"'Oh, that was the night after they killed Everett, and I went out lookin' for a line of retreat for my men. A man found me. I abolished him--_privatim_--scragged him. But on thinkin' it over it occurred to me that if I could find the body (I'd hove it down some rocks) I might decorate it with the Malo't mark and leave it to the Khye-Kheens to draw inferences. So I went out again the next night and did. The Khye-Kheens are shocked at the Malo'ts perpetratin' these two dastardly outrages after they'd sworn to sink all bleed feuds. I lay up behind their sungars early this morning and watched 'em. They all went to confer about it at the head of the gorge.
Awf'ly annoyed they are. Don't wonder.' You know the way Stalky drops out his words, one by one.""My God!" said the Infant, explosively, as the full depth of the strategy dawned on him.
"Dear-r man!" said McTurk, purring rapturously.
"Stalky stalked," said Tertius. "That's all there is to it.""No, he didn't," said Dick Four. "Don't you remember how he insisted that he had only applied his luck? Don't you remember how Rutton Singh grabbed his boots and grovelled in the snow, and how our men shouted?""None of our Pathans believed that was luck," said Tertius. "They swore Stalky ought to have been born a Pathan, and--'member we nearly had a row in the fort when Rutton Singh said Stalky was a Pathan? Gad, how furious the old chap was with my Jemadar!
But Stalky just waggled his finger and they shut up.
"Old Rutton Singh's sword was half out, though, and he swore he'd cremate every Khye-Kheen and Malo't he killed. That made the Jemadar pretty wild, because he didn't mind fighting against his own creed, but he wasn't going to crab a fellow Mussulman's chances of Paradise. Then Stalky jabbered Pushtu and Punjabi in alternate streaks. Where the deuce did he pick up his Pushtu from, Beetle?""Never mind his language, Dick," said I. "Give us the gist of it.""I flatter myself I can address the wily Pathan on occasion, but, hang it all, Ican't make puns in Pushtu, or top off my arguments with a smutty story, as he did.
He played on those two old dogs o' war like a--like a concertina. Stalky said--and the other two backed up his knowledge of Oriental nature--that the Khye-Kheens and the Malo'ts between 'em would organize a combined attack on us that night, as a proof of good faith. They wouldn't drive it home, though, because neither side would trust the other on account, as Rutton Singh put it, of the little accidents.
Stalky's notion was to crawl out at dusk with his Sikhs, manoeuvre 'em along this ungodly goat-track that he'd found, to the back of the Khye-Kheen position, and then lob in a few long shots at the Malo'ts when the attack was well on. 'That'll divert their minds and help to agitate 'em,' he said. 'Then you chaps can come out and sweep up the pieces, and we'll rendezvous at the head of the gorge. After that, Imove we get back to Mac's camp and have something to eat.""_You_ were commandin'?" the Infant suggested.
"I was about three months senior to Stalky, and two months Tertius's senior," Dick Four replied. "_But_ we were all from the same old Coll. I should say ours was the only little affair on record where some one wasn't jealous of some one else.""_We_ weren't," Tertius broke in, "but there was another row between Gul Sher Khan and Rutton Singh. Our Jemadar said--he was quite right--that no Sikh living could stalk worth a damn; and that Koran Sahib had better take out the Pathans, who understood that kind of mountain work. Rutton Singh said that Koran Sahib jolly well knew every Pathan was a born deserter, and every Sikh was a gentleman, even if he couldn't crawl on his belly. Stalky struck in with some woman's proverb or other, that had the effect of doublin' both men up with a grin. He said the Sikhs and the Pathans could settle their claims on the Khye-Kheens and Malo'ts later on, but he was going to take his Sikhs along for this mountain-climbing job, because Sikhs could shoot. They can, too. Give 'em a mule-load of ammunition apiece, and they're perfectly happy.""And out he gat," said Dick Four. "As soon as it was dark, and he'd had a bit of a snooze, him and thirty Sikhs went down through the staircase in the tower, every mother's son of 'em salutin' little Everett where It stood propped up against the wall. The last I heard him say was, 'Kubbadar! tumbleinga! [Look out; you'll fall!]
and they tumbleingaed over the black edge of nothing. Close upon 9 p.m. the combined attack developed; Khye-Kheens across the valley, and Malo'ts in front of us, pluggin' at long range and yellin' to each other to come along and cut our infidel throats. Then they skirmished up to the gate, and began the old game of calling our Pathans renegades, and invitin' 'em to join the holy war. One of our men, a young fellow from Dera Ismail, jumped on the wall to slang 'em back, and jumped down, blubbing like a child. He'd been hit smack in the middle of the hand. 'Never saw a man yet who could stand a hit in the hand without weepin' bitterly. It tickles up all the nerves. So Tertius took his rifle and smote the others on the head to keep them quiet at the loopholes. The dear children wanted to open the gate and go in at 'em generally, but that didn't suit our book.
