"I'll slit your throat if you talk foolishness, Hosein," he said. "The chota sahib is a man; get that into your silly head. Did he not fight at the bridge? And when we met those Kalmuck pigs, did he not in a twinkling see what was to be done, and ride straight at them, cheering as the sahibs always do? And when I was left behind, he came back for me, though the dogs were hidden among the rocks and had just killed Ayoub. He is a man, I tell you; mashallah! what he says is good, and what he does is better, and I will cut your hand off if you do not swear to follow wherever he leads."
"Peace, brother," said the man. "How was I to know? His beard is not yet grown. Allah is great! All the sahibs are men, even in the cradle."
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
THE REVOLT OF THE KALMUCK MINERS
While Lawrence was thus making his first essays in an apprenticeship to soldiering, his brother had found work to do which outran the little military experience he had gained.
After giving Lawrence the signals agreed on, Bob steered straight up the valley. His mind was very busy during the half-hour's flight to the mine. The management of the aeroplane had become so much a matter of habit and instinct that he was able to give a good deal of attention to his thoughts and imaginings. Telling Fazl to keep a good look-out, he sought to grapple with the strange problems so suddenly thrust upon him.
First and greatest of them all was the meaning of the concentration of troops at the mouth of the valley. He dismissed as patently absurd the idea that their objective was his uncle's mine. The gathering of so large a force for so trifling an end would be like employing a steam-hammer to crack a nut. He could not avoid the conclusion that their presence was quite independent of Nurla Bai, though on the other hand Nurla Bai's actions had probably been calculated with the knowledge or suspicion that a body of his countrymen was at hand.
What then was the explanation of the muster? The direction of their march, and the fact that they had thrown forward an advanced guard into the valley itself, seemed to indicate an intention to proceed through the valley to some further goal. What was that goal? He remembered the intelligence that had come in at odd times, of a levy en masse of the Mongols, and his uncle's suspicion that the Mongolian prince was meditating an attack on Russia. But this was not the way to Russia. Could it be that Afghanistan was the object of an invasion? Bob's knowledge of the geography of the region was not very extensive, but he knew that, if Afghanistan was their objective, this valley was one of the most toilsome and indirect routes they could have chosen. The passes of the Hindu Kush to the westward offered few or no obstacles to an invading force; it was by these passes that the Mongolian hordes had always made their inroads, from the earliest times. Not only would the nature of the valley render the advance of a large army extremely arduous and prolonged; if the invaders should traverse it successfully, they would find themselves at what was probably the most intricate and inaccessible portion of the Amir's dominions. It would be like marching from London to Chester through the Welsh mountains, with every difficulty monstrously exaggerated. Wellington's passage of the Pyrenees was a slight operation compared with it.
What other end could they have in view? The valley ran southward, and led ultimately of course to India, but an invasion of India by this route was too ridiculous to be considered seriously. Ambitious as the Mongol prince was, it was scarcely conceivable that he could entertain such a notion, unless he had taken leave of his senses. The twenty thousand men now encamped at the mouth of the valley would need to be multiplied ten or twenty times before there would be the slightest chance of success. There might, in truth, be many more such army corps massed farther northward; but the task of pushing an invading force, adequate to the undertaking, through the narrow gorges of the valley, where for long stretches three horsemen could not ride abreast, with the necessary artillery, ammunition wagons and commissariat, would prove too much for the most consummate military organizer. It would take so long that a defending force on the north-west frontier could cut up the more advanced sections long before the rest could move up to their support. In short, the whole idea was fantastic, and Bob called himself an ass for even thinking of it.
Giving up this question as beyond his conjecture, Bob bent his mind upon the problem that immediately concerned him. This was a sufficiently hard nut to crack. The Kalmucks, whatever their ultimate intention might be, were clearly to be regarded as enemies. On that point their actions were quite conclusive. Whether he owed their aggressiveness to Nurla Bai or not, they were a menace to the mine and its owners. Nurla Bai would certainly take advantage of their proximity to attempt to capture the settlement, and no doubt could command the assistance of as many men as he needed.