“It’s not private,” cried Eveleen, still overcome with mirth—“except on Major Ambrose’s part. He’s just made a joke, and he never will do that when any one else is there, though he knows how I delight in his jokes. But sit down, Brian boy, and tell me all about everything, while Ambrose thinks of some more jokes for the next time we are alone together. Did y’ever get to Sultankot, now?”
“We did,” responded Brian promptly. “But nobody else ever will.”
“Do you tell me that, now? And why?”
“Because we blew it up. I wonder wouldn’t you have heard the noise at Sahar. Sure we were all bothered in our hearing for days after.”
“But what a thing to go all that way to capture the place, and then blow it up! Was the garrison inside?”
“All the garrison there was—which was none. No, ’twas a mighty fine place for all the young Khans to escape to, and talk big about what they’d do when they met the General. But when they got his card, and his message that he proposed to do himself the honour of paying ’em a visit—why, they were not at home.”
“But tell us now how it happened. Did you see them running away?”
“Not the least taste of a sight of one of ’em. ’Twas the most mysterious, queerest thing in the world—Ambrose will tell you so too”—Richard grunted. “’Twas like coming suddenly on the stage of a theatre without any actors. There we stood—Sir Harry and the staff—on the edge of the sandhills. Down below us—like as if ’twas in a cup, and near enough to touch with your finger—was the fortress, beautifully built, all the towers and ramparts so clean-cut you’d say it had only been finished the night before, and the morning sun shining on it in a sort of romantic way made you think of something in Scott. There! I meant to ask Keeling what it was—he knows Scott off by heart—and I forgot. The road down the cliff was full in sight, and there were the troops moving down into the valley, the camels’ feet making no sound, the soldiers struck with awe, or something of the sort. At any rate they were all dumb too, but ’twas ‘Eyes right!’ with every man as he came out of the shadow of the cliff, as if they were approaching the saluting-point at a review. I never saw anything like it. And still there was no sound from the fort, no sign of a human being even, while the troops formed up and advanced—no answer to our summons. So at last we found the gates open, the cannon all freshly loaded and primed, huge quantities of powder, grain enough to feed an army, wells of good water—and not a soul anywhere! ’Twas like an enchanted place. You longed for the sound of a bugle to break the spell, even if it meant a rush of the enemy upon us out of hiding. But there was no enemy to rush out; they had all made themselves scarce a few hours before, when they saw we were really coming, and it seemed we had nothing to do but leave our friend Shahbaz in possession, and come back. But the General didn’t see it that way. He likes Shahbaz all right, but he had a shrewd notion that his heart wouldn’t precisely have been broke if we had all been swallowed up in the desert, and that he’d be just as well without a strong place like that all to himself—so difficult to get at, too. So Sultankot was sentenced to be destroyed, and I will say this for Shahbaz, that he took it like a sportsman! We had uncommon fun doing the business, for we plugged shell into the place—just so that we mightn’t have dragged the guns all that way for nothing—till it reached the powder, and pop! Shahbaz was as busy as any of us, taking his turn to lay the gun, and we all shouted and laughed like mad, while the General stood by, grieving over the place like an old prophet in spectacles, because it had taken so much trouble to build, and the builder must have been so pleased with his job. It’s the wonderful old chap he is! Y’ought have seen him on the way there, Evie—coming straight from writing his endless letters with his hands all crippled to turning out Her Majesty’s Europeans to drag the guns up the sandhills that were too much for the camels. They run ’em up one steep place of a thousand feet or so in five minutes, all joking and cheering, and old Harry dashing the briny drops from his manly eyes, and swearing he loved the British soldier more than any man on earth. Where the ground was not so steep we used teams of sixty men and fourteen camels to each gun, and got ’em up like winkin’. The men turned the least bit rusty on the way back, and I don’t wonder at it, after all they had gone through,—but he can do anything with ’em. Y’ought have heard ’em cheer him when he went for a Madras Sapper who was pretending to make a road for the guns—knocked him down, took his spade from him and set to work himself, and talked to him—my word! the fellow was green with fright though he couldn’t understand a syllable!”
“But why would the men turn rusty?” enquired Eveleen anxiously, for Her Majesty’s —th was an Irish regiment.
“And why wouldn’t they, with a fortnight of such marches and such work, and sand to eat and drink and breathe—and very little else? Why, the dry air cracks your boots so that you carry about with you a private desert on each foot, and the sand gets between you and your clothes till you feel your shirt is made of sandpaper! And talking of your clothes, you may be thankful you and they are well scoured with sand, for there’s no such thing as a clean shirt. You turn the one you have on your back inside-out when it gets too shockingly dirty, and when t’other side has got considerably worse you turn it back again, and so on till you’re like a set of colliers.”