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KING--OF THE KHYBER RIFLES
A Romance of Adventure
Suckled were we in a school unkind On suddenly snatched deduction And ever ahead of you Over the border our tracks you'll find, Wherever some idiot feels inclined To scatter the seeds of ruction.
For eyes we be, of Empire, we! Skinned and Puckered and quick to see And nobody guesses how wise we be. Unwilling to advertise we be. But, hot on the trail of ties, we be The pullers of roots of ruction!
--Son of the Indian Secret Service
The men who govern India--more power to them and her!--are few. Those who stand in their way and pretend to help them with a flood of words are a host. And from the host goes up an endless cry that India is the home of thugs, and of three hundred million hungry ones.
The men who know--and Athelstan King might claim to know a little--answer that she is the original home of chivalry and the modern mistress of as many decent, gallant, native gentlemen as ever graced a page of history.
The charge has seen the light in print that India--well-spring of plague and sudden death and money-lenders--has sold her soul to twenty succeeding conquerors in turn.
Athelstan King and a hundred like him whom India has picked from British stock and taught, can answer truly that she has won it back again from each by very purity of purpose.
So when the world war broke the world was destined to be surprised on India's account. The Red Sea, full of racing transports crowded with dark-skinned gentlemen, whose one prayer was that the war might not be over before they should have struck a blow for Britain, was the Indian army's answer to the press.
The rest of India paid its taxes and contributed and muzzled itself and set to work to make supplies. For they understand in India, almost as nowhere else, the meaning of such old-fashioned words as gratitude and honor; and of such platitudes as, "Give and it shall be given unto you."
More than one nation was deeply shocked by India's answer to "practises" that had extended over years. But there were men in India who learned to love India long ago with that love that casts out fear, who knew exactly what was going to happen and could therefore afford to wait for orders instead of running round in rings.
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