s frame thrilling. He had a faint recollection of
Sherdil as a big fellow who, rough as he was, had treated him with a
certain kindness, and had shown him first how to snare a rabbit. And he
felt a good deal of envy of this fine stalwart fellow who had seen and
done so much.

One story of Sherdil's made the company hilarious. The chief to whom he
for a time attached himself--one Dilawur, a native of Jahangia, a
village on the Cabul river--heard one day that a wealthy Hindu
shopkeeper was to be married. He instantly determined to profit by the
bridegroom's happiness. With his men, among whom Sherdil was one, he lay
in wait on the bank of the Indus at a place which the Hindu must pass on
his way to the bride's house. When the expectant bridegroom came in
sight, all bedizened with wristlets and chains and jewels, the brigands,
armed with pistol, sword and dagger, fell upon the party, seized the
luckless man, dragged him to the river bank, and thrust him into an
inflated cow-hide. Then Sherdil mounted upon this monstrous bladder, and
paddled it across the river. When the rest were across, the Hindu was
carried away into the hills, and Dilawur's scribe--for he could not
write himself--penned a letter to his sorrowing friends, informing them
that their relative was well and happy, and would be restored to them
fat and jolly for the little sum of two hundred rupees.

"Wah! wah!" said the company in chorus. "And what next, O lion of the
hills?"

And Sherdil, whose name means "lion-hearted," chuckled and said--

"Why, did ye ever know a Hindu who would pay a price without bargaining?
And the richer they are, the more they haggle. 'Two hundred rupees? No,
no: we cannot afford that. The sickness fell on our goats last winter;
we are very poor; our friend is very dear to us, but he will be too dear
if we pay that price. We will give a hundred rupees, when we are sure
our friend has lost no flesh.' But Dilawur Khan has not the patience of
a camel. When he got their foolish answer he sent me with another
letter, saying that if the two hundred rupees were not in his hands
within seven days, he would strike off their dear relative's head and
send it them as an offering of peace; only having been at the expense of
feeding him with good fattening food all that time, he would require two
thousand rupees as recompense."

"Wah! wah!" shouted the delighted hearers, to whose sense of justice
this appealed no less than to their sense of h