"An unpleasant rumour, any way, and we shall not go without our pistols," said Waller. "However, I hope his anxiety for his own post at Court, if Ackbar triumphs, exaggerates the situation."
"They are a strange people, these Afghans," resumed Polwhele musingly, as he filled his tumbler again, adding, "Father Adam's pale ale—water—is always mightily improved by a dash of brandy, thus."
"But I have seen stranger," replied Waller; "when I was in China with the 26th, for there the men wear petticoats and the ladies don't; old fellows fly kites and spin tops, while the young ones study; when puzzled they scratch their feet and not their polls like Europeans; when angry they don't punch the head, but viciously pull each other's tails; and they can write books without an alphabet in that delightful language which we see on the tea-chests. Oh, the Afghans are reasonable fellows, when contrasted with the countrymen of him of the Wonderful Lamp."
"Yes; but the former are a ferocious set, and deem a little homicide, more or less, nothing. Like the Scots Highlanders of old—'
"Take care; it is well Her Majesty's Envoy does not hear you!"
"Every man is born a soldier, I was about to add, and even every boy—a pestilent set of wasps they are—has his knife, and knows how to use it; and they are all taught, that if these black rock and yonder snow-capped hills have little attraction for them here below, the Moollahs add that heaven teems with Houris, and that their reward is there. Talking of Houris, we shall all meet at the Trecarrels to-morrow, I hope; but I shan't see you till I come off Ghazeea hunting; and, by Jove! I would rather go pig-sticking in the jungle, or tiger-potting on a Shikaree elephant, than have a day's shooting against those mad fanatics. However, you'll see the Envoy about what we have heard."
"Of course, Jack."
And whistling a popular waltz, with his sword under his arm, and his forage cap very much over the right ear, Jack Polwhele strode away to Burgoyne's bungalow in the Cantonments, just as the boom of a gun from the nearest fort, and the clang of the guard-house ghurries announced the setting of the sun.
Waller and Denzil sought the Envoy at the Residency; but, unfortunately, he was on a visit to the Shah at the Bala Hissar; thus a most precious opportunity was too probably lost.
We shall neither follow Polwhele to his consultation with Burgoyne about their future movements, nor to their adventures among the cavernous range of the Siah Sung Hills; but in the subsequent chapter shall endeavour to relate on what errand our troops, some four thousand three hundred in number, had come into that remote, ferocious, and most warlike region of all North-western India, seeking to control the views and the passions of five million one hundred and twenty thousand hostile people.