CHAPTER X.
A SQUARE BARGAIN.
"The faith of men that ha' brothered men,
By more than easy breath;
And the eyes o' men that ha' read wi' men,
In the open books of death."
—Kipling.
"Behold! Captain Sahib,—there where the sky touches earth. In the space of half an hour we arrive."
Desmond lifted sun-weary eyes to the horizon, and nodded.
When a man is consumed with thirst, and scorched to the bone, by five hours of riding through a furnace seven times heated in the teeth of a blistering wind, he is chary of speech; and the two rode forward in silence—mere specks upon the emptiness of earth and sky—keeping their horses to the long-distance canter that kills neither man nor beast. A detachment of forty sabres followed in their wake; and the rhythmical clatter rang monotonously in their ears.
The speck on the horizon was an outpost—a boundary mark of empire,—where a little party of men watched, night and day, for the least sign of danger from the illusive quiet of the hills.
It is these handfuls of men, natives of India all, stationed in stone watch-towers twenty miles apart along the Border, who keep the gateway of India barred; and who will keep it barred against all intruders for all time. The unobtrusive strength of India's Frontier amazes the new-comer. But only those who have spent their best years in its service know the full price paid for the upkeep of that same strength in hardship, unremitting toil, and the lives of picked men.