Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him

upon his feet.

'No talk shall be of dogs,' said he, 'when wolf and grey wolf meet.

'May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or

breath;

'What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?'

Lightly answered the Colonel's son: 'I hold by the blood of my clan :

'Take up the mare for my father's gift-by God, she has carried a man!'

The red mare ran to the Colonel's son, and nuzzled against his breast;

'We be two strong men,' said Kamal then, 'but she loveth the younger best.

'So she shall go with a lifter's dower, my tur

quoise-studded rein,

'My broidered saddle and saddle-cloth, and silver stirrups twain.'

The Colonel's son a pistol drew and held it

muzzle-end,

'Ye have taken the one from a foe,' said he; 'will

ye take the mate from a friend?'

'A gift for a gift,' said Kamal straight; 'a limb for the risk of a limb.

'Thy father hath sent his son to me, I'll send my son to him!'

With that he whistled his only son, that dropped from a mountain-crest

He trod the ling like a buck in spring, and he looked like a lance in rest.

'Now here is thy master,' Kamal said, 'who leads

a troop of the Guides,

'And thou must ride at his left side as shield on

shoulder rides.

'Till death or I cut loose the tie, at camp and

board and bed,

'Thy life is his-thy fate it is to guard him with thy head.

'So, thou must eat the White Queen's meat, and

all her foes are thine,

'And thou must harry thy father's hold for the peace of the Border-line,

'And thou must make a trooper tough and hack thy way to power

'Belike they will raise thee to Ressaldar when I am hanged in Peshawur.'

They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault,

They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt:

They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod,

On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God.

The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's

boy the dun,

94

THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST

And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where

there went forth but one.

And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear

There was not a man but carried his feud with

the blood of the mountaineer.

'Ha' done! ha' done!' said the Colonel's son.

'Put up the steel at your sides!

'Last night ye had struck at a Border thief-tonight 'tis a man of the Guides!'

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor

Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they

come from the ends of the earth!

THE LAST SUTTEE.

Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States. His wives, disregarding the orders of the English against Suttee, would have broken out of the palace had not the gates been barred. But one of them, disguised as the King's favourite dancing-girl, passed through the line of guards and reached the pyre. There, her courage failing, she prayed her cousin, a baron of the court, to kill her. This he did, not knowing who she was.

UDAI CHAND lay sick to death

In his hold by Gungra hill.

All night we heard the death-gongs ring
For the soul of the dying Rajpoot King,
All night beat up from the women's wing
A cry that we could not still.

All night the barons came and went,

The lords of the outer guard: