there with their friends, spending their money in feeding themselves and
their horses; can you do the same?"

"For a month; no more."

Sherdil drew a long face.

"A month! it is very little. Yet it may be well. Wah! it shall be well.
Maybe there will be room for one or two in a month. And a month will
give us time. I will teach you."

"Teach me what?"

And then Sherdil explained Lumsden's way of filling the vacancies as
they occurred. He held a competition among the candidates, and took them
to the rifle range to shoot it off among themselves: the best shots got
the places.

"And if there are some who shoot equally well, what then?" asked Ahmed.

"Oh, then he does as Hodson Sahib did. He makes them ride unbacked
horses, and the man that rides furthest before being thrown off, that is
the man for the Guides."

"I can shoot, and I can ride, Sherdil," said Ahmed, with a smile. "I do
not fear the tests."

"That may well be: but you are young, we have no boys in the Guides. Yet
it may be possible. If we could give you a moustache and the beginnings
of a beard!"

"That may not be until Allah wills."

"Nay, there is a very cunning magician in the bazar at Peshawar, who
with some few touches of a stick can make the semblance of hair on the
face. So we might add a few years to you till the tests are over: after
that it will be as Heaven wills."

Ahmed thought over this suggestion for a minute, and then said--

"Nay, it cannot be so, Sherdil. Dost thou want me to be shamed? What if
the shooting and riding be good and then it is proved that the hair is
false? It would make my face fall before my countrymen."

"Thy countrymen! Hai! If thou thinkest so, better go straightway to
Lumsden Sahib and say, 'I am a Feringhi, of the sahib-log like yourself.
Give me clothes such as the sahibs wear, and a portion of pig to eat.'"

"Silence, son of a dog!" cried Ahmed. "I will tell all at a fitting
time. And thou, Sherdil, wilt lock thy tongue and say nothing of these
matters, or verily it will be a sad day for thee. Swear by the grave of
thy grandmother."

Sherdil looked astonished at the sudden vigour of Ahmed's speech. He
took the oath required. Then ensued a long conversation, at the end of
which Ahmed rode back to Peshawar and Sherdil sought an interview with
his commander.

"Well, what can I do for you?" shouted Lumsden in his breezy way as
Sherdil stood before him, saluting humbly.

"If it please the heaven-bor