King--of the Khyber Rifles Part 16

"Are you the messenger who is to show this sahib the road to Khinjan?" he asked.

"Aye!"

"But you are one of three who left here and went up the Pa.s.s at dawn! I recognize you."

"Aye!" said the man. "She met me and gave me this letter and sent me back."

"How great is the lashkar that is forming?" asked Courtenay.

"Some say three thousand men. They speak truth. They who say five thousand are liars. There is a lashkar."

"And she went up alone?" King murmured aloud in Pashtu.

"Is the moon alone in the sky?" the fellow asked, and King smiled at him.

"Let us hurry after her, sahib!" urged Rewa Gunga, and King looked straight into his eyes, that were like pools of fire, just as they had been that night in the room in Delhi. He nodded and the Rangar grinned.

"Better wait until dawn," advised Courtenay. "The Pa.s.s is supposed to be closed at dusk."

"I shall have to ask for special permission, sir."

"Granted, of course."

"Then, we'll start at eight to-night!" said King, glancing at his watch and snapping the gold case shut.

"Dine with me," said Courtenay.

"Yes, please. Got to pack first. Daren't trust anybody else."

"Very well. We'll dine in my tent at six-thirty," said Courtenay. "So long!"

"So long, sir," said King, and each went about his own business, King with the Rangar, and Ismail and all thirty prisoners at his heels, and Courtenay alone, but that much more determined.

"I'll find out," the major muttered, "how she got up the Pa.s.s without my knowing it. Somebody's tail shall be twisted for this!"

But he did not find out until King told him, and that was many days later, when a terrible cloud no longer threatened India from the North.

Chapter VI

Oh, a broken blade, And an empty bag, And a sodden kit, And a foundered nag, And a whimpering wind Are more or less Ground for a gentleman's distress.

Yet the blade will cut, (He should swing with a will!) And the emptiest bag He may readiest fill; And the nag will trot If the man has a mind, So the kit he may dry In the whimpering wind.

Shades of a gallant past-confess!

How many fights were won with less?

"I think I envy you!" said Courtenay.

They were seated in Courtenay's tent, face to face across the low table, with guttering lights between and Ismail outside the tent handing plates and things to Courtenay's servant inside.

"You're about the first who has admitted it," said King.

Not far from them a herd of pack-camels grunted and bubbled after the evening meal. The evening breeze brought the smoke of dung fires down to them, and an Afghan-one of the little crowd of traders who had come down with the camels three hours ago-sang a wailing song about his lady-love. Overhead the sky was like black velvet, pierced with silver holes.

"You see, you can't call our end of this business war-it's sport," said Courtenay. "Two battalions of Khyber Rifles, hired to hold the Pa.s.s against their own relations. Against them a couple of hundred thousand tribesmen, very hungry for loot, armed with up-to-date rifles, thanks to Russia yesterday and Germany to-day, and all perfectly well aware that a world war is in progress. That's sport, you know-not the 'image and likeness of war' that Jorrocks called it, but the real red root. And you've got a mystery thrown in to give it piquancy. I haven't found out yet how Yasmini got up the Pa.s.s without my knowledge. I thought it was a trick. Didn't believe she'd gone. Yet all my mer swear they know she has gone, and not one of them will own to having seen her go! What d'you think of that?"

"Tell you later," said King, "when I've been in the 'Hills' a while."

"What d'you suppose I'm going to say, eh? Shall I enter in my diary that a chit came down the Pa.s.s from a woman who never went up it? Or shall I say she went up while I was looking the other way?"

"Help yourself!" laughed King.

"Laugh on! I envy you! I f the worst comes to the worst, you'll have had the best end of it. If you fail up there in the 'Hills' you'll get scoughed and be done with you. You'll at least have had a show. All we shall know of your failure will be the arrival of the flood! We'll be swamped ingloriously-shot, skinned alive and crucified without a chance of doing anything but wait for it! You're in luck-you can move about and keep off the fidgets!"

For a while, as he ate Courtenay's broiled quail, King did not answer. But the merry smile had left his eyes and he seemed for once to be letting his mind dwell on conditions as they concerned himself.

"How many men have you at the fort?" he asked at last.

"Two hundred. Why?"

"All natives?"

"To a man."

"Like 'em?"

"What's the use of talking?" answered Courtenay. "You know what it means when men of an alien race stand up to you and grin when they salute. They're my own."

King nodded. "Die with you, eh?"

"To the last man," said Courtenay quietly with that conviction that can only be arrived at in one way, and that not the easiest.

"I'd die alone," said King. "It'll be lonely in the 'Hills.' Got any more quail?"

And that was all he ever did say on that subject, then or at any other time.

"Here's to her!" laughed Courtenay at last, rising and holding up his gla.s.s. "We can't explain her, so let's drink to her! No heel-taps! Here's to Rewa Gunga's mistress, Yasmini!"

"May she show good hunting!" answered King, draining his gla.s.s; and it was his first that day. "If it weren't for that note of hers that came down the Pa.s.s, and for one or two other things, I'd almost believe her a myth-one of those supposit.i.tious people who are supposed to express some ideal or other. Not an hallucination, you understand-nor exactly an embodied spirit, either. Perhaps the spirit of a problem. Let y be the Khyber district, z the tribes, and x the spirit of the rumpus. Find x. Get me?"

"Not exactly. Got quinine in your kit, by the way?"

"Plenty, thanks."

"What shall you do first after you get up the Pa.s.s? Call on your brother at Ali Masjid? He's likely to know a lot by the time you get there."

"Not sure," said King. "May and may not. I'd like to see him. Haven't seen the old chap in a donkey's age. How is he?"