the squawking, gaping school-girl with which this story opens.


THE LOST LEGION

When 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 newly conquered tribesmen
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 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.

That was more than thirty years ago, and the tribesmen across the