Between these nowker log, the servant-people, and his own jat or class, the Sahib-log, the master-people, were the troopers, splendid Sikhs, Rajputs, Pathans and Punjabis, men of honour, courage, physique, tradition.  Grand fighters, loyal as steel while properly understood and properly treated—­in other words, while properly officered. (Men, albeit, with deplorably little understanding of, or regard for, Pagett, M.P., and his kind, who yearn to do so much for them.)

These men Damocles admired and loved, though even they were apt to be very naughty in the bazaar, to gamble and to toy with opium, bhang, and (alleged) brandy, to dally with houris and hearts’-delights, to use unkind measures towards the good bunnia and sowkar who had lent them monies, and to do things outside the Lines that were not known in the Officers’ Mess.

The boy preferred the Rissaldar-Major even to some Sahibs of his acquaintance—­that wonderful old man-at-arms, horseman, shikarri, athlete, gentleman. (Yet how strange and sad to see him out of his splendid uniform, in sandals, dhotie, untrammelled shirt-tails, dingy old cotton coat and loose puggri, undistinguishable from a school-master, clerk, or post-man; so un-sahib-like.)

And what a fine riding-master he made for an ambitious, fearless boy—­though Ochterlonie Sahib said he was too cruel to be a good horse-master.

How could people be civilians and live away from regiments?  Live without ever touching swords, lances, carbines, saddles?

What a queer feeling it gave one to see the regiment go past the saluting base on review-days, at the gallop, with lances down.  One wanted to shout, to laugh—­to cry. (It made one’s mouth twitch and chin work.)

Oh, to lead the regiment as Father did—­horse and man one welded piece of living mechanism.

Father said you couldn’t ride till you had taken a hundred tosses, been pipped a hundred times.  A hundred falls!  Surely Father had never been thrown—­it must be impossible for such a rider to come off.  See him at polo.

By his sixth birthday Damocles de Warrenne, stout and sturdy, was an accomplished rider and never so happy (save when fencing) as when flogging his active and spirited little pony along the “rides” or over the dusty maidans and open country of Bimariabad.  To receive a quarter-mile start on the race-course and ride a mile race against Khodadad Khan on his troop-horse, or with one of the syces on one of the Colonel’s polo-ponies, or with some obliging male or female early morning rider, was the joy of his life.  Should he suspect the competitor of “pulling” as he came alongside, that the tiny pony might win, the boy would lash at both horses impartially.

People who pitied him (and they were many) wondered as to how soon he would break his neck, and remonstrated with his father for allowing him to ride alone, or in charge of an attendant unable to control him.