sword at his side, lay
down the man who was to guard him, the two on the same bed.

[23] _Charpoy_, the common bed of the country.

All night long Abdul Mujid lay racking his brains for a means of escape,
and found none; and then just before dawn came Allah to his help.
Nudging his bedfellow hard, the sepoy said: "Awake, sluggard, I wish to
go and pray."

"Well, go and pray," grumbled the guard.

"Go and pray!" replied Abdul Mujid; "how can I go and pray with my arms
and feet tied? Can I make the salutations and genuflections ordered in
the Koran while thus strapped up?"

"No, I suppose you can't," answered the guard. "But you also don't
suppose I am going to leave my warm quilt on this bitterly cold morning
to guard you while you pray?"

"That is not the least necessary," said Abdul Mujid; "if you will free
one hand I will spread my own carpet by the bed, and you can thus guard
me without getting up, for my legs are tied, and therefore I cannot
escape. Assuredly Allah hath spread the cloak of stupidity and sloth
over this fellow," he said to himself, as his janitor rolled over, and
lazily muttering "Oh very well, anything for a little peace," to the
sepoy's intense delight fumblingly untied one of his hands.

What followed was like a streak of lightning from heaven. In one flash
Abdul Mujid had seized the naked sword, and the slothful sentry, before
he could draw another breath, lay dead to all below; in another flash he
had severed his bonds, and was making the best of his way across the
fields. Nor did he halt, night or day, till weary and exhausted he fell
down and slept by the first milestone that proclaimed that he was again
in British territory.

Nearly a year afterwards a motley band of ruffians might have been seen
walking up the main road at Mardan towards the Court-House. It was a
deputation from a far-away country come to discuss matters with the
political officer. At their head on a sorry steed rode the chief person:
at the roadside by the post-office, idly watching the party file past,
was a man of the Guides; and when the eyes of those two, the Guide and
the man on the pony, met, they both remembered the village well, and one
recollected how nearly it was his last night on earth.

"May you never grow weary," said the Guide in the polite formula of the
road.

"May your riches ever increase," came the stock reply.

"And how about that man on the charpoy?" bawled Abdul Mujid.

"Oh, he's all