CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
Jan Larrens
It was early morning when Ahmed, riding through the level plain, among gardens which, though it was autumn, still scented the air, came to the cantonments outside the walls of Peshawar. What he saw filled him with amazement. The ground was studded with tents, amid which soldiers of all races—tall bearded Sikhs, active little Gurkhas, red-coated Englishmen—swarmed like bees in a hive. And there in the distance he sees a lady galloping, followed by a sais, and she is not veiled, as were all the women in Shagpur, save those of low caste; Ahmed had rarely seen the faces of Rahmut Khan's wives for a year or two. And here comes a carriage drawn by two horses, and in it are a lady, she too unveiled, and a Feringhi man in spotless white clothes. And as it dashes past him, the lady turns to the officer at her side and says—
"What a fine-looking young fellow! Who is he, Fred?"
"He? A Pathan from the hills, Alice, and a most accomplished brigand, you may be sure."
Ahmed hears the words, and though he does not understand them, they set him thrilling with a strange excitement. Long-forgotten scenes are coming back to him; he remembers ladies just like this one—ladies who used to speak in the same clear low tones, and men, sometimes in red coats, sometimes in white, who used to dance him up and down on their knees. His brain was in a whirl; recollection came to him like the dim remembrance of things seen in dreams. These were people of his blood—and he was a stranger among them.
He rode on dizzily, and entering the Kabul gate, found himself in a wide street, thronged with folk of every race of the borderland. The size of the place staggered him; Shagpur was a kennel compared with it. How could he find his way about this huge town? And among so many people, what place could there be for him? He knew not which way to turn, and as for seeking an interview with the great sahib, Jan Larrens, of whom he had heard, his heart sank at the mere thought of it. The speech he heard around him was not his speech; he began to fear lest he should be unable to make the least of his wants understood. But catching sight by and by of a man in the chogah of the hill-men, he rode up to him eagerly, and asked him where he might find a serai in which to stable his horse. To his joy the man answered in his own tongue.
"You are a stranger. Whence do you come?"
"From Shagpur, in the hills."
"Hai! the village of Rahmut Khan."