For my child is dead--my baba is dead!... I would have come away
before; there was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we were far
from the rail, and the _Durro Muts_ were as brothers to me, and I had come
to look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a horse
and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows
what they called me--orderly, _chaprassi_ (messenger), cook, sweeper, I
did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month
after wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I went
up to the grave, and a clever Sahib of the _Durro Muts_ (we left a troop
there for a week to school those people with _purwanas_) had cut an
inscription upon a great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and is was a
jest such as Kurban Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have the
inscription well copied here. Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will explain the
jests. There are two very good ones. Begin, Sahib:--
In Memory of
WALTER DECIES CORBYN
Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry
The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.
Treacherously shot near this place by
The connivance of the late
HENDRIK DIRK UYS
A Minister of God
Who thrice took the oath of neutrality
And Piet his son,
This little work
Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!
Was accomplished in partial
And inadequate recognition of their loss
By some men who loved him
_Si monumentum requiris circumspice_
That is the second jest.
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