tlessness
among some of the Musalman members of the corps. He felt quite sure that
the men were after no good, and removing his eye from the aperture, he
turned his ear towards it The meeting was evidently a secret one, and it
seemed to him important to know what was going on. The strange
resemblance of the voice of one of the men to that of his enemy Minghal
still disturbed him, and, as was perhaps natural in the circumstances,
he still had a suspicion that he was himself the subject of their
discussion; but as he listened, he soon found that they were talking
about matters far more weighty than the latest recruit of the Guides.

"The Feringhis are attacking our religion," were the first words he
heard. "Is it not a time when all good Musalmans should lay aside their
little personal quarrels and join hands against the common foe?"

It was evidently the fakir who was speaking, and Ahmed was again struck
by the likeness of his voice to Minghal's.

"The time is at hand when all the Feringhis shall be smitten," the voice
continued. "Why have the infidels enlisted so many followers of Islam in
their army? Why are they making this new cartridge? To turn the sons of
the Prophet from the true faith."

"Bah!" said one of the group. "The Feringhis' religion has nought to do
with the eating of pigs. They are men of the Book. They eat pigs, it is
true; but that concerns not their religion."

"Foolish one, dost thou not see? This cartridge is smeared with the fat
of pigs, and when a true believer bites off the top, as the need is,
does he not lose his caste and become a pariah? Will his father speak to
him? Will his brother eat with him? Nay, he loses father, brother, all
his kin; and then the Feringhi comes and says, 'Dog, thou art outcast.
Embrace my religion, or thou art friendless in this world as well as
damned in the next.'"

"That may be so, O holy one," said the second man; "but what does it
concern us? We have not the new cartridge of which you speak. Our sahibs
are honourable; they would do nothing in despite of our religion;
Lumsden Sahib told me when I became a Guide that he would not permit any
man to interfere with that."

"Hai! Remember the saying, 'What is the goat, what is its flavour?' The
goat can never become a camel, nor can its milk ever taste like the
buffalo's. Your sahibs are kafirs; they hold not the faith; they but
bide the time, and then assuredly you will be defiled."

"But didst thou not say t