Told in the East | Page 7

this way. All right, Sergeant."
"One of you go two hundred yards along the road, and form an
advance-post, so to speak. Challenge him the minute he's within
ear-shot, and shoot him if he won't halt. If he halts, pass him along to
Number Two. Number Two, pass him along to the guardroom, where
I'll deal with him! Which of you's Number One? Number One,
then--forward-- quick--march!"
The sentry trudged off in one direction, and Bill Brown in another. The
sentry concealed itself behind a rock that flanked the road, and Brown
spent the next few minutes in making the guard "port arms," and
carefully inspecting their weapons with the aid of a lantern. He had
already inspected there once since supper, but he knew the effect that
another inspection would be likely to produce. Nothing goes further
toward making men careful and ready at the word than incessant and
unexpected but quite quietly performed inspection of minutest details.
He produced the effect of setting the men on the qui vive without
alarming them.
Suddenly, the farthest advanced sentry's challenge rang out.
"Frie-e-e-e-nd!" came the answer, in nasal, high-pitched wail, but the
galloping continued.
"Halt, I tell you!" A breech-bolt clicked, and then another one. They
were little sounds, but they were different, and the guard could hear
them plainly. The galloping horse came on.
"Cra-a-a-a-ack!" went the sentry's rifle, and the flash of it spurted for an
instant across the road, like a sheet of lightning. And, just as lightning
might, it showed an instantaneous vision of a tired gray horse,

foam-flecked and furiously ridden, pounding down the road head-on.
The vision was blotted by the night again before any one could see who
rode the horse, or what his weapons were--if any--or form a theory as
to why he rode.
But the winging bullet did what the sentry's voice had failed to do.
There came a clatter of spasmodic hoof-beats, an erratic shower of
sparks, a curse in clean-lipped decent Urdu; a grunt, a struggle, more
sparks again, and then a thud, followed by a devoutly worded prayer
that Allah, the all-wise provider of just penalties, might blast the
universe.
"Stop talkin'!" said the sentry, and a black-bearded Rajput rolled free,
and looked up to find a bayonet-point within three inches of his eye.
"Poggul!" snarled the Mohammedan.
"Poggul's no password!" said the sentry. "Neither to my good-nature
nor to nothing else. Put up your 'ands, and get on your feet, and march!
Look alive, now! Call me a fool, would yer? Wait till the sergeant's
through with yer, and see!"
The Rajput chose to consider a retort beneath his dignity. He rose, and
took one quick look at the horse, which was still breathing.
"Your bayonet just there," he said, "and press. So he will die quickly."
The sentry placed his bayonet-point exactly where directed, and leaned
his weight above it. The horse gave a little shudder, and lay still.
"Poggul!" said the Rajput once again. And this time the sentry looked
and saw cold steel within three inches of his eye!
"Your rifle!" said the Rajput. "Hand it here!"
And, to save his eyesight, the sentry complied, while the Rajput's
ivory-white teeth grinned at him pleasantly.
"Now, hands to your sides! Attention! March!" the Rajput ordered, and
with his own bayonet at his back the sentry had to march, whether he
wanted to or not, by the route that the other chose, toward the
guardroom. The Rajput seemed to know by instinct where the second
sentry stood although the man's shape was quite invisible against the
night. He called out, "Friend!" again as he passed him, and the sentry
hearing the first sentry's footsteps, imagined that the real situation was
reversed.
So, out of a pall of blackness, to the accompanying sound of rifles
being brought up to the shoulder, a British sentry--feeling and looking

precisely like a fool--marched up to his own guardroom, with a man
who should have been his prisoner in charge of him.
"Halt!" commanded Brown. "Who or what have you got there,
Stanley?"
"Stanley is my prisoner at present!" said a voice that Brown vaguely
recognized.
He stepped up closer, to make sure.
"What, you? Juggut Khan!"
"Aye, Brown sahib! Juggut Khan--with tidings, and a dead gray horse
on which to bear them! If this fool could only use his bayonet as he can
shoot, I think I would be dead too. His brains, though, are all behind his
right eye. Tie him up, where no little child can come and make him
prisoner!"
"Arrest that man!" commanded Brown, and two men detached
themselves from the end of the guard, and stood him between them,
behind the line.
"Here's his rifle!" smiled Juggut Khan, and Brown received it with an
ill grace.
"How