Barclay of the Guides

"And what of us, then?" asked Ahmed.

"Hai!" said the old man. "As for you, I speak not, Ahmed-ji; but for me, I am too old, as I said. I have my knife."

Ahmed looked into the gate-keeper's face. He read there neither fear nor despair, nothing but a calm resolution. Then he uttered a scornful laugh.

"No one can strive against Fate, truly," he said; "but who knows that Fate has given us into Minghal's hand? By the beard of the Prophet, Ahsan----"

But the old man put his hand on the boy's mouth.

"Hush, Ahmed-ji," he said, with a sort of stern tenderness; "'tis not meet, little one, that oath in your mouth. You have well-nigh forgotten, but I do not forget. We are as we were born, and you were born a Feringhi."

CHAPTER THE

SECOND

The Making of a Pathan

Eight years before this raid of Minghal's on