"Colonel Sahib and officers of this regiment, much honor have you done me. This will I remember. We came down from afar to play you; but we were beaten." ("No fault of yours, Ressaidar Sahib. Played on our own ground, y' know. Your ponies were cramped from the railway. Don't apologize.") "Therefore perhaps we will come again if it be so ordained." ("Hear! Hear, hear, indeed! Bravo! Hsh!") "Then we will play you afresh" ("Happy to meet you"), "till there are left no feet upon our ponies. Thus far for sport." He dropped one hand on his sword hilt and his eye wandered to Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair. "But if by the will of God there arises any other game which is not the polo game, then be assured, Colonel Sahib and officers, that we shall play it out side by side, though they"—again his eye sought Dirkovitch—"though they, I say, have fifty ponies to our one horse." And with a deep-mouthed Rung ho! that rang like a musket butt on flagstones, he sat down amid shoutings.
Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself steadily to the brandy—the terrible brandy aforementioned—did not understand, nor did the expurgated[14] translations offered to him at all convey the point. Decidedly the native officer's was the speech of the evening, and the clamor might have continued to the dawn had it not been broken by the noise of a shot without that sent every man feeling at his defenseless left side. It is notable that Dirkovitch "reached back," after the American fashion—a gesture that set the captain of the Lushkar team wondering how Cossack officers were armed at mess. Then there was a scuffle, and a yell of pain.
"Carbine stealing again!" said the adjutant, calmly sinking back in his chair. "This comes of reducing the guards. I hope the sentries have killed him."
The feet of armed men pounded on the veranda flags, and it sounded as though something was being dragged.
"Why don't they put him in the cells till the morning?" said the colonel, testily. "See if they've damaged him, sergeant."
The mess-sergeant fled out into the darkness, and returned with two troopers and a corporal, all very much perplexed.
"Caught a man stealin' carbines, sir," said the corporal.
"Leastways 'e was crawling toward the barricks, sir, past the main-road sentries; an' the sentry 'e says, sir—"
The limp heap of rags upheld by the three men groaned. Never was seen so destitute and demoralized an Afghan. He was turbanless, shoeless, caked with dirt, and all but dead with rough handling. Hira Singh started slightly at the sound of the man's pain. Dirkovitch took another liqueur glass of brandy.
"What does the sentry say?" said the colonel.