other
candidates. "Wah! did I not say he could shoot? How should he not, when
I am his teacher? Of a truth, he is the man for the Guides."

When Ahmed had finished his round, he was equal with four others. Amid
the din of altercation which ensued, Lumsden Sahib's voice was heard
calling for order. The competitors had still to shoot at the longer
ranges of five hundred and seven hundred yards. The excitement grew to
fever heat as the number gradually thinned, until the choice clearly
rested between Ahmed and a Rajput named Wahid. They were to have six
shots at seven hundred yards to finish the match. Ahmed had now lost his
first nervousness, and waited quietly with Sherdil and a group of his
friends while Wahid fired his round. The spectators watched in dead
silence as the man took aim. The first shot was a bull's-eye. "Wahid
will win! Wahid will win!" roared a hundred throats. The second was an
inner, the third an outer, and now Sherdil's party were hilarious,
crying that Wahid's eye was crooked, his arm was as weak as a woman's;
what was he good for, except to play the fiddle at a Hindu wedding? But
their jubilation was checked when with his last three shots he scored
three bull's-eyes.

"Wah! where is the Pathan now?" shouted the Rajput's partisans. "Sherdil
eats greens and breathes pulao. A great sound and an empty pot. Come,
let us see what the smooth-faced boy can do."

Ahmed took his place. Four times he scored a bull's-eye, and his friends
fairly shrieked with delight.

"Wah! he will eat up Wahid till not a little bit is left. Let Wahid tend
asses, that is all that he is good for."

The fifth shot was an inner.

"Hai!" said Sherdil. "Some low-born Rajput is breathing, and his foul
breath blows the bullet away. But the next will be a bull's-eye; be
ready, brothers, for Ahmed will win."

But when the marker signalled an outer the uproar became deafening. The
scores of Wahid and Ahmed were equal. The partisans of each clamoured
for the choice to fall on their man. Wahid was the father of two boys:
therefore he was the better candidate. Ahmed was not so fat: therefore
he would prove the better Guide. Wahid had stolen horses for twenty
years: who so fit to catch horse-thieves? Ahmed had blown up fifty men
with gunpowder (Sherdil did not stick at trifles): where would they find
a Rajput who could say the same? Thus they bellowed against one another,
urging more and more ridiculous reasons on behalf of their fa