Moti Lal, babu, was small, fat, and short-sighted. He was of Bengali extraction, and by appearance eminently fitted for the management of a "CheapJack" store in the Bow Bazaar in Calcutta. Instead, he was a clerk in the office of an Indian infantry battalion, and had attained the rank of havildar by virtue of an almost superhuman knowledge of the rules and regulations directing the routine of the adjutant's department.

When I assumed the adjutancy, Moti Lal had some ten years' service, and during the first few months of my office many were the pitfalls from which he turned aside my blundering footsteps. An urgent order would emanate from higher authority, referring airily to some obscure paragraph published in the dim past. After half-an-hour's profane searching among my files I would send out the S.O.S. for Moti Lal.

"I am coming, Huzoor!" in a throaty croak from the outer office, and a moment later he would bustle in, a very typical figure in his bulging brown coat and little round hat, with bright blue socks displaying themselves coyly below his long white dhoti, and disappearing into an enormous pair of unlaced black brogue shoes. He would stand beside my desk, nervously clasping and unclasping his fat hands,

and peering at me through his iron-rimmed spectacles.

"Moti Lal, this refers to A.G.-1/5604 of August 1910, about walking-out dress for sepoys. Have we had it?"

A short period of half-audible rumination would follow. "Yes, sir," in his pedantic Calcutta High School English. "No doubt saying that sepoys are are not allowed walking in bazaar unless dressing in appropriate costume "; and he would hurry away, to return presently with the desired letter, disinterred from some musty corner.

Many times during those first months did the fat hand of Moti Lal avert disaster from my inexperienced head, so that I grew to have a considerable regard for him. But among the sepoys his qualities were not so highly rated. The active fighting men from Rohtak and Gujerat looked on the mild little Bengali with the contempt of the wolf for the rabbit, and his peaceloving and timid disposition. earned for him the ironical nickname of "Babuji Bahadur." In his office he was the acknowledged expert, but on the hockey-field and in the lines he was a constant butt for the heavy witticisms of the barrack-room.

One day during a company hockey match I was standing on the touchline. Behind me. was a group of Punjabi Mussul

which he had never fired and which he regarded with deep distrust, clutched gingerly in his fat fingers. His heavy marching boots caused him excruciating agony, and he loathed the pack on his back with the loathing of Sinbad for the Old Man of the Sea.

But he was still with us when we arrived at Nana Khel, the perimeter camp that was to be our home for the next eight months, and once he was installed in the battalion office tent with his files and his typewriter, and was allowed to revert to his dhoti and his little round hat, life became less of a nightmare for him.

The sepoys used to curdle his blood with grisly tales of the savage Pathans, in whose territory we were instilling law and order, and he had a hearty respect, mingled with considerable dislike, for the fiercefeatured tribesmen who used to enter the camp with eggs and sheep, regarding each as a potential thief and murderer, which, after all, was the correct attitude.

One day a severe sandstorm swept over the camp, and the telephone-wire to the office was snapped by a gust of wind. I was at lunch in the mess when this occurred, and Moti Lal arrived, hot and flustered, to report.

Annoyed at the interruption to my meal, I hurried down to the office, and found an ordinary break in the wire just outside the tent.

"Moti Lal," said I, "in order that I may not be disturbed again while at my food in order to repair a broken telephonewire, you shall now learn how to do this thing yourself."

"Sir," said Moti Lal, clasping and unclasping his hands, "I am educated man, but, being ignorant of electrics, I was compelled to disturb your honour. But now I shall learn," and he studied the work in hand earnestly and with great concentration, putting many questions.

Shortly after the damage had been made good, the Staff Captain of the Brigade rang up with the information that a gentleman named Yusuf Khan, a tribal raider of some repute, was abroad with his gang, consisting of thirty cutthroats of the same calibre as himself, and had been seen by Government agents in our vicinity, so that it was advisable to take the usual precautionary measures.

We were at that time responsible for the protection of some three miles of the convoy road along the bed of the Takki Zam River, and our duties included the holding of various permanent piquets on this line. These were small stone redoubts, placed at tactical points on the heights on either side of the road, and garrisoned by parties varying from fifteen to twenty rifles. Each one of these piquets was connected to camp by telephone, and, on news being received of raiding gangs and similar gentry, warn

Nothing occurred for two days, and on the morning of the third I felt in need of exercise, and decided to obtain an escort, and make a visit to some of our permanent piquets.

I entered the office. Business was slack, and I espied Moti Lal, with nothing to do, presiding over his desk like a fat brown idol.

"Moti Lal," said I, "have you ever been out of camp?' The little babu blinked apprehensively at me.

"No, sir," he admitted. "Then," I answered, "you will come with me to Snag Piquet. You require exercise, for you are becoming painfully fat. Soon, verily, instead of Moti Lal, men will name you 'Mota' (fat) Lal!"

The Bengali rose reluctantly to his feet.

"No; come as you are," I said. "You will find it sufficiently difficult to climb these hills in a dhoti, and in puttees you would never be able to climb at all!"

The N.C.O. of the escort entered and reported, and we set out-six lean Punjabi riflemen, Moti Lal, and myself.

Snag Piquet, our destination, was set at the summit of a steep and arduous ascent, and earned its name from the Snag, a black threatening bluff of rock, which overlooked it from

dred yards. The piquet was badly sited, and we, to whom fell the task of holding it, were firmly of the opinion that sooner or later trouble would eventuate from this quarter, in which case the garrison of the piquet would have a very uncomfortable time. However, the position had been occupied for about six months with no untoward incident, and it was considered by higher authority that any enemy on the Snag could be dislodged by the mountain howitzer battery in camp.

After an hour's strenuous climb, the pace of which was modified to suit Moti Lal, we arrived at the piquet. The little Bengali was perspiring at every pore, and had been forced to make at least ten halts to recover breath and to wipe his spectacles.

Oh, sir," he gasped as the piquet came in sight, this is no land for peaceable man, neither am I wondering that the folk who inhabit it are all shaitans and badmashes," and he seated himself on a rock and puffed.

Our arrival caused a sensation. The N.C.O. of the escort who had derived much quiet amusement from the babu's unfortunate condition, announced the startling news.

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"Behold," cried he, we have brought Babuji Bahadur to inspect you!"

"Shabash!" grunted the havildar commanding the piquet. After this doubt

less Babuji Bahadur will command a piquet himself, and I shall be able to go on leave to my home."

Badinage was plentiful, but poor Moti Lal was too exhausted to reply. He entered the piquet, and sat heavily on the firing-step. "Kaisa kharab mulk!" ("what an awful country!") he wailed, applying his handkerchief once more.

I made a tour of the premises, examined the wire, and returned inside the piquet to test the firing positions, leaving two of the escort outside with the piquet signaller, who had established a heliograph on the bare space of ground beneath the walls, and was squatting beside it, ready to receive visual messages from camp and from neighbouring piquets.

I gazed through my binoculars at the wild and rugged panorama spread out below us, the slender line of the Takki Zam winding its way into the heart of the barren hills, and on its farther bank Nana Khel Camp, looking like a pygmy settlement, each tiny unit-man, horse, or tentstanding out clearly in the scorching sun. I could make out my own quarters, with my blankets spread over the tent-ropes to air, and Morris, my" stable companion," lounging against the door with a pipe in his mouth.

Then it happened

tent

A series of sharp vicious cracks, a few puffs of dust, and the hum of splintered

Ah - h,

rock, and a cry Allah, goli laga!" (“Ah-h, Allah, I am hit!") and one of the sepoys I had left outside the piquet staggered through the door with his hand to his side, and sank down on the floor.

"Sahib," he gasped, "the Mahsud-log fired from the Great Rock, and Sepoy Feroz Khan and Signaller Imam Ali are dead," and he fainted.

The men were already at their alarm - posts, with the burly havildar directing operations. Bolts clicked home, and bombs were placed ready to hand. Another volley from the Snag swept over the piquet, and smacked and thudded against the walls.

One glance over the parapet satisfied me that the words of the wounded sepoy were true. The signaller lay on his back with a hole in his forehead, and Feroz Khan sprawled grotesquely, face downwards. His puggaree had rolled away, and a crimson stain behind the ear showed where the bullet had struck him.

I searched the bare face of the Snag with my glasses. Not a living thing was visible, but even as I looked the enemy gave further evidence of his presence by a third fusilade.

The garrison replied with three rounds of rapid fire at the crest of the bluff, but the answering volley sent two men reeling from the parapet, and showed us the futility of attempting to cope with