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Updated: May 9, 2025
The guard-room cells were pointed out to Rasul Khan, the prisoners thrust into them, and the escort quietly but firmly invited to rejoin their comrades outside the walls; for in time of war, as the Commandant explained, it behoves every man, especially when the safety of a great fort is concerned, to walk warily, and treat the stranger with circumspection.
Taking three of his own men, stripping off what uniform they had, and concealing their arms, he had them securely bound and placed under a heavy guard of their own comrades. As soon as it was broad daylight, closely guarding his prisoners, Rasul Khan marched boldly up to the main gate of the fort, and was hailed by the Sikh sentry: "Halt there! who are you and what is your business?"
So far, beyond seeing the main entrance and the guard-room cells, Rasul Khan had not done much towards securing that full information about the fort, its garrison, and its defences, which it was of such vital importance to gain.
It may not be without interest, as illustrating the liberality with which soldiers in those days were treated, to mention that, besides the official thanks of the British Government, Rasul Khan received a robe of honour, a gun, a brace of pistols, and five hundred rupees, each havildar and naik fifty rupees, and each sepoy, including the "prisoners," eleven rupees.
Nor may it be inappropriate to mention that Rasul Khan was a brother of that same ressaldar Fatteh Khan, who only the month before with a handful of the Guides' cavalry had scattered as chaff before the wind the flower of Diwan Mulraj's horsemen, and chased them into the gates of Mooltan.
"Why, certainly." "I didn't know that before." At this point a phaeton entered the compound, and Orde rose with "Confound it, there's old Rasul Ah Khan come to pay one of his tiresome duty calls. I'm afraid we shall never get through our little Congress discussion."
The cordial interchange of rough soldierly amenities had borne its fruit, and the suspicions of the Sikhs were completely lulled. To an alert and resourceful soldier like Rasul Khan, a man whom nothing in warlike strategy escaped, it occurred amongst other things that only a single sentry with his reliefs, under a non-commissioned officer, guarded the main entrance.
With a whole regiment in garrison there seemed to be no particular objection to this proposal, and it was therefore accepted. Rasul Khan thus had at the main gate six men and a non-commissioned officer, not to mention three soldiers disguised as prisoners, as against three Sikhs and a non-commissioned officer.
M'hámed rasul Allah!" was raised there in the cabin of the rushing Eagle of the Sky surely the strangest place where Moslem prayer was ever offered since first the Prophet's green banner unfurled itself upon the desert air of Araby. Devoutly Rrisa prayed, then with a "Bismillah!" The latter, wise in Eastern ways, remained gravely unsmiling.
At noon, therefore, on a hot September day the little party set off on their forty mile march along the dusty, treeless road to Amritsar. Subadar, a native commissioned officer commanding a company of infantry. Marching all that day, and the greater part of the following night, Rasul Khan arrived in the vicinity of the fort just as day was breaking.
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