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Yet suddenly, from anywhere, from nowhere, from the very bowels of the earth, the Waziris rose in their thousands, and hurled themselves at the British camp. Afterwards Field-Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain, G.C.B., &c.
The Ameer, Abdur Rahman, irritated by the making of the Khojak tunnel, was soothed by Sir Mortimer Durand's Mission in 1893; and in return for an increase of subsidy and other advantages, he agreed that the tribes of the debatable borderland the Waziris, Afridis, and those of the Swat and Chitral valleys should be under the control of the Viceroy.
"An unlucky village near the Gomal Pass, the great trade route into the hills. It gets burnt to the ground periodically by the Waziris, probably much to its advantage; but one can't overlook the insult to British authority.
To the south of the Ghilzais live the Puchtu-speaking races who chiefly defend only their own territory; the mountainous eastern border is inhabited by the Momunds, Afridis, Arakzais, Zymukts, Waziris, who have never been subdued. Their sense of independence, however, does not prevent them from selling their friendship for ready money to the highest bidder.
At the first sound of the firing Lumsden jumped to his feet, and taking this inlying picquet, rushed out of camp at its head, and so posted it as to enfilade and hold in check the great body of Waziris who now darkened the skyline. Then, hastening back to camp, he reached it almost abreast of the five hundred, who were not to be denied.
"To-day fortnight, praise the powers! No more dancing attendance on Waziris for eighteen good months to come." He stretched his cramped legs contentedly. "Those Johnnies on the wall seem to be getting bored with our show. We ought to have brought a couple of banjos along to amuse their majesties!" It was true.
But almost before the command could be obeyed, with a final leap and a dull roar, rising to a yell of triumph, the Waziris were upon them at close quarters; the front ranks brandishing long knives, the rest armed with matchlocks and rifles.
Réveille was just sounding in the grey dawn of April 23rd, when three thousand Waziris armed with swords and guns, and fired with fierce fanaticism, boldly charged that side of the camp which was held by the Guides. The storm first fell on the outlying picquets, who fired a volley, and then received the great rush of white-robed swordsmen on their bayonets.
But the Waziris had the advantage of playing a prepared game; and before the officers had time to disperse a murderous fire was poured upon them from all sides at once: from the village, the watch-tower, and the huts on the left.
And, better than these, in Quita's esteem, was the wide street itself, packed with the noisy, leisurely life of an Indian city: goats and cattle; women and children; open bullock-carts that seemed to have all eternity to travel in; princely-looking Afghan traders in long coats and peaked turbans; Waziris, with keen, Jewish faces framed in greasy locks that fell upon their shoulders; the sais from his tail-board shouting ineffectual commands to make way for the Sahib; long-legged fowls, leaping and fluttering up under the pony's nose; pariahs, lazily insolent, almost allowing the wheel to graze thigh-bone or paw, before they condescended to loaf away to a fresh resting-place; and over all an arch of blue, so deep and passionate as to be almost vocal; and pervading all, the indefinable, unforgettable smell of the East: a smell compounded of musk, spices, open drains, and humanity.
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