Jemadar of his regiment,
and a vacancy had occurred to bring him in as Subadar, he was sent
for by his commanding officer, and told that, by orders from
headquarters, he was to be passed over, on account of his advanced
age, and supposed infirmity. 'I felt,' said the old man, 'as if I had
been struck by lightning, and _fell down dead_. The colonel was a
good man, and had seen much service. He had me taken into the open
air; and when I recovered, he told me that he would write to the
Commander-in-Chief, and represent my case. He did so, and I was
promoted; and I have since done my duty as Subadar for ten
years.'[12]

The Sardar Bahadur told me that only two men in our regiment had been
that year superseded, one for insolence, and the other for neglect of
duty; and that officers and sepoys were all happy in consequence--the
young, because they felt more secure of being promoted if they did
their duty; and the old, because, they felt an interest in their
young relations. 'In those regiments,' said he, 'where supersessions
have been more numerous, old and young are dispirited and unhappy.
They all feel that the _good old rule of right_ (_hakk_), as long as
a man does his duty well, can no longer be relied upon.'

When two companies of my regiment passed through Jubbulpore a few
days after this conversation on their way from Sagar to Seoni, I rode
out a mile or two to meet them. They had not seen me for sixteen
years, but almost all the native commissioned and non-commissioned
officers were personally known to me. They were all very glad to see
me, and I rode along with them to their place of encampment, where I
had ready a feast of sweetmeats. They liked me as a young man, and
are, I believe, proud of me as an old one. Old and young spoke with
evident delight of the rigid adherence on the part of the present
commanding officer, Colonel Presgrave, to the good old rule of 'hakk'
(right) in the recent promotions to the vacancies occasioned by the
annual transfer to the invalid establishment. We might, no doubt,
have in every regiment a few smarter native officers by disregarding
this rule than by adhering to it; but we should, in the diminution of
the good feeling towards the European officers and the Government,
lose a thousand times more than we gained. They now go on from youth
to old age, from the drill to the retired pension, happy and
satisfied that there is no service on earth so good for them.[13]
With admirable _mo