"I cannot tell that to a day, heaven-born. He seems somewhat younger than Sherdil thy servant, but he is well-grown, and can ride a horse and hit a mark. Moreover, he is exceeding skilful in the nazabaze."
"Well, well, I have put his name down. He makes the thirty-second. Is he here? Is he the boy I saw with you on the parade-ground?"
"Heaven-born, how could it be? Ahmed is in Peshawar: that boy was his cousin." Sherdil lied without a blush.
"Well, take yourself off now. I will let you know when a vacancy occurs, and then your friend must take his chance with the rest."
And next day, in the serai where he had put up in Peshawar, Ahmed learnt from Sherdil that his name stood thirty-second on the list of candidates for the Guides.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
A Competition Wallah
Sherdil did not do things by halves. He was now as keen as Ahmed himself that the boy should become one of the Guides. During the next fortnight he devoted every spare moment to coaching him in the shooting tests. Ahmed had never shot with a carbine, but only with the heavy jazail of the tribesmen. Sherdil sought out a secluded spot among the lower hills where practising could be carried on without attracting attention, and lent Ahmed his own carbine to practise with. And since it was impossible to obtain ammunition belonging to the corps, he spent some of his saved pay in buying powder, shot, and percussion caps in Peshawar, and refilled some old cartridge cases. He drew a rough target on the face of a rock, and diligently played musketry instructor until he could declare that Ahmed was as good a shot as any of the candidates was likely to be at various ranges.
About three weeks after Ahmed's arrival, Lumsden Sahib announced one day that there was a vacancy in the cavalry. One of the men had overstopped his leave, and was summarily dismissed. It appeared later that the trooper had employed his leave in hunting down a hill-man whose father had spoken disrespectfully of his own grandmother, and until the slight was avenged the man had no other object in life.