United States or Burkina Faso ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He is not dead!" said the grave, silent Râjput, looking up, his face working, the tears streaming down his bronzed cheek. "My master is not dead!" "Who?" asked Sumbal, uncomprehending. "I knew it must be he!" went on the man exultantly, even in his grief. "None could do that sort of thing save a Sun hero! My Master! my King! See, here the race mark on his breast! The sign of uttermost truth!
Even their memory comes seldom, save to the pure in heart. And one night he hit on a plan. The fort was almost at its last gasp. All day Sumbal Khân, Humâyon's famous artillery general, had been pounding away at the Iron Gate with deadly aim. A few more well-sent shots would leave the bastion crumbling, and then Then would come the assault through the breach, and Kumran knew he could not face it.
"Something about the bastion and the Heir-to-Empire, master!" said the sergeant doubtfully. "Mayhap 'twould be as well to wait till we can see more clearly. Kumran," he added in a lower voice, "would stick at naught " Sumbal hesitated, then put down the portfire and walked over to the fallen lad, beside whom the stranger was kneeling. "He is not dead!
"He is but a boy," he said slowly, "yet see how he runs. And they have hit him, for he staggers. Yet he comes on. He must bring news, friend, for sure!" "News!" echoed Sumbal contemptuously; "we have half a hundred such runaways coming in every day. It is no news that King Humâyon is better liked than Kumran. Lo! hast thou it at last?"
A rattle of musketry rose on the still air of dawn, and an artillery man leaned over the low embrasure to see better into the intervening valley. "Some one escaping," he said with a yawn, for he had been up half the night. "Lo! he runs like a hare! But they will have him, for sure." "Quick," called Sumbal, "we will silence their noise. The portfire, I say. I will fire old Thunderer myself."
Reaching Sumbal at sunset, we turned to the left down a narrow canal, and soon the Wular lay a sheet of molten gold upon our right; and by the time we had moored alongside a low strip of reedy bank, the glorious rosy lights had faded from the snows of the Pir Panjal, and their royal purple and gold had turned to soft ebony against the primrose of the sky.
He snatched the portfire from the sergeant and went toward the gun. "Stay one moment, friend!" said the grave and silent man with sudden command in his voice. "A moment's hastiness may bring disaster. Discretion is better than valour. Yonder boy brings news he waves his arms he shouts! Stay at least till we can hear what he says." Sumbal laughed. "Bah!
Roy, who had never stopped for a breath yet in his headlong race, was at that very moment rounding on the bastion, and looking up, saw what he had feared to see a little figure bound hand and foot to a framework of wood that hung close to what Sumbal had called the pigeon place, seeming to form part of it. The child was not crying. Perhaps he was past that.
All day we poled round the shore of the lake, over flooded fields where the mustard had spread its cloth of gold a short week ago, over the very hedges we had scrambled through when duck-shooting in April, until in the evening we entered the river just below Sumbal.
The man carrying the flaming flashlight handed it to his superior, but in so doing by some mischance it dropped, and in the dropping went out! "Fool!" cried Sumbal passionately. "Are we to stand insulted here without reply while thou fetchest another? Put him in irons, sergeant, and bring light at once!" But the grave, silent Râjput was watching the runner.
Word Of The Day