"But you, Sherdil?"
"Hush! no one knows. Lumsden Sahib will only take men of good caste. I had to lie: lying is an honest man's wings, you know. Hai! you will lose no caste. We are all good men. But you are young, Ahmed, and there are many waiting. Those outside the walls: you saw them: they have encamped there to wait until there is room for them. And they are good men—some of the finest brigands of the hills, and sons of chiefs among them. I fear me you are too young. There are thirty waiting, and they live out there with their friends, spending their money in feeding themselves and their horses; can you do the same?"
"For a month; no more."
Sherdil drew a long face.
"A month! it is very little. Yet it may be well. Wah! it shall be well. Maybe there will be room for one or two in a month. And a month will give us time. I will teach you."
"Teach me what?"
And then Sherdil explained Lumsden's way of filling the vacancies as they occurred. He held a competition among the candidates, and took them to the rifle range to shoot it off among themselves: the best shots got the places.
"And if there are some who shoot equally well, what then?" asked Ahmed.
"Oh, then he does as Hodson Sahib did. He makes them ride unbacked horses, and the man that rides furthest before being thrown off, that is the man for the Guides."
"I can shoot, and I can ride, Sherdil," said Ahmed, with a smile. "I do not fear the tests."