d Antony's representative forbade this, and when he rode
into Habshiabad at last it was in the midst of his picked troop of
Granthis, who were obviously scornful of the military display with
which the Nawab was prepared to welcome them. In his anxiety to
improve his army, poor old Sadiq Ali had handed it over of late to a
drunken European adventurer, who asserted that he had been in Ajit
Singh's service, but whom Gerrard suspected, from certain peculiarities
of equipment that he had introduced, of being a deserter from some
Scottish regiment. This suspicion was deepened when it appeared that
General Desdichado, as he called himself, had recently been seized with
illness of such a severe character that it confined him entirely to his
house, and even to his zenana--whither, of course, no intrusive visitor
could follow him. After vain attempts to obtain an interview, Gerrard
thought it well to leave his predecessor in peace with his
arrack-bottle, and take the army in hand from the beginning. He had
not expected, when he heard they had a European instructor, to find
them ignorant even of the rudiments of drill as he understood it, and
he was confronted with the difficulty that he could not possibly drill
them all himself, and nothing would induce them to take orders from any
of his Granthis. He thought of asking for a few Mohammedan
non-commissioned officers from the force at Ranjitgarh, but before he
could do so, Sadiq Ali, who followed him about in a state of admiring
wonder and affection, learned his difficulty and promised to meet it.

Gerrard had no very high hopes in this direction when he appeared at
the grand review arranged in honour of Queen Victoria's birthday, and
attended by all the Nawab's subsidiary chiefs and their followers as
well as by his own army, but his eye was quickly caught by a large body
of mounted men whose ordered movements contrasted strongly with the
free and easy methods of the Habshiabadis. There was something
familiar in the aspect of the leader, and when he rode past the
saluting-point Gerrard recognised him at once. It was Rukn-ud-din, and
of the two companies which he led one was composed of Rajputs, and the
other of the faithful remnant of the Agpur bodyguard. Sadiq Ali smiled
to behold his ally's surprise, but declined mysteriously to say what
Rukn-ud-din and his men were doing on his parade-ground. Jirad Sahib
would doubtless wish to make inquiries for himself, he said, and