Crack! Crack! At two hundred yards’ distance they had fired into the cloud of dust, and a bullet struck Ted just below the heart. He doubled forward with the pain, nearly losing his grip, and the bullet quietly dropped upon the saddle. He glanced at his tunic; there was not a tear, and he slowly realized that he was still alive. The bullet was spent, and it had struck him with no more force than a thrown stone of the same size. He was hurt, but not injured.
Hira Singh’s lance was couched again, and the horses were at the gallop. The shots had roused the fierce Sikh blood, and it would have gone hard with the horsemen had not Ted sufficiently recovered his wits, and, spurring his Arab to the front, had called upon the ressaidar to pull up his horse to a walk.
He was puzzled that the three should have stood their ground so valiantly when escape would have been easy, and he did not mean to suffer friends to be slain. Besides, the carts probably contained women, who would not be safe from the fury of his wild levies once they had tasted blood. He caught Hira Singh’s bridle and shouted the command to halt, and the troop pulled up about thirty paces from the daring wayfarers. Ted rode out in front of his men.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
Instantly the strangers lowered their loaded muskets, and the handsome old man in the centre took his sword by the blade and held the hilt towards the Englishman.
“Allah give you victory, sahib!” said the old man, stroking his gray beard with nervous fingers. “I thought ye were budmashes who had cut us off. I did not see that thou wast a Feringhi until this moment.”
“We hope that no man was hurt by our shots,” added the youngest of the three, a slight but muscular and well-made man, twenty years of age perhaps. There was something in his appearance that took Ted’s fancy—a dignified bearing and demeanour.
“But what do ye here?” asked our lieutenant, “and why should ye fire at strangers?”
“I am Yusuf Khan of Paniwar, and these are my sons. In the bullock-gharris are our womenfolk. We have fled from our home through fear of the anger of the rebels. Know then, young sahib, that I have raised my voice on the side of our alien rulers, warning and advising our young men to abstain from acts of madness. The stain of blood is not on my hands.”
He stretched out his open palms as he spoke. There was an honest ring in the old man’s voice, and his eye was open and steady.