DAWN Upon the Arkaban hill the artillery men were already at work.

In those days guns were not what they are now, quick loading, quick firing.
It needed a good hour to ram the coarse powder down, adjust the round ball and prepare the priming; to say nothing of the task of aiming.

So, long ere dawn, the glimmering lights were seen about the battery, which, perched on a hill, gave on the half-breached bastion.

Between the two stretched an open space of undulating ground.

Sumbal, "the master fireworker," as he is called in the old history books, was up betimes seeing to his men, and with him came a grave, silent man, who, though he had no interest in the quarrels of Humayon and his brothers, was as eager as any to get within the walls of Kabul and find what he sought--a Rajput lad of whom word had been brought to a little half-desert Rajput state lying far away in the Jesulmer plain.
For the grave, silent man, who showed so much knowledge of warfare, who was keen to see everything new in weapons and the handling of them, was a messenger sent by a widowed mother to see if indeed it could be her long-lost son, of whom a certain old trooper had spoken on his return from Kabul.
"See you!" said Sumbal, who was a bit of a boaster, "give me time to aim and I'll warrant me 'Thunder of God'" (that was the name let in with gold on the breech of the gun) "will hit the mark within a yard every time.