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The downfall of the far Orient was not, however, contemporaneous with the supremacy of Greece over the East. The great peninsula of India was still to show for many ages an astonishing activity under the successive sway of the Hindoos, the Patans, the Moguls, and the Sikhs.
The rest had fled, thousands flying from hundreds, and well they might, for the British troops were wrought up by the cruelties of the Sepoys to a sublime and just fury that made them seem like avenging angels. It is said in one place that the sternness of the expression of the Sikhs' faces made the wretched Sepoys fly without a shot being fired.
The Sikhs want a place in the sun from which they are barred at present eh? Now, Germany " "Germany? Where is Germany?" asked Yasmini. She understands the last trick in the art of getting a story on its way. "To the west is England. Farther west, Ameliki. To the north lies Russia. To the south the kali pani-ocean. Where is Germany?"
But lest the noise should have betrayed them, his comrades hurried on with increased eagerness, and as good fortune would have it arrived in position at the very nick of time. The operation was completely successful. In due course the Sikhs attacked in front, and when the enemy tried to escape up the hills behind their village, they found retreat cut off by the Guides' infantry.
And some time after this, the Sikhs took their place amongst the rest of Britain's Indian subjects. But still there remains a strong body of the great Sikh sect of old. The Kuks represent the most dangerous underground current of the popular hatred.
We are lucky, for the Ghurkas are followed by a company of Sikhs, and anything less like the Ghurkas you could hardly imagine. The Sikhs are big men with stern bearded faces, they look like veterans and are a pleasant sight in their scarlet tunics with neat gaitered feet. There were many Sikh regiments belonging to our army in the black days of the Mutiny, and some wavered, but some held firm.
Soldiers of small stature, but indomitable spirit, they vied in ardent courage in the charge with the grenadiers of our own nation, and, armed with the short weapon of their mountains, gave a terror to the Sikhs throughout this great combat.
In fact it must have been partly on the strength of some of King's reports that the general was planning now. "That was a very small handful of Sikhs you named as likely to give trouble. Did you do that job thoroughly?" King grunted. "Well Delhi's chock-full of spies, all listening to stories made in Germany for them to take back to the 'Hills' with 'em.
Not for anything would they have taken equal liberties with a seasoned corps with the wicked little Goorkhas, whose delight it was to lie out in the open on a dark night and stalk their stalkers with the terrible big men dressed in women's clothes, who could be heard praying to their God in the night-watches, and whose peace of mind no amount of "sniping" could shake or with those vile Sikhs, who marched so ostentatiously unprepared and who dealt out such grim reward to those who tried to profit by that unpreparedness.
The Sikhs, who are the flower of the Indian army and the highest type of the native, are habitual opium smokers, and the Rajputs, who are considered the most manly, brave and progressive of the native population, use it almost universally.