No. MCXXX.

SUBEDAR HAIDER was taking his ease seated on a bedstead made of twisted strands of the dwarf palm in the verandah of his quarters in the Dozak Post, one of the innumerable small forts strung along the North-West Frontier of India from the Black Mountain to the confines of the Persian deserts, in which, among barren hills, on wide stony plateaus, or on pine-clad mountain - tops, in scorching heat or biting winds sweeping down from Central Asia, a body of servants of the Empire live hard lives, fight, die, and are forgotten. They are men of the Border tribes, for none other could stand the hardship and monotony or the strain of life in the shadow of battle, murder, and sudden death. They enlist from both sides of the Border in these Levies, Militias, and Military Police (which are not part of the Indian Army), for various

VOL. CLXXXVI.—NO. MCXXX.

motives not to be too closely investigated, and, on the whole, serve loyally under the handful of British officers who control them. Of such was Subedar Haider, and the short LeeEnfield rifle lying ready to his hand on the bedstead beside him was the symbol of his reasons for joining the service of the British Government. Sleeping or waking, this rifle never left him except when it was hung over his shoes on a peg on the outer wall of the Masjid, where Haider said his prayers five times in the day.

For this there was good reason. On the beautifully polished stock of the rifle were twenty-six notches of various sizes each recording the death of an enemy. The nineteenth notch was the biggest. It was notched six years back, when, in the grey of the early morning, Haider had taken careful aim at the figure of a woman emerging from a neighbouring

30

and with two stone towers at opposite angles to flank the faces and guard the gateways. In the middle of the square are the magazine, the Masjid, the telegraph office, the standings for the horses of the mounted infantry section, with the men's quarters under the parapet along the loopholed faces. A barbed-wire entanglement surrounds the whole of the outer walls.

From his seat in the verandah Haider could watch the two gateways and most of the interior of the post, but the high walls shut out all view beyond the perimeter.

the

He

Although it was near sundown the heat inside the fort was fierce, the relentless heat of the hottest corner of the globe, and Haider had touched neither food nor drink since sunrise; for it was the month of Ramzan, and he, a rigid Moslem, was strict in the observance of the fast. watched the men of the mounted infantry section go down to the standings with the nosebags, and was satisfied to hear the horses whinny and to see them kick out at the heel-ropes in pleasure of anticipation. The heat was evidently not affecting them. The nosebags were

tied on, and four or five of the men moved close behind the horses and fired the rifles they had brought with them for the purpose into the air. Only a dun country-bred gelding at the end of the line plunged and reared, and was at once made much of by his master.

But at the sound of the

shots the door of the telegraph office was thrown open and the telegraphist rushed out bareheaded.

"Ma'uzbillah," he cried to the Subedar, "what has happened? what has happened?"

"Nothing, Babuji," replied the Subedar from his bed, "only the sowars accustoming their horses to sudden firing. Razza Khan, fix the nosebag on the dun again: he is of a stout-hearted colour, and will not lose a mouthful another

time. And you, O Babu, will not forget your hat." (No self-respecting Muhammadan goes bareheaded.)

A laugh went round the sowars, and the telegraph clerk withdrew into his office.

The telegraph clerk was a down - country Muhammadan from Delhi, calling himself a Moghul, educated in a Mission School, and hating the Government he served. Now the name of Moghul still carries with it on the Frontier some pride of descent from conquerors of India and connection with the profession of arms, though at Delhi itself the descendants of the Grand Moghul bear no enviable reputation.

Recently transferred to the Dozak Post, the Clerk had already sounded Haider as to his opinion on the legal point

whether service under the English unbelievers could be reconciled with strict obedience to the precepts of the Koran, and had received from him an equivocal answer. Each suspected the other's ortho

trusted the tongue of the Babu.

Haider's hand went to his cheek, where the scar of a bullet-graze recorded a skirmish between him and Muhammad Jan in an attempt by the latter to lift some transport-camels grazing outside the Post. A kind of sporting feud existed between Haider the Militiaman and Muhammad Jan the cattle-thief, and they lay up for each other on the barren hillsides between intervals of more serious business, when Haider could beg a day's leave, or Muhammad Jan was not engaged in his trade.

As the telegraphist returned to his office, the Subedar blew three times on his whistle, and Havildar Hussein Ali answered the summons. Hussein Ali was Haider's kinsman, and Haider trusted him when he had to trust somebody.

"It is sunset, and I go to the evening prayers," said the Subedar to Hussein Ali; "see that no one enters the telegraph-office or has speech with the Babu." With Haider, reticence as to his movements was a habit. It is unsafe on the Border to tell one's dearest friend the time of going out

After the evening prayer, Haider broke the fast, and then sent an orderly to call all sepoys not on duty. It was now dark. Some twentyfive men fell in the others were on guard or were detailed for the convoy and pickets next morning. Some were sick, and three on leave.

They were not a handsome crew tall, lean, and bony; close - shaven heads, hooked noses, straight lips, remorselesslooking mouths. A certain hungry and wary look of the eyes common to them all,—in fact, as near a pack of grey wolves as human beings can be. They were not dressed in uniform-that is far too distinctive for their work on the open hillsides, but wore loose white cotton clothes, the white toned to the colour of the country by the sweat of their bodies and the dust and dirt of their surroundings. A grey Balaclava cap, rolled tightly on the head, was the only mark of distinction they carried, and it requires quick eyes to distinguish a Militiaman from his fellow Pathan tribesman not in the service at 200 yards by daylight.

Haider walked down the line with the orderly Havildar, inspecting each man.

"What is to happen, Subedar Sahib?" asked an older man with a beard.

"What is to happen is written in the fate of each one, and it will be known in good time," replied the Subedar.