Barclay of the Guides

by Herbert Strang

"Porcelain from Delhi," replied Sherdil at once. "Care is needed, lest it be shivered to atoms." And he laid it down in a corner near the charpoy placed for him, and covered it with a roll of cloth.

The travellers ate a simple supper, and conversed freely with the Afghans; then they all laid themselves down, and there was silence save for some few snores and the grunting of the camels, which was heard very clearly through the thin wooden wall.

Some hours later, about three o'clock in the morning, there was a slight and almost noiseless scuffle within the change-house. The two Afghans were suddenly awakened from sleep by rough hands laid upon them. The flickering oil lamp gave little light; the Afghans' sleepy eyes but half apprehended the meaning of what they saw; and their tongues suffered from a sudden impediment, for, as they opened their mouths to cry out, gags were slipped in, and fierce voices muttered in their ears a warning to be quiet and lie still, or worse would befall them. Their fellow-guests, the apparently peaceable dealers in cloth and porcelain, with wonderful dexterity and speed tied their feet and hands together, and the Afghans had not recovered from their amazement when they saw two of the merchants creeping out of the door, carrying the small case of precious porcelain between them.

Meanwhile the other members of the party, after a little fumbling among their bales of merchandise, had withdrawn from the folds of innocent cloth a musket apiece, and after the departure of their fellows stood just behind the door in the attitude of men awaiting a call. One of them peered round the door; another slightly drew aside the slats of the adjacent window—an unglazed opening in the wall—and looked eagerly across the street. There was no moon; the village was in darkness; but the forms of the two men who had gone out could be dimly seen as they crept stealthily along by the wall in the direction of the tower between them and the gate.

The two reached the foot of the tower and laid their burden down—gently, as befitted a box containing precious porcelain—at the door. Then one of them stooped lower, and appeared to thrust something into a hole near the bottom of the box. The watchman on the wall must have been half-asleep, or he would have noticed a sudden spark at the foot of the tower. It flashed but for a moment; then the two men, bending low, hastened back stealthily by the way they had gone, came to the change-house, and slipping in by the still half-open door, closed it behind them.

They waited for perhaps a minute, and there was not a sound within the guest-chamber save the slight smothered grunting of the Afghans through their gags. Then from without there came a sudden roar; the ground trembled, the building rocked as if it would fall about their heads, and the waiting men, drawing a long breath, threw open the door and ran with great nimbleness towards the tower The street was filled with acrid fumes; here and there men were crying out, but the merchants paid no heed, but rushed through the smoke and plunged into the yawning chasm where the tower door had been. The opening was clogged with burning wood and fragments of masonry; the intruders stumbled over these, coughing up the smoke that entered their lungs, and groped their way up the narrow winding stairway.

Cries from above assailed them. At the top of the first flight of steps stood a man armed with a long spear. The stairway was so narrow that only one man could pass at a time, and the man at the head of the mounting party, coming too suddenly upon the spearman, received a thrust in the breast and toppled backward. But the man behind him slipped aside to avoid his falling body, and caught the spear before it could be withdrawn, dragging the spearman forward. Two others—they were Sherdil and Ahmed—seized the occasion to squeeze past him; but they gained the top of the flight only to see the two men who, behind him, had been content to let him bear the brunt of the attack, dash back across the narrow passage to a door on the other side. The passage was lit by a small oil lamp—a wick floating in a shallow saucer. By its light Sherdil and Ahmed saw the men fling themselves through the door into the room beyond. They sprang after them, but the door was slammed in their faces and the bolt shot.

And now great shouts floated up the stairway from below. They were cries of surprise and fear, calls for arms, mingled with the fierce war-shout of Pathan warriors. Some little while after the party of merchants had found entrance to the village, Rahmut Khan with all his fighting men had come up in the darkness and lain in hiding beyond the walls. The explosion had been the signal for an attack on the village. They had dashed forward; some had forced the gate, others had scaled the walls, and they now held the village at their mercy, for the explosion had been so startling, and the attack so sudden, that any effective defence was out of the question.

Meanwhile, Sherdil and his band, finding themselves blocked by the bolted door, had sought for some means of breaking it down. Their chief's quarrel was with Minghal Khan, and it was Minghal Khan whom they were most eager to secure. Some minutes passed before axes could be found, then with a few shattering blows the door was broken in. Sherdil sprang into the room, followed closely by Ahmed and the rest. The birds had flown. The room was small, with one narrow window in the outer wall. A rope hung from it; the men had descended by this and made their escape. Ahmed rushed down the stairs to inform his father, and to send men out in pursuit. Sherdil hastened to the upper apartments in the hope that Minghal might not have been one of the two who had escaped. But he found no one in the tower except the women and children.

The surprise had been entirely successful save in this one matter of the escape of Minghal. The village had fallen to Rahmut almost without a blow. Indeed, save for the one man who had been speared at the head of the steps, and one who had been shot by the sentry before he himself was cut down, the victory had been bloodless. Rahmut's men patrolled the streets until dawn. Then he called the people to a meeting and reassured them as to his intentions. Without doubt they had been led away, he told them, in their attack on Shagpur, by the evil designs of their chief, Minghal. Minghal was now gone—had fled away to escape disgrace and humiliation. But his cowardice was a disgrace still greater. None but a coward would have taken flight thus, leaving his men without a leader and his family defenceless.