Page:In Black and White - Kipling (1890).djvu/100

 Khem Singh. He fled to those who knew him in the old days, but many of them were dead, and more were changed, and all knew something of the Wrath of the Government, He went to the young men, but the glamour of his name had passed away, and they were entering native regiments or Government offices, and Khem Singh could give them neither pension, decorations, nor influence—nothing but a glorious death with their backs to the mouth of a gun. He wrote letters and made promises, and the letters fell into bad hands, and a wholly insignificant subordinate officer of Police tracked them down and gained promotion thereby. Moreover, Khem Singh was old, and aniseed brandy was scarce, and he had left his silver cooking-pots in Fort Amara with his nice warm bedding, and the gentleman with the gold pince-nez was told by Those who had employed him that Khem Singh as a popular leader was not worth the moueymoney [sic] paid.

"Great is the mercy of these fools of English," said Khem Singh when the situation was explained. "I will go back to Fort Amara of my own free will and gain honour. Give me good clothes to return in."

So, upon a day, Khem Singh knocked at the wicket-gate of the Fort and walked to the Captain and the Subaltern who were nearly grey-headed on account of correspondence that daily arrived from Simla marked "Private".

"I have come back, Captain Sahib," said Khem Singh. "Put no more guards over me. It is no good out, yonder."

A week later I saw him, for the first time to my knowledge, and he made as though there were an understanding between us.

"It was well done, Sahib," said he, "and greatly I admired your astuteness in thus boldly facing the troops when I, whom they would have doubtless torn to pieces, was with you. Now there is a man in Fort Ooltagarh whom a bold man could with ease help to escape. This is the position of the Fort as I draw it on the sand"

But I was thinking how I had become Lalun's Vizier after all.