The Lost Legion.
By Rudyard Kipling.
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HEN the Indian Mutiny broke
out, and a little time before
the siege of Delhi, a regiment
of Native Irregular Horse
was stationed at Peshawur on
the frontier of India. That
regiment caught what John Lawrence called
at the time "the prevalent mania" and
would have thrown in its lot with the
mutineers, had it been allowed to do so.
The chance never came, for, as the regiment
swept off down south, it was headed off by
a remnant of an English corps into the hills
of Afghanistan, and
there the tribesmen,
newly conquered by
the English, turned
against it as wolves
turn against buck. It
was hunted for the
sake of its arms and
accoutrements from
hill to hill, from ravine to ravine, up
and down the dried
beds of rivers and
round the shoulders
of bluffs, till it disappeared as water sinks
in the sand—this
officerless, rebel regiment. The only
trace left of its existence to-day is a
nominal roll drawn
up in neat round-hand and countersigned by an officer
who called himself "Adjutant, late ——— Irregular Cavalry." The paper is yellow
with years and dirt, but on the back of it
you can still read a pencil note by John
Lawrence, to this effect: "See that the
two native officers who remained loyal are
not deprived of their estates.—J. L." Of
six hundred and fifty sabres only two stood
the strain, and John Lawrence in the midst
of all the agony of the first months of the
Mutiny found time to think about their
merits.
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That was more than thirty years ago, and the tribesmen across the Afghan border who helped to annihilate the regiment are now old men. Sometimes a greybeard speaks of his share in the massacre. "They came," he will say, "across the Border, very proud, calling upon us to rise and kill the English, and go down to the sack of Delhi. But we who had just been conquered by the same English knew that they were over-bold, and that the Government could account easily for those down-country dogs. This Hindustani regiment, therefore, we treated with fair words, and kept standing in one place till the redcoats came after them very hot and angry. Then this regiment ran forward a little more into our hills to avoid the wrath of the English, and we lay upon their flanks watching from the sides of the hills till we were well assured that their path was lost behind them. Then we came down, for we desired their clothes and their bridles, and their rifles, and their boots—more especially their boots. That was a great killing—done slowly." Here the old man will rub his nose, and shake his snaky locks, and lick his bearded lips, grinning till the yellow tooth-stumps show. "Yea, we killed them because we needed their gear, and we knew that their lives had been forfeited to God on account of their sin—the sin of treachery to the salt which they had eaten. They rode up and down the valleys, stumbling and rocking in their saddles, and howling for mercy. We drove them slowly like cattle till they were all assembled in one place, the flat, wide valley of Sheor Kôt. Many had died
