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I said naught, but took Kurban Sahib's glasses from his greasy hands and cleaned them with a silk handkerchief and returned them to their case. Sikander Khan told me that he had been the first man in the Zenab valley to use glasses whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the course of three months' leave. But he was otherwise a liar.
From the amphitheatre of the enclosing hills thirty thousand voices rose in one thundering chorus of "Jae, jae, Omkar!" and, "To Omkar the Kurban!" Many pressed forward, mad fanaticism in their eyes, and held out at arm's length toward the girl bracelets and ornaments to be touched by her fingers as a beneficence.
They gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban Sahib's glasses, and the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed them, and preached the holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought coffee; and the idiot capered among them and kissed their horses.
So they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have stolen anything else that they needed, and they sent a sick officer back to Eshtellenbosch in his place. Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and Sikander Khan was his cook.
Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I knew, and he said, "We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to Eshtellenbosch to oversee the despatch of horses." Remember, Kurban Sahib was squadron- leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and I was Umr Singh.
Keep place!" for his place was behind me, and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets will pass through five men arow! We were not hit not one of us and we reached the hill of rocks and scattered among the stones, and Kurban Sahib turned in his saddle and said, "Look at the old man!"
He wept very bitterly all that night, and I wept with him, and he took hold of my feet and besought me to give him a remembrance from Kurban Sahib.
He said, "Because he rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his horse fought with him at the turn of the road; and before the light fell I stole out of the camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib's glasses, and from a little hill I saw the pied horse of that pumpkin-seller hurrying to that house."
A war of fools indeed! At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said, "The reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow, and, once away, I shall be too sick so return. Make ready the baggage." Thus we got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a certain new regiment that had come in a ship.
There is no order that ye should depart from this war." They did not understand my words. Yet they abode and they lived. Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib's command, and one I knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses.
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