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Updated: June 8, 2025
He drew the dagger out of his hair and cut the man loose. "Jagut Singh!" he exclaimed. The trooper stood up and saluted. "Who brought thee here?" "Women, sahib, in a carriage!" "When?" "Even now!" "Where is that Afridi?" "Dead, sahib!" "How?" "She brought us water in a brass vessel, saying it was by thy orders, sahib. She cut us loose and gave him water first.
Then, while she gave me to drink the Afridi attacked her, and I slew him with my hands, tearing his throat out thus! While the life yet fluttered in him they threw a sheet over me and here I am! Salaam, sahib!" The trooper saluted again. "Who made thee prisoner in the first place?" "Hillmen, sahib, at the orders of the Afridi who is now dead.
When the Pathan is invited to suppress his fellow-countrymen, or even to remain a spectator of their suppression, he finds himself in a situation at which, in the words of Burke, "Morality is perplexed, reason staggered, and from which affrighted nature recoils." There are many on the frontier who realise these things, and who sympathise with the Afridi soldier in his dilemma.
The pass is now patrolled by the Afridi Rifles, a corps composed of Afridi tribesmen commanded by British officers. At frequent intervals along the route these Afridi sentinels can be seen standing on silent guard on all commanding points of the hills. One sees numerous Afridi hamlets, though what the occupants find to support themselves with it is difficult to understand.
He could see Ismail's red-rimmed eyes blinking down at him in the lantern light, but suddenly the Afridi blew the lamp out, and then the darkness became solid. Thought itself left off less than a yard away. "Ismail!" he whispered. But Ismail did not answer him.
The assertion is not supported by facts. In 1895, when Lieut.-Colonel Battye was killed near the Panjkora River and the Guides were hard pressed, the subadar of the Afridi company, turning to his countrymen, shouted: "Now, then, Afridi folk of the Corps of Guides, the Commanding Officer's killed, now's the time to charge!" and the British officers had the greatest difficulty in restraining these impetuous soldiers from leaving their position, and rushing to certain death.
Then he crawled on hands and knees to the ledge's brink and tried to peer over. But Ismail dragged him back. "Come!" he howled; but in all that din his shout was like a whisper. "How deep is it?" King bellowed back. "Allah! Ask Him who made it!" The fear of the falls was on the Afridi, and he tugged at King's arm in a frenzy of impatience. Suddenly he let go and broke into a run.
"Nay, then the tar lies, for I saw her go with these two eyes of mine!" "It is not wise to lie to me, my friend," King assured him, so pleasantly that none could doubt he was telling truth. "If I lie may I eat dirt!" Ismail answered him. Inches lent the Afridi dignity, but dignity has often been used as a stalking horse for untruth.
Rewa Gunga chuckled. "He rose from his place like a buffalo, rump first and then shoulder after shoulder! Such men are safe! Such men have no guile beyond what will help them to obey! Such men think too slowly to invent deceit for its own sake!" The Afridi came and towered above them, standing with gnarled hands knotted into clubs. "What is thy name?" King asked him. "Ismail!" he boomed.
"I love thee," the Afridi answered simply. "Thou art a man after mine own heart. Turn! Go back before it is too late!" King shook his head. "Be warned!" Ismail reached out a hairy-backed hand that shook with half- suppressed emotion. "When we reach Khinjan, and I come within reach of her orders again, then I am her man, not thine!" King smiled, glancing again at the gold bracelet on his arm.
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