Sher Ali

“ His idea is to get rid of Sher Ali's soldiery—always a source of danger—and keep only 15,000 men for the future. It would be very desirable to delay the advance until he could establish his power. The Amir does not mean to imply that any Afghan army, were it 50,000 strong, could resist the British. The mutinous troops have neither organization nor leaders. ”

“ The intelligence and [Page 564] good sense which are conspicuous in the Sirdar's letter and messages to you will enable him to appreciate the difference between conduct regulated on these principles and that which cost Sher Ali the loss of his throne. This Government does not desire, nor has it ever desired, to impose on any Ruler of Kabul conditions incompatible with that behaviour which Russia, as a powerful and neighbouring Empire, is entitled to expect from him ”

“ It is rather unusual to find the nightingale representing the beloved. She is generally “the rose” and the lover “the nightingale.”
[34] Possibly Ali Sher Khan, also called Ali Shah, the father of Ahmed Shah, the successful and popular Rajah of Skardo in the Sikh days—or else the great Ali Sher Khan, the founder of the race or caste of the Makpon Rajahs of Skardo. He built a great stone aqueduct from the Satpur stream which also banked up a quantity of useful soil against inundations.
[35] Murad was, I believe, the first Skardo Rajah who conquered Gilgit, Nagyr, Hunza and Chitrál. ”

“ He spoke in a voice which was grave—so grave that Colonel Dewes looked quickly towards him.
"Do you think there will be trouble up there in Chiltistan?" he asked.
The Deputy-Commissioner, who was now Chief Commissioner, smiled wearily.
"There is always trouble up there in Chiltistan," he said. "That I know. What I think is this—Shere Ali should have gone to the Mayo College at Ajmere. That would have been a compromise which would have satisfied his father and done him no harm. ”

“ Shere Ali calmly, "and by the Delhi Gate of Lahore I found you."
"My fame is great," replied Safdar Khan bombastically. "Far and wide it has spread like the boughs of a gigantic tree."
"Rubbish," said Shere Ali curtly, breaking in upon Safdar's vehemence. "I am not one of the Hindu fools who fill your begging-bowl," and he laughed.
In the darkness he heard Safdar Khan laugh too.
"You expected me," continued Shere Ali. "You looked for my coming. Your ears were listening for the few words of Pushtu. Why else should you say, 'Ride forward and I will follow'?" ”

“ The contrast between Shere Ali's fate and the hopes with which he had set out was shocking enough. Yet even in his case so very little had turned the scale. Between the fulfilment of his hopes and the great failure what was there? If he had been sent to Ajmere instead of to England, if he and Linforth had not crossed the Meije to La Grave in Dauphine, if a necklace of pearls he had offered had not been accepted—very likely at this very moment he might be reigning in Chiltistan, trusted and supported by the Indian Government, a helpful friend gratefully recognised. ”

“ Certainly Shere Ali was wearing the dress of one of the Sahibs. A man passed carrying a lantern, and the light, feeble though it was, threw into outline against the darkness a pith helmet and a very English figure. Certainly, too, Shere Ali spoke the Pushtu tongue with a slight hesitation, and an unfamiliar accent. He seemed to grope for words.
"A letter?" he cried. "From Calcutta? Nay, how can that be? Some foolish fellow has dared to play a trick," and in a few short, effective sentences Safdar Khan expressed his opinion of the foolish fellow and of his ancestry distant and immediate. ”

“ I too," he admitted, "have been without wisdom. But I have seen how vain such talk is. The Mullahs in the Hills speak only ignorance and folly."
"Ah!" said Shere Ali. He took the letter from his pocket and tore it into fragments and scattered the fragments upon the Road. "So I thought. The letter is of their prompting."
"My lord, it may be so," replied Safdar Khan. "For my part I have no lot or share in any of these things. For I am now of Lahore."
"Aye," said Shere Ali. "The begging-bowl is filled to overflowing at the Delhi Gate. ”

“ He wished that some of those clever fellows on the India Council were listening to him.
"Why?" asked Shere Ali. "Why back there does one forget the discomfort of India?"
He asked the question less in search of information than to discover whether the feelings of which he was conscious were shared too by his companion.
"Why?" answered Dewes wrinkling his forehead again. "Because one misses more than one thought to miss and one doesn't find half what one thought to find. Come along here!"
He led Shere Ali up to the top of the stand. ”

“ Those were days when there were men upon the plains of India."
And Shere Ali broke out with a fierce oath.
"Amongst the hills, at all events, there are men today. There is no sacred ground for them in Chiltistan."
"Not even the Road?" asked Ahmed Ismail; and Shere Ali stopped dead, and stared at his companion with startled eyes. He walked away in silence after that; and for the rest of that day he said little to Ahmed Ismail, who watched him anxiously. At night, however, Ahmed was justified of his policy. For Shere Ali appeared before him in the white robes of a Mohammedan. ”

“ Shere Ali was well aware of it. More and more frequently sure warnings came to him. Now it was some dim recollection of beliefs once strongly clung to, which came back to him with a shock. He would awaken through some chance word to the glory of the English rule in India, the lessening poverty of the Indian nations, the incorruptibility of the English officials and their justice.
"Yes, yes," he would say with astonishment, "I was sure of these things; I knew them as familiar truths," even as a man gradually going blind might one day see clearly and become aware of his narrowing vision. ”

“ Shere Ali wondered indifferently what it was that went on in the circus in the Maidan half a mile from the Government House. Something which ought to be stopped, something which could not be "good for us." Shere Ali clenched his hands in a gust of passion. How well he knew the phrase! Good for us, good for the magic of British prestige! How often he had used the words himself in the days when he had been fool enough to believe that he belonged to the white people. ”

“ He came north with one of his own countrymen, and the pair of them have been seen at Cawnpore, at Lucknow, at Delhi."
Ralston paused. His face had grown very grave, very troubled.
"I am not sure," he said slowly. "It is difficult, however long you stay in India, to get behind these fellows' minds, to understand the thoughts and the motives which move them. And the longer you stay, the more difficult you realise it to be. But it looks to me as if Shere Ali had been taken by his companion on a sort of pilgrimage." ”

“ For twelve rounds the combatants seemed still to be upon equal terms, though those in the audience who had knowledge began to shake their heads over the chances of the soldier. Shere Ali, however, was still racked by suspense. The fight had become a symbol, almost a message to him, even as his gift to the Mullah had become a message to the people of Chiltistan. All that he had once loved, and now furiously raged against, was represented by the soldier, the confident, big, heavily built soldier, while, on the other hand, by the victory of the Jew all the subject peoples would be vindicated. ”

“ Moreover, it was clear that the Prince of Chiltistan was a Sahib. Shere Ali rode back to Government House. He understood clearly why Safdar Khan had so unceremoniously fled; and he was glad. If the fool of a Commissioner did not know him for what he was, at all events Safdar Khan did. He was one of the White People. For who else would dare to speak as he had spoken of the Mullahs? The Mullahs would hear what he had said. That was certain. They would hear it with additions. They would try to make things unpleasant for him in Chiltistan in consequence. But Shere Ali was glad. ”

“ And then a man kneeling beside him interrupted his prayers and began to curse fiercely beneath his breath.
"May they burn, they and their fathers and their children, to the last generation!" And he added epithets of a surprising ingenuity. The while he looked backwards over his shoulder.
Shere Ali followed his example. He saw at the back of the enclosure, in the galleries which surmounted the archway and the wall, English men and English women waiting. Shere Ali's blood boiled at the sight. They were laughing, talking. ”

“ As he reined in his horse at the steps, he saw that there was a chink between the door and the door-post.
"There's someone behind that door," he said to himself, and he glanced quietly at Shere Ali. It would be quite in keeping with the Chilti character for Shere Ali politely to escort him home knowing well that an assassin waited behind the door; and it was with a smile of some irony that he listened to Shere Ali taking his leave.
"You will be safe, so long as you stay within your grounds. I will place a guard about the house. I do not make war against my country's guests. ”

“ All that is bound to have broadened your mind. Don't you feel that your mind has broadened?"
"Tell me the use of a broad mind in Chiltistan," said Shere Ali. And Colonel Dewes, who had last seen the valleys of that remote country more than twenty years before, was baffled by the challenge.
"To tell the truth, I am a little out of touch with Indian problems," he said. "But it's surely good in every way that there should be a man up there who knows we have something in the way of an army. When I was there, there was trouble which would have been quite prevented by knowledge of that kind." ”

“ Supported by the viceroys of India, Lord Lawrence and Lord Mayo, Shere Ali remained on good terms with the British government for some years; but after the rebellion of his son Yakub Khan, 1870–74, he leaned towards Russia, and welcomed a Russian agent at Kabul in 1878, and at the same time refused to receive a British mission. This led to long negotiations, and ultimately to war, when the British forced the Khyber Pass in November 1878, and defeated the amir’s forces on every occasion. ”

“ Ralston, indeed, was not far out in his judgment. Ahmed Ismail had carried Shere Ali off from Calcutta. He had taken him first of all to Cawnpore, and had led him up to the gate of the enclosure, wherein are the Bibigarh, where the women and children were massacred, and the well into which their bodies were flung. An English soldier turned them back from that enclosure, refusing them admittance. Ahmed Ismail, knowing well that it would be so, smiled quietly under his moustache; but Shere Ali angrily pointed to some English tourists who were within the enclosure.
"Why should we remain outside?" ”

“ The place is sacred to the foreigners. It is Indian soil; but the Indian may not walk on it; no, not though he were born next door. Yet why should we grumble or complain? We are the dirt beneath their feet. We are dogs and sons of dogs, and a hireling will turn our Princes from the gate lest the soles of our shoes should defile their sacred places. And are they not right, Huzoor?" he asked cunningly. "Since we submit to it, since we cringe at their indignities and fawn upon them for their insults, are they not right?"
"Why, that's true, Ahmed Ismail," replied Shere Ali bitterly. ”

“ Only bring Linforth out to India, and bring him very quickly!"
Once before a passionate appeal had been made to Colonel Dewes by a man in straits, and Colonel Dewes had not understood and had not obeyed. Now, a quarter of a century later another appeal was made by a man sinking, as surely as Luffe had been sinking before, and once again Dewes did not understand.
He took Shere Ali by the arm, and said in a kindly voice:
"I tell you what it is, my lad. You have been going the pace a bit, eh? Calcutta's no good. You'll only collect debts and a lot of things you are better without. ”

“ Extract from a Memorandum by Lord Napier of Magdala.
We have unfortunately managed Shere Ali badly. Perhaps it might not have been possible, with our scruples and his want of them, to have managed him advantageously; but it must be admitted that we have not given him the reasons to unite himself with us that he naturally expected. First, we stood aloof in his struggles for life and empire, ready to acknowledge whoever might prove the master of Afghanistan. ”

“ For we are to blame—we who took him from Chiltistan and sent him to be petted by the fine people in England." And once more it was evident from his words that he was thinking not of Shere Ali—not of the human being who had just his one life to live, just his few years with their opportunities of happiness, and their certain irrevocable periods of distress—but of the Prince of Chiltistan who might or might not be a cause of great trouble to the Government of the Punjab.
"We must take the risk," he cried as one arguing almost against himself. "It's the only chance. So we must take the risk. ”

“ Somewhere beyond the high snow-passes Shere Ali would be working out his destiny among his own people. She was not of those who seek publicity either for themselves or for their gowns in the daily papers. Shere Ali would never hear of her visit; she was safe. She spent her Christmas in Calcutta, saw the race for the Viceroy's Cup run without a fear that on that crowded racecourse the importunate figure of the young Prince of Chiltistan might emerge to reproach her, and a week later went northwards into the United Provinces. ”