HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS




You can work it out by Fractions or by simple Rule of Three
But the way of Tweedle-dum is not the way of Tweedle-dee.
You can twist it, you can turn it, you can plait it till you drop,
But the way of Pilly-Winky's not the way of Winkie-Pop!



HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS

IT HAD been raining heavily for one whole month -- raining on a
camp of thirty thousand men, thousands of camels, elephants,
horses, bullocks, and mules, all gathered together at a place
called Rawal Pindi, to be reviewed by the Viceroy of India. He
was receiving a visit from the Amir of Afghanistan -- a wild
king of a very wild country; and the Amir had brought with him
for a bodyguard eight hundred men and horses who had never seen
a camp or a locomotive before in their lives -- savage men and
savage horses from somewhere at the back of Central Asia.

Every night a mob of these horses would be sure to break their
heel-ropes, and stampede up and down the camp through the mud in
the dark, or the camels would break loose and run about and fall
over the ropes of the tents, and you can imagine how pleasant that
was for men trying to go to sleep. My tent lay far away from the
camel lines, and I thought it was safe, but one night a man
popped his head in and shouted, "Get out, quick! They're coming!
My tent's gone!"

I knew who "they" were; so I put on my boots and waterproof
and scuttled out into the slush. Little Vixen, my fox-terrier,
went out through the other side; and then there was a roaring
and a grunting and bubbling, and I saw the tent cave in, as the
pole snapped, and begin to dance about like a mad ghost. A camel
had blundered into it, and wet and angry as I was, I could not
help laughing. Then I ran on, because I did not know how many
camels might have got loose, and before long I was out of sight
of the camp, plowing my way through the mud.

At last I fell over the tail-end of a gun, and by that knew
I was somewhere near the Artillery lines where the cannon were
stacked at night. As I did not want to plowter about any more in
the drizzle and the dark, I put my waterproof over the muzzle of
one gun, and made a sort of wigwam with two or three rammers
that I found, and lay along the tail of another gun, wondering
where Vixen had got to, and where I might be.

Just as I was getting ready to sleep, I heard a jingle of
harness and a grunt, and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears.
He belonged to a screw-gun battery, for I could hear the rattle
of the straps and rings and chains and things on his saddle-pad.
The screw-guns are tidy little cannon made in two pieces, that
are screwed together when the time comes to use them. They are
taken up mountains, anywhere that a mule can find a road, and
they are very useful for fighting in rocky country.

Behind the mule there was a camel, with his big soft feet
squelching and slipping in the mud, and his neck bobbing to and
fro like a strayed hen's. Luckily, I knew enough of beast
language -- not wild-beast language, but camp-beast language, of
course -- from the natives to know what he was saying.

He must have been the one that flopped into my tent, for he
called to the mule, "What shall I do? Where shall I go? I have
fought with a white thing that waved, and it took a stick and
hit me on the neck."
(That was my broken tent-pole, and I was very glad to know it.)
"Shall we run on?"

"Oh, it was you," said the mule, "you and your friends,
that have been disturbing the camp? All right. You'll be beaten
for this in the morning; but I may as well give you something on
account now."

I heard the harness jingle as the mule backed and caught
the camel two kicks in the ribs that rang like a drum. "Another
time," he said, "you'll know better than to run through a
mule-battery at night, shouting 'Thieves and fire!' Sit down,
and keep your silly neck quiet."

The camel doubled up camel-fashion, like a two-foot rule,
and sat down whimpering. There was a regular beat of hoofs in
the darkness, and a big troop-horse cantered up as steadily as
though he were on parade, jumped a gun-tail, and landed close to
the mule.

"It's disgraceful," he said, blowing out his nostrils.
"Those camels have racketed through our lines again -- the third
time this week. How's a horse to keep his condition if he is n't
allowed to sleep? Who's here?"

"I'm the breech-piece mule of number two gun of the First
Screw Battery," said the mule, "and the other's one of your
friends. He's waked me up too. Who are you?"

"Number Fifteen, E troop, Ninth Lancers --
Dick Cunliffe's horse. Stand over a little, there."

"Oh, beg your pardon," said the mule. "It's too dark to see
much. Are n't these camels too sickening for anything? I walked
out of my lines to get a little peace and quiet here."

"My lords," said the camel humbly, "we dreamed bad dreams
in the night, and we were very much afraid. I am only a
baggage-camel of the 39th Native Infantry, and I am not so brave
as you are, my lords."

"Then why the pickets did n't you stay and carry baggage
for the 39th Native Infantry, instead of running all round the
camp?" said the mule.

"They were such very bad dreams," said the camel. "I am
sorry. Listen! What is that? Shall we run on again?"

"Sit down," said the mule, "or you'll snap your long legs
between the guns." He cocked one ear and listened. "Bullocks!"
he said; "gun-bullocks. On my word, you and your friends have
waked the camp very thoroughly. It takes a good deal of prodding
to put up a gun-bullock."

I heard a chain dragging along the ground, and a yoke of
the great sulky white bullocks that drag the heavy siege-guns
when the elephants won't go any nearer to the firing, came
shouldering along together; and almost stepping on the chain was
another battery-mule, calling wildly for "Billy."

"That's one of our recruits," said the old mule to the
troop-horse. "He's calling for me. Here, youngster, stop
squealing; the dark never hurt anybody yet."

The gun-bullocks lay down together and began chewing the
cud, but the young mule huddled close to Billy.

"Things!" he said; "fearful and horrible things, Billy!
They came into our lines while we were asleep. D'you think
they'll kill us?"

"I've a very great mind to give you a number one kicking,"
said Billy." The idea of a fourteen-hand mule with your training
disgracing the battery before this gentleman!"

"Gently, gently!" said the troop-horse. "Remember they are
always like this to begin with. The first time I ever saw a man
(it was in Australia when I was a three-year-old) I ran for half
a day, and if I'd seen a camel I should have been running
still."

Nearly all our horses for the English cavalry are brought
to India from Australia, and are broken in by the troopers
themselves.

"True enough," said Billy. "Stop shaking, youngster. The
first time they put the full harness with all its chains on my
back, I stood on my fore legs and kicked every bit of it off. I
had n't learned the real science of kicking then, but the
battery said they had never seen anything like it."

"But this was n't harness or anything that jingled," said
the young mule. "You know I don't mind that now, Billy. It was
Things like trees, and they fell up and down the lines and
bubbled; and my head-rope broke, and I could n't find my driver
and I could n't find you, Billy, so I ran off with -- with these
gentlemen. "

"H'm!" said Billy. "As soon as I heard the camels were
loose I came away on my own account, quietly. When a battery --
a screw-gun mule calls gun-bullock gentlemen, he must be very
badly shaken up. Who are you fellows on the ground there?"

The gun-bullock rolled their cuds, and answered both
together: "The seventh yoke of the first gun of the Big Gun
Battery. We were asleep when the camels came, but when we were
trampled on we got up and walked away. It is better to lie quiet
in the mud than to be disturbed on good bedding. We told your friend
here that there was nothing to be afraid of, but he knew so much
that he thought otherwise. Wah!"

They went on chewing.

"That comes of being afraid," said Billy. "You get laughed
at by gun-bullocks. I hope you like it, young 'un."

The young mule's teeth snapped, and I heard him say
something about not being afraid of any beefy old bullock in the
world; but the bullock only clicked their horns together and
went on chewing.

"Now, don't be angry after you've been afraid. That's the
worst kind of cowardice," said the troophorse. "Anybody can be
forgiven for being scared in the night, I think, if they see
things they don't understand. We've broken out of our pickets,
again and again, four hundred and fifty of us, just because a
new recruit got to telling tales of whip-snakes at home in
Australia till we were scared to death of the loose ends of our
head-ropes."

"That's all very well in camp," said Billy; "I'm not above
stampeding myself, for the fun of the thing, when I have n't
been out for a day or two; but what do you do on active
service?"

"Oh, that's quite another set of new shoes," said the
troop-horse. "Dick Cunliffe's on my back then, and drives his
knees into me, and all I have to do is to watch where I am putting
my feet, and to keep my hind legs well under me, and be bridle-wise."

"What's bridle-wise?" said the young mule.

"By the Blue Gums of the Black Blocks," snorted the
troop-horse, "do you mean to say that you are n't taught to be
bridle-wise in your business? How can you do anything, unless
you can spin round at once when the rein is pressed on your
neck? It means life or death to your man, and of course that's
life or death to you. Get round with your hind legs under you
the instant you feel the rein on your neck. If you have n't room
to swing round, rear up a little and come round on your hind
legs. That's being bridle-wise."

"We are n't taught that way," said Billy the mule stiffly.
"We're taught to obey the man at our head: step off when he says
so, and step in when he says so. I suppose it comes to the same
thing. Now, with all this fine fancy business and rearing, which
must be very bad for your hocks, what do you do?"

"That depends," said the troop-horse. "Generally I have to
go in among a lot of yelling, hairy men with knives, -- long
shiny knives, worse than the farrier's knives, -- and I have to
take care that Dick's boot is just touching the next man's boot
without crushing it. I can see Dick's lance to the right of my
right eye, and I know I'm safe. I should n't care to be the man or
horse that stood up to Dick and me when we're in a hurry"

"Don't the knives hurt?" said the young mule.

"Well, I got one cut across the chest once, but that was
n't Dick's fault --"

"A lot I should have cared whose fault it was, if it hurt!"
said the young mule.

"You must," said the troop-horse. "If you don't trust your
man, you may as well run away at once. That's what some of our
horses do, and I don't blame them. As I was saying, it was n't
Dick's fault. The man was lying on the ground, and I stretched
myself not to tread on him, and he slashed up at me. Next time
I have to go over a man lying down I shall step on him -- hard."

"H'm!" said Billy; "it sounds very foolish. Knives are
dirty things at any time. The proper thing to do is to climb up
a mountain with a well-balanced saddle, hang on by all four feet
and your ears too, and creep and crawl and wriggle along, till
you come out hundreds of feet above any one else, on a ledge
where there's just room enough for your hoofs. Then you stand
still and keep quiet, -- never ask a man to hold your head,
young 'un, -- keep quiet while the guns are being put together,
and then you watch the little poppy shells drop down into the
tree-tops ever so far below."

"Don't you ever trip?" said the troop-horse.

"They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen's
ear," said Billy. "Now and again perhaps a badly packed saddle
will upset a mule, but it's very seldom. I wish I could show you
our business. It's beautiful. Why, it took me three years to
find out what the men were driving at. The science of the thing
is never to show up against the sky-line, because, if you do,
you may get fired at. Remember that, young 'un. Always keep
hidden as much as possible, even if you have to go a mile out of
your way. I lead the battery when it comes to that sort of
climbing."

"Fired at without the chance of running into the people who
are firing!" said the troop-horse, thinking hard. "I could n't
stand that. I should want to charge, with Dick."

"Oh no, you would n't; you know that as soon as the guns
are in position they'll do all the charging. That's scientific
and neat; but knives -- pah!"

The baggage-camel had been bobbing his head to and fro for
some time past, anxious to get a word in edgeways. Then I heard
him say, as he cleared his throat, nervously:

"I -- I -- I have fought a little, but not in that climbing
way or that running way."

"No. Now you mention it," said Billy, "you don't look as
though you were made for climbing or running -- much. Well, how
was it, old Hay-bales?"

"The proper way," said the camel. "We all sat down --"

"Oh, my crupper and breastplate!" said the troop-horse
under his breath. "Sat down?"

"We sat down -- a Hundred of us," the camel went on, "in a
big square, and the men piled our packs and saddles outside the
square, and they fired over our backs, the men did, on all sides
of the square."

"What sort of men? Any men that came along?" said the
troop-horse. "They teach us in riding-school to lie down and let
our masters fire across us, but Dick Cunliffe is the only man
I'd trust to do that. It tickles my girths, and, besides, I
can't see with my head on the ground."

"What does it matter who fires across you?" said the camel.
"There are plenty of men and plenty of other camels close by,
and a great many clouds of smoke. I am not frightened then. I
sit still and wait."

"And yet," said Billy, "you dream bad dreams and upset the
camp at night. Well! well! Before I'd lie down, not to speak of
sitting down, and let a man fire across me, my heels and his
head would have something to say to each other. Did you ever
hear anything so awful as that?"

There was a long silence, and then one of the gun-bullocks
lifted up his big head and said, "This is very foolish indeed.
There is only one way of fighting."

"Oh, go on," said Billy. "Please don't mind me. I suppose
you fellows fight standing on your tails?"

"Only one way," said the two together. (They must have been
twins.) "This is that way. To put all twenty yoke of us to the
big gun as soon as Two Tails trumpets." ("Two Tails" is camp
slang for the elephant.)

"What does Two Tails trumpet for?" said the young mule.

"To show that he is not going any nearer to the smoke on
the other side. Two Tails is a great coward. Then we tug the
big gun all together -- Heya -- Hullah! Heeyah! Hullah! We do
not climb like cats nor run like calves. We go across the level
plain, twenty yoke of us, till we are unyoked again, and we
graze while the big guns talk across the plain to some town
with mud walls, and pieces of the wall fall out, and the dust
goes up as though many cattle were coming home."

"Oh! And you choose that time for grazing, do you?" said
the young mule.

"That time or any other. Eating is always good. We eat till
we are yoked up again and tug the gun back to where Two Tails is
waiting for it. Sometimes there are big guns in the city that
speak back, and some of us are killed, and then there is all the
more grazing for those that are left. This is Fate -- nothing
but Fate. None the less, Two Tails is a great coward. That is
the proper way to fight. We are brothers from Hapur. Our father
was a sacred bull of Shiva. We have spoken."

"Well, I've certainly learned something to-night," said the
troop-horse. "Do you gentlemen of the screw-gun battery feel
inclined to eat when you are being fired at with big guns, and
Two Tails is behind you?"

"About as much as we feel inclined to sit down with knives.
I never heard such stuff. A mountain ledge, a well-balanced
load, a driver you can trust to let you pick your own way, and
I'm your mule; but the other things -- no!" said Billy, with a
stamp of his foot.

"Of course," said the troop-horse, "every one is not made
in the same way, and I can quite see that your family, on your
father's side, would fail to understand a great many things."

"Never you mind my family on my father's side," said Billy
angrily; for every mule hates to be reminded that his father was
a donkey. "My father was a Southern gentleman, and he could pull
down and bite and kick into rags every horse he came across.
Remember that, you big brown Brumby!"

Brumby means wild horse without any breeding. Imagine the
feelings of Sunol if a car-horse called her a "skate," and you
can imagine how the Australian horse felt. I saw the white of
his eye glitter in the dark.

"See here, you son of an imported Malaga jackass," he said
between his teeth, "I'd have you know that I'm related on my
mother's side to Carbine, winner of the Melbourne Cup, and
where I come from we are n't accustomed to being ridden over
roughshod by any parrot-mouthed, pig-headed mule in a pop-gun
pea-shooter battery. Are you ready?"

"On your hind legs!" squealed Billy. They both reared up
facing each other, and I was expecting a furious fight, when a
gurgly, rumbly voice called out of the darkness to the right --
"Children, what are you fighting about there? Be quiet."

Both beasts dropped down with a snort of disgust, for
neither horse nor mule can bear to listen to an elephant's
voice.

"It's Two Tails!" said the troop-horse. "I can't stand him.
A tail at each end is n't fair!"

"My feelings exactly," said Billy, crowding into the
troop-horse for company. "We're very alike in some things."

"I suppose we've inherited them from our mothers," said the
troop-horse. "It's not worth quarreling about. Hi! Two Tails,
are you tied up?"

"Yes," said Two Tails, with a laugh all up his trunk. "I'm
picketed for the night. I've heard what you fellows have been
saying. But don't be afraid. I'm not coming over."

The bullocks and the camel said, half aloud:
"Afraid of Two Tails -- what nonsense!" And the bullocks went
on: "We are sorry that you heard, but it is true. Two Tails, why
are you afraid of the guns when they fire?"

"Well," said Two Tails, rubbing one hind leg against the
other, exactly like a little boy saying a piece, "I don't quite
know whether you'd understand."

"We don't, but we have to pull the guns," said the
bullocks.

"I know it, and I know you are a good deal braver than you
think you are. But it's different with me. My battery captain
called me a Pachydermatous Anachronism the other day."

"That's another way of fighting, I suppose?" said Billy,
who was recovering his spirits.

"You don't know what that means, of course, but I do. It
means betwixt and between, and that is just where I am. I can
see inside my head what will happen when a shell bursts; and you
bullocks can't."

"I can," said the troop-horse. "At least a little bit. I
try not to think about it."

"I can see more than you, and I do think about it. I know
there's a great deal of me to take care of, and I know that
nobody knows how to cure me when I'm sick. All they can do
is to stop my driver's pay till I get well, and I can't trust my
driver."

"Ah!" said the troop-horse. "That explains it. I can trust
Dick."

"You could put a whole regiment of Dicks on my back without
making me feel any better. I know just enough to be
uncomfortable, and not enough to go on in spite of it."

"We do not understand," said the bullocks.

"I know you don't. I'm not talking to you. You don't know
what blood is."

"We do," said the bullocks. "It is red stuff that soaks
into the ground and smells."

The troop-horse gave a kick and a bound and a snort.

"Don't talk of it," he said. "I can smell it, now, just
thinking of it. It makes me want to run -- when I have n't Dick
on my back."

"But it is not here," said the camel and the bullocks. "Why
are you so stupid?"

"It's vile stuff," said Billy. "I don't want to run, but I
don't want to talk about it."

"There you are!" said Two Tails, waving his tail to
explain.

"Surely. Yes, we have been here all night," said the
bullocks.

Two Tails stamped his foot till the iron ring
on it jingled. "Oh, I'm not talking to you. You can't see inside
your heads."

"No. We see out of our four eyes," said the bullocks. "We
see straight in front of us."

"If I could do that and nothing else you would n't be
needed to pull the big guns at all. If I was like my captain --
he can see things inside his head before the firing begins, and
he shakes all over, but he knows too much to run away -- if I
was like him I could pull the guns. But if I were as wise as all
that I should never be here. I should be a king in the forest,
as I used to be, sleeping half the day and bathing when I liked.
I have n't had a good bath for a month."

"That's all very fine," said Billy; "but giving a thing a
long name does n't make it any better"

"H'sh!" said the troop-horse. "I think I understand what
Two Tails means."

"You'll understand better in a minute," said Two Tails
angrily. "Now, just you explain to me why you don't like this!"

He began trumpeting furiously at the top of his trumpet.

"Stop that!" said Billy and the troop-horse together, and
I could hear them stamp and shiver. An elephant's trumpeting is
always nasty, especially on a dark night.

"I sha'n't stop," said Two Tails. "Won't you explain that,
please? Hhrrmph! Rrrt! Rrrmph! Rrrhha!" Then He stopped
suddenly, and I heard a little whimper in the dark, and knew
that Vixen had found me at last. She knew as well as I did that
if there is one thing in the world the elephant is more afraid
of than another it is a little barking dog; so she stopped to
bully Two Tails in his pickets, and yapped round his big feet.
Two Tails shuffled and squeaked. "Go away, little dog!" He said.
"Don't snuff at my ankles, or I'll kick at you. Good little dog
-- nice little doggie, then! Go home, you yelping little beast!
Oh, why does n't some one take her away? She'll bite me in a
minute."

"Seems to me," said Billy to the troop-horse, "that our
friend Two Tails is afraid of most things. Now, if I had a full
meal for every dog I've kicked across the parade-ground, I
should be as fat as Two Tails nearly." I whistled, and Vixen ran
up to me, muddy all over, and licked my nose, and told me a long
tale about hunting for me all through the camp. I never let her
know that I understood beast talk, or she would have taken all
sorts of liberties. So I buttoned her into the breast of my
overcoat, and Two Tails shuffled and stamped and growled to
himself.

"Extraordinary! Most extraordinary!" he said. "It runs in
our family. Now, where has that nasty little beast gone to?"

I heard him feeling about with his trunk.

"We all seem to be affected in various ways," He went on,
blowing his nose. "Now, you gentlemen were alarmed, I believe,
when I trumpeted."

"Not alarmed, exactly," said the troop-horse, "but it made
me feel as though I had hornets where my saddle ought to be.
Don't begin again."

"I'm frightened of a little dog, and the camel here is
frightened by bad dreams in the night."

"It is very lucky for us that we have n't all got to fight
in the same, way" said the troop-horse.

"What I want to know," said the young mule, who had been
quiet for a long time -- "what I want to know is, why we have to
fight at all."

"Because we are told to," said the troop-horse, with a
snort of contempt.

"Orders," said Billy the mule; and his teeth snapped.

"Hukm hai!" (It is an order) said the camel with a gurgle;
and Two Tails and the bullocks repeated, "Hukm hai!"

"Yes, but who gives the orders?" said the recruit-mule.

"The man who walks at your head -- Or sits on your back --
Or holds the nose-rope -- Or twists your tail," said Billy and
the troop-horse and the camel and the bullocks one after the
other.

"But who gives them the orders?"

"Now you want to know too much, young 'un," said Billy,
"and that is one way of getting kicked. All you have to do is to
obey the man at your head and ask no questions."

"He's quite right," said Two Tails. "I can't always obey,
because I'm betwixt and between; but Billy's right. Obey the man
next to you who gives the order, or you'll stop all the battery,
besides getting a thrashing."

The gun-bullocks got up to go. "Morning is coming," they
said. "We will go back to our lines. It is true that we see only
out of our eyes, and we are not very clever; but still, we are
the only people to-night who have not been afraid. Good-night,
you brave people."

Nobody answered, and the troop-horse said, to change the
conversation, "Where's that little dog? A dog means a man
somewhere near."

"Here I am," yapped Vixen, "under the gun tail with my man.
You big, blundering beast of a camel you, you upset our tent.
My man's very angry."

"Phew!" said the bullocks. "He must be white?"

"Of course he is," said Vixen. "Do you suppose I'm looked
after by a black bullock-driver?"

"Huah! Ouach! Ugh!" said the bullocks. "Let us get away
quickly."

They plunged forward in the mud, and managed somehow to run
their yoke on the pole of an ammunition-wagon, where it jammed.

"Now you have done it," said Billy calmly. "Don't struggle.
You're hung up till daylight. What on earth's the matter?"

The bullocks went off into the long hissing snorts that
Indian cattle give, and pushed and crowded and slued and stamped
and slipped and nearly fell down in the mud, grunting savagely.

"You'll break your necks in a minute," said the
troop-horse. "What's the matter with white men? I live with
'em."

"They -- eat -- us! Pull!" said the near bullock: the yoke
snapped with a twang, and they lumbered off together.

I never knew before what made Indian cattle so afraid of
Englishmen. We eat beef -- a thing that no cattle-driver touches
-- and of course the cattle do not like it.

"May I be flogged with my own pad-chains! Who'd have
thought of two big lumps like those losing their heads?" said
Billy.

"Never mind. I'm going to look at this man. Most of the
white men, I know, have things in their pockets," said the
troop-horse.

"I'll leave you, then. I can't say I'm over-fond of 'em
myself. Besides, white men who have n't a place to sleep in are
more than likely to be thieves, and I've a good deal of
Government property on my back. Come along, young 'un, and we'll
go back to our lines. Good-night, Australia! See you on parade
to-morrow, I suppose. Good-night, old Hay-bale! -- try to
control your feelings, won't you? Good-night, Two Tails! If you
pass us on the ground to-morrow, don't trumpet. It spoils our
formation."

Billy the mule stumped off with the swaggering limp of an
old campaigner, as the troop-horse's head came nuzzling into my
breast, and I gave him biscuits; while Vixen, who is a most
conceited little dog, told him fibs about the scores of horses
that she and I kept.

"I'm coming to the parade to-morrow in my dogcart," she
said. "Where will you be?"

"On the left hand of the second squadron. I set the time
for all my troop, little lady," he said politely. "Now I must go
back to Dick. My tail's all muddy, and he'll have two hours'
hard work dressing me for the parade."

The big parade of all the thirty thousand men was held that
afternoon and Vixen and I had a good place close to the Viceroy
and the Amir of Afghanistan, with his high big black hat of
astrakhan wool and the great diamond star in the center. The
first part of the review was all sunshine, and the regiments
went by in wave upon wave of legs all moving together, and guns
all in a line, till our eyes grew dizzy. Then the cavalry came
up, to the beautiful cavalry canter of "Bonnie Dundee," and
Vixen cocked her ear where she sat on the dog-cart. The second
squadron of the lancers shot by, and there was the troop-horse,
with his tail like spun silk, his head pulled into his breast,
one ear forward and one back, setting the time for all his
squadron, his legs going as smoothly as waltz-music. Then the
big guns came by, and I saw Two Tails and two other elephants
harnessed in line to a forty-pounder siege-gun while twenty yoke
of oxen walked behind. The seventh pair had a new yoke, and they
looked rather stiff and tired. Last came the screw-guns, and
Billy the mule carried himself as though he commanded all the
troops, and his harness was oiled and polished till it winked.
I gave a cheer all by myself for Billy the mule, but he never
looked right or left.

The rain began to fall again, and for a while it was too
misty to see what the troops were doing. They had made a big
half-circle across the plain, and were spreading out into a
line. That line grew and grew and grew till it was
three-quarters of a mile long from wing to wing -- one solid
wall of men, horses, and guns. Then it came on straight toward
the Viceroy and the Amir, and as it got nearer the ground began
to shake, like the deck of a steamer when the engines are going
fast.

Unless you have been there you cannot imagine what a
frightening effect this steady come-down of troops has on the
spectators, even when they know it is only a review. I looked at
the Amir. Up till then he had not shown the shadow of a sign of
astonishment or anything else; but now his eyes began to get
bigger and bigger, and he picked up the reins on his horse's
neck, and looked behind him. For a minute it seemed as though he
were going to draw his sword and slash his way out through the
English men and women in the carriages at the back. Then the advance
stopped dead, the ground stood still, the whole line saluted,
and thirty bands began to play all together. That was the end of
the review, and the regiments went off to their camps in the
rain; and an infantry band struck up with --



The animals went in two by two,




Hurrah!

The animals went in two by two,

The elephant and the battery mu-

l', and they all got into the Ark,

For to get out of the rain!


Then I heard an old, grizzled, long-haired Central Asian
chief, who had come down with the Amir, asking questions of a
native officer.

"Now," said he, "in what manner was this wonderful thing
done?"

And the officer answered, "There was an order and they
obeyed."

"But are the beasts as wise as the men?" said the chief.

"They obey, as the men do. Mule, horse, elephant, or
bullock, he obeys his driver, and the driver his sergeant, and
the sergeant his lieutenants, and the lieutenant his captain,
and the captain his major, and the major his colonel, and the
colonel his brigadier commanding three regiments, and the
brigadier his general, who obeys the Viceroy, who is the servant
of the Empress. Thus it is done."

"Would it were so in Afghanistan!" said the chief; "for
there we obey only our own wills."

"And for that reason," said the native officer, twirling
his mustache, "your Amir whom you do not obey must come here and
take orders from our Viceroy."




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