he
other. But it was clear that he was not a practised combatant. Had he
taken aim without flurry he could have shot Ahmed with ease, for the
lad's carbine was empty, all his powder and shot having been used up
during the recent fight. The horseman took a hurried snap-shot at him,
and missed. At the moment when the man fired Ahmed was approaching him
from the near side. By a slight touch on the flank of his horse--a touch
so slight that an ordinary horse in full gallop would have been quite
unaffected by it--he changed the direction of the arab and came up on
the off-side of his adversary. The man seemed bewildered by the sudden
change in the point of attack. Before he could swing round to parry the
stroke, Ahmed's sword caught him at the shoulder; he toppled sideways
from his saddle to the ground; and his horse bolted.

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH

The Missy Sahib

During this little encounter the bearers had done what might have been
expected of men of their class. They had set the palki down, and stared
in open-mouthed confusion, irresolutely watching the course of events.
When Ahmed had disposed of his opponent, who lay groaning on the ground,
they laid hands on the poles as if to make an attempt to escape with
their burden. But Ahmed called to them to stand fast. He used words of
Urdu, the common language of Hindustan, though to him it was a foreign
tongue. The Guides, being drawn from many different races of the
north-west, had developed a patois of their own--a strange compound of
hill dialects with Urdu and even English. Ahmed in his early childhood
had learnt to prattle in Urdu with his ayah and the other servants, and
in Hoti-Mardan he had quickly picked up more than he had known before,
so that his cry was quite intelligible to the bearers. But even if they
had not understood his words, they could have been under no
misapprehension of the meaning of his tone. They let the palki fall
again, and stood trembling.

"What have you got in the palki?" asked Ahmed sharply.

The men remained silent, looking one at another: it was as though none
cared to accept the responsibility of being spokesman. Ahmed had
contemptuously sheathed his sword after the fall of his adversary, the
cringing bearers being of no account to a Pathan. But now he made a
movement as if to draw it again. It was enough. The four men made haste
to speak at once, and in faltering tones confessed that there was a
person in the palki.

"The