THE RED THREAD OF HONOUR
Among the hills of India
Dwelt warriors fierce and bold,
The sons of robber chieftains
Who, in the days of old,
Fought for their mountain freedom,
And, if by Fate laid low,
Fell ever crowned with honour—
Their faces to the foe.
Now'twas an ancient custom
Among those hillsmen brave,
When thus they found their kinsman,
To dig for him no grave;
But the torn blood-stained garments
They stripped from off the dead,
And then his wrist they circled
With green or crimson thread.
Many the green-decked warriors,
But only for a few
Was kept that highest honour,
The thread of sanguine hue;
For'twas alone the bravest
Of those who nobly shed
Their life-blood in the battle
Whose wrists were bound with red.
And when they thus had graced them
Who fell before the foe,
They hurled their lifeless bodies
Into the plain below.
The earth did ne'er imprison
Those hillsmen brave and free,
The sky alone should cover
The warriors of Trukkee.
There came a time of conflict,
And a great armed throng
Of England's bravest soldiers,—
Avengers of the wrong,—
Marched through the gloomy gorges,
Forded the mountain rills,
Vowing that they would vanquish
Those robbers of the hills.
The road was strange and dubious;
Easy it was to stray;
And of those English soldiers
Eleven lost their way.
Led by a trusty leader,
They reached a fearful glen,
And saw a mountain stronghold
Guarded by forty men.
Guarded by forty veterans
Of that fierce robber band,
In every face defiance,
Weapons in every hand.
"Back!" cried the trusty leader;
The soldiers would not hear,
But up the foe-crowned mountain
Charged with their English cheer.
With loud huzzas they stormed it,
Nor thought to turn from death,
But for old England's honour
Yielded their latest breath.
Short was the fight but deadly,
For, when our last man fell,
But sixteen of that forty
Were left to tell the tale.
But those sixteen were noble—
They loved a brave deed done;
They knew a worthy foeman,
And treated him as one.
And when the English soldiers
Sought for their comrades slain,
They found their stiff stark corpses
Prostrate upon the plain:
They lay with blood-stained faces,
Fixed eyes, and firm-clenched fists,
But the Red Thread of Honour,
Was twined around their wrists.
——J. A. Noble.