Ahmed's return to the corps set his comrades' tongues wagging.

"Why, where hast thou been, Ahmed-ji?" cried Sherdil, when they met. "Verily the sight of thee is as ointment to sore eyes."

There was now no reason why the men should not know the errand on which he had been, saving such particulars as were confidential with Hodson Sahib. So Ahmed related to Sherdil and a group of Guides his adventures since he had first left them. Two facts he omitted: his disguise, and his share in the fight with the rebels as they returned from Alipur. The men listened with amazement, and Sherdil frankly declared his envy.

"Though Allah has been good to me too," he added; "am I not now a dafadar? He who has patience wins. Thou canst not now be a dafadar before me."

Ahmed congratulated him warmly on his promotion. Then he asked what the Guides had been doing during his absence, and heard of almost daily encounters with the enemy. He learnt also that Hodson Sahib was no longer in command of the corps. He had raised a new body of horsemen, of whom the Guides were somewhat jealous.

"There goes one of them," cried Sherdil, pointing to a tall figure in khaki, with a scarlet sash over the shoulder and a huge scarlet turban. "We call them flamingoes, for they are very like. Thou shouldst see them on horseback, some of them who have ridden little; it is a sight to make you crack your sides."

"And who is now our commander, then?"

"Shebbeare Sahib, a good man: has he not been twice wounded? But it seems as though our commanders change with the moon, so short a time do they abide with us."

And then he told of what men had been killed, and what wounded. He himself had been incapacitated for a week through a sabre cut. Ahmed asked if any new men had joined the corps.

"None, though there was a man of good promise who came with us into that fight I told you of towards Alipur; a silent man, with a noble beard. Some of us thought he was a candidate; some, a sahib—thou knowest how the sahibs love strange adventures; but I have never looked upon him since."

"Of what sort was he, Sherdil?"

"A straight man, with a grave face, and a good seat on horseback."

"Was he anything like me?"

"Hai! Thou art a stripling: he was a man, I say. Maybe if thou live long enough thou wilt have a beard like his. Truly thou wouldst have rejoiced to see him that day. Did he not smite, Rasul? Did he not cleave his way through the Purbiyas with clean thrust and stroke? I would fain look on him again."

"Thou hast seen him this day, Sherdil."

"Sayest thou? Where? I knew it not."

"Thou seest him now."

Sherdil stared.

"Dost thou not remember how thou didst thyself give me a moustache that day we went as traders to Mandan? Even so I got for myself the beard, in Karnal."

The men laughed, and chaffed Sherdil uproariously on his failure to recognize his prize pupil.

"Wah!" cried the new dafadar; "but those who said the man was a sahib——"

He stopped, checked by a look from Ahmed. Then they talked of the prospects of the siege, and the merits of the new general, Archdale Wilson, who had succeeded General Reed. In common with the rest of the little force on the Ridge, they were restive under the long delay in assaulting the rebel city.

"But we shall see something soon," said Sherdil. "Nikalsain is here."

"Who is Nikalsain?"

"Dost thou not know Nikalsain? Wah! He is a man! There is not one in the hills that does not shiver in his pyjamas when he hears the name of Nikalsain. Thou couldst hear the ring of his grey mare's hoofs from Attock even to the Khaibar, and the folk of Rawal Pindi wake in the night and tremble, saying they hear the tramp of Nikalsain's war-horse. There are many sahibs, but only one Nikalsain."

"Hast thou not heard of what he did to Alladad Khan?" asked one of the men.

"Tell it, good Rasul," said Ahmed.

"Why, Alladad Khan, being guardian to his nephew—a boy—seized upon his inheritance and drove him from the village. By and by, when the boy's beard was grown, he went to Nikalsain and besought him that he would do him right. But Alladad was a great man, and mightily feared, so that when Nikalsain sent to his village to seek witnesses of the truth of the matter, no man durst for his life speak for the boy. One morn, ere the sun was up, a man of the village went forth to his fields, and lo! there was Nikalsain's grey mare grazing just beyond the gate. The man shook with amaze and fear, and when his trembling had ceased, ran back again to tell Alladad Khan. And soon all the men of the village flocked to the gate to see the sight, and they marvelled greatly. Alladad also was in dread, for his conscience pricked him, and he bade some to drive the mare to the grass of some other village, lest evil should come upon them. And as they went forth to do his bidding, in a little space they came to a tree, and lo! tied to it, was Nikalsain himself. Some fled away in great fear; others, thinking to win favour with the hazur, went forward to loose him. But Nikalsain cried to them in a loud voice—verily his voice is like thunder—and bade them stand and say on whose land they were. In their fear none could speak, but they lifted their fingers and pointed to Alladad Khan, and he came out from among them with trembling knees and said in haste: 'Nay, hazur, the land is not mine, but my nephew's.' Then Nikalsain bade him swear by the Prophet that what he said was true, and when Alladad had sworn, the hazur permitted the cords to be loosed. And next day in his court he decreed that the nephew should receive his inheritance, since his uncle had sworn it was his; and Alladad, shamefaced at the manner of his discomfiture, and at the laughter of the people, went straightway on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and the place knew him no more."

"Nikalsain is just, and very terrible," said Sherdil.

"Is he not like one of the heroes of old? A tall man, with a face as grave as a mullah's, and a black beard thicker than mine, and he holds his head high in the air as if he scorned to see the ground. Jan Larrens sent him to us; his troops are yet on the way; and when they come there will be hot work in the gates of Delhi."

A few days later Nicholson rode out to meet the movable column of which he was in command, and which had been raised by the energy of John Lawrence in the Panjab. It was an inspiriting sight when, on the fourteenth of August, the column, 3,000 strong, British and natives, marched into camp behind their stately leader, amid the blare of bands and the cheers of the weary holders of the Ridge. Their arrival infused the hearts of the besiegers with new courage and cheerfulness; every man, from the general down to the meanest bhisti, hailed Nicholson's coming as the beginning of the end.

About three weeks before, the siege-train for which General Wilson had been for weeks anxiously waiting, left Firozpur. It stretched for five miles along the Great Trunk Road, and was furnished with an inconsiderable escort. On the twenty-fourth of August, General Wilson learnt that a large force of rebels, with sixteen guns, had left Delhi for Najafgarh, with the object of intercepting the siege-train and cutting off supplies from the Ridge. Nicholson, ever eager for active work, was given the task of dealing with the mutineers.

Early on the morning of August 25, in pouring rain, Nicholson left camp at the head of two thousand five hundred men, consisting of horse and foot, British and native, and three troops of horse artillery under Major Tombs. To their great delight, Sherdil and Ahmed were among the squadron of Guides that formed part of the force. The march reminded them of the former expedition to Alipur. For nine miles they struggled through swamp and quagmire, the mud so deep that the guns often sank up to the axles and stuck fast, the rain falling in torrents all the time. Some of the artillery officers despaired of getting their guns through, but when they saw Nicholson's great form riding steadily on as if nothing was the matter, they took courage, feeling sure that all was right. A short halt was made at the village of Nanghir, and while the troops were resting, two officers rode forward to reconnoitre a nullah that crossed the road about five miles away. They found that a crossing was practicable, and from its bank they descried the enemy's outposts.

It was five o'clock before the column had forded the nullah, under fire of the rebels. Darkness would soon fall, and if the enemy was to be routed no time could be lost. Nicholson himself rode forward to reconnoitre their position. It extended for two miles, from the town of Najafgarh on the left to the bridge over the Najafgarh canal on the right. The strongest point was an old serai at their left centre, where they had four guns; nine other guns lay between this and the bridge. This serai he resolved to attack with his infantry, the guns covering the flanks, and the 9th Lancers and Guides to support the line.

As soon as the line was formed, Nicholson ordered the infantry to lie down while the guns made an attempt to silence those of the enemy. He rode along the line, addressing each regiment in turn, aptly suiting his words to what he knew of their previous achievements in war. One order he gave to them all: to reserve their fire until they came within forty yards of the serai, then to pour in one volley and charge home.

The bugles sounded the advance. The eager men—British riflemen, Bengal fusiliers, Panjab infantry—sprang to their feet with a cheer, and followed Nicholson amid a storm of shot over the oozy swamp that divided them from the enemy. They reached the serai, dashed into it, swept the defenders away, and seized the guns, the sepoys resisting with the desperate bravery they almost always displayed behind defences. The serai cleared, the cheering infantry formed up on the left, and with irresistible dash fell on the rebels as they fled toward the canal bridge in mad haste to save their guns.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Lumsden, brother of Lumsden of the Guides, had driven the enemy out of Najafgarh itself. But just as the sun was setting on the brief battle, Nicholson learnt that a band of mutineers had halted in a cluster of houses between the serai and the canal. Determined not to leave his victory incomplete, he ordered Lumsden to drive them out at the point of the bayonet. The Panjabis followed their gallant leader into the hamlet; but the rebels were well defended, and fought with the stubborn valour of despair. Lumsden fell, shot through the heart; many of his men were killed with him; and it was not until the 61st Foot came up that the last position was won.

This was the only shadow on the brilliance of the victory. Nicholson had routed a force of trained sepoys, double the number of his own men, after a long day's march in the worst of conditions. He had captured twelve of their sixteen guns, and all their stores and baggage. Their slaughter had been great; the demoralized survivors were in full flight for Delhi. On the British side, the casualties were less than a hundred killed and wounded.

The troops bivouacked on the field. Sherdil, lying that night beside Ahmed on a horse-rug, said—

"What will happen to thee, Ahmed-ji, when the city is taken?"

"What indeed, save that I go back with thee and the Guides to Hoti-Mardan!"

"But that cannot be the end of things for thee. Thou art of the sahibs: the secret cannot be kept for ever. The Guides notice something in thee that is different from the rest, and they ask me about it, and I tell them thou art the son of a chief; but they are not satisfied. Dost thou not yearn to be among thy true people?"

"What wouldst thou, Sherdil? I have had such thoughts, but now that I have seen the sahibs, who am I that I should claim kinship with them? I cannot speak their speech; I know nothing of their learning. It were better, maybe, to remain a Guide and in due time become a dafadar like thee; and then some day go back to Shagpur, and do unto that fat Dilasah as he deserves. I came thence to win freedom for my father; and he is now free, and needs not my help. Him I know, and his people; among the sahibs I am but as an ignorant little child."

"Thou sayest true; yet a stone does not rot in water, and though thou remain among Pathans a thousand years thou wilt never be other than a sahib. Well, what must be, will be. Small rain fills a pond: peradventure when thou hast been a little longer with the sahibs the cup of thy desire will run over."