Gil the Gunner: The Youngest Officer in the East

by George Manville Fenn

The result was unmistakable. I needed no teaching there, for I had had a long education in such matters.

It was gunpowder, and I laughed at myself for thinking that it was a kind of seed, though seed it really might be called—of destruction.

“Yes; it’s meant for some one else,” I thought, as I carefully refolded the black grains in their envelope, and took out the piece of steel again, to turn it over in my hands, and notice that one end was fairly sharp, while the other was broken, and showed the peculiar crystalline surface of a silvery grey peculiar to good steel.

“Why, it’s the point of a bayonet,” I said to myself; and then I sat thinking, regularly puzzled at the care taken to wrap up that bit of steel and the powder.

“What does it mean?” I said, or does it mean anything? “Some children playing at keeping shop, perhaps,” I said; “and when they were tired, they threw the packet in at the first window they saw. Just the things soldiers’ children would get hold of to play with.”

“But there are no children here,” I said to myself, as I began to grow more excited, and the more so I grew, the less able I was to make out that which later on appeared to be simplicity itself.

“The point of a bayonet in one, and some grains of powder in another,” I said to myself. “Oh, it must be the result of some children at play; they cannot possibly be meant for me;” and in disgust, I tossed the powder out of the window, and directly after, flung out the piece of steel with the result that, almost simultaneously, I heard what sounded like a grunt, and the jingling of the metal on the marble paving.

I ran to the window, and looked out from behind the hanging which I held before me, suspecting that I had inadvertently hit one of the bheesties. And so it proved, for I saw the man nearest to me stoop to pick up the piece of bayonet, and then nearly go down on his nose, for the water-skin shifted, and it was only by an effort that he recovered himself, and shook it back into its place on his loins.

Just then the other water-bearer came up to him, and said something in a low tone—I could not hear what, for he and his companion conversed almost in whispers, as if overawed by the sanctity of the place in which they stood. But it was all evident enough, as I could make out by their gestures: the second bheestie asked the first what was the matter, and this man told him that some one had taken aim with a piece of steel, which he passed on, and struck him on the back. The second man examined the piece, passed it back, and evidently said, “Some one is having a game with you,” for he laughed, and they both looked up at the windows, as if to see who threw the piece.

Just then I saw a fierce-looking man come from the gateway, sword in hand; the two bheesties went on with their watering, and I heard him speaking angrily, and he gave force to his abuse by striking each man sharply with the flat of his sword. But the blows were harmless, for they fell on the water-skins, and, as soon as he had marched off, I saw the men look at each other and grin.