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Updated: June 16, 2025
Sitting one evening outside his tent, after yet another unsuccessful attempt, it suddenly occurred to Lumsden that Dilawur must have an astonishingly intimate knowledge of every path, nullah, and pass in the district to thus evade capture, as well as a remarkably efficient intelligence department, to give him timely warning. "Just the man for the Guides," exclaimed Lumsden. "I'll send for him."
Dilawur Khan's comrade, Ahmed Jan, was the first to die; and then, on the fourth night, the brave old soldier himself gave out, and as he was dying he called to him one of the survivors, and said: "Should any of you reach India alive, go to the Commissioner of Peshawur and say 'Dilawur Khan of the Guides is dead'; and say also that he died faithful to his salt, and happy to give up his life in the service of the Great Queen."
At this time it so happened that the most notorious highwayman and outlaw in the whole of Yusafzai was one Dilawur Khan, a Khuttuk of good family belonging to the village of Jehangira, on the Kabul River near its junction with the Indus.
Seated one day under a tree, making their midday halt and chatting with some fellow travellers, they were suddenly surrounded by the soldiers of the Mehtar and hurried back under close guard to Chitral. Seeing danger ahead, Dilawur, before he was searched, managed to drop into the river certain documents and reports of a secret nature, which it was important should not fall into strange hands.
A polite note was accordingly written inviting Dilawur Khan to come into the Guides' camp, at any time and place that fitted in with his other, and doubtless more important, engagements, "to talk matters over." At the same time a free passport was sent which would allow of his reaching the camp unmolested.
"No, you are not," replied the Mehtar; "you are Subadar Dilawur of the Guides, a heretic and an infidel." "Quite true," answered Dilawur readily; "I was at one time a subadar of the Guides, but I have been many things in my time, and now I am a mullah." "I have reliable information," said the Mehtar, "that you are in the secret employment of the British Government."
So with much good-humoured laughing and chaffing Dilawur Khan enlisted; and for weeks after one of the sights of Yusafzai, which notable chiefs rode many a mile to see, was the dreaded Dilawur, the terror of the Border, peacefully balancing himself on one leg, under the careful tuition of a drill-sergeant of the Guides.
With them came also Dilawur, full of zeal and thirsting for knowledge, who artlessly introduced so debatable a subject, that the assembly was thrown into an uproar; and lest worse things might happen unto him, the worthy, but too enquiring, subadar was hustled hastily forth, and requested in future to stick to soldiering, and to avoid bringing his infernal questions to cause discord amongst the chosen of the Prophet.
Then the Mahomedans on board with one accord set up loud lamentations, and began to call upon their saints to succour them. "Oh Ali! Oh Hosein! Oh Káka Sahib! save us," they cried. Whereupon Dilawur, not to be outdone, in his turn commenced yelling and shouting vociferously: "Lumsden Sahib! Oh Lumsden Sahib, save me!"
The story of Dilawur Khan, subadar of the Guides, is one which kindles many a kindly memory of the rough brave fellows who, under a sprinkling of English officers, upheld British supremacy on the North-West Frontier of India in the early 'fifties.
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