` My brother is in a Jat regiment , ' said the cultivator . ` Dogras be good men . ' ` Thy Sikhs at least were of that opinion , ' said the soldier , with a scowl at the placid old man in the corner . ` Thy Sikhs thought so when our two companies came to help them at the Pirzai Kotal in the face of eight Afridi standards on the ridge not three months gone . ' He told the story of a Border action in which the Dogra companies of the Ludhiana Sikhs had acquitted themselves well . The Amritzar girl smiled ; for she knew the talk was to win her approval . ` Alas ! ' said the cultivator 's wife at the end . ` So their villages were burnt and their little children made homeless ? ' ` They had marked our dead . They paid a great payment after we of the Sikhs had schooled them . So it was . Is this Amritzar ? ' ` Ay , and here they cut our tickets , ' said the banker , fumbling at his belt . The lamps were paling in the dawn when the half-caste guard came round . Ticket-collecting is a slow business in the East , where people secrete their tickets in all sorts of curious places . Kim produced his and was told to get out . ` But I go to Umballa , ' he protested . ' I go with this holy man . ' ` Thou canst go to Jehannum for aught I care .
This ticket is only -- ' XXXXX burst into a flood of tears , protesting that the lama was his father and his mother , that he was the prop of the lama 's declining years , and that the lama would die without his care .
Amritzar Border Dogra Jat Jehannum Kim Kotal Sikhs homeless months