"Yes, there are many things that we soldiers, who are only here to do the fighting, can make neither head nor tail of. If India were governed by soldiers instead of civilians, things would be very differently managed. As it is, we can only wonder and grumble. The authorities are so mightily afraid of injuring the susceptibilities of the natives that they pamper them in every way, and even when it is manifest that the whole of the community suffer by their so doing. It is the more ridiculous, because, in the old days, their own rulers paid not the slightest attention to these same susceptibilities, or to the likes or dislikes of their subjects."
"It is all very strange," Nita said, "and very unaccountable."
"Everyone on the frontier knows that sooner or later we shall have to deal with the Afridis, and that it will be an enormously difficult and expensive business, and will cost an immense amount of life."
"Don't let us talk about it any more; it makes me out of all patience to think of such folly."
The journey was resumed the next morning, and continued day after day and week after week. Sometimes they were obliged to turn quite out of their direct course, and they had to run considerable risks to get fresh supplies for themselves and forage for the pony. Both were obtained by entering villages at night, and filling their sack from stacks of grain and forage. The grain they pounded between flat stones as they sat by their fire, and so made a coarse meal which they generally boiled into a sort of porridge, their sauce-pans being gourds cut in the fields. Meat they had no difficulty about, as Carter managed, when necessary, to kill a bullock and take sufficient meat for ten days' supply.
They seldom caught sight of a villager when travelling through the valleys, for the Afridis have a marked objection to moving about after nightfall. Once or twice one or two of them approached them, but Carter raised such a loud and threatening roar, that they in each case retreated with all speed to their village, which they filled with alarm with tales of having encountered strange and terrible creatures.
Gradually the difficulties decreased, the mountains became less precipitous, the valleys larger and more thickly inhabited, a matter which caused them no inconvenience as they always traversed them at night. During their journey Carter had filled Nita's note-book with sketches and maps, which, as the country was wholly unexplored, would be of great advantage to an advancing army when properly copied out on a large scale. He was clever with his pencil, and Nita used to be greatly interested in his lively little sketches of the scenery through which they passed.
"It will be very useful to me," he said; "and in the event of troops having to march through this district, should go a long way towards securing me a staff appointment, for in such a case these sketches and maps would be invaluable, and I should get no end of credit for them."
"So you ought to," Nita said; "you have taken a lot of pains about them, and anyone with those maps should be able to find their way back by the route we have come."
"I have my doubts about that," he said; "that is, if I were not with them to point out the places we have passed. I should find it difficult myself, for we have come by a very devious road. Of course, I have had no chance whatever of getting compass bearings, and have only been able to put them in by the position of the sun. And besides, a great part of our journey has been done by night. Although, of course, I can indicate the general direction of the valleys through which we have passed, our routes at night among the mountains are necessarily little more than guesswork, for except when we had the moon we have practically nothing else to tell us of our position, or the direction in which we were going."