‘But a dead Rissala,’ said Halley, jerking
his captive’s wrist. ’That is foolish
talk, Kurruk Shah. The dead are dead. Hold
still, sag.’ The Afghan wriggled.
’The dead are dead, and for that reason they
walk at night. What need to talk? We be
men; we have our eyes and ears. Thou canst both
see and hear them, down the hillside,’ said
Kurruk Shah composedly.
Halley stared and listened long and intently.
The valley was full of stifled noises, as every valley
must be at night; but whether he saw or heard more
than was natural Halley alone knows, and he does not
choose to speak on the subject.
At last, and just before the dawn, a green rocket
shot up from the far side of the valley of Bersund,
at the head of the gorge, to show that the Goorkhas
were in position. A red light from the infantry
at left and right answered it, and the cavalry burnt
a white flare. Afghans in winter are late sleepers,
and it was not till full day that the Gulla Kutta
Mullah’s men began to straggle from their huts,
rubbing their eyes. They saw men in green, and
red, and brown uniforms, leaning on their arms, neatly
arranged all round the crater of the village of Bersund,
in a cordon that not even a wolf could have broken.
They rubbed their eyes the more when a pink-faced young
man, who was not even in the Army, but represented
the Political Department, tripped down the hillside
with two orderlies, rapped at the door of the Gulla
Kutta Mullah’s house, and told him quietly to
step out and be tied up for safe transport. That
same young man passed on through the huts, tapping
here one cateran and there another lightly with his
cane; and as each was pointed out, so he was tied
up, staring hopelessly at the crowned heights around
where the English soldiers looked down with incurious
eyes. Only the Mullah tried to carry it off with
curses and high words, till a soldier who was tying
his hands said:—
‘None o’ your lip! Why didn’t
you come out when you was ordered, instead o’
keepin’ us awake all night? You’re
no better than my own barrack-sweeper, you white-’eaded
old polyanthus! Kim up!’
Half an hour later the troops had gone away with the
Mullah and his thirteen friends. The dazed villagers
were looking ruefully at a pile of broken muskets
and snapped swords, and wondering how in the world
they had come so to miscalculate the forbearance of
the Indian Government.
It was a very neat little affair, neatly carried out,
and the men concerned were unofficially thanked for
their services.
Yet it seems to me that much credit is also due to
another regiment whose name did not appear in the
brigade orders, and whose very existence is in danger
of being forgotten.
There came to the beach a poor exile
of Erin,
The dew on his wet robe hung heavy and chill;
Ere the steamer that brought him had passed
out of hearin’,
He was Alderman Mike inthrojuicing’
a bill!
American
Song.
