United States or Mauritius ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To hold up a despatch rider was about as irregular as any proceeding could be; but it was within his province to find out how far the Khyber jezailchis could be trusted and within his power more than to make up the lost time. So that the irregularity did not trouble him much. "Does this other letter tell of the lashkar, too?" "Am I God, that I should know?
Ask the rocks, and the grass the very water running from the 'Hills'! They all know that the English fight for life!" "And the Khyber jezailchis? What of them?" King asked. "They know it better than any!" "And?" "They make ready, even as I." "For what?" "For what Allah shall decide! We ate the salt, we jezailchis. We chose, and we ate of our own free will.
"As a trait of Afghan character, I must mention that whenever the Jezailchis could snatch five minutes to refresh themselves with a pipe, one of them would twang a sort of a rude guitar as an accompaniment to some martial song, which, mingling with the notes of war, sounded very strangely."
"Know ye not," he said, "that long ago she gave leave to all who ate the salt to be true to the salt? She gave the Khyber jezailchis leave to fight against her. Be sure, whatever she does, she will stand between no man and his pardon!" "But will she lead a jihad? We will not fight against her!" "Nay," said King, drawing his breath in.
If Yasmini were to let the mullah and his men into the Caves and to join forces with him in there, he would at least have time to hurry back to India with his eighty men and give warning. He might have time to call up the Khyber jezailchis and blockade the Caves before the hive could swarm, and he chuckled to think of the hope of that.
"From whom is your letter, and to whom?" asked King, wondering what the men in the clubs at home would say if they knew that a woman's bracelet could outweigh authority on British sod; for the Khyber Pass is as much British as the air is an eagle's or Korea Japanese, or Panama United States American, and the Khyber jezailchis are paid to help keep it so.
Besides the regular army there is a paid irregular mounted force of about 20,000 men, active and formidable in "hill operations," and known as Jezailchis. The late General Colin Mackenzie, in an account of his experiences in the Elphinstone disaster of 1842, says: "The Jezailchis are so called from their jezails or long rifles. The Afghans are said to be among the best marksmen in the world.
We have been paid the price we named, in silver and rifles and clothing. The arrficers the sirkar sent us are men of faith who have made no trouble with our women. What, then, should the Khyber jezailchis do? For a little while there will be fighting or, if we be very brave and our arrficers skillful, and Allah would fain see sport, then for a longer while. Then we shall be overridden.
Then the Khyber will be a roaring river of men pouring into India, as my father's father told me it has often been! India shall bleed in these days but there will be fighting in the Khyber first!" "And what of her? Of Yasmini?" King asked. "Thou wearest that and askest what of her? Nay tell!" "Should she order the jezailchis to be false to the salt ?" "Such a question!"
Word Of The Day