When his work at the parapet was finished, he went down again to the doctor, who sent him to see how the men were getting on with their task at the shutters. Three front windows on the ground floor had already been bored with two loopholes each, and without consulting the doctor he set the men to treat the shutters of the four windows at the back in the same way. The men looked at each other in surprise when he had given this order and gone.
"Who is this Pathan that gives us commands?" said one of them.
"Yea, he speaks even as the sahibs. Shall we do what one of these puffed-up Guides commands us?"
"Not I, for one," said the third man. "The sahib said the front windows; that was his order, given us by the khansaman, who is the sahib's servant. We shall be shamed if we do the bidding of a vile Pathan."
And they laid down their tools and squatted on the floor.
Ahmed meanwhile had hastened to the front door. He found it was made of extremely hard wood and thickly covered with iron studs, forming a sufficiently stout defence against anything short of a battering-ram or a cannon-shot. Coming back through the house to examine the back door and the door leading to the servants' quarters, he noticed the three Sikhs squatting in idleness.
"Dogs," he cried, "did not I say go to the back windows, and do as you did with the front? Why this idleness?"
"We obey the sahibs," said one of the men sulkily.
"Thou son of a dog, take up thy tools at once, or verily thou wilt be sorry."
Ahmed stood over the men, and his voice rang with a tone of command as authoritative as that of their own officers. The Sikh hesitated for a moment, then, to his own surprise, no less than that of his comrades, he took up his tools, rose, and went off slowly to the back of the house.