himself offered.

The shot had been fired from the clump of
wood.  Immediately afterwards the man on the
hill-side stood erect in the attitude of taking
aim.  Lawrence hastily levelled his rifle and
took a rough shot at him, with what effect he
could not tell, for his attention was at once
called off by a rush of the man in the wood,
who dashed forward over several yards towards
a patch of bush nearer to the hollow.  Lawrence
felt that his position was even worse than he
had supposed.  The enemy had scattered with
a definite plan.  They meant to work their way
gradually towards him under cover, distracting
him by firing in turn, until they thought it
possible to overwhelm him with a final rush
from several sides.  He wished he had acted on
his first impulse to sprint towards the wood on
the south.  Was it possible even now to do it?
A sudden twinge in his ankle gave him the
answer.  They had him in a trap.

.. _`THE KALMUCKS MAKE A PRISONER`:

.. figure:: images/img-282.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: THE KALMUCKS MAKE A PRISONER

   THE KALMUCKS MAKE A PRISONER

And then he saw something flickering by a
tree up the hill-side.  It seemed to be a piece of
cloth.  Was it a flag of truce?  While he
was watching it there was a patter of feet behind
him.  Three men had risen as it were out of the
earth southwards of the hollow.  Before he
could rise they flung themselves upon him.
He was dashed to the ground.  He made desperate
efforts to free himself, writhing, kicking,
trying to free one of his hands to use his revolver.
But they pinned him down: one snatched his
revolver from him, the others held him firmly
by the neck and feet, and when his hopeless
struggles ceased they whipped off their leather
girdles and tied him up so that he was unable
to move.  Then they turned him on his back,
uttering guttural grunts of satisfaction, and he
looked up into the malicious faces of Nurla Bai
and Black Jack.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A FRIEND IN NEED`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH


.. class:: center large

   A FRIEND IN NEED

.. vspace:: 2

Even a philosopher, we know, cannot bear
the toothache patiently.  Every one has at one
time or another recognized in himself the
unphilosophic tendency to feel irritation at some
trivial thing--a speck of mud on one's clean
collar, a hair in one's soup.  We have all been
much more deeply annoyed by a slight blemish or
mishap than troubled at a really grave misfortune.

The plight in which Lawrence now found
himself was serious enough to justify an access
of rage or despair.  But it was not his capture
or his bonds that inflicted the severest pang upon
his self-esteem.  It was the sight of Nurla Bai
and his dwarfish henchman making free with the
sardine sandwiches which Shan Tai had put up
for his especial delectation.

When they had bound him, the three
Kalmucks glanced around, spied the basket a
few feet away, and rushed at it with cries of
delight.  Lawrence looked on in disgust as they
wolfed the eatables--too delicate for their
untutored palates, too unsubstantial to appease
their ravenous appetite.  He felt a thrill of
joy when, on the remainder of the party coming
up, until there were nine altogether, the new
arrivals clamoured for a share, and began to
push and snatch just as he had seen a flock of
greedy sparrows pecking at one another over a
single crust.  But though these thieves were
falling out, there was no chance of the honest
man coming by his own.

The contents of the basket soon disappeared,
and the men looked round wolfishly for more.
At sight of the aeroplane hope flashed upon
them, and with one consent they ran to realize
it.  Lawrence could no longer see them over
the edge of the hollow, but he heard their shouts
of glee, the creaking of basket lids, and then the
steady smacking of eighteen busy lips as they
fell upon the viands provided for Major Endicott
and his men.  He was very angry.  He felt
not a touch of sympathy for them in their
famishment.  To him they were merely gluttons,
not starving fellow-creatures.

During their absence he tried to wriggle out
of his bonds, but the work had been well
done, and he lay still, wondering what was
to become of him.  They had not killed him:
he was suddenly aware of that agreeable fact,
though his pleasure in it was damped when
he foresaw a possible long captivity.  While
they gulped and gloated his thoughts ran round
a ring.  Would they carry him on with them,
going southward?  Then they would meet Major
Endicott, and there would be a fight.  If they,
fortified by his own food, should get the upper
hand, he would still be their helpless prisoner.
If they were beaten, it would be consistent with
Nurla Bai's ferocious temper to kill him before
taking to flight.  Either way, his case would be
deplorable.

Presently the men came back to him, still
munching and smacking their lips.  A villainous
crew they looked.  Besides Nurla Bai and Black
Jack, there were two other miners; the rest,
differently and more martially clad, were
evidently part of the advancing force.  They
sat down at the edge of the hollow, chewing the
cud of excellent victuals and of sweet exaltation
of mind.  Lawrence writhed as he realized how
completely these ruffians had outwitted him.
The men in front of him a while ago had been
simply holding his attention, while the others
crept upon him from behind.  It was humiliating--one
more proof, he thought, that he was
certainly not cut out for a soldier.

At first the men did nothing but grunt, like
pigs that have gorged themselves.  Their little
eyes rested on their prisoner indolently, as
though he were an object of no importance.  By
and by they began to talk to one another, and
then to throw taunting and insolent remarks at
him.  His knowledge of the niceties of abuse of
which their tongue was capable was limited,
but he understood enough to make his blood
boil.  But he discreetly held his peace: he
would not flatter them by bandying abuse.

When they had thus enjoyed themselves for
a while, Nurla Bai rose, and planted himself
within a few feet of Lawrence.

"What is the good of the great hummingbird
now?" he said with a sneer.  "Those
that hunt partridges ought not to make a noise."

It flashed upon Lawrence that the man
supposed that the aeroplane had been in pursuit
of him.  Evidently he was unaware that a
party was marching down the track towards
the mine.  It was just as well to flatter his
error.  Lawrence made no reply.

"The little tins missed their mark," Nurla
Bai went on.  "Too much haste spoils the
hunt.  The hawk has broken its wing, I perceive.
Perhaps it can be mended?"

Lawrence reflected that by telling the truth
he might gain a little time and save the aeroplane
from destruction.

"Yes; it can be mended," he said, "but not
here.  The damage is slight, but the machine
is quite useless as it is."

The Kalmuck sat looking at him, apparently
following out a train of thought.

"How long might it take a man to learn
how to use the wings?" he said at length.

Lawrence caught the drift of the question.

"Perhaps six months, perhaps a year," he
said.  "It depends on the man."

Nurla Bai looked disappointed; clearly he had
hoped to appropriate the machine, get it mended,
and then make instant use of it.  He considered
for a little, and then said--

"The hunter is caught in his own toils.  You
are now as my servant, to do whatsoever I
command.  It is a change.  Give me the mine:
I give you the machine."

"That is foolishness.  Bob Sahib will never
give up the mine."

"We shall see," said the man with a leer.
"When he beholds you in my hands, and knows
that if he refuses you will be shot, and the
machine broken up, I think he will be wise."

At this Lawrence saw a ray of hope in the
situation.  If they took him back to the mine as
a hostage, Major Endicott would discover the
abandoned aeroplane and push on with all
speed.  But he soon discovered that his captors
had no intention of abandoning the aeroplane.
Nurla Bai no doubt reckoned on the sight of
it in his hands having a very potent effect on
the other sahib at the mine.  After a consultation
among themselves, the men went into the wood,
and began to fell some of the smaller trees, and
to lop branches from the larger.  In a short time
they had collected a considerable quantity.
They carried these down to the river, and set
about binding them into a raft with rushes
and rods of osier.  When this was done, they
hauled the aeroplane to it, placed it in the
middle, and proceeded to weave a long grass
rope, which they attached to the rear of the
raft.  Then one of the men, carrying a straight
sapling, mounted behind the aeroplane, and the
whole contrivance was pushed into the stream.

The Kalmucks gave a shout of satisfaction
on seeing the raft float down with the current.
Two men held the rope to check its speed in
the more rapid reaches of the river.  The man
upon it used his pole to fend it off rocks and
snags.  The others fetched their horses from the
wood in which they had been tethered.  On
one of these Lawrence was mounted, with his
hands still tied.  Black Jack rode alongside,
firmly grasping the bridle.  Thus, when the
afternoon was already far advanced, they began
the march in the direction of the mine.

Lawrence had not looked on without expostulation
at the handling of the aeroplane, but Nurla
Bai ignored his protests.  When he saw it
swaying and jolting on the raft, he expected
it to be irretrievably ruined before it had gone
many miles on its course.  The river, everywhere
rapid, became a torrent in the gorges; and at
these narrow places Lawrence anticipated that
the raft would be whirled and cast about utterly
beyond control, driven on one bank or the other,
or smashed on some rock in mid-stream.  But he
discovered that the Kalmucks had been as much
alive to the risks as he was himself, and his
opinion of Nurla Bai rose.  Just before coming
to a gorge, they drew the raft to the bank,
lifted the aeroplane, and carried it overland until
the river broadened again.  The man with the
pole remained by the raft until his comrades were
a long way in advance; then he let it race down
the gorge unchecked and followed it along the
bank, to find that it had been recovered at
the further end.

The party had been marching for about an
hour when they were met by three other
Kalmucks, tramping wearily up the track on foot.
Lawrence recognized them as miners.  They
had either not been furnished with horses by
the advanced guard beyond the mine, or had
had their steeds shot under them during the
scamper in the darkness.  Nurla Bai gave these
hungry men a portion of the provisions that
were still left, and they turned about and marched
with the rest down-stream.  The journey was
continued until the growing darkness rendered
further advance impossible.  Mooring the raft
to a tree on the bank, the men prepared to camp
for the night, on a moss-covered space just above.
Lawrence was lifted from the horse; his feet
were again tied; and he was laid in the centre
of the encampment.  The horses were tethered
in a copse hard by, and when a fire had been
lighted a few yards northward of the bivouac,
the men disposed themselves in a wide circle
about their prisoner, and devoted themselves
to the remnants of the provisions.  No one
offered Lawrence a share--a lack of courtesy
which did not trouble him.  No one spoke to
him; but there was no charm in their conversation.
They scarcely even looked at him; he
suffered nothing from their neglect.  He wished
they would not eat so noisily; and when, having
gobbled the last scraps of the food intended for
Major Endicott and his party, they sat with
their knees up, and chattered across him in their
rasping voices, he felt that no one could be said
to have a complete experience of the minor
troubles of life who had not been an enforced
companion of Kalmucks.

A great deal of what they said was incomprehensible
to him, but he caught a phrase now and
then that interested him in spite of himself.
One concerned his uncle.  Nurla Bai was
apparently relating, for the benefit of the strangers
from the north, the doughty deeds he had
recently performed.  Among them he ranked
the shooting of the Englishman who had been
his employer.  From what he said, Lawrence
gathered that the disappearance of Mr. Appleton
was as great a disappointment to the miners as
to himself.  They joked about it, however;
Nurla Bai became facetious as he described the
consternation of the fishes as they beheld the
body of an Englishman, strange monster, sinking
into their midst.  It was fortunate that Lawrence
did not understand the idiomatic beastliness with
which the man depicted the gruesome feast
then celebrated on the stony bottom of the river.

Another flight of the Kalmuck's fancy afforded
him much amusement.  Nurla Bai gave rein to
his eloquence in picturing the scenes that Delhi
was soon to witness: Ubacha Khan sitting in state
on the ancient throne of the Moguls, withering
with his frown the throng of cowed and shivering
Englishmen who grovelled at his feet, and
beslobbered them with tears as they pleaded vainly for
mercy.  Lawrence heard for the first time of the
exquisite tortures which Mongol ingenuity could
devise for helpless prisoners; and while he was
amused at the picture conjured up of British
officers suing a new Mogul emperor for pardon, he
was horrified at the mere imagination of the
cruelties which these wretches discussed with such
gloating inhumanity.

Lying on his back, he could see half the ring
of his captors, their squat forms silhouetted
against the glow of the camp-fire, their yellow
faces blanched by the moonlight now flooding
the valley.  He raised his eyes to the hills beyond,
watching the magical play of the silvery radiance
upon the peaks and promontories, making the
snow sparkle; searching, as it were, the black
crannies and caverns.  But he soon found his
interest in this wonderful illumination yield to
his sense of cold.  This region was one of
extremes of temperature: the torrid heat of day
being succeeded by Arctic cold at night.
The Kalmucks did not appear conscious of it;
they were inured to the climate; but to
Lawrence, compelled to lie motionless, the chilliness
became painful, and the warm glow of the camp-fire
mocked him tantalizingly.

He was to prove, this night, the contrariness
of fate.  Twice before, when he had wished above
all things to keep awake, drowsiness had
overcome him; now, when he would have given
anything for the oblivion of sleep, physical
discomfort and the burden of his thoughts banished
sleep from his eyes.  The Kalmucks became
less talkative as the night wore on; presently
their voices ceased altogether, and they slept.
Lawrence preferred their snores to their
conversation; they formed a descant to the
unvarying ground bass of the river droning below.
Every now and then the cry of a night-bird in the
mountains added its shrill treble to the harmony.

The moon sank behind the crest of the hills;
black darkness stole over the valley; and the
untended watch-fire sank lower and lower, until
its glow was too faint even to show up the
slumbering forms of the Kalmucks.  Lawrence
might have wondered that they had not set a
watch but for his knowledge that they were
quite unsuspicious of the enemy higher up the
stream, and that his bonds were only too firm.
His thoughts flitted to Major Endicott and his
little band; where were they now?  How did
they regard his failure to return to them?
Had they, too, encamped for the night?  Was
there the least possibility that the hours spent
in stalking him and in constructing the raft would
have given them time to draw so near that with
morning light they would come upon the
encampment, or overtake the Kalmucks during the
ensuing day?  And what was to be the final
issue of all these strange events?  Would he,
or Bob, ever come out of the entanglement in
which they had been so suddenly involved?

His anxious meditation was broken short by
a slight sound behind him.  He turned his head--it
was the only part of his body that he could
move--and stretched his ear towards the spot
whence the sound had seemed to come.  Perhaps
it was one of the Kalmucks stirring in his
sleep--rising, possibly, to cast fuel upon the
dying fire.  He could see nothing.  Twisting his
neck until it ached, he tried to pierce the
blackness, listening keenly for a repetition of the
sound.  He heard only the regular snores of the
men sleeping nine or ten feet away.

But there seemed to be something moving
between him and them--a something darker
than the night itself, creeping along the ground.
It could not be a wild animal; no ibex, nor even
a bear unless pressed by hunger, would have
come within the scent of him; there were no
tigers or leopards in these regions; could it be a
man?--one of his own people?  Tingling with
a flush of hope, he lay perfectly still, fearful lest
even the beating of his heart should betray his
excitement to the enemy.

There was a rustling movement near him; it
seemed to come nearer; then he shuddered
involuntarily as he felt something touch him.  It
flashed upon him that one of the Kalmucks was
going to murder him, and for a moment he had
to exercise stern control over his nerves to
repress a cry.  A cold shiver trickled down his
back, and he broke out in a clammy sweat as
he felt a rough hand pass over him--over his
face, aside to his arms, down to his feet.  He
durst not utter a sound, hope and fear jostling
in his brain.

The hand left him.  There was a moment of
suspense.  Then in his ear breathed a whisper.

"Sahib, lie still!"

He felt the hand again, then a pressure upon
his arm--a pressure that increased and
diminished in rapid alternation.  He throbbed with
joy.  Some one--was it Fazl?--was sawing at
his bonds.  The sound made by the knife or
sword was scarcely perceptible; yet to his feverish
apprehension it seemed loud enough to waken
the heaviest sleeper.  Soon he was conscious
that his arms were free, and he ventured to move
them stealthily to ease them of their numbness.
The pressure was transferred to his feet, and after
some moments of quivering anxiety he felt that
these also were released from their bonds.  Then
cold metal touched his hand, and his eager
fingers clasped over a grooved hilt.

"Sahib, a minute to rest, then follow me,"
whispered the voice.

He could hardly endure the waiting, though
he knew it was intended to give him command of
his limbs.

"Sahib, now!"

He raised himself on all fours, and began to
creep after his deliverer, a black form crawling
towards the ring of sleeping Kalmucks.

The Gurkha--for it was he--had almost passed
between and beyond the two men who lay
stretched towards the track, when a hand shot
out and gripped him by the ankle.  At the same
moment the owner of the hand gave a shout,
his companions started up, and Bob leapt to
his feet.  As soon as he felt the touch upon him,
Fazl wriggled like a snake, his right hand groping
towards the dark form beneath him.  There was
a groan, and he stood free.

A foot or two behind him, Bob came to a halt
when he dimly saw the two figures writhing on
the ground.  When one of them sprang up, he
was not sure for the moment whether it was friend
or foe.  A murmured word reassured him, and
he was ready to go on.  But his way was blocked.
Roused by their comrade's cry, the Kalmucks
hurled themselves in a shouting mass across the
open space.  One of them kicked up the embers
of the expiring fire, and a dull glow illuminated
the scene.  It lent aid to the fugitives, who were
themselves in shadow.  But for his sprained
ankle Lawrence could have sprinted away into
the darkness; Fazl might by this time have been
out of harm's way, but the little man, perplexed
and anxious at his master's dilatoriness, turned
to his assistance.  Lawrence had been checked
by a man who sprang at him from the left.  He
had no time to swing round and bring into play
the right hand clutching Fazl's knife; but,
instinctively shooting out his left hand, by good
luck he got home upon his opponent's chin.
There was little 'body' in the blow, delivered so
rapidly and at such close quarters; yet his
muscles were hard, and the man staggered and
fell in a heap.

At this moment Fazl rushed to his side, in
time to engage a group of the enemy who had
now got their bearings and were rushing towards
him.  That moss-carpeted enclosure was the
scene of a struggle as extraordinary as it was short.
The little Gurkha twirled and twisted, sprang
high, bent low, legs and arms gyrating with a
rapidity that the eye of a spectator could scarcely
have followed.  It was as though some infuriated
gnome had sprung out of the bowels of the earth,
and was executing a fantastic dance among men
bewildered by his demoniacal antics.  But it
was a dance of death.  The red glow of the
newly rekindled fire flashed upon a terrible
kukuri, which whirled in circles, ovals, parabolas,
and fifty unnamed curves, carving intricate
luminous patterns on the night.  Nor were these
evolutions purposeless: every stroke of the keen
nimble blade was directed by the keener mind
of the man wielding it.  Here it struck up a
knife, there a rifle; now it pierced a shoulder,
now grazed a head; so swift in its darting
movements that it seemed multiplied into a
dozen weapons each barbed with fire.

While the Gurkha was thus in the ecstasy
of sword-play, keeping half the party of Kalmucks
urgently engaged, Lawrence was in difficulties.
The knife given him by Fazl was no doubt sharp
and deadly, but it was a weapon to whose use
no Englishman is bred, and demanded, though
not so much free space as a sword, yet a certain
amount of elbow room for its effective
employment.  Lawrence had only just felled his first
assailant when he was himself beset by two or
three at once.  Half conscious of stinging
sensations in arm and thigh he lashed out with left
fist and right hand grasping the knife, but lost
his footing, stumbled, and fell to the ground with
his aggressors on top of him, snarling like wolves.
He found himself with his left hand gripping one
of them by the throat: his own right wrist
was held as in a vice.  Struggling to wrench
himself free, he rolled over, dragging the panting
enemy with him, their movements carrying
them nearer and nearer to the camp-fire; and
in a sudden flicker of light he recognized the
savage features of Black Jack.

In sheer muscular strength he was no match
for the Kalmuck dwarf.  Under the crushing
pressure of Black Jack's fierce grip his hold on
the knife was relaxing: the weapon was slipping
from him.  His hold upon the man's throat
weakened; the Kalmuck was digging his nails
into his left arm.  As the under dog he was not
able to cope with the man pressing him down.
The knife dropped to the ground; his wrist was
suddenly released; he felt a bony hand at his
own throat, and had given himself up for lost,
when a wild discordant clamour broke out close
by, drowning all other sounds.  For an instant
Black Jack was perfectly still: then, wrenching
himself away, he sprang to his feet and leapt
into the darkness.

Lawrence got up more slowly, every muscle
and nerve quivering.  He had just seen that
the space around was empty of living men, when
a film seemed to fall upon his eyes.  He tottered,
and sank fainting upon the ground.

When he reopened his eyes, the flush of
morning lay upon the valley.  He raised his head.

"That's right," said Major Endicott, stepping
from behind him.  "How do you feel?"

"Rather groggy, Major," replied Lawrence.
"Those fellows struck me, I think."

"A gash or two: nothing to speak of.  What
bowled you over was hunger and fatigue, I
suspect.  We've got a few scraps left, which will
keep you going until we reach your mine."

"Is Fazl all right?"

"As jolly as a sandboy, though rather dilapidated.
It's lucky I carry a case of sticking
plaster with me; he's pretty considerably
patched--much more than you are.  You slept pretty
soundly through my amateur surgery."

"And the Kalmucks?"

"Gone elsewhere--all that were left of them.
That machine of yours played you false then?"

"Yes, the engine failed, and I had to come
down.  I was rather bothered with getting rid
of my bombs and controlling the thing at the
same time, and made a hash of it--sprained my
ankle, too.  I was waiting for you, and the
beggars stalked me.  I was a silly ass to let
them take me unawares."

"What were they going to do with you?"

"Offer me and the aeroplane in exchange for
the mine--as if Bob would listen to any rot like
that!

"Well, the aeroplane isn't worth much now,
I suspect, but I fancy Bob might be disposed to
think you good value for the mine.  However,
that's all off.  The aeroplane's done for, of
course?"

"Not a bit of it.  We can put it to rights in
a day."

"Warrant it?"

"Yes.  Our bargain holds if you'll risk it.
I'm more than sorry this happened, if it's going
to dish your plan, Major."

"It shan't do that.  Taking risks is part of
my job--and yours too, as it happens."

"I'm jolly glad you came up when you did.
In another minute you would have been too late."

"You've got to thank your Gurkha for that.
We were marching up pretty briskly--had no
trouble from the Afghans--and the Gurkha
declared he heard the sound of your bombs far
ahead.  None of us had heard anything, but
the little chap was so positive that I thought
we'd be on the safe side and hurry up.  Judging
by the march we made, the sound must have
travelled nearly ten miles--not impossible in
this air, I suppose; I confess I was sceptical at
first, and only began to feel anxious when you
didn't return within the time stated.

"We came upon the tracks of the aeroplane
some miles up; there was litter of all sorts
about--scraps of food, broken branches and what
not, and I feared you'd smashed yourself and your
machine, only we couldn't find any pieces of it.
But we found your rifle and field-glass in a
little hollow, and the Gurkha guessed that you
had tumbled among the Kalmucks.  An hour
after dark we caught sight of the camp-fire.  The
Gurkha volunteered to creep up and reconnoitre,
so the rest of us halted, waiting for his report.

"He's a clever little chap, with a double dose
of Gurkha courage.  He came back very soon
and told me he'd seen you tied up among them,
and about the raft and so on.  My sowars
wanted to rush the place, but it struck me that
that might be the end of you.  The first instinct
of such barbarians would be to knife their
prisoner.  It was a bit of a quandary--and the
Gurkha came out strong again.  It was his
suggestion that he should creep into the camp
and release you before we moved."

"Plucky little chap!" said Lawrence warmly.

"A treasure!  The noise of the scuffle brought
us up hot-foot, and the only thing I regret is
that, as the Gurkha informed me, the
ringleaders, those rascally miners of yours, got
away....  Now the sooner we get to your mine the
better.  You had better sit my horse.  As all
our food is gone, we shall have a strong motive
for hurry, so we ought to get home before night.
Of course if you think you can't stand it we'll
take our time."

"No: I'm fit enough.  Your men will look
after the raft?"

He explained the method by which the
aeroplane had been taken safely past the gorges,
and the Major went off to instruct his men.

Lawrence summoned Fazl, who was resting
on a grassy knoll overlooking the river.

"I owe you my life; you're a brave fellow, and
I thank you," he said.

Fazl's plastered face broadened in a grin.

"Wah! sahib, the Kalmucks are pigs, and
their hearts melt like butter.  The sahib's
servant is unworthy of praise.  It is a small
thing to do for the heaven-born."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE FRONTIER HOUSE`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST


.. class:: center large

   THE FRONTIER HOUSE

.. vspace:: 2

Some ninety miles southward of the tower in
which Major Endicott had been besieged, on the
bare summit of a low hill, stood a solitary
building of stone, known to the British officers of
the borderland as a frontier house.  It had no
pretentions to architectural excellence, consisting
of a square tower, somewhat resembling a
truncated chimney-stack, crowned by a small
turret on a platform, which looked like a square
straight-brimmed Quaker hat.  Adjoining the
tower was a sloping wall twenty feet high, that
formed one side of an enclosure, within which
were a number of rudely built huts, set up
against the inward side of the wall.  Neither
tower nor wall had any windows, but in the latter
a doorway gave entrance to the interior.

One day Dafadar Narrain Khan was squatting
with a few of his sowars on the wall of the
enclosure, looking out over the country before
him.  The building commanded a prospect
extending for many miles.  Its immediate vicinity
was barren, stony ground; one scraggy tree
raised its wizened branches at the angle of the
wall.  A narrow track wound through this
wilderness from the doorway down the hill to the
plain below, meandering northward among
boulders and patches of sparse vegetation until
it was lost to sight amid the dark pine-trees
that covered the lower slopes of the distant
hills.  Beyond, as far as the eye could reach,
these hills stretched, an endless series of scarps
and eminences, cleft by tortuous ravines and
breaking away here and there into sheer
precipices.  In the remote distance, a jagged
snow-clad ridge flashed with purple and gold in the
rays of the sun.  In the opposite direction,
southward, the country was rugged but less
hilly.  A metalled road wound away into the
distance.  At regular intervals on one side of
it stood tall posts, carrying a telegraph wire that
emerged from a hole in the tower wall.

As the troopers sat there chatting, with their
rifles in the hollow of their arms, there was a
sudden cry from the sentinel posted alone on the
top of the tower.

"Hai, dafadar!  I see a speck moving in
the sky far away," he shouted.

"How far away, Coja?" called the dafadar.

"Seven kos at least," was the reply.

"The speck is in your own eye, my son,"
cried the dafadar, and the men about him
laughed: Coja was always seeing something!

The sentinel shouted a word of expostulation,
then was silent, and the others resumed the
conversation he had interrupted.

Half an hour passed away.  The time came
for changing the guard.  One of the men rose,
sauntered along the wall, disappeared through
a narrow opening in the tower, and presently
emerged on the summit.  Apparently he had a
brief altercation with the man he had relieved.
In five minutes Coja came from the tower along
the wall.

"Wah! you may mock, dafadar," he said;
"but I declare by the beard of my father I saw
a speck--a black speck moving."

"You have chewed too much betel, Coja,"
said the dafadar with composure.  "I too have
seen dancing specks when my stomach was out
of order."

"Yes, but do those motes in the eye grow
larger?  Do they swell from the size of a
pinpoint to the size of a little bird, and then to a
great one?  I thought at first it was peradventure
an eagle of the mountains, but, inshallah! no
eagle could look so large such a great way off.
Is there a bird bigger than an eagle?  Speak
out of your great knowledge, dafadar."

"There is none, foolish one--none that flies,
though I have heard of a great bird that runs
upon the ground swifter than the iron horse
that runs on rails; the mem-sahibs wear its
feathers in their hats."

"Hai! what was this great thing, then?  I
saw it, and rubbed my eyes, and lo! when I
looked again, it wheeled about, and soared away
towards the Afghan country, and passed behind
a crag yonder, and I saw it no more."

"Wonderful eyes you have, Coja, and a
wonderful tongue!  Do we not know your tales?
What of the tiger with two heads you saw once
in a tree? and the elephant that caught you up
and put you on his head? and that time when
you swallowed a cherry-stone, and leaves began
to sprout among your hair?  Wah! we know his
stories, my children; we know how the lies flow
out of his mouth like water from a spring."

"Mashallah!  Do I not speak truth?" cried
the man indignantly.  He was a by-word for
romancing among his fellows, and, like all liars,
resented any imputation on his veracity.  "There
is no wisdom in you.  Many a great thing that
I have told you you have believed: now when
I tell you a little thing, you say 'Wah! he is a
liar.'"

"But it was a great thing you saw, Coja-ji--bigger
than an eagle, said you, when we know
there is nothing bigger than an eagle that flies.
Wah! at least when you are on duty, you must
resist these promptings of the Evil One, else it
will end in Jehannum.  And look you, Coja,
when your turn for watching comes again, keep
your eyes on the ground, my friend; do not
look for the stars in daylight."

Highly offended, the man walked away, descended
the steps within the wall, and retired
to sulk, like Achilles, in his tent.

About an hour later the dafadar and his
men, who had scarcely changed their position,
were again hailed from the roof.

"A speck on the track, dafadar," cried the
sentinel; "moving this way, like a fly crawling,
very far off."

"Hai! that is news," said the dafadar,
slowly rising to his feet.  "A speck on the
ground is worth looking at; in the sky it proceeds
from overeating."  Raising his voice, he called
to the sentinel: "Hai, Selim, I come to see."

Followed by several of the troopers, he mounted
to the roof, and taking the telescope from Selim's
hand, examined the track, tracing it back for
miles until he discerned the moving object.  So
remote was it that even with the telescope he
could distinguish it only as a human being:
whether shepherd, mendicant, or fakir he could
not tell, and a single pedestrian must, he thought,
be one of these three.

"Perhaps he is a dak runner from Ennicott
Sahib," suggested one of the men.  "The sahib
went in that direction."

"Wah! a dak runner would run, not crawl,"
said another.  "Let us look through the long
glass, dafadar."

The telescope was passed round.  No one
could as yet identify the figure.  They were all
keenly interested.  For several days they had
not seen a solitary man outside the walls, though
they had kept unremitting watch, having been
instructed to be on the alert to discover any
movements of men in that region.  The figure
approached slowly--too slowly for their
impatience.  All eyes were riveted upon it, and
when Selim with the telescope reported that it
was completely clad in khaki uniform and not
in shepherd's choga, or the scanty tatters of a
mendicant, the troopers' excitement grew.

"Hai! he stops!" cried Selim presently.
"He waves a white cloth.  It is a signal,
dafadar."

Narrain Khan took the telescope and gazed
at the figure.  He felt a little perplexed as to
what he ought to do.  In time of peace he would
not have hesitated to send out a couple of men
to discover who the stranger was; but there
were rumours of war, and the Captain Sahib
had given orders that no man should be allowed
to leave the post except under the gravest
circumstances.  He wondered whether the
present case came within his licence.  The man
was clad in khaki: that was something in his
favour.  He was waving a white flag: that was
reassuring.  He had seated himself on a knoll
beside the track: perhaps he wanted help.

The dafadar lowered the telescope and turned
to his men.

"Go, you two," he said, "ride out on your
ponies and see who the stranger is, and what
his business.  Have a care, lest there are
badmashes lurking near.  The stranger may be a
decoy.  Have a care, I say, for when you have
ridden down the slope we cannot protect you."

The men descended through the tower, and
were presently seen trotting down the track.
Every yard of their progress was followed
intently by the garrison.  Their diminishing
forms were lost to the watchers at intervals
through the windings of the track and the
inequalities of the ground.  Presently they were
seen, little more than dots, moving side by side
along the straight stretch at the farther end of
which the solitary stranger could still be discerned.

They approached him, came to a halt, and
dismounted.  After a minute or two the party
separated.  Two men proceeded northward along
the track, one on horseback, the other on foot.
The third man rode in the opposite direction
towards the house.

The whole garrison of eighteen men were now
mustered, some on the roof, some on the wall,
silent, their eyes fixed on the slowly approaching
horseman.  By and by it was seen that he was
not either of the two who had lately ridden down.
Then the dafadar, who had the telescope at his
eyes, suddenly exclaimed:

"Mashallah!  It is Ennicott Sahib!"

Amid a chorus of ejaculations he hurried down
to the courtyard, mounted his horse, and galloped
down the track to meet the officer.  The
strangeness of that meeting formed the theme of a
discourse to the men of the garrison later in the day.

"When I came near enough to see the face of
the huzur," said Narrain Khan, "I beheld that
it was the face of a sick man.  His left arm hung
straight at his side like the broken leg of a sheep.
I was on the point of invoking the mercy of Allah
upon the huzur--is he not the light of our eyes?--when
his great voice sounded in my ears like
the voice of a trumpet, and before even I could
make my salaam he cried--what think you were
the words of the great one?"

"'Water, for I am athirst,'" suggested one man.

"Wah! does the huzur think of himself?
You speak as a witless babe."

"'Is all well?'" said another.

"Wah!" cried the dafadar with scorn and
indignation.  "Could the heaven-born ask so
foolish a question knowing that I, Narrain Khan,
am in charge of this house?  No: the words
of the huzur--and they were very strange--were
these: 'Hai, dafadar! have you got any
paraffin?'"

"Inshallah! what is paraffin to the heaven-born?
And what said you, dafadar?"

"I was so astonished that I could but speak
out the simple truth.  'Truly, sahib!' said I,
'we have some few tins with which to replenish
our lamps.'  And then the huzur commanded me
to send six men with one large tin, that one man
might easily carry, along the track to the foot
of the hills yonder, and give it to a sahib they
would find reclining there."

"Another sahib!  Who is he?"

"And for what purpose the paraffin, dafadar?"

"That I know not.  The huzur did not tell
me that, but told me that he had already sent
to the sahib those two young men I had ordered
to meet him.  And you saw how, when the
huzur dismounted at the gate, he staggered, and
caught me to prop him: and when I asked him
to lie down and let us see to his hurt, he made
that sound with the lips that the sahibs make
when they are impatient, as if I had said some
foolish thing, and bade me lead him straightway
to the clicking-room, and there he is now: you
can hear the clicking-devil, like little hammers
tapping.  Truly I begin to think there are many
strange things to tell the Sirkar far away."

"Hai!  I did see a speck in the sky," said
Coja solemnly.

Major Endicott, though half fainting with
pain and exhaustion, had gone straight to the
room in which the telegraph instruments were
kept, and shut himself in.  For nearly an hour
he worked at the keys with a rapidity acquired
by much practice.  Before he had finished, the
second instrument at his side was mechanically
recording the answers to his message.  Having
read these off, he staggered to the door and
summoned the dafadar.

"Fenton Sahib will be here in three hours,"
he said.  "There will be also the sahib from the
hills.  Get some food and a bath ready for him,
and tell Hosein to come and see to my arm."

Some two hours later the Major was awakened
from a profound sleep by a hubbub among the
men on the wall.  Going out to them, he found
them excitedly watching an aeroplane soaring
rapidly towards them from the hills.  Coja was
loudly proclaiming that the flying object proved
his truthfulness: no one could any longer deny
that he had seen a speck in the sky.

A few minutes after it had been sighted the
aeroplane sank to rest on the open space in
front of the tower.  Loud cries of wonder broke
from the men when there stepped out of it a
young sahib, limping slightly, followed by one
of the two sowars who had gone out to meet the
major.  The trooper greeted his comrades with
an air of triumph, and swaggered up to them
with an ineffable look of importance.  They
surrounded him, and listened with admiring
envy while he detailed his first impressions of
flight through the air.

Meanwhile the Major took Lawrence into the
officers' room, where he bathed, and ate the
lunch Narrain Khan had provided.  He had
just finished when there was the clatter of hoofs
outside, and in a few minutes entered Captain
Fenton, who had ridden up with half a dozen
sowars from the fort fifteen miles to the south.

"Hullo, major, you look pretty dicky!" said
the newcomer, glancing curiously from the
major's bandaged arm to Lawrence.

"Yes, I've had a knock.  Let me introduce
you.  Lawrence Appleton--you've heard of
Harry Appleton--Captain Fenton."

"I see they've sent us an aeroplane, Endicott,"
said the captain, shaking hands with Lawrence.
"An unexpected gift!  I thought all the
aeroplanes were scouting Kabul way--all there are;
they've got a dozen or so, on paper, and a
regiment of airmen, also on paper: most of us
believed they weren't born yet!  Which way did
you come, Mr. Appleton?"

"You'd better sit down and listen, Fenton,"
the major interposed.  "There's a lot to say,
and not much time to say it in.  We're in for
the hottest time since the Mutiny--and if I'm
not mistaken, hotter than the Mutiny at its
worst: I mean generally, for there won't be any
Cawnpores or Lucknows, I hope.  You know
that the Afghans are up?"

"Yes: we've mobilized along the frontier:
they won't get across."

The Major smiled grimly.

"After I'd wired you to come in," he said,
"I got into communication with the Chief at
Peshawar and the Viceroy at Delhi.  The Amir
has just fled to Peshawar: Kabul's in the hands
of the Mongols."

"By Jove!"

"The cat's out of the bag at last.  That huge
concentration about Bokhara was not to be
launched at Russia after all.  I suppose we were
too self-assured to twig it--just as in the Mutiny
time.  Plenty of information, little
imagination.  But we have it now.  There are pretty
nearly half a million of the fiercest ruffians in
Central Asia marching down on us--almost all
mounted, and they're fellows who live on
horseback, and are moving with amazing speed.
They've cajoled or bought over the best part of
the Afghans--silly fools, for if the Mongols beat
us they'd swallow Afghanistan for dessert.  There
are a hundred thousand in and about Kabul."

"It's astonishing that they managed to keep
things so quiet.  They must have been intriguing
and negotiating for months."

"Again, just as in the Mutiny.  I've not heard
of chapattis passing round, but they've had
their secret signs, without doubt.  The one good
thing about the present circumstances is that
the Afghans are not actually on the march yet.
They're probably waiting to see how the cat
jumps.  Of course we've always relied on them
more or less as a buffer against Russia, calculating
that they'd hold up the invaders at Herat until
we'd had time to line the frontier.  Anyway, we
can't expect any help from them now, for if
they're not actually hand in glove with the
Mongols they're neutral, for a time.  You said
we'd mobilized, didn't you?  I've been away
a fortnight."

"Yes.  With the most tremendous exertions
we've got 100,000 men across the frontier, and
they're holding the passes.  Only just in time,
evidently.  It ought to have been an easy job:
and so it was--on paper.  But it's years since
the paper scheme was drawn up, and they've
been paring down in the usual British
way--economizing, they call it.  The result is that
arrangements for transport and supplies are all
at sixes and sevens.  They've had to reduce the
frontier garrisons to mere skeletons in order to
make up the strength of the field army."

"The Chief wired me just now that troops are
being pushed up from all parts, but the railways
are so horribly congested that it'll be weeks before
they're on the spot.  I fancy I made him jump
with my news."

"You've got something fresh then?"

"There are twenty thousand Kalmucks marching
up the Nogi valley."

"The Nogi valley!  But I've always understood
it's impassable.  Isn't that where poor
old Harry Appleton has his mine? ... Beg
pardon, I'm sure," he added, turning to
Lawrence.  "I forgot he's a relative of yours."

"My uncle," said Lawrence.

"I'm glad to think it is for the moment
impassable," said the major, "owing to the pluck
and readiness of Appleton here and his brother.
But the Kalmucks traded on our self-confidence.
No one would have dreamed that any considerable
force would try to push its way up that
difficult track; they *are* trying it, and their
object, without a doubt, is to cut the
communications of the army operating in Afghanistan.
If they penetrate to fifty miles this side of the
Appleton mine nothing but a whole division can
check them.  The Chief wired that he can't spare
a man at the moment, and said the valley must
be held at all costs for a week."

"But man alive, that's impossible!  We
haven't three hundred men all told within a
hundred miles of it.  If we rushed them down
for all we were worth three hundred couldn't
hold off twenty thousand."

"Well no, and you'd never get there.  But as
it happens the Chief was only acting on something
I had told him.  It's a long story, and must
keep.  But the short of it is that Harry
Appleton's two nephews--poor chap! he's gone
himself--brought out an aeroplane--the one you
saw outside: you might be sure it wasn't a
service machine!  By the merest accident they
happened to see this Kalmuck force encamped,
and after some pretty stirring passages which
I'll tell you some other time, they blocked up
the track just below the mine; it will keep the
enemy busy for a while."

"Congratulate you," said the captain to
Lawrence.  "Not in the service, are you?"

"No."

"He is in training, Fenton," said the major
with a smile.  "By the help of his aeroplane
he got me out of a very tight place, and I went
down to the mine to see for myself how the land
lay.  An accident to the aeroplane kept me there
for a day.  When it was repaired we made a
reconnaissance down the river.  Near the mine
there was a striking force of about a thousand
men--as many as could operate with any effect
on so narrow a track.  Some thirty miles farther
down we saw a couple of field guns being dragged
up; and the main body of the enemy was still
encamped at the mouth of the valley, waiting
for the way to be cleared.  It was a masterly
notion to dynamite the rock; indeed, as far as
I could see, Bob Appleton had left nothing
undone to secure his position.  Of course it's
an uncommonly tight place; very likely nine
fellows out of ten--or we'll say eight!--wouldn't
have attempted to hold it: but you know the
Appleton breed, Fenton: and if they can only
stick it out for a week, as the Chief wishes, by
George! the Government of India will have
reason to say thank you."

"Your arm's paining you, I see," said Captain
Fenton, as the major winced.

"Nothing to speak of.  It was a bit of rank
bad luck.  Of course, seeing what the game was,
I felt I must wire the Chief at once, and Lawrence
offered to bring me here in his aeroplane.  We
came along swimmingly until we had got about
half way: saw nothing of the enemy: and then
rather suddenly struck a rabble of about two
thousand men marching southward.  We came
down rather too low, to get a good look at them.
They opened fire, and one of their shots tore my
arm from shoulder to elbow.  If we had made
a straight course we shouldn't have met trouble:
but naturally I wanted to pick up any information
I could.  Unluckily in going criss-cross we
consumed a good deal of petrol, and when it
became necessary to replenish the tank from the
reserve cans, we found that they'd been bored
with holes during our peppering; one was empty,
in the other there were a few spoonfuls at the
bottom below the level of the hole.  This only
lasted a few miles, and then we had to come
down, in the hills yonder."

"Rough luck!" said Captain Fenton, turning
sympathetically to Lawrence.  "You must have
felt pretty mad.  How did you bring the machine in?"

"I happened to mention when we were
talking things over that paraffin would do at a
pinch, and the major said he was pretty sure
they would have some here, and insisted on
tramping over to get some sent up."

"Well, you see, he's got a game foot," said the
major.  "Sprained his ankle two days ago.
My legs are sound, at any rate.  But I was pretty
dead beat before I got here, and was glad enough
to borrow the mount of one of the men Narrain
sent to meet me.  He and the other fellow went
on to keep Appleton company, and as soon as
the paraffin was sent up, the aeroplane came
flying in with the sowar on board as a passenger.
He was bubbling with delight, and no doubt will
be a hero among the men for the rest of his days."

"Mr. Appleton wants to get back to the mine,
of course," said the captain.

"Yes: there's enough paraffin for that.  How
are matters round the fort, Fenton?"

"The tribes are pretty quiet at present.
They've held several jirgahs to discuss what line
they shall take.  That depends on who scores
the first point.  If we can only convince them
that we're not going to knuckle under, I daresay
they'll stick to us.  But it wouldn't take much
to turn the scale on the other side.  The crowd
that fired at you are marching this way, you said?"

"They'll be hereabouts some time to-morrow,
and probably a lot more, for we caught sight of
other parties, not so large, threading the valleys
to the west.  The whole country north-west of
us is rising."

"That's bad.  I can't hope to keep the tribes
about the fort quiet after these thousands come
on the scene."

"I must see what I can do."

"You ought to be in hospital.  If you had let
me know you'd been hit I'd have brought the
medico with me."

"Good thing you didn't.  He'd have been
so disappointed!"

"No operation required, you mean," said
Captain Fenton laughing.  "He does love his knife."

"And fork!" added the major drily.  "He
shall have a look at my arm to-morrow.  I
propose to return with you to the fort.  We must
blow this place up.  You can hold your own
there for some time against a good number, and
reinforcements will be hurried up as rapidly as
possible.  Then I must try the velvet glove
with the tribesmen.  There won't be much time
to do anything with them before those men we
saw get south; but if you discourage them with
hot lead at the fort it will help....  This is all
very hard on you, Appleton."

"That's all right," said Lawrence.  "I was
only wishing I had brought more of our bombs
with me.  I might have checked those hillmen
and given you more time."

"But that would have involved your remaining
in this neighbourhood, and you are wanted at
the mine.  A bomb or two dropped in flying over
would have scattered them for the moment, but
they'd have collected again as soon as you were
past.  I don't know how much paraffin we've
got to give you.  No: there's better work for
you.  You'll convey the Chief's message to your
brother: hold the gorge for a week at all costs.
I'll do my best to get reinforcements through.
It's vitally important to keep those Kalmucks
in check.  The fate of India hangs in the balance."

Preparations were made for the evacuation
of the house on the following morning.  Having
taken on board more than enough paraffin to
carry him back to the mine, together with a dozen
rifles and several thousand rounds of ammunition,
Lawrence bade the officers good-bye, and
started immediately after breakfast.  A few
minutes after his departure a dull boom
proclaimed that the tower had been blown up and
the garrison was on the march for the south.

Major Endicott had advised him to fly high so
as to avoid the risk of further accident if he should
encounter the enemy.  Some ten miles from the
tower he caught sight of them: they appeared
like an army of ants crawling on the ground.
A few shots were fired at him, but he was far out
of effective range, and in a few minutes
disappeared from their view.

A little uneasy at first as to the staying power of
the paraffin, he was soon reassured.  In less than
an hour he struck the western extremity of
the valley, and he flew down it at full speed,
maintaining a great altitude in case Nurla Bai
and his party should be still on the track or in
the hills above.

He had almost reached the mine when he
heard sounds of rapid firing.  The attack, then,
had begun in earnest.





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.. _`DITTA LAL INTERPRETS`:

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   CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND


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   DITTA LAL INTERPRETS

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During his brother's absence Bob had been
energetic in organizing the defence.  He threw
an entrenchment across the track beneath the
shoulder of the cliff, a short distance from the
mass of broken rock thrown down by the
explosion of dynamite.  By this means he hoped
to interpose an effective obstacle to the enemy
if they, without waiting for the track to be
cleared, should attempt to climb round and slip
by up the valley.  Nurla Bai's swimming feat
showed him that the river could be crossed
otherwise than by the drawbridge, and the assemblage
of any considerable number of men on the
southward side might be a serious menace.  True, the
enemy could hardly cross in daylight in face of
opposition from the wall of the compound; but
remembering how Nurla Bai had got over and
made his way by the cantilever pathway to the
mine, Bob saw that a similar movement might
be attempted when the attention of the garrison
was held by an attack from down-stream.  In
that case he would have to dispatch men whom
he could ill spare to guard the aeroplane
platform and perhaps to destroy the pathway
constructed with such toil.  As a precautionary
measure he stationed three men on the aeroplane
platform day and night.

Further, in order not to be at too great a
disadvantage in case of a sudden rush in the
darkness, he contrived a makeshift searchlight out
of a large photographic camera of his uncle's
and a reflector of polished tin.  He hoped that
it would not be necessary to use it often, for the
stock of calcium carbide was running low, and he
had no other illuminant than acetylene gas and
paraffin candles.

When Lawrence alighted on the aeroplane
platform, Fazl, one of the three men on guard
there, informed him that the enemy had opened
a brisk fire at daybreak.

"The sahib cannot get to the house to-day,"
said the man.

"Why not?"

"Because, sahib, when you once get round the
shoulder, the path is in sight of the enemy.  They
will shoot you.  It is necessary to wait for night."

"Nonsense!  I can't stay here all day.  Let
me see for myself."

He went across the platform and along a few
yards of the path until he reached the bend.
There he peeped cautiously round.  He forgot
his prime object in the anxiety and concern to
which the state of affairs down the river gave
rise.  Being slightly above the level of the track
he was able to take a good view of the position.
The enemy had cut a new path along the fallen
cliff, and had thrown across it a breastwork about
thirty feet long, from loopholes in which they
were maintaining a hot fire on the northernmost
boundary of the compound.  The reply of the
garrison was astonishingly feeble; the characteristic
rattle of the machine gun was not to be heard,
and Lawrence saw the havildar standing inactive
by the weapon.  Bob was near the wall, smoking
a cigarette, and it was apparently only when he
gave a distinct order that the men fired.
Lawrence guessed that he was husbanding his
ammunition, and blessed Major Endicott's
forethought in sending a supply which would be so
welcome.

Recollecting his purpose, Lawrence scanned the
wooden pathway narrowly, to see how far Fazl's
advice was justified.  For forty or fifty yards it
was fully exposed to the enemy's marksmen, but
beyond that distance it gained some shelter from
the buildings in the compound.  If the enemy
had not already had their attention drawn to it,
there was a chance that, in spite of his weak ankle,
he might dash across the exposed portion before
they noticed him.  But after a few seconds
he saw with great relief that it was possible to
lessen still further the risk of being hit.  The
pathway being a little higher than the track on
the opposite side of the river, he might perhaps
crawl along it without being discovered.  By
lying at full length, and hugging the face of the
rock, he would get a certain protection from the
outside edge of the pathway.

He returned to the platform.

"Has any one crossed from or to the mine since
the enemy began firing?" he asked Fazl.

"No, sahib: it was still dark when we came to
relieve the night watch, and none has come or
gone since."

"Very well: I am going to crawl.  Take care
you don't show yourselves."

He was rather astonished at his lack of nervousness;
but the events of the last few days had in
fact exercised a bracing influence upon him.  He
crawled on all fours as rapidly as possible along
the exposed section of the path, rose to his feet
on reaching the spot where the buildings gave
him cover, and in another few minutes greeted his
brother.

"Well done, old chap!" said Bob heartily.
"I hardly expected you to get back yesterday,
but it's a great relief to see you.  You had no
trouble?"

"Not with the machine, but we came across a
lot of hillmen marching south, and they potted
the major in the arm, and riddled the petrol cans,
so that I ran short.  But they gave me some
paraffin at the tower, and it serves surprisingly
well.  It's lucky we had a second carburetter."

Just then a bullet sang overhead.

"Can you come to the house for a minute or
two?" said Lawrence.  "I've got a good deal
to tell you, and you can't attend to me and the
enemy at the same time."

"All right.  I'll leave Gur Buksh in charge.
They've done us no harm yet--inside at any
rate; but I'll give you all the news.  Come on!"

Seated in the house, Lawrence repeated the
substance of the conversation between Major
Endicott and Captain Fenton.  Bob listened in
amazement.

"By George! it's a big thing," he exclaimed.
"No wonder we were puzzled.  It's desperately
serious, then."

"Yes, and this is the serious part for us.  The
major wired all about us to headquarters, and the
commander-in-chief wired back that we must
hold on at all costs for a week.  He made no bones
about it: simply said it must be done."

"Well, we'll do it!" cried Bob with flashing
eyes.  "We'll not cave in after a direct order
from the commander-in-chief.  It's the best
thing that could have happened.  Some of the
men are getting rather shaky, but I'll tell them
the Sirkar depends on them--talk about their
known valour, and all that: and it'll buck them
up no end."

"Wouldn't the promise of a reward from
Government be more effective?"

"I dare say; but it's only a jolly ass who'd
give a pledge of that sort for Government.  I
dare say they mean well, but--no, my boy, it's
not safe.  We'll rely on moral stimulants.  Now
look here: this is what I've done----"

"I see you've thrown up a breastwork on the
other side, but so have the enemy, and cut a
path too."

"Yes, that's one to them, confound them!
I had twenty men behind my breastwork, but
when the enemy came round the bend this
morning they bolted back in a panic.  They'd
have done better to stick to it, for two of them
were shot in the back and killed outright.  I'd
left the bridge down under a guard, so that the
others got back safely, but their retreat had a
bad effect on the rest.  They need a tonic."

"The major gave me a dozen rifles and a lot of
ammunition: that'll help."

"It will indeed: I've had to be sparing."

"Why didn't the enemy occupy your breastwork?"

"No doubt they would have only I built it at
such an angle that it can be enfiladed from our
wall.  It's a great nuisance that they've managed
to get so far as they have.  I hoped to be able to
check them at the bend much longer--at any rate
until they'd brought up the two field guns you
told me about.  When they arrive we shan't be
able to hold the wall.  We shall have to take
refuge in the galleries."

"That means suffocation."

"Well, we won't think of it.  We'll hold on as
long as we can.  You didn't notice perhaps that
I've had a shield of boiler plates set up on top of
the parapet.  I found we couldn't loophole the
embankment, and the men couldn't fire without
protection of some kind.  This metal shield is
better than nothing.  It's loopholed.  I only
allow a few men to fire at the enemy, when
there's a chance of their doing some good.  But
to keep up their spirits I let them all have a turn.
They come up in squads, so that every man will
have a chance of a shot during the day."

"You haven't used the machine gun?
Couldn't you batter their breastwork with it?"

"It would be very much like pelting toy bricks
with a pea-shooter.  Gur Buksh has orders only
to fire if there's a rush.  What I fancy will happen
is this.  At night they'll try to rush our breastwork.
If they get it they'll push a trench southward
along the track until they're opposite us.
What they'll do then about crossing the river I
don't know.  We've got to delay them as long
as possible.  I've made a ramshackle sort of
searchlight out of Uncle's old camera: it may
help us a little in the dark.  But I must go out
and talk to the men.  I wish I were a dab at the
lingo.  Will you do the spouting?"

"You're in command.  Get the Babu to
interpret for you: what you say won't lose
anything in his mouth."

"It may do him good too.  He's getting
positively thin with funk.  Come along!"

While this conversation was in progress in the
house, there had fallen a lull in the firing outside.
It was clear that the enemy were not prepared
for a rush, and had realized the uselessness of
continually sniping at a garrison whom they
rarely saw.  There could be little doubt that they
were waiting either for darkness to cover a dash
up the track, or for the arrival of their field
guns.  Whatever the reason, the respite was
welcome.  Taking advantage of it, Bob left a
small guard at the wall, and assembled the rest
in the compound.

Lawrence was struck by the altered appearance
of Ditta Lal when he came forward at Bob's
summons.  His fat cheeks had fallen in; his
features spoke eloquently of despair; and his
clothes hung loosely where formerly they had
closely encased his rotundities.

"I should never have believed that a man
could lose so much flesh in so little time," said
Lawrence in a low tone.

"Do him good," returned Bob unfeelingly.
"Ditta Lal, I'm going to speak to the men, and
I want you to translate faithfully what I say--no
additions or subtractions."

"I will do my best, sir," said the Babu with
unwonted simplicity.  "My voice is not strong;
I am fading away like a flower."

"For goodness' sake say something to buck him
up," whispered Lawrence, "or he'll damp their
courage with his lugubrious manner."

"Look here, Babu," said Bob, "Major Endicott
is telegraphing for reinforcements.  They
should be here in a week."

"Can I believe my ears?"

"You can believe me.  The Government knows
all about us.  The commander-in-chief himself
has asked us to hold the place for a week, and
we're going to do it."

"That's jolly bucking, sir," said the Babu in
his usual manner.  "The hour brings forth the
man.  The King-Emperor will dub you knight,
or at least baronet, for thus stepping into deadly
breach, and----"

"We're wasting time," Bob interrupted.
"Just tell the men what I say."

"Right-o, sir.  My voice is recovering wonted
rotundity.  Fire away!"

Lawrence's eyes twinkled more than once
during the Babu's address to the garrison.
Bob's words were simple and direct, with no
surplusage of rhetoric: Ditta Lal transformed
them into an oration.

"Sikhs and Pathans, Rajputs, Gurkhas and
Chitralis," he said, "misfortune makes brothers
of us all.  In a thunderstorm the lion and the ass
are friends.  The thunderstorm is about to burst
upon us.  We have heard the first rumblings;
we have seen the lightning flash in the lurid sky;
and the huzur having been taken from us by the
hand of the Kalmucks, we have lost our chief
defence and stay.

"Yet in the blackest night we behold a star
of hope.  My brother the chota sahib" (the
Babu spoke as though translating) "has even
now returned from a frontier house where the
Sirdar who for one brief day shed the light of
his countenance upon us, spoke to the Sirkar
along the quivering wire, that carries men's
thoughts swifter than speech.  The Sirkar far
away knows us what we are, and how we, a handful
of men, are beset in this narrow valley by a
host of evil-doers, in number like the stars of
heaven.  The Sirkar knows that though we be
few, yet are we stout of heart and strong of
hand.  The lurid storm-cloud does not oppress
us, nor does the lightning fire appal our souls.
We are not the men to quail before a host of
flat-nosed dogs.  The order is given that we sharpen
our swords and resist to the uttermost, and within
a week--such is the word--the Sirkar will send a
great army to strengthen our hands and smite
the enemy until not one of them is left.  I have
said that we will do even as the Sirkar has
commanded.  Will you put me to shame?  Will you
not rather brace yourselves to the conflict, and
oppose yourselves like a wall of adamant to these
off-scourings of the plains?"

This was the spirit if not the letter of Bob's
appeal, and the whole assembly responded with
cheers and passionate ejaculations of loyalty.
The Sikhs, some of whom understood English and
knew that the Babu had interpolated a good deal,
had listened gravely, their inveterate contempt of
the unwarlike Bengali yielding to their appreciation
of the effect he aimed at.  Later on, Ganda
Singh spat, and said to Gur Buksh that any one
would know the Bengali for a coward, because his
words were so big.  The more simple miners were
as impressible to high-sounding eloquence as any
ignorant mob all the world over; and when the
Babu, at a word from Lawrence, wound up his
speech with the announcement that Major
Endicott had sent some service rifles and a large
stock of ammunition for their use, they cheered
again and again.  Those timid ones who had fled
from the breastwork earlier in the day shouted
the loudest, to ease themselves of their shame.

The Appletons never knew that after the
assembly had been dismissed Ditta Lal, in a
private audience of some of the Pathans, indulged
his fancy in announcements that were quite
unauthorised.

"Tidings of our prowess and valour," he said,
"will be spoken in the ear of the King-Emperor
over the black water, and the august majesty of
our great prince will deal bountifully with us
and shower his graciousness upon us.  He will
take the sahibs our masters by the hand and lift
them up the steps of his throne, speak them words
of comfort and set them on his right hand among
his lords; and furthermore, the humblest of us
shall be exalted and be bounteously rewarded.
A lakh of rupees will be distributed among those
who quit themselves well, and we shall be satisfied
with a feast of fat things."

As the brothers returned to the house, Bob said:

"I'm very much inclined to make another
attempt to hold our breastwork.  It's bad tactics
to let the enemy have free course between the
bend and the bridge.  Probably if I lead a
detachment myself the men will follow readily
enough."

"I daresay you're right on the point of tactics,
but you ought to have a good sleep before you
try it.  You look very fagged; I suppose you've
been up all night."

"Pretty nearly."

"Well, go and lie down.  I'll take charge.  I
had a good night's rest at the frontier house.
It's clear the enemy are waiting for their guns,
and you ought to be able to get at least six hours'
sleep before there's any danger.  Of course I'll
wake you if they make a move."

"Then I'll take your advice.  The trouble
will begin at night, and there'll be no chance of
sleep then."

Left to himself, Lawrence went round the
defences, noting the admirable arrangements
Bob had made during his absence.  As he
looked southward up the river, the sight of the
pathway along the face of the cliff suggested the
necessity of doing something to protect any one
who should pass over the portion exposed to the
enemy.  If they should succeed in pushing their
entrenchments southward beyond the bend, they
would be able to pick off any man who passed
between the mine and the aeroplane platform, and
it was essential that access to the latter should be
maintained.

After consultation with Gur Buksh, he hit on
a means of giving the pathway the security
required.  Two rows of planks laid on edge along
its outer border would completely screen a man
crawling along by the rock wall, even from the
sight of an enemy on the bank immediately
opposite.  He collected a number of men who
were expert in handling tools, and sent them to
construct this parapet.  A few shots were fired
at them when they began their work, but they
were screened by the planks, and the enemy,
having nothing to aim at, soon desisted.  To
hold the parapet firmly in position, uprights
were nailed to the planks at intervals, and
screwed down on to the timbers of the pathway.

When the work was done Lawrence felt far
more at ease regarding the safety of the
aeroplane.  The guards on the platform could now
be relieved more frequently.  They could be
reinforced from the mine within a few minutes,
or withdrawn without risk.

The enemy's continued inactivity confirmed
Lawrence in his belief that they were waiting for
the field guns.  When he saw those being dragged
laboriously up the track, he had suggested to
Major Endicott to shatter them with a charge of
dynamite dropped from the aeroplane.  But the
Major pointed out that others would immediately
be brought up from the main army.  Such an
attack would be more effective later, when they
were nearer to the mine.  Their replacement
then would be a matter of much longer time.

It occurred to Lawrence now that it would be
well to reconnoitre the enemy's position before
Bob attempted to reoccupy his entrenchment,
or at any rate to cover his movement by a
diversion on the part of the aeroplane.  Bob could
not leave the mine in daylight without exposing
himself to the enemy's fire.  If he waited for
darkness, he might find himself anticipated by
them; and even with the searchlight against
them they would have far less to fear from the
garrison by night than by day.  It would be
almost impossible to prevent a sudden
determined rush.  The enemy would lose a number of
men; but they could afford to sacrifice some lives
in a successful effort to improve their position.
Nothing, however, could be done without
consultation with Bob, so Lawrence waited patiently
until about four o'clock in the afternoon, the time
which he had fixed on for awakening his brother.

Remembering the mishap with Major Endicott
up the river, he got Fazl to protect the engine and
the petrol cans by slinging a number of iron plates
under the chassis of the aeroplane.  By means
of these he hoped to reduce risk from the enemy's
rifles when he should start on his reconnaissance.
The Kalmucks northward had had no experience
of the dynamite bombs, unless indeed some of
those whom Bob had chased down the track were
among them.  But even without any definite
fear of the aeroplane they would recognise it as
a means of intelligence to the garrison of the mine,
and would certainly be eager to put it out of action.

Bob on being awakened at once agreed to
Lawrence's suggestion of a reconnaissance.

"I'd like to go myself," he said, "but we
can't both go, and I'd better stick to my job.
Take Fazl with you.  You may have to bombard
them if you find the guns close at hand."

"If I do, that will be your best chance of
occupying your breastwork again."

"Undoubtedly.  I'll lower the drawbridge and
have my party ready; and if I hear any explosions
I'll make a rush for it.  But let us have a clear
understanding.  You won't drop any bombs
unless you find the guns close at hand, or unless
the enemy are up to something that looks
threatening.  There's very little dynamite left.
Besides, at this stage it's no good merely to
frighten the enemy.  It's war now.  I shall
take it that your explosions mean serious business."

"All right.  In any case I shall be back in an hour."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CAPTURING A GUN`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD


.. class:: center large

   CAPTURING A GUN

.. vspace:: 2

The aeroplane with Lawrence and the Gurkha
on board was soon flying down the river, at a
much greater height than usual--a wise
precaution on Lawrence's part, as was proved in a
few moments.  Even before it came above the
bend it was assailed with a volley, and as it
passed Bob was alarmed at the continuous
crackle of rifles.  It lasted only half a minute,
but it was so loud as to smother altogether the
hum of the propeller, and he almost repented
of having allowed his brother to go when he
realised the danger to which he was exposed.
He had lost sight of the aeroplane; the fusillade
had ceased; and the only indication, and that a
negative one, that the machine and its occupants
had not been brought to the ground was the
absence of clamour beyond the bend.  If the
enemy had been successful, he thought, surely
they would have hailed their triumph with shouts
of delight.

Reassured by the comparative silence, he
remained behind the parapet, and informed
Gur Buksh of his intention to reoccupy the
breastwork on the farther bank.

"It is well, sahib," said the veteran quietly.

"Will the men follow me?" asked Bob anxiously.

"To the jaws of the pit, sahib.  Where the
sahib leads they will follow: even the men who
ran away are now eager to wipe out their disgrace."

"Then I will go and form my party.  We shall
not move until the chota sahib gives a signal."

He found that the havildar had spoken truly.
There was no lack of volunteers.  He soon
arranged his little party of twenty, and posted
them in the shelter of the wall until the time
should come for letting down the bridge and
leading them across it.

The minutes passed very slowly.  Lawrence
would not think it necessary to push his
reconnaissance as far as the enemy's encampment.  He
might perhaps fly thirty miles, and then return.
This would take something less than an hour.
If he should discover the field guns within a
short distance of the mine, the explosion of his
bombs might be expected much earlier.

Half an hour passed.  There had been no sound
from up stream; no sign of activity among the
enemy.  Bob began to feel more hopeful.  They
had apparently met with great obstacles to the
passage of the guns.  He was momentarily
expecting to hear the hum of the returning
aeroplane when, with a suddenness that took
him all aback, there was a tremendous roar,
followed in a second or two by a terrific crash
just beyond the Pathan compound.  Turning
in consternation to discover the cause of it, he
saw a great mass of the cliff falling amid a cloud
of dust and smoke upon the wooden pathway,
and plunging into the river beneath.  Such
destruction could only be the effect of a shell.
Beyond doubt one at least of the field guns had
been brought into position behind the enemy's
breastwork at the bend.

This fact filled him with as much dismay as
amazement.  It was not surprising that the
enemy had placed their gun without his knowledge.
They would, of course, have been careful
to mask it until they were ready to open fire.  But
why had Lawrence or the Gurkha not seen it?
Could it be that the aeroplane had been damaged
and brought down after all?

While he was in a painful state of anxiety,
there was another roar, and a second shell burst
on the cliff, just beyond the Pathan gallery.
He ran to the northern wall and peered through
one of the loopholes.  Smoke hung above the
enemy's breastwork, but there was not a man to
be seen, so that rifle fire was useless.  He ordered
Gur Buksh to fire the machine gun.  The
havildar's aim was good; chips of rock flew
from the breastwork; and Bob thought he saw
the muzzle of a gun disappear.  His attention
was immediately drawn from it by the sight of
the aeroplane flying round the bend, and with
the thrill of relief at his brother's safety came the
expectation of hearing an explosion and seeing
signs of havoc about the breastwork.  But the
aeroplane flew high over the scene, passed it,
and disappeared up the river.  There had been
no explosion.  Why had not Lawrence dropped
a bomb?

Hardly had he asked himself this question
when a third shell burst from the breastwork.
It was better aimed than the other two.  Instead
of striking the cliff, it hit the northern wall of
the compound, carrying away several yards of
the metal parapet, scattering jagged fragments of
iron and stone in every direction, then flew over the
heads of the garrison and plunged into the earthwork
at the southern boundary of the compound,
within a few yards of the spot where the sortie
party were gathered.  Bob was almost at his
wits' end.  No defences could withstand a
bombardment at such close quarters.  None of the
garrison had as yet been wounded, but he
could see by their cowering attitude and the
terror written upon their faces that their courage
had been shocked out of them.  Only Gur
Buksh and the other Sikhs stood immovable at
their posts.

A few minutes after the report of the gun,
the aeroplane again came flying down stream.
Lawrence, then, had not landed.  Bob was in a
maze of bewilderment.  But he was suddenly
aroused from his stupor by a sharp detonation.
It was not the report of a gun.  Then there were
loud cries and yells from the direction of the
enemy, and looking through the loophole he
saw a smother of dust above the breastwork.
Lawrence had dropped a bomb at last, and
again was out of sight.

This was to have been the signal for the sortie;
but after what had happened Bob felt that it
would be sheer madness to lead his men along
a stretch of the track commanded by the field
guns.  He doubted, indeed, whether their courage
would face the task.  It was only common
prudence to wait for a second signal.  He could
not see what damage the bomb had done;
whether it had only temporarily frightened the
enemy.  But Lawrence would not hesitate to
hurl another bomb among them; and believing
that, guns or no guns, they must be demoralized
if attacked a second time from the air, Bob
hastened across the compound, ordered the
bridge to be lowered, and went to the twenty men
huddling under cover of the wall.

.. _`LAWRENCE DROPS A BOMB`:

.. figure:: images/img-340.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: LAWRENCE DROPS A BOMB

   LAWRENCE DROPS A BOMB

He allowed no trace of mental perturbation
to show itself in his bearing.

"The time has come!" he said quietly to
the men.  "Lawrence Sahib is driving the enemy
away.  There are no more shots from their
gun, you see.  We shall soon hear another
explosion; then you will follow me, and in five
minutes we shall be masters of our breastwork."

Ganda Singh, who was among the party,
translated his words to the men.  The cessation
of gun fire and Bob's confident manner somewhat
restored their courage.  They formed up, grasping
their weapons nervously, and waited in
panting eagerness, mingled with trepidation, for
the expected signal.

It seemed a long time in coming.  Bob knew
that Lawrence had had to fly several miles down
stream before he could turn.  It came at last.
Again sounded the sharp crash; again the air
was filled with cries, in which there was no note
of triumph: and Bob, with a cheery "Now, my
men!" dashed across the bridge with the
swarthy mountaineers at his heels.  Reaching
the other side, they turned to the left and
raced across the open space formerly occupied by
the miners' huts.  Bob was only half conscious
that the aeroplane was flying in the opposite
direction high above his head.  They were met
neither by shells nor by bullets, and only when
they sank breathless behind the shelter of the
breastwork did a few rifle shots patter around
them.  Then all was quiet again.

Whatever the cause of the astonishing delay on
Lawrence's part, his intervention now had been
effectual, at any rate for a time.  How far
effectual? Bob wondered.  He got up and looked over
the parapet towards the enemy's breastwork a
hundred yards away.  They had apparently
deserted it.  Some, no doubt, had been slain
by the explosions.  Had the survivors fled in
panic far away, or were they merely lying low
beyond the bend?  Then his eye caught what
had escaped his observation from the greater
distance of the compound wall.  There were two
embrasures a foot or two below the top of the
breastwork, contrived by removing some of the
loose rocks.  But he saw no sign of guns.
Perhaps the enemy in their retirement had
dragged with them the one which had fired.

He heard the hum of the aeroplane again.
Lawrence had still not landed, but was returning,
perhaps to observe the extent of his work,
perhaps to complete it.  He was flying much
lower than before.  A sudden idea flashed into
Bob's mind.  The enemy's breastwork was only
a hundred yards distant.  Why not attempt to
rush it under cover of the aeroplane; and if in
the hurry of their flight they had left their gun,
capture it and bring it to the mine?

His thought had hardly crystallized into a
resolution when he heard two explosions in
rapid succession, followed by yells and one or
two rifle shots.  The sound seemed to come from
some distance beyond the bend.  His mind was
made up.  He told Ganda Singh his intention,
and could scarcely wait while the havildar
translated his orders.  The men responded with
a "Hai! hai!" of delight.  Like Bob himself
they were worked up to a high pitch of
excitement.  Their rush had been successful.  The
risks were forgotten, or remembered only to
be scorned.  They were twenty against an
unknown number, but none counted the odds.
"Hai! hai!" they shouted, as their leader leapt
round the angle of the entrenchment.  They
followed close upon him as he dashed over the
intervening hundred yards of broken ground.
No one faltered.  In less than half a minute
they were in possession of the enemy's breastwork,
and at that instant there was another
explosion far down the track.

Bob's glance fell first upon a score of prostrate
forms scattered on the ground in the neighbourhood.
Then with a thrill of delight he saw two
field guns.  One had been struck from its
carriage, and lay near the brink of the stream.
The other had apparently been withdrawn from
its embrasure, but abandoned under the
demoralizing shock of an explosion.  Bob ran to the
first.  A moment's inspection showed him that
it was irretrievably ruined.  Calling two of the
men, with their aid he toppled it into the river.
The other was still workable.  Looking around,
he spied near the breastwork a number of shells
which had escaped destruction by the bombs.

"Can you fire a gun?" he asked Ganda
Singh eagerly.

"I am a gunner, sahib."

"Then slew it round.  We'll turn it on the enemy."

He had remarked a number of the Kalmucks
collected on the track some distance away.
As he spoke, bullets began to whistle around,
and two of his men were hit.  Quickly the
gun was turned round.  Ganda Singh discovered
that it was already loaded, and in another few
seconds a shell sang on its deadly flight towards
the enemy.  They fled, to be pursued by another
shell as soon as Ganda Singh could reload; and
with this second shot the track was cleared for
half a mile down stream.  And then the aeroplane
came whirring past overhead.

As he watched it, Bob became aware that the
afternoon was drawing towards evening.  In an
hour the valley would be gloomy, in two hours
it would be shrouded in darkness.  For the
present, while daylight lasted, there was little
fear of the enemy attacking.  They would not
face their own gun backed by the machine gun
of the garrison.  But he felt that with the fall
of night the circumstances would be changed.
His feeble searchlight scarcely illuminated the
space between the bridge and the bend; beyond
the bend it gave no light whatever.  In the
darkness the enemy might creep up to within a
short distance of their captured breastwork and
carry it with a determined rush, in spite of the
gun.  It was true that the narrowness of the
track would allow the approach of only a few
men abreast; but they could be supported by
a constant succession of reinforcements, coming
up like waves of the sea until the defenders were
worn out.  It seemed to Bob the prudent
course to withdraw his men and the gun to the
mine, and place the latter in position beside the
machine gun.  However, it was bad tactics to
abandon a defensive position before retirement
was absolutely necessary, so he decided to remain
where he was for a little while longer, in the hope
that Lawrence would land and, joining him,
explain the actual condition of affairs down stream.

About a quarter of an hour after the aeroplane
had passed, Bob saw Lawrence running down the
track towards him.

"That's what I hoped you would do," were
Lawrence's first words as they met.  "Capture
the guns, I mean."

"Yes, we've got one: the other's ruined and
in the river.  But we've had a narrow escape
from being battered to pieces.  Why didn't you
begin bombing before?"

"I'll tell you.  We were pretty well peppered,
as you saw, when we flew past here down stream.
It may have been because that bothered us, and
Fazl was hit--I didn't know it at the time--that
we didn't see the guns they had dragged up.  Or
perhaps it was because they are so like the rocks
in colour--and we didn't expect they'd be here
already.  Anyway, we didn't see them, and it
makes me mad to think what a squeak you've
had.  I *ought* to have seen them."

"That's bosh! it's precious difficult to see
anything at that speed.  But go on."

"We saw the men, of course, but we were soon
out of range.  The planes are simply riddled."

"Fazl not much hurt, I hope?"

"No: the bullet went through the fleshy part
of his arm, and he didn't say a word about it till
we landed just now.  On our way down we saw
several teams of ponies at different parts of the
track, bringing grub up, no doubt; and several
bodies of mounted troops on the march; but never
a sign of the guns.  I flew on till we came to the
place where the Major and I saw them: then
thinking I must have missed them, I turned back.
You may imagine how I felt when, about two
miles away, I suppose, I heard the first shot.
It's so different from the sound of the machine
gun that I couldn't mistake it.  I told Fazl to
get ready to drop a bomb as soon as we came up
to the guns.  He did so, but I didn't hear an
explosion.  He yelled out that it had fallen into
the river, but of course we were past before there
was time to shy another.  I came back as quickly
as I could, and my heart was in my mouth when
I saw smoke in the compound.  Luckily Fazl's
next shots were better, and jolly glad I am that
we managed to stampede the fellows and give
you a chance."

"You were just in time, old man.  They did
more damage to the cliff than to us, though."

"Yes: the path is simply heaped with rubbish.
Coming back it was like scrambling over shingle.
But a few hours' work will clear the lot away.
Now what's the next thing?"

"As it's getting dusk I propose to withdraw
the gun to the mine.  But we must hold this
breastwork as long as we can, and it occurs to
me that if we alter its angle a little we can enfilade
it from our own breastwork when it becomes necessary
to fall back on that.  It will still protect us
from attack down stream, owing to the bend."

"Isn't it worth while to block up the track again?"

"It would use up too much dynamite.  Our
stock is getting appallingly low.  We may want
it all for bombs.  Besides, if we block up the
track farther down we shan't see our enemy."

"But I can always scout in the aeroplane."

"You forget that our petrol isn't unlimited.
I had a look in the shed this morning, and there
isn't much left.  The paraffin you brought only
replaced what you lost from the leaky cans.
We shall have to economize now, and use the
aeroplane only when we must."

"Very well then.  If you see about altering
the breastwork I'll get the gun dragged in.  And
there are these poor wounded wretches.  Their
moans are horrible.  What can we do for them?"

"We mustn't take them into our compound.
We haven't food enough to support prisoners.
I have it!  We'll send off the Kalmuck prisoners
we've got, and tell them that they can bring up
a dozen of their friends under flag of truce to
carry off their wounded.  That'll relieve us of
all responsibility.  And now let's get to business.
We haven't too much time."

These arrangements were duly carried out.
While Lawrence escorted the gun to the mine,
Bob set the men to pull down the breastwork,
and re-construct it so that it stood almost
perpendicular to his own entrenchment a hundred yards
up stream.  In its new position it would be of
very little use to the enemy should they re-capture
it, for on whichever side of it they happened to
be, they would be swept by the fire of the men
posted at the other.

By the time the work was completed
darkness had fallen.  Then Lawrence dismissed the
Kalmuck prisoners as he had suggested, and
followed them to the breastwork to have a final
consultation with his brother.

"I'll hold on here until midnight," said Bob.
"I had a good sleep during the day.  Tell Ganda
Singh to train the captured gun on the bend; if
there's an attack he and Gur Buksh can play
on the track and cover our retirement."

"I'm not sure whether it wouldn't be better
to bring it out again and place it behind our
entrenchments."

"No, that would never do.  The searchlight
isn't powerful enough to be of much good; and
the position might be rushed before the gun
could come into play.  It's too valuable for us
to risk that.  It would be a very different matter
if we had enough men to hold the breastwork
and really dispute the advance of the enemy.  We
can't do that.  If they seriously push their
attack we shall have to evacuate the position
and bolt for the mine, and the gun would only
be a hindrance.  Now you get back.  Send over
some food for us, and then go to bed."

"I shan't take my clothes off.  Don't hold on
too long, Bob, if they do come up."

"Don't be nervous, young 'un.  We've had
uncommon good luck so far, and I'm inclined
to think the enemy won't be in a hurry to tackle
us.  Those bombs must have been a horrid
surprise to them.  We may congratulate
ourselves on a good day for the first, anyhow."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CHECK`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH


.. class:: center large

   A CHECK

.. vspace:: 2

The night passed undisturbed.  Bob was
almost sorry.  As the slow hours crept towards
midnight, when Lawrence would relieve him,
he would have welcomed an opportunity for
action.  It was bitter cold.  He dared not kindle
a watch-fire, and so enlighten the enemy about
his arrangements.  Remembering Lawrence's
similar vigil forty miles down, he said to himself:
"The kid's a good plucked one.  He'd have
made a first-rate soldier, or political officer, or
anything.  Pity we're both so hard up!"

Suddenly he bethought himself of the mass
of ore which had been tumbled into the cavity
in the bank just above the Pathan miners'
compound.  It must weigh many tons, and
according to Mr. Appleton's calculations, sixty
per cent. of it was pure silver.  Bob did not know
the market price of the metal, but the quantity
that had been mined must represent a considerable
sum of money.  The exciting incidents of
the last few days had kept his thoughts engrossed
with strategy and tactics; and the notion that
the mine was itself a valuable property, worth
defending for its own sake, came almost with a
shock of surprise.

"Who is the owner now?" he thought.
"Did Uncle leave a will?  I suppose we are his
heirs, but what's the law of inheritance in these
parts?"

And then the recollection of his uncle's recent
death caused a revulsion of feeling.  It was
quite unreasonable to shrink from the thought
of benefiting by Mr. Appleton's decease; but
affection and high-minded instinct sometimes
get the better of reason, and he dismissed the
subject, still with a vague hope that his uncle
would even yet return to his own.

At midnight Lawrence came with a squad
of men to relieve him.

"All's well then?" he said.

"Yes; I haven't heard a murmur."

"Well, cut off and get a sleep.  I'm good for
a spell till daylight.  Shan Tai has given me
a splendid feed.  We're lucky in our men, Bob.
As I was eating I overheard Shan Tai talking
with Chunda Beg.  'What you tinkee?' says
Shan Tai.  They'd evidently been discussing
the situation.  'I say not one of the dogs will
ever poke his nose within our walls,' said the
khansaman.  'When the huzur told me that
two boys were coming to live here I was sick in
mind.  Some of the Feringhi boys call us niggers,
and speak to us as if we were mud.  Our
sahibs are not so.  They do not sniff and curse
and use us as if we were beasts and not men.
What say you, cook man?'  'Say what you
say allo lighto,' says Shan Tai.  'Likee young
massa plenty muchee.  Big lot fightee men come
all-same.  No can fightee big lot long
time.'  'Wah!' says Chunda.  'The two sahibs are
worth thousands of those dogs of Kalmucks, and
if Allah keeps them alive we shall smite and smite
until the Sirkar sends help.  Only give them
good food, cook man.'  'Makee chow-chow
first-chop,' says Shan Tai, and the old chap gave a
chuckle.  He's a jolly good sort."

Lawrence had said that they were lucky in
their men; it did not occur to him that the
fragment of conversation he reported showed
rather that the men thought themselves lucky
in their masters.

The day broke, and still the enemy had made
no movement.  As soon as it was light Bob had
the field gun dragged over the bridge to the
breastwork.  Lawrence reported that the enemy
had begun to erect a new rampart some distance
down the track.

"They surely don't imagine that we're going
to take the offensive," he said.

"No.  It probably means that they'll snipe
at us from behind it.  Go and get your breakfast
and come back as soon as you can."

Bob considered whether to interfere with the
enemy's work, but decided that he had better
husband his ammunition.  Some two hours later,
after Lawrence's return, the enemy began firing
across their new breastwork.  At the same time
a number of them were seen skirmishing along
the track, making short rushes from rock to rock.
The track itself was only thirty or forty feet
wide, straight and comparatively smooth.  But
the cliff face was very rugged, affording a certain
amount of cover.  Skirmishing from point to
point, where the cliff jutted out or receded,
or where single fragments of rock had fallen
to the side of the track, the enemy advanced
under cover of the fire from their breastwork
until they had come about halfway to the position
of the defenders.  Some scrambled up the cliff
here and there for a few yards so as to obtain
a better view of the men sheltered by the
entrenchment.  Bob refused to allow his men to
make a general reply to their fire.  He knew
that they could not approach beyond a certain
point, the track being open and the amount
of cover diminishing as they drew nearer.  Now
and then, when one of them advanced too far
ahead of his fellows, he permitted the best
marksman to try his skill, and two or three of the
enemy were hit.  One of his own men also,
incautiously exposing himself, fell back with
a gash in his arm.  Except for this, the day
passed without casualties, and the relative
positions of the two parties were the same.

The garrison were greatly delighted that the
end of the second day found the situation
unaltered.  Only five days of the critical week
remained, and some of them already saw
themselves at the end of their probation.  Bob
hinted that they were not yet out of the wood,
but he was glad enough to see how high-spirited
and confident they were.  For his own part,
he relaxed nothing of his care and vigilance.
He was still on his guard against a night attack,
and as an extra precaution, he sent two of the
Sikhs to creep in the darkness along the track
between the enemy's breastwork and his own,
to give instant warning if they should see or
hear any signs of movement.

But the peace of the night remained unbroken.
During the early part of the next day, even,
there was no sniping or skirmishing as before.
Bob augured ill of this inactivity.  He would
have been more at ease if the enemy had pursued
their ineffective tactics, and would indeed have
welcomed a rush, which he felt himself able to
repel.  He could not but believe that they were
gathering their strength, perhaps waiting for the
support of more artillery, and he had an
instinctive dread that the next assault would be
a much more formidable affair.

Soon after noon his prescience was rudely
justified.  Suddenly, without any warning, two
guns opened fire from the enemy's breastwork.
Lawrence at once offered to set off in the aeroplane
and repeat his work with the bombs; but Bob
would not allow it, partly because of the scarcity
of petrol and dynamite, partly from a fear that
the enemy, now better prepared, would have
detailed a certain number specially to aim at
the aeroplane in flight.  The airmen might
not escape a second time with a slight flesh wound.

The fight resolved itself into a short artillery
duel.  The enemy's first shell flew high, striking
the cliff above the cantilever gangway, and
bespattering the sheds and the compounds with
fragments of rock.  Ganda Singh proved a better
marksman.  He planted a shell on the enemy's
breastwork between the two guns; splinters of
rock flew all around, and for a time there was
no more firing.  Presently, however, it was
resumed, apparently from one gun only, and
Bob hoped that the other had been put out of
action.  But in a few minutes both the weapons
were at work, and the gunners' practice improved.
Two or three shells struck the garrison's
barricade, and though no breach was made, part of
the parapet was blown away, and splintered rock
flew in all directions, dealing severe wounds among
the men behind.  Ganda Singh worked his gun
with imperturbable calm, and Gur Buksh from
the compound sent a rain of bullets from the
machine gun along the track.  Bob saw,
however, that he would soon be forced to withdraw
the field gun for lack of ammunition.  He had
only captured twenty rounds with it, and after
half these had been expended, with much damage
to the enemy's breastwork, he decided that he
must reserve the rest for use in the compound,
when the enemy should attempt to force a
passage round the bend.

Signalling therefore to Gur Buksh to keep
up a hot fire, he ordered four of the men to run
the field gun back to the mine.  The rest he
withdrew a few yards from the breastwork,
posting them close against the cliff out of the
direct course of the enemy's shells, which were
now working havoc on his rough defences.
But finding it impossible there to observe what
the enemy were doing, he ordered two men to
run back to the breastwork, lie down until the
guns had fired, and then spring up and observe the
enemy's movements through the gaps.  They
soon reported that skirmishers were again
cautiously advancing along the track.  Presently the
bombardment redoubled in vigour, and immediately
afterwards the scouts cried out that a
large body of the enemy was charging.  The
guns ceased fire; at the short range the trajectory
was so flat that the gunners could scarcely aim
at the breastwork without hitting their own men.

"Now, boys!" cried Bob, unconsciously addressing
them as if they were Tommies, "after me!"

He led them back to their former position.
They spread out along the breastwork and
opened fire.  Bob saw a mass of two or three
hundred Kalmucks streaming without any sort
of order along the track, while the skirmishers
who had occupied the rocks above were firing as
fast as they could load.

"Take your time!" he cried.  "There's no
need to hurry."

The first volleys were nevertheless somewhat
ragged.  The nerves of the Pathans, unaccustomed
to the shattering effect of high explosive
shells bursting within a few yards of them, were
shaken; only Ganda Singh and the three other
Sikhs he had with him were calm as disciplined
soldiers ought to be.  It was their rifles that
took toll of the advancing enemy.  Several of
these dropped; the rest came on yelling fiercely.
Bob ordered his men to fire independently.
The steadiness of the Sikhs had its effect on the
Pathans, who rested their rifles in holes and
crevices of the breastwork and took deliberate aim.

The head of the charging column was now
within two hundred yards.  In spite of increasing
losses they still dashed on, and crowds of their
countrymen were swarming over the breastwork
behind them.  Nearer and nearer they drew,
but their ranks were thinning fast.  When they
were about a hundred yards from Bob's
entrenchment their leaders wavered.  At this many
of the men halted, in irresolution; only a few
of the bolder spirits, worked up to a pitch of
frenzy, pressed on until but fifty yards separated
them from their goal.  These never returned.

With startling suddenness panic seized those
who had faltered.  Yelling with rage and despair
they turned about and scurried like rabbits
to the shelter of their breastwork, pursued by a
dropping fire.  When the survivors had got
more than halfway back, their further retreat
was covered by the field guns, and Bob again
withdrew his men a little to the rear, well content
with his successful stand.

There was no further attack that day.  The
men were jubilant.  When Bob, on being relieved
by Lawrence, returned to the mine, he was met
at the end of the bridge by Ditta Lal.  The
Babu's aspect was even more than usually bland.

"I offer fulsome congratulations on sparkling
victory, sir," he said.  "Perchance you heard
the universal shout that burst stentorian from
drouthy throats."

"Is that your own?" asked Bob, interrupting.

"My own, sir?"  The Babu was puzzled.
"I fear I do not fully apprehend meaning of
question."

"Why, it sounded like blank verse, and I
wondered whether you yourself had been
dropping into poetry."

"Delighted, sir," said the Babu with a smile
and a bow.  "I didn't twig my frail thoughts
had run into metric mould.  It was unpremeditated
art.  I am up to snuff now, sir.  'That
burst stentorian from drouthy throats'--'pon
my dicky, sir, phrase has tone, ring, sonorous
rotundity that many professed poetasters would
give boots for.  However and notwithstanding,
long and short of it is I am self-appointed
spokesman for all and sundry in offering abject
felicitations on auspicious event."

"Thanks, I'm sure."

They were walking side by side to the house.

"Now, dear sir," the Babu resumed, "when
I was at Calcutta University--of which, as you
are aware, I have honour and glory to be B.A.--I
was wont to shed my light of countenance
on football matches, watched young barbarians
toe flying sphere.  After certain amount of rough
and tumble, at blast of whistle all performance
ceased for brief interval, during which
muddy oafs ingurgitated juice of lemons and all
that."

"What are you driving at?" asked Bob in
bewilderment.

"Why, sir, that interludium, denominated
half-time, has parallel here and now.  We are
at half-time in this fateful strife.  Three days
and half of allotted span have expired; and I
make bold to suggestion that, for refreshment
and buck-up of general company, you issue
orders for tamasha."

"What's that?"

"Tamasha, sir, is jollification, kick-up, regular
beano--song and dance, et cetera.  With your
permission, I will undertake herculean labour of
organization."

"My good man, you know our proverbs:
'Don't hallo till you're out of the wood'--'Don't
count your chickens before they are hatched.'  It's
true the men have done very well so far,
but the stiffest fight often comes in the second
half, you know.  Possess your soul in patience,
Babu.  If we come through safely I promise
you shall have your tamasha, or whatever you
call it, and I tell you what: as you seem to be
a bit of a poet, why not spend your time in
writing a ballad or something of the sort in
anticipation?"

"Happy thought, sir.  I have not hitherto
built rhyme, lofty or otherwise, but I will do
my level best to rise to height of great
argument; I will set my eye in fine frenzy rolling,
and body forth forms of things unknown at
present, but justified by event.  I will strike my
lyre while it is hot.  Good-night, sir, and sweet
repose."

He waddled off, bent on a passionate quest
for inspiration.  Bob looked after him with a
tolerant smile.

"Poor chap!" he thought.  "Much learning
has made him pretty mad.  I wonder if we
Britishers, when we pick up a smattering of
their lore, strike the Hindus in the same way?
I only hope his pæan *will* be justified by the
event."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE FIGHT AT THE BEND`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH


.. class:: center large

   THE FIGHT AT THE BEND

.. vspace:: 2

At early morning, after a quiet night, Lawrence
sent one of the men back to announce the
approach of a flag of truce.  Bob hurried at once
to the breastwork.  Three Kalmucks were
advancing along the track, one of them apparently an
officer.  No others of the enemy were in sight.
The envoys halted within a short distance of the
entrenchment, and the officer began to speak in
a loud shrill voice.

"What does he say?" asked Bob.

"I can't make it out," replied Lawrence.  "Do
any of you men understand him?"

The men, Sikhs and Pathans, acknowledged
that they did not, whereupon Bob made signs to
the Kalmuck to wait, and despatched a man to
fetch Shan Tai, who as a western Chinaman
might be able to act as interpreter.

When the cook arrived, and heard what was
required of him, he shouted a few words to the
officer, who responded with a speech of some
length, very rapidly uttered.  The purport of
it was to propose terms.  He offered the garrison
the honours of war if they would surrender the
mine and make no further opposition to the
passage of the army up the valley.  They
would be allowed to depart unmolested, with
bag and baggage; and the two white men, if
they pleased, might return to their own country
by way of Central Asia, through the Kalmuck lines.

Bob's reply was made without hesitation.  He
pointed out that the Kalmucks were the aggressors.
Hostilities had not been of his seeking.  All
that he had desired was to live at peace and pursue
his occupation as miner, whereby he gave employment
to several score of workmen, including
many of the officer's fellow-countrymen.

"We have been wantonly attacked," he said,
"without warning and without provocation, and
we are resolved to defend the property of the late
owner of the mine, who was murdered by a man
acting apparently in collusion with the force to
which you belong.  I reject your terms.  But
in order to avoid further bloodshed, I am willing
to refer the matter to the Sirkar, and will abide
by the decision of the Viceroy of the Emperor of
India."

The officer had evidently come prepared for a
refusal, for he at once put forward a modified
proposal.  He offered to leave the Englishman
undisturbed at the mine if he on his side would
refrain from attacking the army as it marched
past.  Bob saw the dilemma in which he was
placed.  The question was no longer a personal
but an imperial one.  Rejection of the offer would
imply that he stood as an outpost of the Empire.
But his answer was equally clear and emphatic.
He declined to make terms of any kind with the
enemy.  The Kalmuck returned to his own lines,
manifestly chagrined at the failure of his mission.

Bob expected that the rejection of the enemy's
proposals would result in a more sustained and
vigorous attack, and as soon as the officer had
departed he set his men to complete the repairing
of the breastwork which Lawrence had begun in
the night.  Presently the Kalmucks opened fire
with rifles and field guns, and throughout the
day the bombardment and sniping from the rocks
intermittently continued; but there was no
further attempt to rush the position.  In the
intervals Bob had fresh stones brought up for
the repair of the breastwork, which had been
considerably knocked about.  The casualties
among the garrison, however, were slight, and
at the end of the fourth day Bob felt that he could
reasonably congratulate himself on the success of
his stand.

But he was still very anxious.  Though the
enemy had shown surprising sluggishness, he did
not flatter himself that they had any idea of
abandoning their task.  More and more he
wondered why they did not attack during the
night, when, so far as they knew, the advantage
would be wholly with them.  For the first time
since the commencement of the struggle he failed
to sleep well, waking frequently, then dozing off
again.

About four o'clock in the morning he was
roused by the sound of two rifle shots in quick
succession.  Springing fully clothed from his
bed, he rushed into the compound, called up the
detachment whose turn it was to take duty at
the breastwork, and led them at the double across
the bridge and down the track.  By the time he
reached the position he found a furious fight in
progress.  The two scouts whom Lawrence had
thrown out to give warning if the enemy moved
had heard the tramp of men advancing, fired their
rifles as a signal, and run back to join their own
party.  They were so closely followed by the
Kalmucks, whose forms could be dimly seen in the
twilight, that Lawrence had been unable to fire
at once for fear of hitting the scouts, so that the
enemy were within a few yards of the breastwork
before they met with any resistance.

Reinforced by Bob's men, the party now opened
fire with deadly effect, but the attackers were so
numerous that the rush was scarcely checked.
There was only time for a second volley before
the head of the enemy's column surged up against
the breastwork.  They had held their fire until
they were able to see the dark forms of their
adversaries.  Then their shots, fired point-blank,
laid low several of the Sikhs and Pathans.
Supported by the swarms in their rear they began
to clamber up the rampart, in the teeth of the
bristling bayonets opposed to them.  On their
side was the advantage of numbers: on the side
of the defenders that of position; but Bob
recognised in a minute that his men, ply their
bayonets as they might, must soon be
overwhelmed by sheer weight.

Suddenly a beam of light flashed over and past
the scene of the conflict, resting on the track
immediately beyond the breastwork, which was
crowded with yelling Kalmucks pressing on to
support their comrades.  Gur Buksh in the
compound had switched on the searchlight.  It
was not the blinding glare associated with the
searchlights of forts and battleships, but it had
sufficient illuminating power to show up the
disorderly mass of the charging force.

For a moment it made no alteration in the
conditions.  Bob and his brother, with barely a
score of men left to them, were hard pushed to
hold the breastwork.  Faster than they could
hurl the enemy down at the point of the bayonet,
others swarmed up.  Bob was on the point of
shouting an order to retire to his own original
breastwork up the track when, above the shouts
and yells of the combatants, sounded the
characteristic rattle of the machine gun.
Instantly he recognised how this might operate in
his favour.  The gun could not be trained on
the men who were actually at grips with him,
but in a few seconds it had swept a huge gap in
the column advancing in serried ranks along the
track, and deprived his immediate assailants of
their support.

He at once took advantage of this fortunate
diversion.  Instead of retiring, he cried to the
men to stand firm, and the desperate work at
the rampart went on.  For some time the
Kalmucks there did not know or failed to
appreciate what was happening behind them.  They still
pressed on and up, and but for the timely arrival
of another dozen men despatched by Gur Buksh
from the mine they might even now have carried
the position.  The reinforcement turned the
scale.  Bob called on his men for a final effort,
and he and Lawrence flashed their revolvers in
the very faces of the crowd.  Fired by their
example the men thrust and jabbed with
redoubled energy, and in a few minutes hurled
the last of the assailants back on to the track.

They found themselves in a terrifying quandary.
The space between them and their baffled
comrades was illuminated by the fatal band of light.
The machine gun had ceased to play on the track
when it was cleared of the enemy.  Now there
were forty or fifty men trapped in the dark
wedge-like area between the beam of the
searchlight and the breastwork.  They knew that if
any of them dared to attempt a rush back they
would be the target for innumerable bullets.
One or two did rashly hazard a retreat, but as
soon as they encroached upon the luminous band
the gun's rattle scarcely gave them warning of the
shots that fell among them almost instantaneously.
The rest cowered in the darkness, waiting
for death.

Bob had to hold his men with a tight rein to
prevent them from leaping the breastwork and
massacring their despairing foes.  He had thought
of a better way.  Fyz Ali could make himself
understood by them.  Through his lips Bob told
them that if they laid down their arms they might
retire, taking their wounded with them.  They
eagerly accepted the proffered mercy, but shrank
from acting on it, until they were assured that a
message had been sent to the havildar to refrain
from firing at them.  Then, utterly cowed, they
handed their weapons over the breastwork,
gathered up such of their comrades as were yet
alive, and carried them in all haste across the
illuminated space and out of sight.

This was an auspicious beginning for the fifth
day.  It was the greatest triumph that the
garrison had as yet achieved, and the men were
proportionably elated.  The enemy on the other
hand were dejected and despondent.  For some
hours they remained at a distance.  In the
afternoon, however, they resumed their
skirmishing tactics, and under cover of a renewed
bombardment crept nearer and nearer to the breastwork.
When their field guns had to cease fire
for fear of hitting the skirmishers, Bob decided
to venture a charge, and led twenty of his best
men in a sudden leap over the barricade.  The
enemy did not wait for the touch of the terrible
bayonets.  They fired a scattered volley and fled.
A lucky shot from Ganda Singh's rifle brought
down one of the rearmost, and he rolled down the
rocks on to the track.  Acting on the unconsidered
impulse of the moment Bob sent two of the Sikhs
to make him prisoner, and when Lawrence shortly
afterwards returned to the compound for his
afternoon sleep, he took the wounded man with
him, and had his injuries attended to.

He proved to be an officer.  Interrogating him
through Shan Tai, Lawrence learnt that the
general himself was on his way to the mine to
make a personal inspection of the position.  The
Kalmuck, who seemed grateful for the attentions
shown him, advised Lawrence to yield.  His
people's comparative inactivity that day was
only preliminary to a crushing blow.  "Without
your flying machine," he said, "you would by
this time have been destroyed.  That gave you
an advantage.  Soon the advantage will be on
our side."

"Will the presence of your general do so much
for you?" asked Lawrence.

The man refused to say any more; but his
manner, and the half-smile upon his face, gave
Lawrence an uneasy feeling that the Mongol
general must have a trump card to play.  He was
so much impressed by the officer's hint of a great
stroke impending that instead of seeking his bed,
he hurried back to inform Bob.

"What can he mean?" he asked.

"I can think of nothing but that the general
is bringing up large reinforcements, and means
to throw them upon us and carry the position by
sheer weight of numbers.  He won't care how
many lives he chucks away, and everything
depends on whether his men's discipline is good
enough to stand the racket.  I don't know how
far these Kalmucks have a contempt for death
like the Japanese."

"Don't you think I'd better fly a few miles
down the track and see what is going on?"

"But you're tired out.  You've been at it
since midnight."

"That's all right.  I shall sleep easier when I
know what we've got to expect."

"Very well then.  Don't go far, and keep high."

The appearance of the aeroplane over the
track, with Lawrence and Fazl on board, was a
signal for the enemy to scurry to cover.  Not
a shot was fired; their only thought was to escape
the terrible bombs which they associated with
the flying machine.  But Lawrence did not
intend to use his bombs.  What he saw, or Fazl
reported to him, proved that his stock of missiles
was insufficient for any greater effect than to
retard, for a few hours at the most, the inevitable
crisis.  Two field guns were in position at the
enemy's advanced entrenchment.  Near by, men
had been engaged in constructing platforms for
other guns, until the sight of the aeroplane sent
them to cover.  Farther down the track, at
intervals, five or six similar weapons were being
dragged up; to destroy them all, even if he were
lucky enough in his aim to do so, would exhaust
his stock of bombs, and he felt that he must hold
some in reserve for the ultimate defence of the mine.

The track, as far as he could see it, was almost
choked with men and animals.  The men scattered
as well as they could when they saw the
aeroplane; some shots were fired at it, harmlessly.
It was impossible for Lawrence to guess the
magnitude of the reinforcement that was being
pushed forward; but it seemed to him that
several regiments must have been sent on from
the main army.  The bodies of mounted men
were separated by long convoys of provisions
and ammunition, carried on the backs of mules
and camels.  It almost appeared as if a regular
advance of the whole force had begun.  The
Kalmuck general was clearly confident of his
power to break the resistance of the little band
that had hitherto withstood his passage.

Lawrence flew as far as the bridge; it seemed
useless to go farther.  He had seen what he had
expected to see: a vast and overwhelming force.
But he had obtained no definite clue to the
meaning of the captive officer's vague hint of a
master stroke.  That the enemy had a crushing
superiority in numbers he had known all along:
there was nothing to indicate that they had
anything more than the advantage of numbers
still.  The presence of their general might act
as a stimulus; but the nature of the position
precluded any marked change in their mode of
operations.  It was essentially a position that
could be won only by dogged, unfaltering
determination: the issue depended on the fighting
man, not on the tactician.

Perhaps if Lawrence had continued his flight
to the plain on which the main army was
encamped, he or Fazl might have noticed one slight
change since his former visit in Major Endicott's
company.  A field telegraph had been laid down,
stretching away to the north.  This might well
have escaped his observation from the great
altitude to which he must of necessity have risen.
Even if he had seen it, probably it would have
suggested nothing more than one of the ordinary
accompaniments of an army in the field.  Yet
that single wire was the clue to the Kalmuck's
cryptic warning.

On returning to the mine his report to Bob was
necessarily disappointing.  It was clear that
everything still depended on blocking the enemy's
advance.  If they could once establish themselves
on the southern side of the bend, and bring their
guns to bear directly on the compounds, a few
hours' bombardment would render the place
untenable: it would be the beginning of the end.
Against it the garrison were almost helpless.
They had only ten rounds of ammunition for the
captured field gun; and though the machine
gun was in better case, not even the bravest of
men--and Gur Buksh was that--could for long
work his gun under the deadly fire of a whole
park of artillery.

"Is there any possible way of strengthening
our breastwork?" asked Lawrence, as with
sinking hearts they discussed the situation.

"We can erect a second rampart in the night,"
suggested Bob.  "It would take them a little
longer to knock to pieces, and give us time.
Every minute gained is valuable.  You see, they
can't bring their guns into direct line with the
mine until they've driven us away, they can't do
that without charging, and they can't charge
without ceasing fire temporarily."

"Yes, I see that, but with four or five field
guns at work they'll soon smash even a double
breastwork, and then the way's clear for a charge.
I wish I had bombed their guns now."

"You can do it to-morrow morning.  I don't
want to spend our last dynamite till absolutely
the last moment.  To-morrow's the seventh day.
If the Chief has been able to keep his word we
shall be reinforced some time during the day, and
then----"

"You say 'if.'  There's a doubt about it, isn't
there?  I've felt it all along."

"There is, of course.  He may not have been
able to spare the men.  But hang it all! what's
the good of looking on the dark side?  We've
held our own for a week, and even if we're smashed
in the end I bet the delay is worth a good deal to
India.  The loss of time is a serious matter for
the enemy.  But for us the whole twenty
thousand of them would be now on the flank of
our army.  I can't imagine any force of ours of
the same size being checked in this way by a
mere handful of men in a gorge.  I dare say the
reason is that the Kalmucks aren't used to hill
fighting.  They're best in a cavalry raid; here
their horses are only a nuisance, and they're rather
slow to adapt themselves to the conditions.  But
they've had a week to get used to them; and the
worst of it is that our fellows, plucky as they are,
are pretty nearly worn out."

"Do you think they'll jib if relief doesn't come?"

"What's the good?  They'd only be massacred.
They'll fight to the last gasp....  I say,
I've got an idea.  There's plenty of wire knocking
about the mine: let's make a couple of wire
entanglements and set them up in the night, just
beyond the breastwork.  If we take care the
enemy won't hear us; they certainly won't see us."

"Wouldn't they notice them when they make
their rush?"

"That's possible, of course; but I rather fancy
they'll be so hot to get at us that they won't.
The wire won't show up much against the
background of rock.  Anyhow, it's worth trying.
Any check would give us the chance to pepper
them from the breastwork, and judging by what
we've seen already they'll be in a panic that
they'll take some time to recover from.  Now
you must get a sleep, so go back to the mine and
tell Gur Buksh to get all the wire he can and set
all the men to work; it won't be the first time he's
had such a job, you may be sure."

When Lawrence had arranged this with the
havildar, and was proceeding to the house, he
noticed Ditta Lal walking with an air of dejection
about the compound.  The Babu's hands were
clasped behind his back; his eyes were bent on
the ground, or rather on the intervening promontory
of his person.  He looked up as Lawrence drew near.

"Gigantic undertaking, sir," he said sorrowfully.

"Pretty stiff, certainly," replied Lawrence.

"Stronger word is requisite in this exigent,
sir.  Such task transcends the topmost rung of
art.  Without excessive reverence for dictum of
bloated antiquity, I hold with him who sings
'born not made.'"

"Well, we can only do our best," said Lawrence,
puzzled by the Babu's words.

"What shadows we are, what shadows we
pursue!" sighed Ditta Lal.  "After mountainous
travail I produce splendiferous line; I rack my
cranium for colleague or successor; but final word,
whose function is to charm attentive ear, eludes,
evades, crumps.  To wit: 'And batters blackguards
with his boisterous bomb!'--line perfect
in harmony and melody and all that; but when
I run through alphabet for rhyme--*com, dom,
fom, gom, hom*, and so on till I come to blank wall
at *zom*: not a word, sir, that fulfils mutual
demand of sound and sense--not one word."

"What on earth are you gassing about,
Babu?" asked Lawrence, who had not heard of
his previous conversation with Bob.

"Of what, sir, but task entrusted to unworthy
servant by honourable brother, to compose song
of victory, ode, epic, or what not, in celebration
of happy and glorious achievement about to be
consummated!  But I will not despair; nil
desperandum; as you truly remark, we can but
do our best; resources of civilisation as
represented by B.A. degree of Calcutta University are
not exhausted; something attempted, something
done, shall earn my night's repose, of which I
shall be jolly and unmistakably glad, for agony
of expressing thoughts too deep for tears wrings
honest brow, sir."

Lawrence feared that the stress of the situation
was making the Babu mad; but he spoke a
sympathetic word, and passed on.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE DEATH TRAP`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH


.. class:: center large

   THE DEATH TRAP

.. vspace:: 2

There was no alarm from beyond the bend
during the night.  But in the small hours the
sentry at the bridge gave a loud shout, and fired
southward up the track.  When Lawrence rushed
from the house to discover what had happened,
he learnt that the sentry had seen a number of
dim figures creeping towards the mine.  They
had now disappeared.  Lawrence conjectured
that Nurla Bai and his friends, who must now
be nearly famished, had been attracted by the
sound of guns, and stolen down in the hope of
eluding the vigilance of the garrison, and gaining
the path that led above their old quarters and
descended on the track on the nearer side of the
bend.  Even if they had got thus far undetected,
they could not but have fallen into the hands
of the defenders of the breastwork.  It was an
attempt they were not likely to repeat.  There
was no chance of their rejoining the Kalmuck
army until the defence was broken.

Before morning the doubled breastwork was
defended by a strong wire entanglement.  Soon
after daybreak the enemy began a terrific
bombardment from four guns, two of which had been
mounted on platforms behind the two which
Lawrence had already seen in position.  The
garrison could make no effective reply, but could only
watch their breastwork crumbling away under
the shells that pounded it without intermission.
The two brothers held their men some distance
in the rear, as much under cover as possible,
ready to lead them on and occupy the ruin of
the entrenchment as soon as the expected charge began.

About ten o'clock they saw Fazl running
towards them from the bridge.  He had been
taking his turn of duty on guard at the aeroplane
platform, and the fact that he had left his post
seemed ominous.  Rushing up to Lawrence, he
exclaimed excitedly that he had heard the distant
hum of an aeroplane.  The boys were
incredulous: they themselves were almost deafened by
the roar of the guns and the crash of falling
masonry.  But immediately afterwards, in the
interval between the shots, they caught the
sound--the continuous throbbing drone, like a
gigantic sewing-machine at work.  They looked
at each other aghast.  For a moment or two
they were mute: then Bob said:

"You must get aloft at once.  It's our only
chance.  Get above the aeroplane, and bomb
it.  There's no time to lose."

Lawrence set off at a run, the Gurkha behind
him.  He raced across the bridge and on to the
cantilever pathway, and had just turned the
corner when he heard a tremendous explosion
behind him.  A few seconds later a large monoplane
flashed by, and was soon lost to sight up
the valley.

Long practice had given him facility in starting.
The aeroplane was ready for flight.  Lawrence
and the Gurkha leapt to their places, and within
two minutes the machine was in the air, flying
after the enemy.

This, then, was the meaning of the Kalmuck
officer's veiled warning.  The enemy had taken a
leaf out of the defenders' book.  Their airmen,
equipped no doubt with bombs much more
destructive than Lawrence's home-made missiles,
intended to strike at the very heart of the
defence, and by rendering the mine premises
untenable, clear the way for the advance of the army.

Lawrence was fortunately cool of head and a
rapid thinker.  After a moment of stupefaction
he saw his course clearly.  The danger from the
air must be met in the air.  This could only be
done by rising above the enemy's monoplane,
and hurling his bombs down upon it.  The
Kalmuck pilot would be as anxious as he to
avoid an actual collision, which must prove
disastrous to both the machines.  It was wholly
a question of manoeuvring for position.

The glimpse he had caught of the hostile
aeroplane as it flashed by, suggested that it was
a much larger and more powerful machine than
his own.  If this were indeed the case, he was
probably quite outmatched in speed as in
armament.  But he saw in a moment that the
possession of the smaller machine might tend to his
own advantage, for he could wheel in narrow
parts of the valley where the attempt would
prove destructive to the enemy.  Moreover, he
knew the valley thoroughly; the others, though no
doubt vastly superior to him in a military sense,
lacked local experience and had everything to
learn.  Time was on his side.

As soon as he began his flight he knew that
he had gained one point.  If the enemy had
turned at his customary wheeling-place, their
aeroplane would already have been in sight.
The next suitable spot was several miles farther
up the valley, unless indeed they should rise to
a much greater height than that at which they
had passed.  Such an ascension would consume
time; it would further make it very difficult for
them to drop their bombs with any degree of
accuracy.  Whether they rose or continued their
flight at the same altitude until they reached
the wider turning-place, they would not be back
for four or five minutes.  Lawrence resolved to
utilise this breathing space.

He flew on until he reached his usual turning-place,
then began to mount in a spiral course.
While he was doing this, two considerations
flashed through his mind.  If, when he met the
enemy, he should be still below them, he must
fly on in the opposite direction, for the chance
of being hit by a bomb, when the machines were
passing at the rate of perhaps a hundred and
fifty miles an hour, would be very slight.  His
only fear in that case was that they would fly
straight back to the mine and work havoc there
without a possibility of interference.  If, on the
other hand, he were above them, his best course
would be to fly in the same direction, and try
to drop his bombs on them.  When two express
trains are running the same way, it is possible,
however great their speed, to cast an object from
a carriage of one through an open window of
the other.

He was still ascending when Fazl shouted that
the enemy's aeroplane was in sight, at a greater
height.

"Rifle!" said Lawrence instantly, as he headed
up the valley.

The Gurkha fired, as the two machines rushed
at terrific speed towards each other.  There was
no reply, but a few seconds afterwards an
explosion in the valley below showed that the enemy
had dropped a bomb.  It would have been
almost a miracle if it had hit the aeroplane in
the fraction of a second of the passing.  But a
second explosion a little later was very perturbing.
Unless he could check the enemy, they might
sail over the mine again and again, and on the
wider target which that presented take surer
aim.  Luckily they would have to fly several
miles down the river before they could again turn,
and the few minutes' grace might give him time
to ascend still higher, and attain an altitude at
which he would have the advantage.

As the machines passed, Lawrence had had
time to confirm his impression that the other
aeroplane was much larger than his own.  He
saw too that it was occupied by three men.
But these elements of superiority would be to
some extent neutralized by the greater handiness
of his own machine in navigating the narrow
gorges of the valley.  The situation demanded
a readiness to take risks.  The gorge to which
Lawrence had now come after passing the enemy
was so constricted that in ordinary circumstances
he would never have dreamed of attempting a
turning movement.  But he felt the supreme
necessity of wheeling at once, in order to return
to the "bay" which he had lately left.  There
he might do something to protect the mine, if
only by diverting the enemy's attack upon
himself.  He might also have an opportunity of
rising to a sufficient height for offensive purposes.

Choosing the widest part of the gorge, he
banked his machine up, and clearing the cliff
apparently by inches he swept round again to
the north.  When in half a minute he reached
the turning place, the aeroplane was not in
sight.  But he heard sounds of a fierce struggle
beyond.  The bombardment had ceased, but
the air was filled with the crack of rifles, the
rattle of the machine gun, and the shouts of
men.  He could do nothing to help his brother.
There was not even time to fly on and drop a
bomb among the enemy: he must utilise every
moment in preparing for the return of the
aeroplane.  He steered his machine in a series
of short spirals, rising as rapidly as possible,
watching the valley northward anxiously.  As
yet its windings concealed the enemy's aeroplane
from view.  It was an inexpressible relief to him
that they had not attempted to turn at the
spot where he now was.  They had not thought
it practicable, or not had the time; probably
they had shot by before even the possibility
had occurred to them.

He swept round and round in his corkscrew
flight, rising gradually until he was more than
two thousand feet above the river.  His view was
now greatly extended, and when the larger
aeroplane came in sight from round a bend
nearly a mile away, he saw with a flash of hope
that it was now lower than his own machine,
although somewhat higher than before.
Evidently the airmen had foreseen that he might
rise in order to avoid their bombs, and sought
to forestall him; but his narrow spiral had carried
him up to a greater height than their two long
inclined planes.

The moment he saw them he started straight
to meet them.  Nothing could have been better
calculated to assist his brother in the desperate
struggle on the track.  It was as when a charging
bull is diverted from the object of his fury by
the fluttering of a handkerchief or a newspaper
within his range of vision.  The Kalmuck airmen
recognised that they had an opponent with whom
they must seriously reckon; and though perhaps
their general, looking on from below, would have
bidden them to ignore the aeroplane, and pursue
the more important duty of shattering the
defences, they no doubt thought that a few
minutes' or even hours' further delay would be
less disastrous than the destruction of themselves
and their machine.  When the defenders' aeroplane
was out of action, the rest would be easy.

Lawrence had resolved not to imitate the
enemy in hurling a bomb while the machines
were flashing past in opposite directions.  His
missiles were too precious for one to be wasted.
As the aeroplanes met, he heard two cracks,
followed by two metallic thuds on the iron
plates below his chassis: the enemy had fired.
What effect their shots had he knew not, but
neither the engine nor the occupants suffered
any injury.  He had already commenced
a turning movement.  Completing his circle,
he steered straight after the enemy, who were
heading directly up the valley.  There had been
no explosion on the track or in the mine
compounds as they passed: so far his tactics had
justified themselves.

But Lawrence had not been more than a few
seconds in pursuit before he found that in speed
his machine was utterly outclassed.  The enemy
seemed almost to leave him standing.  This
was not unexpected; but as soon as he was
sure of it he felt that his course of action was
clearly marked out.  It would be a fatal mistake
to give the enemy enough air-room to take
advantage of their superiority.  If they got
plenty of space for manoeuvring they could rise
as far above him as they pleased, and either
shatter the aeroplane with a well-placed bomb,
or, having two rifles to one, could wait an opening
for a shot that would incapacitate himself or
Fazl, perhaps both.  He must devote all his
energy and skill to dodging and deluding the
enemy, attacking them if occasion offered, in
any case keeping them constantly employed.
Their engine must consume a much larger
quantity of petrol and lubricant than his.  They
must have used up a great deal in flying from
their starting-place--Tash Kend, he presumed--and
it was unlikely that there was any supply
with the army at the end of the valley from
which they could replenish their tanks.  If he
could only manoeuvre so as to starve them out
of fuel, all their superiorities would be nullified
and their usefulness would have vanished.

It was a question now of calculating chances,
or rather of guessing--like the children's game
when one brings his closed fists from behind his
back and asks another to guess which hand holds
the concealed object.  When the two aeroplanes
were out of sight, the occupants of neither could
know what the others were doing.  They could
only make a random shot at the probabilities.
Lawrence felt pretty sure that the enemy would
seek to rise to a greater altitude than they
supposed him to be attaining.  He therefore decided
to descend at once, and hover in the lower part
of the valley.  A long vol plané northward
brought him within a short distance of the struggle
going on at the bend.  As he sped by, he ordered
Fazl to drop a bomb among the enemy beyond
the breastwork, then swooped past, three or four
hundred feet above the river, turned at the first
possible spot, and flew back to meet the enemy.
As he expected, they had risen to a great
height.  Flying low as he now was, they were
probably two thousand feet above him.  When
they saw him, they at once began to descend;
but the machines were rushing in opposite
directions so swiftly that the vertical distance between
them was lessened by only two or three hundred
feet when they met.  A few seconds after they
had passed, Lawrence heard two explosions, and
Fazl reported that the enemy's bombs had fallen,
one in the river, the other on the cliff-side.  Again
they had missed their aim.

Lawrence knew that they could not return within
fifteen minutes.  While it was important to him
that they should waste their petrol, it was equally
important that he should husband his, for he
had very little left at the shed.  It occurred to
him that there would be time to alight on the
platform, run to the mine to see how things were
passing there, and get back in time to fly off
before the enemy came in sight.  He therefore
wheeled round at his usual place, and in less
than a minute slid gently on to the ledge.
Leaving Fazl to look to the engine, he ran along the
pathway, and on turning the corner saw with
some astonishment that hostilities had apparently
ceased.  The breastwork was still manned by
Bob and his party: Lawrence almost winced
as he noticed how large a number of bodies lay
prostrate around them.  The enemy were
invisible: it seemed certain that their attack had
been repulsed.

The mine compounds were deserted, except by
Gur Buksh and two other men, whom Lawrence
recognised in a moment as Chunda Beg and
Shan Tai.  These three were reclining against
the wall near the machine gun.  Every other
fighting man had crossed the bridge to bear his
part in the holding of the track.  Lawrence felt
a thrill of pride in the courage and loyalty of the
cook and the khansaman, who, house servants
as they were, often held in scorn by the warriors,
had in this hour of peril given their assistance to
the steadfast havildar.

He hurried on to the compound, noting as he
passed the havoc wrought by the one bomb from
the hostile aeroplane which had hit the mark.
Gur Buksh and the others saluted as gravely as
if it were the prime of peace.

"What has happened?" asked Lawrence breathlessly.

The havildar related how the appearance of
the enemy's aeroplane had been the signal for a
more ferocious bombardment than had before
taken place.  When the breastwork was half
ruined by the shells, a swarm of Kalmucks rushed
to the attack with yells of anticipated triumph,
while the defenders, who had remained in
comparative safety some distance away, leapt back
to their places at the shattered rampart.  The
enemy, coming unawares on the wire entanglements,
had been thrown into an unwieldy and
disordered mass; and after a few minutes of
desperate efforts to break through the obstacle,
with partial success, they had been so withered
by the defenders' fire that flesh and blood could
endure no more.  They had fled, a confused
rabble, to their own entrenchment.

There was no time for Lawrence to hear more,
or to discuss with the imperturbable Sikh any
measures that might be devised to assist the
heroic fighters on the other bank.  He knew
well that the check could be only temporary, and
could not think without distress of the issue of
the next attack.  Hurrying back to the ledge, he
and Fazl got into their places, ready to fly off
directly they heard the returning aeroplane.  The
Gurkha's ears first caught the throbbing drone,
and as the machine once more rose into the air,
the field guns recommenced to bark and spit.

As soon as Lawrence reached his turning-place
he began to climb.  In a few moments he caught
sight of the enemy's aeroplane skimming round
the bend below the mine.  It was much lower
than before, probably no more than three hundred
feet above Lawrence, and as soon as the airmen
caught sight of him, they dipped so suddenly as
almost to suggest that the machine was beyond
control.  But Lawrence realised that the descent
was intentional.  They meant to come as close
above him as they could in the half mile between
them.  He ceased to mount, and steered straight
down the valley, hugging the cliff on the left
hand.  The enemy followed his manoeuvre, edging
to their right in order to pass immediately above
him.  The two aeroplanes were only about a
hundred yards horizontally apart when with a
quick movement of his rudder, which threw a
hazardous strain upon the planes, Lawrence shot
out over the river.  Before the enemy could alter
their own course he had passed well outside them.
Their bombs, dropped hurriedly while the pilot
was striving to cope with Lawrence's sudden
movement, fell harmlessly into the river.

The enemy's turning-place up stream being
much nearer the mine than that in the opposite
direction, there was no time to alight again and
save expenditure of petrol.  But there was time
to lend aid to the defenders at the breastwork.
Lawrence flew on, instructing Fazl to hurl a
bomb among the enemy as he passed the bend.
Two teams of horses were dragging more field
guns up to the rampart.  It was among these
that Fazl let fall his bomb, and looking back, he
shouted gleefully that one of the teams had
stampeded and dashed with their gun over the
bank into the river, while the other were plunging
furiously amid a smother of smoke.  At the same
time the rattle of the machine gun announced
that Gur Buksh was again at work.

Lawrence did not wish to fly six or seven miles
down the river to the wide bay in which he was
sure the enemy had turned.  To wheel round
earlier involved some risk, but it was a risk from
which his strung-up nerves did not flinch.

About three-fourths of a mile beyond the bend,
at the spot where the enemy had established
themselves after their first repulse, the gorge
curved to the west, and in the cliff-face there was
an extensive depression, scooped out as it were by
a landslip.  He resolved to try his luck there.
The margin was perilously narrow, and only a
man absolutely familiar with the spot, as he was,
and prepared for the turning movement at the
very moment of reaching it, could have hoped
to wheel in the space.

At the critical point he banked up at a sharp
angle, and for one brief moment felt a cold shudder
of fear as he recognised the beginning of the
sideslip that had brought disaster on so many reckless
or unfortunate airmen.  But the planes recovered
their grip; the machine swung round across the
river, having shaved the cliff on the left by an
appallingly fine margin; and flew lightly and
evenly up stream again.

By this daring feat Lawrence had saved nearly
ten miles and the equivalent quantity of petrol.
He had also avoided a meeting with the enemy
on the north side of the mine, where manoeuvring
to dodge them would have been much more
difficult.  By alighting when they next passed
him he would again save while they were
expending, and however large their supply had been
when they started, it could not much longer stand
the drain of continual flight up and down the
river.  Even now, since entering the valley,
they must have travelled a good deal more than
a hundred miles; their flight from headquarters
might have been three hundred.  No doubt a
further supply of fuel and oil had been despatched
after them, but it would take a week or more to
reach them over such rugged country.  If he
could only keep them fruitlessly employed until
they were forced to leave the gorge through
failing petrol, he would gain perhaps just enough
time for the garrison to prolong their defence
until the expected relief force arrived.

Thought is quicker even than an aeroplane's
flight: these hopes, conjectures, volitions flashed
through Lawrence's mind in the interval between
his venturesome circuit and his arrival at the
bend.  The bombardment had recommenced.
Two guns had been got into position; others were
being hauled up the track.  A hot rifle fire was
opened upon the aeroplane, and both pilot and
passenger were struck by fragments of bullets
that had splintered on the metal work.  Their
great speed soon carried them out of further
danger, but the bomb which Fazl dropped missed
its aim, exploded on the rocky bank instead of on
the track, and did little harm.

Lawrence guessed that the Kalmuck airmen
would now suppose him to have risen, and would
themselves be mounting in order to keep above
him.  He therefore resolved to keep low.  The
sequel showed that the enemy had been cunning
enough to guess at his guess.  When they
reappeared, so far from ascending they were
descending, yet gradually, so that they might
adapt their course to the exigencies of the
moment.  They were now only two hundred
feet above him.

This time he decided not to rush past and
continue his flight up stream, but to wheel at
the turning-place, and save time and petrol by
flying back in their wake to his platform.  He
realised afterwards that he began his turning
movement a trifle too soon, though, as the event
proved, his indiscretion served him well.  The
enemy had not quite met him when he shifted
his rudder for circling round the bay.  He
expected them to flash by as usual at express
speed, but to his intense astonishment and alarm
he found that instead of continuing on their
direct course they had suddenly banked over,
and were wheeling above him in the same
direction as himself.  It was a manoeuvre of
extraordinary daring, for the larger aeroplane
required a much wider circle than the smaller,
and in order to clear the cliffs it had to remain
banked up at a dangerously sharp angle.

Lawrence felt himself trapped.  He could not
fly out at either end of the bay, he thought,
without being immediately followed by the
enemy, who would then have him at their mercy.
Yet he was in equal danger if he remained circling
below them, for though their flight was swifter
than his, at some moment their machine would
be vertically above him, and they would doubtless
seize that moment for hurling a bomb.  He could
not descend without shattering the aeroplane
on the banks or plunging into the river.  He
felt as helpless as a pigeon beneath an eagle.

It was indeed an extraordinary situation: two
aeroplanes wheeling round and round in a
cup-like hollow, with less than two hundred feet of
space between them.  The Kalmucks had not as
yet fired or dropped a bomb: Lawrence imagined
them gloating over their helpless victim, awaiting
a favourable moment for one crushing stroke.
The first shot was fired by Fazl; the enemy
replied, but instead of keeping up a continuous
fire, they ceased after a few shots, which riddled
the planes, but hit no vital part.  Lawrence
wondered at their abstinence, until, following
them with his eyes, he had a sudden conviction
that they were in difficulties.  The machine was
banked up to the extreme limit of safety, and it
flashed upon him that the enemy, and not
himself, were caged.  They could not ascend, for,
a few hundred feet above them, the cliff on the
west side of the stream hung forward in a jagged
bluff that came within the circle of their flight.
Contact with it would hurl them into the river.
Nor could they leave the bay by either of the
exits north or south without the risk of colliding
with the cliffs, for the space was so narrow, and
the speed of the machine so great, that the
movements necessary for unbanking and steering could
hardly be performed in the fraction of a second
between their quitting the bay and running into
the straight.  It is one thing for a wasp to fly
into a bottle, and quite another to fly out again.

The machines had completed several circles
before Lawrence had grasped the situation.
During this time Fazl had been steadily firing,
but the enemy had been silent.  Suddenly the
Gurkha uttered a shout; one of the Kalmucks
fell from the aeroplane, and whirled over and
over in the air until he struck the river and
disappeared.

"Don't fire again!" cried Lawrence.

He had become conscious that the perpendicular
distance between the two planes was
rapidly diminishing.  The enemy's engine had
not failed; their speed was the same; yet it
was plain that moment by moment they were
drawing nearer to the plane below.  If the
machines had been ships, Lawrence would have
been tempted to believe that the enemy were
trying to board; but he knew that a collision
would be fatal to both.  He was at a loss to
explain the strange movement; indeed, he had
little time to think of it, for he realised that
unless he himself made his escape, his machine
would be soon hurled to the bottom by the impact
of the larger.  He had not found it necessary to
bank so much as the Kalmuck pilot.  His lesser
speed and the greater handiness of his aeroplane
enabled him to fly out at the exit without the
almost certainty of dashing against the cliff.
At his next round he steered straight through the
northern gap, and flew back in a flush of wonder
and excitement to the platform.

As he expected, the enemy did not follow him.
Alighting he rushed to the projecting buttress
and gazed up the valley.  He could see the
doomed aeroplane as it flashed across the opening
of the bay.  It was still whirling round and
round, but falling, falling with ever increasing
velocity.  He shuddered with horror as he
contemplated the inevitable end.  He did not
witness the actual close of the tragedy.  The
aeroplane as it neared the bottom was hidden from
him by the rocky banks of the river.  But half
a minute after he himself stood in trembling safety
a tremendous explosion shook the ground, and a
cloud of smoke and broken rocks shot high into
the air.  Then there was a burst of flame, and
he knew that all was over.

Overcome with sickness at the terrible end of
these gallant airmen, and with nervous exhaustion
after his own wearing efforts, he lay flat on the
rock to recover his composure.  Thinking over
the recent scene, he hit upon a conjectural
explanation of the uncontrollable descent of the
enemy's aeroplane.  He supposed that, with the
machine so critically banked up in order to
navigate the narrow cup, the pilot had been quite
unable to make those delicate adjustments of
the planes and the elevator that were necessary
to counteract the dragging force of gravity.
Later on, when he had an opportunity of
discussing the matter with his brother, Bob scouted
his theory, declaring that while the petrol lasted
nothing could have prevented the machine from
whirling round and round.  But Lawrence stuck
to his opinion, and Bob very naturally declared
that it was not a matter he would care to put to
the test.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AD INFIMOS`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH


.. class:: center large

   AD INFIMOS

.. vspace:: 2

Just as the ticking of the household clock is
unnoticed, but its cessation is immediately
remarked; so it was not until the coughing roar
of the field guns, which had continued ever since
Lawrence last soared over the bend, suddenly
ceased, that he was roused to full consciousness
of the critical situation at the mine.  Springing
up, he ran with Fazl along the pathway until he
came to a spot where the whole theatre of the
combat could be viewed.

The noise of the guns had been followed by a
hoarse babel of cries mingled with the crackle of
rifles.  He was just in time to see a swarm of
Kalmucks surge over the breastwork, and Bob
with his devoted band rushing up the track to
the second rampart a hundred yards away.
The machine gun beneath the north wall of the
mine was silent; nobody was to be seen in the
compound; and Lawrence's heart sank with
dread lest the gun had been smashed, and Gur
Buksh and his voluntary assistants slain.

In a moment, however, Fazl drew his attention
excitedly to three men lying flat on their faces
upon the drawbridge.  He recognised them at
once as the havildar, Shan Tai and Chunda Beg.
But what were they doing?  Their arms were
moving swiftly this way and that, like the arms
of tailors sewing.

"See, sahib!" cried Fazl, lifting his hand and
pointing in still more excitement.

And then Lawrence saw that the bridge was no
longer a bridge.  The end which had rested on the
rock in mid stream had been shattered by a
shell, and Gur Buksh and his companions were
working with might and main to replace the
broken portion with rope.  Fortunately, prone
as they lay, they were for the present concealed
from the enemy by the breastwork manned by
the diminished garrison; but they would be in
full view when they rose to return to the
compound.  When the time should come for the
whole party to beat a final retreat, it would be
almost impossible for a single man to escape being
shot down.

Lawrence looked down the track.  Fighting
had ceased.  The Kalmucks who had sprung over
the breastwork had been recalled.  A great
number were engaged in repairing and strengthening
the rampart, so as to render their gunners
secure from enfilading fire.  Behind, another
crowd was dragging more guns into position,
and Lawrence noticed that there were now
machine guns as well as field pieces.  The fact
that Bob's men were not firing seemed to indicate
that their ammunition was failing.  The captured
field gun was now useless for lack of shells; Gur
Buksh had very little ammunition for his gun,
and in any case he could not return to it until his
work on the bridge was finished.  It was of vital
importance that the retreat to the mine should
be kept open.  What alarmed Lawrence most
of all was his certainty that, even with the bridge
repaired, the little band of thirty fighters were
practically cut off because they could only cross
under the enemy's fire.  As soon as the enemy's
guns were placed, the second rampart would be
knocked to pieces in a few minutes at so short a
range.  The garrison would be swept up the
track, or shot in attempting to regain the mine.
The siege would be at an end, for so determined
an enemy would doubtless find some means of
crossing the river, even if the defenders escaped
destruction and cut down the bridge behind
them.  They might hold out for a little, perhaps,
in the dark and narrow galleries; but as soon as
the enemy played on these with their artillery,
they would be rendered untenable by the deadly
fumes.  It seemed that before the sun went
down the whole place would be in the hands of
the Kalmucks, and there would no longer be
any impediment to their march.

The one thing needful, to prolong the struggle
even for a few hours, was to bring the garrison
back into the compound.  There were still a few
bombs left; by attacking the enemy with these
Lawrence thought he might gain just enough
time for the retreat.  When he had done that he
would fly southward to look for the relief force,
and if it were in sight, urge it to haste.  The
mere knowledge that it was approaching would
put heart into the weary garrison, and nerve
them for prolonged resistance.

"How much petrol is left?" he asked Fazl.

"Eight or nine gallons, sahib--and a little
paraffin also."

This might suffice for a couple of hours' flight;
then the aeroplane would be out of action.
Anything further that Lawrence could do must then
be done at his brother's side.

He told Fazl what he proposed to do.

"I will run across the bridge and let Bob
Sahib know," said the Gurkha.

"No; it's too dangerous.  Just give a shout
to attract his attention, and I will semaphore to him."

A piercing cry rolled across the river.  Behind
his rampart Bob turned and waved his hand.
Lawrence instantly signalled that he had a
message to give.  At the spot where he stood,
while in full view of Bob, he was invisible to the
enemy a hundred yards farther north.  He began
to work his arms in the movements of the
flag-signal code.  Fazl meanwhile returned to the
aeroplane, tested the engine, put on board the
whole remaining stock of petrol, together with
lubricant and a couple of gallons of paraffin left
from the quantity brought from the frontier
house, and all the bombs.

The conversation by semaphore took some
little time.  Bob wanted to know what had
become of the enemy's aeroplane.  Lawrence
replied merely that it was out of action, without
giving particulars.  Having explained what he
proposed to do, and obtained Bob's assent, he
returned to the platform, and was soon flying
up the river.  At the turning-place he saw on the
bank below the blackened ruins of the enemy's
machine.  When he wheeled round and
approached the bend, he became the target for the
Kalmucks' rifles, and as he had not risen very high
the bullets whistled around unpleasantly near.
Just before he reached the enemy's breastwork
Fazl dropped two bombs; there was a double
explosion, and the man reported that they had
fallen apparently at the right spot, though the
dust and smoke prevented him from seeing the effect.

Lawrence flew on.  In spite of the necessity
of economizing fuel, he did not again attempt his
previous risky turn, but went on until he reached
the place where wheeling could be performed
without danger.  The track was swarming with
the enemy.  They did not now fire at him; he
guessed that these men could hardly distinguish
his machine from their own.

On returning towards the bend he saw that the
bombs had wrought great havoc there.  One
at least of the guns was dismounted: the track
was strewn with prostrate forms; and near the
rampart only a few men could be seen scurrying
up the hillside to find shelter among the rocks.
Fazl dropped another bomb, aiming as nearly
as possible at the guns that were still in position.
The further breastwork was deserted: as
Lawrence crossed it the drawbridge was blown up,
and a cheer rose from the little garrison now lining
the walls of the compound.

Lawrence passed up the valley.  It was twenty
minutes since he started from the platform.  His
fuel would last little more than an hour and a
half.  Going and returning his flight could
continue for a bare hundred miles.  It was now about
four o'clock; in two hours the valley would be
dark.  If he did not sight the relieving force
within less than an hour--that is, within fifty
miles--he must return to the mine without the
message of hope.  Even if he should see it,
he reflected that many hours must elapse before
it could reach the mine, however much the march
was forced.  This consideration made him decide
to shorten his flight; he must reserve enough petrol
to carry the aeroplane once more over the
enemy, so that he could use against them the
four bombs he had left.

Flying low upon the river, he recognized at
every few miles the scenes of the various episodes
of this prolonged contest.  Here was the wide
extension of the gorge where the hapless
aeroplane had no doubt made its turns: just
beyond was the open country where the Pathans
had stood at bay against the Kalmucks; farther
south, the scene of his capture by Nurla Bai.
With anxious concentration he scanned the track;
not a man was in sight.  To obtain a wider view
he swept up in a long plane, and presently caught
sight in the far distance of the hill tower in which
Major Endicott had been besieged.  This was a
clear signal that he must turn in a few minutes.

Just as he was on the point of wheeling round,
both he and Fazl simultaneously gave a shout.
Rounding a bend of the track, about five miles
away, was a column of marching horsemen.
The sun flashed upon polished metal.  Lawrence
lifted his field glass, and after a brief glance
through it uttered a second cry: he had
recognized the British khaki.  In the joy of this
discovery he ventured to fly on for another two
miles under engine power, then shut off the engine
and made a gradual vol plané down to the track,
alighting at an open spot about a mile from the
head of the advancing force.  By this time the
whole of the column was in sight.  It was very
small in comparison with the vast horde against
which it was to be pitted; there were not half
as many men as he had seen within five miles
of the mine, to say nothing of the thousands
marching up from the north.  But he noticed
that it had two field guns, and a mountain
battery carried on mules; and if only it could
arrive in time, he had little doubt that British
arms and pluck and discipline would triumph
even over the great host of the enemy.

Leaving the aeroplane under Fazl's care,
Lawrence hastened forward towards the column.
To his still greater joy he recognised in the officers
marching at the head, Major Endicott himself and
Captain Fenton.  They were trotting forward to
meet him.  The Major had one arm in a sling.

"All well?" shouted the Major from a distance.

"Hard pressed, but still holding out," replied
Lawrence.

There were hearty hand-clasps when they met.

"I was afraid we should be too late--had no
end of a job to get this scratch column together,"
said the Major.  "How far are we from the mine?"

"About thirty miles, I think."

"I hoped it was less.  We've been marching
all day, and the horses can't possibly do thirty
miles without a rest.  Just tell me how matters
stand, will you?"

"When I left, about three-quarters of an hour
ago, my brother had just been forced back into
the mine."

"Did he leave it, then?" interrupted the Major.

"Oh yes!  He has till now held the enemy off
some distance down the track.  But their
artillery was too much for us, and we're now in
the last ditch, so to speak.  Bob has blown up
the bridge, so the enemy can't get across
immediately; and my little Gurkha has done a good
deal of damage among their guns with bombs;
but the track is now open to them; they'll bring
more guns up, and be able to pound us at
point-blank range.  We've lost a good many men;
we've only a few rounds of ammunition left for
the machine gun, and precious little for the rifles."

"Dynamite?"

"I've got the last of it in four bombs in the
aeroplane."

"Can't your men shelter in the galleries from
the enemy's bombardment?"

"For a little while, no doubt.  But what I'm
afraid of is that the enemy will find some means
of crossing the river during the night: if they do
it's all up.  There appears to be a general
directing operations, and after being baulked
for a week he won't be satisfied until he's made
a clean sweep of us."

"It's touch and go, evidently.  What do you
say, Fenton?"

"We couldn't do thirty miles on this ground
in less than six hours if the horses were fresh:
and if we push on at once they'll collapse before
we're half way there.  We must have at least a
three hours' rest."

The Major pulled at his moustache meditatively.

"Aren't we near that place where you had
your smash, Appleton?" he said suddenly.

"Yes; it's a few miles down."

"Then I'll tell you what I'll do.  A lot of these
fellows with me are used to work on the Indus.
I'll get them to make a big raft like the one your
Kalmucks floated the aeroplane on, and send on a
dozen in advance.  The current will gain us three
miles an hour; the men should get to the
neighbourhood of the mine about three.  If you
could manage to meet them and carry them in
relays into the mine they'd be of great use.  I'll
give you some ammunition, too.  Fly back at
once: the knowledge that we're coming will
buck your men up; and the rest of us will hurry
on as soon as possible."

On reaching the aeroplane, the whole force
dismounted.  Lawrence was introduced to
Captain Coats, the army surgeon whom he had heard
mentioned in the frontier house.  While some of
the men placed in the cockpit as many cartridges
as it could carry, others went into the wood to cut
timber for the raft.  Lawrence had some difficulty
in starting the engine; but it ran smoothly after
a little while, and taking a cheery leave of the
officers he started for the north.

He had come within about five miles of the mine
when a prolonged miss-fire made it imperative to
descend at once.  Luckily there was just room
for him to alight at the edge of a small wooded
tract.  He was the more perturbed at the delay
because he heard distinctly the dull rumble of
artillery fire in the north.  Stripping off his coat,
he began with Fazl's help to overhaul the engines.
Apparently the defect was in the carburetter, but
for some little time the precise origin of the
mis-fire was undiscoverable.  Meanwhile the depths
of the valley were already shrouded in dusk, and
Lawrence, never having attempted a flight by
night, became more and more anxious as time
went on, lest he should be overtaken by complete
darkness before he regained the platform.

At last the defect was ascertained and remedied.
Lawrence had just put on his coat, and Fazl was
in the act of replacing the plugs, when there was a
sudden volley from the wood near by, and six
wild and haggard Kalmucks came towards the
aeroplane with a rush.  The Gurkha went on
calmly with his work: Lawrence snatched up
his rifle and fired.  One of the attackers fell;
the rest dashed on only the more furiously,
howling like famished animals.  Lawrence fired
again; Fazl started the engine; both then
sprang to their places, and pressing the throttle
Lawrence set the machine gliding forward.

.. _`405`:

By this time the Kalmucks were within a few
yards.  Fazl stooped for his rifle, to take a parting
shot at them.  As he rose he noticed that an
extraordinary thing had happened.  Just as the
aeroplane was lifting, one of the Kalmucks,
outstripping the rest, had taken a grip of the chassis,
as if attempting to drag it down.  He retained
his grasp a little too long, and was carried up
into the air.  Fazl now saw him convulsively
drawing himself up to clutch one of the stays of
the main plane.

What had happened was hidden from Lawrence
by the projecting planes.  Fazl made no sound;
but there was an odd look upon his face as he
quietly slipped a cartridge into the breech of his
rifle, took careful aim at one of the four men on the
track below, and brought him to the ground.

"Tchigin, sahib," he said.

"Never mind about the Kalmucks," said
Lawrence.  "Just fill up the tank, will you?"

Fazl laid down his rifle, took a petrol can, and
poured its contents into the tank below the pilot's
seat.  There was nothing of haste or excitement
in his manner.  He tipped the can until the last
drop was drained, and having set it down, rubbed
his hands on his coat.  Then he drew his kukuri,
and bent over slowly towards the Kalmuck, who
was clinging to the stay in grim and speechless
terror.  Fazl gazed steadily into the man's eyes.
He lifted his terrible weapon; there was one
swift whizzing stroke through the air; and the lost
man fell headlong into the river, three hundred
feet below.  Fazl wiped his blade.

"What's that?" asked Lawrence, as the
aeroplane gave a sudden upward jerk.

"Nurla Bai, sahib."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE LAST FIGHT`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH


.. class:: center large

   THE LAST FIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

Lawrence landed in the twilight on his
platform.  All sounds of combat had ceased.
His first care was to see exactly how much petrol
was left.  There was enough for about twenty
minutes' flight: then the aeroplane would be
doomed to inactivity.

"Look over the machine," he said to Fazl,
"and come after me when you have finished.
What did you mean about Nurla Bai?"

"He has gone into the river, even as he sent
the huzur."

"You shot him?  But no: you did not fire.
What happened?"

"He came along with us, sahib.  He caught
the chassis as we rose, and we were gone before
he could let go.  He clung to the stay.  I cut
him down."

Lawrence's blood ran cold with horror.  In
spite of the man's brutalities and crimes, he
could not but feel moved by the terrible fate that
had befallen the revolted miner.  It was well
deserved: yet Lawrence wished that Nurla could
have met his death in open fight.  He said no
more to Fazl, but went along the pathway now
enwrapt in darkness, to discover what had
happened during his absence, and to give the
garrison his promise of relief.

The compounds were deserted.  No lights
were visible.  At first he thought that the men
must already have taken refuge in the galleries;
but as he came to the end of the pathway he
saw them all grouped at the rear of the house
under the cliff, behind a mound of tailings.  They
were very silent.  Only a sound like a multitudinous
sigh broke from them when he drew near.

"Where's my brother?" he asked anxiously,
as Gur Buksh saluted.

"Here, sahib: he is hurt."

The group parted, and Lawrence saw Bob
with his head and one arm bandaged, reclining
in a long chair.

"Nothing very serious, I hope," said Bob with
a smile, as Lawrence bent over him.  "A bullet
in my arm just below the shoulder, and a whack
in the skull from a splinter of rock.  Any news,
old chap!"

"Yes, thank God!  Endicott himself is within
less than thirty miles, with three or four hundred
men, field pieces and mountain batteries.  There's
a medico with him, so we'll soon put you to rights."

"Tell the men, will you?"

Lawrence gathered the men about him and
quickly gave the information.  A company of
British soldiers would have received it with a
ringing cheer: these Asiatics merely murmured
praises to Allah, mingled with triumphant
execrations of the enemy.

"It'll be as much as we can do to hold out
until the Major arrives," said Bob in a low tone.
"Is he coming on at once?"

"No, unluckily.  His horses were dead beat:
he said they must have three or four hours' rest,
and I'm afraid he can't be here until four or five
o'clock in the morning at the earliest.  But he
has sent some ammunition, and a dozen men are
coming in advance on a raft; they should arrive
about three o'clock.  I intend to meet them a
little way up, and bring them in on the aeroplane.
I've just enough petrol left."

"That's good.  We're practically helpless
here.  They've knocked the wall about with
their field pieces from the breastwork, and
smashed the machine gun.  We couldn't hold the
wall any longer.  The carbide has given out, so
that we can't make any more acetylene for the
searchlight, and the track's free for them now.
I only hope that as they've forced the passage
they won't trouble us any more, but go straight
ahead in the morning.  They little suspect what's
in store for them!"

"They may possibly leave us alone, but they're
hardly human if they don't try a shot or two at
the aeroplane, especially when they discover
what has happened to their own."

"What did happen to it, by the way?"

Lawrence described the incidents of the
manoeuvring up and down river, and the
extraordinary scene at the turning-place.  It was
then that he and Bob argued about the cause of
the final collapse, almost forgetting their actual
circumstances in discussing the scientific problem.
They were suddenly recalled to realities, however,
by sounds from the opposite bank--the ringing
clatter of horses' hoofs and the rumble of wheels.

"They're moving their guns up," said Bob.
"No doubt they've only been waiting for the
dark.  Listen!  We shall soon know what they
mean to do."

Both chafed at their inability to impose any
check upon the movement.  Rifle fire from
their few men would be ineffective in the
darkness; it would moreover be a signal to the
gunners to sweep the wall with shell.  They
were not long in doubt as to the enemy's intentions.
The noises ceased.  It was clear that the Kalmucks
were going to wreak vengeance upon the garrison
of the mine before continuing their march up
stream.  Bob recalled the old military maxim:
never leave an enemy in your rear.  At dawn they
would no doubt open fire from the guns placed
exactly opposite the mine, and as soon as they
discovered the aeroplane on its platform beyond
the shoulder of the cliff they would smash it to
atoms.

"I've still a few bombs left," said Lawrence.
"I might destroy their guns if I could only see
them.  Isn't there enough acetylene for ten
minutes' light, Bob?"

"Not for one, worse luck.  You certainly
can't do anything in the dark.  There's just one
chance, though."

"What's that?"

"You could light a big fire on the buttress
yonder.  It might show just enough light for
the purpose."

"I'll try it.  I tell you what: I'll fire the shed
itself, with a lot of combustibles inside.  We can
easily build another afterwards if Endicott gets
rid of the enemy."

"We shan't want to do that.  If we're alive
to-morrow morning we shan't think of staying
here any longer."

"Leave the mine, you mean?"

"Yes: take poor old Uncle's silver ore to India
and sell it for what it's worth.  I don't know
how much that will be, but it ought to give us
enough money to keep us while we're looking
round for some other job: I've had enough
of mining.  In any case we couldn't stay here.
The place would remind us too much of Uncle
and all the tragic horrors."

"You're right: though I don't like the idea
of caving in.  Now I'll get some of the men to
carry grease and things to the shed.  Can
Chunda give me some grub?  I'm very hungry."

"We've got all our provisions either here or
in the galleries.  We were very lucky to have
so much; it will last for two or three weeks more."

While Lawrence made his supper, Fyz Ali and
three or four other Pathans conveyed to the
platform combustibles of all kinds, returning
with the ammunition sent by Major Endicott.
Then Bob insisted on Lawrence's sleeping for a
few hours.  About three o'clock in the morning
Lawrence returned with Fazl to the aeroplane.
They kindled several fires in the shed, leaving
the door open.  When the flames gave them
light enough, they started the engine and flew
off up the river, hearing sounds of commotion
among the enemy on the track.  Never having
flown by night before, Lawrence was rather
nervous; but he reached the turning-place safely,
wheeled round without mishap, and flew
northwards into the stretch of a few hundred yards
now illuminated by the blazing shed.

There were four bombs left.  Lawrence had
instructed Fazl to drop two as they passed over
the guns, reserving the other two for use as they
returned if they should discover that the first
had not been effective.  They saw two guns
placed on the track just opposite the bridge.
The Gurkha, leaning over perilously, let fall
two bombs together.  There was a terrific
crash and a babel of yells; but they could
not yet tell what damage had been done.  The
aeroplane was beyond the illuminated area,
and Lawrence had to concentrate his attention
on the machine as he flew northwards in the
darkness.  He felt that he could not risk an
attempt to turn until he reached the wide space
seven miles down stream, and he was very anxious
lest the engine should fail for want of petrol
before he could get back.  It was quite clear
that to bring Major Endicott's advanced party of
twelve into the mine was now impossible.  By the
time the aeroplane should have reached its
platform, if it did so, every ounce of fuel would
be used up.

For safety's sake he rose to a considerable
height.  The grey light of dawn was stealing
over the summits of the hills.  He turned and
flew back, watching the engine nervously.  As
soon as he came to the neighbourhood of the
mine, he saw the enemy scuttling away from
the track into nooks and crannies in the face of
the cliff.  The sound of the propeller had been
the signal for a general *sauve qui peut*.  Fazl
dropped his last two bombs opposite the bridge,
and then the aeroplane passed into the cloud of
smoke drifting up and across the river from the
conflagration.

Lawrence saw that the petrol would not last
another three minutes.  He utilised the expiring
power of the engine to rise still higher, so that
when it failed he would be at a sufficient altitude
to make a long vol plané back to his platform.
He had just turned when he detected a lessening
of power.  The engine began to splutter; then
it ceased to work.

It was a terrifying moment.  In the darkness
he could not read the aneroid that indicated his
altitude.  He did not know whether the angle
of the descent which had already begun would
bring him to earth before he reached the
platform.  Gently, easily as the machine swooped
down, it might land him on the track where he
would be completely at the mercy of the enemy.
He looked anxiously ahead.  The flaming shed
came in sight, but dimmed by the pall of smoke
that lay over the bottom of the gorge.  He
steered into the smoke towards the platform,
but, half blinded by the reek, he missed it, and
only by a sudden movement of the lever, that
was itself almost disastrous, did he save the
machine from dashing against the cliff.  Luckily
the smoke hid him from the enemy.  By another
dexterous feat of steering he rounded the bend,
and in a few seconds dropped with a quivering
shock upon the fence that separated the Pathans'
from the Kalmucks' compound.  With every nerve
jarring he sprang out of his seat.  Fazl followed
him, and between them they dragged the
aeroplane from its uneasy perch and laid it behind
the fence.  Even now his chief thought was to
protect from the enemy's fire the machine which
had served him so well.  Only when it was quite
invisible to them did he hasten across the
compound, scale the second fence in the darkness,
and rejoin his brother in the sheltered nook
behind the house.

"Just managed it!" he panted, throwing
himself down.  "The engine failed; I missed
the platform, and came down on the fence.
The chassis is rather rumpled, but no other
damage done.  I should have been wild if the
machine had come utterly to grief."

"It's more important that you're safe, old
boy," said Bob.  "Did you succeed?"

"Morning will show.  Fazl declares that he
hit the guns; I don't know.  I wish I could have
brought those men of Endicott's in.  I dare say
they heard me as I passed over the track, and
are wondering why I didn't come down for them."

"We can't help it.  I only hope the Major
himself started in time."

Dawn was stealing down into the valley.
Ganda Singh crept on all fours to the wall and
peeped over.  In a few minutes he returned and
reported that there was nothing opposite the
bridge but a mass of broken rock and metal.
The guns had been destroyed.  But the Kalmucks
were scattered along the track between the
bridge and the bend, crouching behind rocks
and entrenchments which they had thrown up
during the night.  Apparently they were
unaware of the descent of the aeroplane, and
dreaded another attack by bombs.

It was hardly light when a fierce bombardment
broke out from the bend.  Shells crashed
upon the northern wall, and whistled into the
deserted compounds, scattering earth in all
directions, and filling the air with noisome fumes.

"We're safe here for the present," said Bob,
whose face looked pinched and pale in the light
of the morning.  "But when they find we don't
reply, and there's no other attack from the
aeroplane, they'll bring their guns along and
pound us from the opposite bank.  When it
gets too hot we must go into the galleries.
Before they can repair the bridge and cross,
Endicott ought to be here."

He had scarcely spoken when a shell plumped
into the house, and set it on fire.  The garrison
were enveloped in a mantle of smoke.  But as
the smoke drifted across the river, the Kalmucks,
taking courage from the quiescence of the
defenders, rushed forward from their shelters
and began to throw a light framework over the
torrent between the rock in midstream and the
end of the ruined bridge.  The sudden cessation
of the bombardment gave Bob an inkling of
what was to come; next moment loud yells
from beyond the river made it clear.

"They're coming at us," he said quietly to
Lawrence.  "They must have made a bridge.
We can't retreat now.  You must do your best,
old chap."

Though Lawrence begged him to remain on
his chair, Bob got up and accompanied the little
band as they rushed towards the river wall to
meet the storming party.  They were no more
than thirty; the track swarmed with the enemy.
The improvised bridge would not support more
than thirty at a time, so that the attackers and
the defenders of the wall were equal in point of
number; but the Kalmucks had posted many
sharpshooters in the rocks above the track,
who could fire over their comrades' heads and
pick off the garrison manning the wall and the
gap where the end of the drawbridge had been.

It was a fierce and terrible struggle hand to
hand.  The defenders could deal only with the
storming party; they had no leisure to attend
to the half-concealed marksmen among the rocks.
With bayonet, clubbed rifle, sword and miner's
pick they sought desperately to stem the attack.
Gur Buksh had distributed the Sikhs among the
miners to give them steadiness; but the Pathans,
inspired by the fury of their own leaders, Fyz Ali
and Muhammad Din, needed no encouragement
from the disciplined men.  Shan Tai and Chunda
Beg had thrown themselves into the fray with
picks.  Of all the little community only Ditta
Lai and the Bengali servants remained in the
rear; they were physically unfit to bear a part
in the great fight.  It was much to their credit
that, at this crisis in affairs, they did not cower
in frantic terror, but toiled hard to raise a
rampart of boxes, tins, and bags of earth opposite
the mouth of the gallery.

Regardless of the fusillade, Bob and Lawrence
went from end to end of the line, cheering the
men, rallying them when they showed signs of
being forced back by the onrush of the yelling
enemy.  Again and again the assault was beaten
back.  At one moment the end of the bridge
was heaped high with the men thrust back from
the wall.  The river received many dead and
wounded forms, and bore down some who,
though unhurt, had been hurled or jostled off
the bridge.  But the garrison were dropping
man by man.  Gur Buksh, conspicuous by his
height, fell to a bullet.  Ganda Singh fought on,
though a bayonet had transfixed his arm.  Fyz
Ali was shot as he was in the act of bringing the
butt of his rifle down upon the head of a big
Kalmuck who was forcing his way through the
narrow gap into the compound.  Bob, fainting
from his former hurts, sank down unconscious
among his wounded men.  As yet unscathed,
Lawrence stood in the gap, and the number of
prostrate forms in front of him bore witness to
his unfaltering vigour.  Next to him Fazl, whose
low stature rendered him immune from the
sniping shots of the enemy, darted forth
whenever he saw an opportunity of using his kukuri,
and sprang nimbly back before he could be touched.

But Lawrence's heart sank as he saw his
devoted little band becoming less and less.
He had no reserves.  There was no limit to the
number that the enemy could throw against
him.  The crowd on the bridge never diminished.
As soon as one man fell his place was taken
from behind.  From sheer exhaustion the
defenders could not stem the torrent many minutes
longer.  Their arms were aching and numbed
almost to the point of paralysis.  The frequent
alarms and broken rest of seven days and nights
were telling on their hardy frames.  Lawrence,
swinging his rifle like a flail, expected at every
stroke that his muscles would refuse to lift the
weapon for another.  Missing Bob's cheering
cries, he gave a rapid glance round, and seeing
his brother on the ground, he was just making
up his mind that the time had come for a general
retreat to the galleries, their last line of defence,
when there came the sudden crackle of rifles
from a new direction.  It was on the right.
There was a cheer, very different from the shrill
cries of the Kalmucks, and then confused cries
all around.  The firing from the rocks had ceased.
At a second volley the Kalmucks on the bridge
halted in surprise and hesitation.  Lawrence
guessed what had happened.  Seizing the
moment, he shouted to his men to follow him,
and springing from the wall, led them in a fierce
rush on to the bridge.  They swept the enemy
before them, cutting down one, tumbling another
into the stream.

On the track a disorderly terrified crowd
were rushing past the bridge towards the north,
masking the fire of their own guns at the bend.
Behind them at a gallop came fifty sowars
of the Border force, led by Major Endicott
himself.  They swept on through the
panic-stricken mob, upon whom, as the horsemen
passed, the garrison from their post on the bridge
opened a withering fire.  Major Endicott and
his troopers pushed on and on, driving the
enemy, some before them, some into the river,
some up the rugged hillside.  They did not
halt until they reached the guns.  There were
a few minutes of desperate fighting about them;
then the gunners were cut down, and the swarms
behind were in full flight down the track.  At
a word from the Major half the sowars leapt
from their horses, slewed the guns round, and
sent shell after shell among the frenzied crowd
until the whole track within sight was clear
of living men.  And Bob woke to consciousness
to hear his brother's voice lead the men in a
ringing cheer.  The mine was saved; the enemy
had been held in check for a week; every man
had done his duty.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`REUNION`:

.. class:: center medium

   CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH


.. class:: center large

   REUNION

.. vspace:: 2

Major Endicott left his men at the bend,
and galloped back to the bridge.  Dismounting
there, he pressed Lawrence's hand warmly.

"Well played, sir!" he said.  "Where's your
brother?"

"In the compound, Major.  He's all right,
I think: that is, he wasn't hit this morning; but
he was wounded yesterday, and is rather off
colour."

"The doctor will be up in a few minutes.
He was just behind me; and Fenton will arrive
with the rest of the men and the guns in about
an hour.  I pushed on ahead when I heard the
bombardment."

"Just in time!  We couldn't have held out
another five minutes."

"I'm glad we managed it," said the Major simply.

"Come and see Bob.  They've burnt our
house, and we can't make you very comfortable."

"My dear boy, comfort is ruin to a soldier.
Ah! here's Coats; he'd better have a look at
your brother at once."

The doctor rode up with another score of
troopers.  These the Major ordered to remain
on guard at the bridge, in case the Kalmucks who
were still scattered here and there on the track
and the hillside should show any disposition to
rally.  Then the two officers crossed with
Lawrence into the compound.  Bob had been carried
back to his chair by Shan Tai and the
khansaman.  The doctor made a brief examination of
his wounds, got out some lint and lotion, and
as he bandaged him declared that he would
be quite sound in a few days.  Then he went
off to attend to the other wounded--almost
every man of the little company.  Ten had been
killed outright; two were so severely injured that
recovery was hopeless; the rest would be well
sooner or later.  Among these were Fyz Ali and
Gur Buksh, though the Sikh's arm had to be
amputated.

"I was never so glad of anything as I am to
hand things over to you, Major," said Bob.

Major Endicott was seated on an upturned
box beside his chair, with a biscuit in one hand
and a hunk of corned beef in the other.

"Well, you know, I feel rather mean," he said
munching.  "Capital stuff, this! ... All the
credit is yours and Lawrence's, and I shan't fail
to say so.  It's a thousand pities you are not both
in the service.  By the way, I saw as I came up
that your aeroplane had come to grief, and it was
a great relief to see Lawrence safe and sound."

"It wasn't ours," replied Bob, who then
related in brief the events of the previous day.

"That's amazing.  Then I suppose Lawrence
can still use your machine for scouting if
necessary?"

"We've no more petrol, unfortunately.  What
do you intend to do, then?"

"First of all secure our position here as soon
as Fenton comes up.  We'll make it impossible
for the enemy to get round that bend yonder.
Then we'll follow up the runaways and shepherd
them out of the valley."

"There's such a lot of them, and you've so few!"

"But they can't extend on this narrow track,
and my few will be a match for them.  They'll
soon give it up as hopeless, and draw off to rejoin
their huge army operating in Afghanistan.  This
week's delay has been our salvation.  The Chief
is moving up a large force to hold the passes
south, and our flank is secure--a handsome
feather in your cap, my lad.  When I am sure
that the valley is clear I shall return to the
frontier, and of course you and your men must
come too.  You won't want to hold on here
now that your poor uncle is gone?"

"No: we had already made up our minds to that."

"I don't want to be inquisitive, but--er--have
you--in short, what's your financial position, Bob?"

"I don't know.  We had very little money,
of course; everything in the house is burnt,
including Uncle's cheque book, and all his papers.
I don't know what he left, but I suppose there'll
be no difficulty in proving our title to what there is?"

"None at all, I should think, though I'm not
up in law.  You've got some ore worked, of
course; copper, isn't it?  Pity it isn't gold."

"There's better than copper, at all events.
There's a heap of unworked ore in a cavity just
beyond the compound, and Uncle said it's
almost pure silver."

"That's first-rate.  I recommend you to set
the men to get it up at once.  We'll transport
it to India somehow or other, and I'm sure I
hope it'll make you millionaires."

"Not much chance of that," said Bob with
a smile.  "But it will give us something to
jog along with."

"You must be ready to start almost at once.
We marched light; I've food for only two or
three days, and short commons at that.  This
corned beef is very good: any more of it?"

"I'll inquire of my store-keeper.  I haven't
seen him lately: he wasn't in the fighting line,
and I dare say he's alive."

When Captain Fenton with the remainder of
the relieving force arrived, the men were set to
work after a meal to render the track impassable.
It was fortified at the bend with a series of
entrenchments and wire entanglements, space being
left only for horsemen to pass in single file.
Before the enemy had recovered from the shock
of their reverse, the position which had given
them so much trouble when defended by a mere
handful of almost untrained men was rendered
ten times more formidable, and held by ten
times as many trained troops.  On the next day
they felt forward with their artillery, but being met
by a hail of shells from the mountain batteries,
they soon withdrew their guns, and finally
turned their backs on the scene of their wasted
labours.

Major Endicott followed them down the valley
with the greater part of his force, Lawrence
accompanying him on one of the troopers' horses.
He took two guns in case they should turn at
bay, but they showed the utmost alacrity in
retreating, and for many miles only the stragglers
of their rearguard were ever in sight.  When
the pursuers, however, were within a short
distance of the scene of Lawrence's little
engagement on the way back from the bridge, they
noticed a number of Kalmucks marching over
the hills to the left.  They were no doubt
following the path by which the Kalmucks on that
occasion had managed to outflank Lawrence's
party.  There being none of the enemy in sight
along the track, Major Endicott deemed it
necessary to climb into the hills and pursue
the fugitives until he had made sure that no
concentration was being attempted.

He left half his party with the guns on the
track to continue their march, and began to
climb.  It was a breakneck path, narrow, tortuous,
and at times so steep that the troopers had
to dismount and lead their horses carefully.
They made slow progress, and when the Major
reached a more level stretch and, looking through
his field-glass, no longer saw any sign of the
enemy, he decided that it would be waste of time
and energy to follow any farther.

He had just given the order to retire when the
figure of a man suddenly appeared from the
entrance of a ravine a few hundred yards ahead,
and walked towards the troop, holding his hands
above his head.  Thinking that he was one of
the enemy intending to surrender, the Major waited.

"I know that man," said Lawrence after a
few moments.  "He's an old Uzbek fellow, who
lives quite alone somewhere in these hills, no
one knows where.  He comes to the mine at
long intervals to buy food and ammunition in
exchange for the horns and skins of *Ovis poli*.
I suppose he's on his way there now."

"Can you understand his lingo?"

"No; my uncle was the only one of us who
could talk to him."

The man approached.  He was a strange
object, the wrinkled skin of his face yellow like
old ivory, a ragged white beard hanging almost
to his waist.  When he came up, he made some
sort of salutation to Lawrence, and another to
the Major, then muttered the word *kuzur*.

"We all know what that means," said the
Major; but he paused, struck by an eager look
in Lawrence's eyes as the old man made some
pantomimic gestures and pointed in the direction
whence he had come.  Lawrence sprang from
his horse.

"He wants me to go with him, Major," he said
hurriedly.  "I believe--I hardly dare think it----"

He did not wait to complete the sentence, but
followed the old man, who was already walking
back.  They came to a narrow ravine, which
wound away into the hillside towards the river,
always at a steep descent.  Passing along it,
they came after some minutes to a well-built
akoi, around which several skins lay drying.
The man led Lawrence to the entrance, and
motioned to him to go in.

The lad's heart was beating tumultuously.
He paused a moment at the low opening, shrinking
lest what he was about to see were a culminating
spectacle of woe.  In the middle of the tent
there was a fire, the smoke of which passed out
through a hole in the dome-shaped roof.  Crushing
down his agitation, he stepped in, his tread
falling noiseless on a floor of thick skin rugs.
Just beyond the fire lay the still form of a man.
Holding his breath, Lawrence bent down, and
looked upon the face of his uncle, asleep.

Though his footsteps had been silent, the
fact of his presence seemed to penetrate the
consciousness of the sleeping man.  He opened
his eyes.

"Ah, Lawrence," he said, "what is this I
hear about great guns?"

Lawrence could not speak.  He clasped his
uncle's hand, and felt with a kind of surprise
that it was warm as his own.

"Poor old boy!  I expect you've had a bad
time," Mr. Appleton went on.  "But I couldn't
let you know that I was all right."

"I can hardly believe it.  It seems too good
to be true.  We'd long ago given you up."

"Long ago!  Why, goodness alive! how long
have I been here then?"

And then Lawrence remembered that it was
only a fortnight since that unlucky pursuit of
Nurla Bai.

"It seems an age," he said.  "But how
splendid it is, Uncle!  Bob and everybody will
be simply wild with delight.  You're not ill,
are you?" he asked, noticing that his uncle
remained flat on his back.

"I'm never ill, as you know!  But old
What's-his-name is not much of a surgeon, and I'm
helpless with a broken thigh or something of
the sort.  That rascal Nurla Bai only gave me
a flesh wound, which is healed now; but when I
fell I came down too heavily on a rock beneath
the surface, and smashed myself.  The old man
happened to be fishing close by----"

"I remember: we found a fishing net when
we were searching for you."

"I was carried within reach of him, and he
drew me ashore to a cavern under the cliff.  Of
course I was senseless, and the old man seems
to have been scared out of his wits by the
aeroplane, or he would have shown up when you
were looking for me.  Anyway, he carried me to
this place, which appears to be only a few feet
above the bank, and here he has looked after
me ever since.  When I came to myself, I
explained what had happened, and asked him to
walk up to the mine to tell you that I was alive.
He went off, but returned with a story about a
whole army marching up, and fighting, and big
guns, and what not.  So I simply had to make
the best of it, though I knew that you must
think me dead.  Now, what is this all about?"

"I'll tell you everything when I get you home,
Uncle.  Major Endicott is here----"

"Thinks me mad, you know."

"With a lot of troopers, and they must sling
up a horse-litter for you.  We've got Captain
Coats at the mine--an army surgeon, you know;
he'll see what's really the matter with you."

"Any other strangers?  Billeting is rather
expensive.  But I'm talking nonsense.  Get me
out of this as soon as you like.  It's a very
comfortable hut, but not like home, and I long
to see old Chunda Beg's serious phiz, and--yes,
hear the Babu's chatter.  And I want to know----"

"Yes, there are heaps of things to explain,"
Lawrence interrupted.  "I'll run and tell the
Major."

"And I say, in case I forget it, I promised to
give old Stick-in-the-mud a pound of tobacco
when I got back.  Remind me."

Lawrence hurried out, fearing that weakness
had made his uncle rather light-headed.  On his
acquainting the Major with his amazing
discovery, and explaining that the akoi appeared
to be very near the river, the order was at once
given to return to the track.  There they met
the other half of the party, who reported that
the bridge down stream had collapsed under
the hurried flight of the enemy.  Their
rearguard had evidently elected to try the difficult
mountain track rather than risk being caught.

Lawrence went down the track with the Major
and two troopers, and were soon met by the old
Uzbek, whose name no one knew.  He conducted
them along a narrow parting in the rocks till
they reached his akoi.  With his aid a litter of
skins was rigged up, and on this Mr. Appleton
was carried down to the track.  There the litter
was slung between two horses, and the rest of
the journey to the mine was accomplished
slowly indeed, but in comfort.

On the way Major Endicott, at Mr. Appleton's
entreaty, gave him a succinct account of what
had happened during his absence.

"I wish I'd been there, egad!" he ejaculated,
as he heard of his nephews' gallant defence.
"But no: they've had a chance to show what
stuff they're made of; my assistance would have
ruined it.  D'you still think I'm mad, Endicott?"

"Well--perhaps a trifle light-headed--owing
to your illness, you know," answered the Major
in some confusion.

"That's not what I meant," said Mr. Appleton
with twinkling eyes.  "You thought me chronically
mad, fit for Bedlam.  Oh! you needn't
apologize: all you frontier fellows did.  'Poor
old Harry,' you know.  'Only a madman would
think of mining in the Hindu Kush!'  But where
would you have been without the mine, eh?
Where would you have been, the whole dashed
lot of you, without the mine and my young
nephews?  I tell you what, sir, my mine has
been the saving of India, and don't you forget it."

"We shan't do that, Appleton, I assure you,"
said the Major, willing to humour him.

"Yes; my mine, and one other thing: Bob's
aeroplane.  What you want, my dear sir, to
keep India safe, is a corps of air patrols, with
Bob as boss and Lawrence as second in command.
We've got the finest navy in the world: for its
size we've got the finest army; and we ought to
wake up and get the finest air fleet, and the finest
corps of airmen that can be trained.  That's my
opinion."

.. vspace:: 2

There is no need to describe the scenes of wild
excitement and jubilation at the mine when
Mr. Appleton was carried among his people.  The
surgeon's report after examination of the fractured
limb was a surprise to everybody.  He said
that the old Uzbek, by skill or good luck, had
done just what an experienced surgeon would
have done in the absence of proper splints.
The fracture was a simple one, the bone was
already joining up, and there would be no risk in
conveying Mr. Appleton in the horse-litter by
easy stages to India.

Preparations for departure were hurried on.
With the aid of the troopers, the Pathans put
up in a day a temporary shed for the accommodation
of the Englishmen.  Then they set about
hoisting the silver ore from its cavity in the bank
of the river to the compound above.  The
transportation of twenty tons of ore over rough country
without suitable vehicles was a matter that gave
everybody much concern.  It was ultimately
decided that as much as possible should be carried
by the men and animals, the remainder being
left, to be fetched subsequently by a host of
carriers whom Fyz Ali undertook to enlist.
Every man of the garrison was delighted with
the promise of treble pay for the fortnight of
Mr. Appleton's absence, and Major Endicott
did not despair of extracting a grant from
Government in recognition of their services to the
Empire.

On the night before the southward march was
to be begun, the Englishmen were provided by
Shan Tai with a supper on which he lavished all
the resources of his art.  Corned beef and other
tinned comestibles appeared in various
disguises, and Mr. Appleton, reclining on his chair,
mildly expostulated with the Chinaman for
deferring this triumphant exhibition of his skill
until the eve of the abandonment of the mine.
Healths were drunk in water and coffee, the
only beverages available, and the store-sheds
having luckily escaped injury, Mr. Appleton
was able to offer his guests some excellent cigars.

When all were contentedly smoking, Mr. Appleton said:

"I want to take you men into my confidence,
and ask your advice.  As you know, I have
decided to close down here.  I had already
decided to do so at the end of this summer:
recent events have only anticipated it by a few
weeks."

"Congratulations," said Major Endicott.  "I
suppose you've made your pile."

"A very modest pile.  Sixty per cent. of that
ore is pure silver, and it will fetch something like
£50,000.  That of course I shall invest."

"Choose a good security," said the Major.

"No more hair-brained adventures, you mean!
Really, Major, you must try to disabuse your
mind of the notion that I am mad.  Now, I am
going to retire.  Yesterday was my fifty-third
birthday; I have knocked about enough; my
tastes are simple: and I've enough to live on
apart from the silver.

"You wonder, I dare say, why I brought my
nephews out here only a few months before the
date I had fixed on for giving up the mine.  I'll
tell you.  I didn't know the boys, and wanted
to study them at close quarters, and see for
myself what they were good for.  I am quite
satisfied.  The probation they have come through
during the last few days would convince any one."

"I should rather think so," said the Major
emphatically.

"Well now, what do you advise?  What shall
I do with them?"

"Let 'em both join the service; I recommend
that without hesitation," said the Major.

"Hear! hear!" Captain Fenton ejaculated.

"Would they have you back at Sandhurst,
Bob?" asked his uncle.

"No need for that," exclaimed the Major.
"The Chief will give him a commission in the
Indian army straight away when I've had a talk
with him."

"Will that suit you, Bob?"

"I couldn't wish for anything more splendid,"
said Bob, flushing with pleasure.

"That's settled then.  And you, Lawrence?"

"The same for him, of course," said the Major.

"It's uncommonly good of you," said Lawrence,
"but--well, I'm not cut out for a soldier."

"Rubbish, sir.  I wish all my subalterns were
like you."

"What's your notion then?" asked Mr. Appleton.

"Well, Uncle, I was going to Oxford, you know,
but I'm afraid I shall be too old for a scholarship
next year, and--and it would cost too much without."

Lawrence spoke awkwardly, colouring to the
roots of his hair.

"You could manage on £400 a year, I
suppose?" said Mr. Appleton, dryly.

"Much less, Uncle.  I know a chap who did
jolly well on £200, and saved."

"What will you do when you come down?
Take a clerkship at thirty shillings a week, or
teach little ruffians good cricket and bad Latin
on forty?"

"I thought of trying for the Indian Civil,
Uncle.  I should like it immensely after being
out here."

"Stiff exam, isn't it?"

"I can swat, sir."

"I believe you can!  Well, I'm going to settle
my silver money on Bob and you."  [Here there
was what the reporters call a "sensation."]  "It
should bring in £1500 a year even in the
safest security.  You shall have £400 each until
you're twenty-five; after that you'll share the
whole lot equally between you.  Think I'm mad, Major?"

"I wish you'd bite an old uncle of mine,"
said the Major with a laugh.  "I congratulate
you young fellows; you deserve it all."

The boys were overwhelmed with their good
luck, and their uncle's generosity.  They
stammered out their thanks; then, desiring to talk
things over quietly between themselves, they got
up and went out.

They strolled up and down the compound,
looking with the mind's eye into the vista opening
so brightly before them, discussing plans with
youthful eagerness and optimism, voting their
uncle a "trump," a "brick," a "ripping old
boy," and employing the hundred and one
meaningless phrases with which Englishmen are
wont to dissemble their feelings.  It is only
the bare truth to say that their deepest
satisfaction and thankfulness sprang from reunion with
their uncle.

Presently Bob noticed, in the gloom, Ditta Lal
pacing slowly along by the cliff wall.

"Hallo, Babu!" he called.  "Come here.
I want to speak to you."

The Bengali drew near, and as he came within
the candlelight beaming through the open
doorway of the shed, they noticed that he wore a
very dejected look.

"I want to thank you," continued Bob.
"Chunda Beg told me that while the fight was
going on you were heaping up that rampart
yonder.  It was well thought of; we're indebted
to you."

The Babu's face lit up for a moment as he
bowed his acknowledgments; but it instantly
clouded over again.

"You don't look very happy," said Lawrence.
"What's the matter?"

"It is a complicated case, sir," said the Babu
mournfully.  "Diagnosis easy, but as for remedies
that touch the spot, alas! *non est*, or more
correctly, *non sunt*."

"What's wrong?  Out with it, man," said Bob.

"Imprimis and in first place, sir, I droop in
shade of impending calamity--regular sword of
Damocles.  I learn from esteemed avuncular
relative, whose return to wonted haunts fills
bitter cup of rejoicing to overflowing and slops,
that he abandons commercial avocation, rests
on his oars and laurels, and subsides into lassitude
of adipose retirement.  Every man to his gout,
sir; but what is one man's alimentary nourishment
is another man's happy dispatch.  In short,
young sirs, where do I come in?"

"Well, I'll tell you a secret," said Bob.  "In
recognition of your valuable services, and your
willingness to help in all sorts of ways out of your
own line, my uncle is going to make you a present
of £50 when you leave his employment."

"Jolly good tip, sir," said the Babu, brightening.
"To use vulgar tongue, Burra Sahib is
ripping old josser, and no mistakes.  But for
one harrowing reflection, carking care, sir, and
fly in ointment, I should be restored to normal
hilarity and cock-a-hoopness."

"Well?"

"You observe, sir, that while honourable
superior persons are engaged in temperate
carousal and fumigation, there is absence of
mafficking and horseplays among small fry; no beer and
skittles, sir.  That lies like leaden hundred-weight
upon my bounding bosom.  I attribute it to
vacuous cavity in my brain-pan, or possibly erratic
convulsions of grey matter.  I spoke of organising
tamasha, you remember--regular orgy of
intellectual fireworks and monkey tricks, the set piece
and tour de force of which was to be ode, elegy,
or comic song penned by humble and obsequious
servant.  Would you believe it!  Though I have
scorned delights and lived laborious days, crowned
my noble brow with sopped tea-cloth, imbibed
oceans of coffee, black as your hat, and performed
other rites enjoined by custom and recollections
of stewing for exams--in spite of stupendous and
praiseworthy efforts, that monument of literary
agility is yet only shapeless block, sir: in short,
I haven't done it."

"That's a pity," said Lawrence, repressing a
smile.  "Inspiration ran short, eh?"

"No, sir, inspiration flows unchecked, a mild
pellucid stream.  Failure is due to intractable
and churlish disposition of English lingo.  I write
a magnificent and lovely line, to wit--

   |  "The solar luminary winked his bloodshot orb--

and then beat coverts for a rhyme: cui bono
and what's the use?  How true it is that fine
words butter no parsnips!  My note-book is
chock full of similar felicitous lines, left in single
blessedness and mere oblivion for want of an
accommodating partner, or, as I may say, eligible
parti."

"Why not try blank verse, then?" said Bob.

"Blank verse is like blank cartridge, sir,
suitable for reviews and sham-fights--that is to say,
for long-winded epics and rigmaroles about nothing
in particular; but not for battle pieces, in which
you need clink-clank and rum-ti-tum to achieve
truly martial effects."

"I should like to see what you've done,
though," said Lawrence.

"Well begun is half done, proverb runs;
fallacious and tommy rot, sir.  I began well;
I will exhibit, commending to you beautiful
aphorism of some precious and defunct poet
now forgotten, namely, 'We may our ends by our
beginnings know.'"

He drew a roll of paper from his pocket, and
moving towards the lighted doorway, spread it
before their eyes.  This is what they read--

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large

   ODE

.. class:: center medium white-space-pre-line

   *in celebration of gorgeous defence of gorge
   by two young English sirs,
   who with handful of rude mechanicals,
   dauntless breasts
   and flying machine, 100 h.p.,
   withstood the mights of twenty thousand Mongols.
   Written at request of one of aforesaid sirs,
   Mr. ROBERT APPLETON, Esquire, etc.,
   by
   DITTA LAL,
   B.A. Calcutta University.*

.. vspace:: 2

Here the page ended.  Lawrence turned over:
the back was blank.

"Where's the rest?" he asked.

"There's the rub, sir.  The rest is dispersed
through many pages of my note-book, high and
dry, pearls of poesy, gems of purest ray serene,
waiting leisure and a rhyming dictionary to thread
them into perfect and resplendent ornament."

"Well, finish it when you have time.  You can
send it to us, you know."

"Registered, sir.  I will do so without failings,
and earn the meed of melodious tear or two, if not
penny a line."

Rolling up the paper, he returned to his own
quarters, followed by eyes mirthful but compassionate.

.. vspace:: 2

The campaign in Afghanistan lasted for several
months after the check given to the flanking force
in the valley.  The Mongols having obtained a
firm grip of the country around Kabul, it was
difficult to dislodge them, though they never
succeeded in forcing the passes into India.  As
the struggle developed, and the British Indian
army took the offensive, the Afghans, who had
by this time found the Mongols unpleasant
guests, and begun to doubt their value as allies,
quarrelled with the invaders, and either
withdrew into their remotest and least accessible
hills, or took sides actively against them.
This was the beginning of the end.  The horses
which, if the early raids had been successful,
would have proved a tremendous asset to the
enemy, were in a prolonged check in Afghanistan
a serious handicap.  It became impossible to
feed them.  The Mongol host lost its mobility,
and found itself pent up in a mountainous region
where supplies even for the men failed.

The story of the great retreat cannot be told
in these pages.  When once the retrograde
movement began, every armed man in Afghanistan
and Northern Persia hasted like a sleuth-hound
in pursuit.  Only a fraction of the
half-million invaders returned to Tashkend and
beyond.

A year or two afterwards, when the invasion
was passing into the oblivion which soon swallows
up even the greatest events of the hurrying
modern world, two of the actors in this little
drama had their memories recalled to it by a
trifling street scene.  Colonel Sir Herbert
Endicott and Lieutenant Robert Appleton were
walking through the bazaar at Lahore when they met
an old fakir striding along.  They were struck
by his vacant gaze, and the incessant muttering
of his lips.

"You heard what he said, Bob?" said the
Colonel, as the tall, lean, half-naked figure swung by.

"Yes," replied Bob, who was becoming an
expert in the Border dialects.  "'I am a
sharpener of swords,' wasn't it?"

And his thoughts flew back to that first journey
through the hills.

"The poor wretch is clearly mad," said the
Colonel.  "I fear the sword he sharpened has
wounded his own hand.  Let's hope it will always
be so with rebels and malcontents.  There's this
good come out of it, at any rate: we have learnt
to sharpen our own swords, and not to grudge the
expense....  When do you expect your new
aeroplane?"

"Pretty soon.  It's a ripper, but I shan't like
it so well as the old one.  Old friends are best."

"Does that hold with aeroplanes as with men,
I wonder?  Anyhow, I wish you luck with it.
Shall we turn?"

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center medium

   THE END

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center small

   Richard Clay & Sons, Limited London and Bungay.

.. vspace:: 6

.. pgfooter::