King--of the Khyber Rifles Part 20

"Then I die here, and very likely thou, too!" the man answered, bringing his rifle to the port in front of him so quickly that he almost had King at a disadvantage. As it was, King was quick enough to balance matters by covering him with the pistol again. The horses sensed excitement and began to stir. With a laugh the jezailchi let the rifle fall across his lap, and at that King put the pistol out of sight.

"Fool!" hissed Ismail in his ear; but King knows the "Hills" better in some ways than the savages who live in them; they, for instance, never seem able to judge whether there will be a fight presently or not.

"Why won't you tell me where she is?" he asked in his friendliest voice, and that would wheedle secrets from the Sphynx.

"Her secrets are her own, and may Allah help her guard them! I will tear my tongue out first!"

"Enviable woman!" murmured King. "Pa.s.s, friend!" he ordered, reining aside. "Take my spare horse and leave me that weary one, so you will recover the lost time and more into the bargain."

The man changed horses gladly, saying nothing. When he had shifted the saddle and mounted, he began to ride off with a great air, not so much as deigning to scowl at Ismail. But he had not ridden a dozen paces when he sat round in the saddle and drew rein.

"Sahib!" he called. "Sahib!"

King waited. He had waited for this very thing and could afford to wait a minute longer.

"Hast thou-is there-does the sahib-I have not tasted-"

He made a sign with his hand that men recognize in pretty nearly every land under the sun.

"So-ho!" laughed King, patting his hip pocket, from which the cap of a silver-topped flask had been protruding ever since he put the pistol out of sight. "So our copper's hot, eh?"

"May Allah do more to me if my throat is not lined with the fires of Eblis!"

"But the Kalamullah!" King objected. "What saith the Prophet?"

"The Prophet forbade the faithful to drink wine," said the jezailchi. "He said nothing about whiskey, that I ever heard!"

"Mine is brandy," said King.

"May Allah bless the sahib's sons and grandsons to the seventh generation! May Allah-"

"Tell me about Yasmini first! Where is she?"

"Nay!"

King tapped the flask in his pocket.

"Nay! My throat is dry, but it shalt parch! I know not! As to where she is, I know not!"

"Remember, and I will give you the whole of it!"

He drew the flask out of his pocket and rode a little way toward the man.

"None can overhear. Tell me now."

"Nay, sahib! I am silent!"

"Have you pa.s.sed her on your way?"

The man shook his head-shook it until the whites of his eyes were a streak in the middle of his dark face; and when a Hillman is as vehement as that he is surely lying.

King set the flask to his own lips and drank a few drops.

"Salaam, sahib!" said the jezaitchi, wheeling his horse to ride away.

King let him ride twenty paces before calling to him to halt.

"Come back!" he ordered, and rode part of the way to meet him.

"I but tried thee, friend!" he said, holding out the flask.

"Allah then preserve me from a second test!"

The jezailchi seized the flask, clapped it to his lips and drained it to the last drop while King sat still in the moonlight and smiled at him.

"G.o.d grant the giver peace!" he prayed, handing the flask back. The kindly East possesses no word for "Thank you." Then he wheeled the horse in a sudden eddy, as polo ponies turn on the Indian plains, and rode away down the wind as if the Pa.s.s were full of devils in pursuit of him.

King watched him out of sight and then listened until the hoof-beats died away and the Pa.s.s grew still again.

"The jezailchis'll stand!" he said, lighting a new cheroot. "Good men and good luck to 'em!"

Then he rode back to his own men.

"Where starts the trail to Khinjan?" he asked; not that he had forgotten it, but to learn who knew.

"This side of Ali Masjid!" they answered all together.

"Two miles this side. More than a mile from here," said Ismail. "What next? Shall we camp here? Here is fuel and a little water. Give the word-"

"Nay-forward!" ordered King.

"Forward?" growled Ismail. "With this man it is ever 'forward!' Is there neither rest nor fear? Has she bewitched him? Hai! Ye lazy ones! Ho! Sons of sloth! Urge the mules faster! Beat the led horse!"

So in weird wan moonlight, King led them forward, straight up the narrowing gorge, between cliffs that seemed to fray the very bosom of the sky. He smoked a cigar and stared at the view, as if he were off to the mountains for a month's sport with dependable shikarris whom he knew. n.o.body could have looked at him and guessed he was not enjoying himself.

"That man," mumbled Ismail behind him, "is not as other sahibs I have known. He is a man, this one! He will do unexpected things!"

"Forward!" King called to them, thinking they were grumbling. "Forward, men of the 'Hills'!"

Chapter VII

The owl he has eyes that are big for his size, And the night like a book he deciphers; "Too-woop!" he a.s.serts, and "Hoo-woo-ip!" he cries, And he means to remark he is awfully wise; But he lags behind us, who are "on" to the lies Of the hairy Himalayan knifers!

For eyes we be, of Empire, we, Skinned and puckered and quick to see, And n.o.body guesses how wise we be, Nor hidden in what disguise we be, A-cooking a sudden surprise we be For hairy Himahlyan knifers!

After a time King urged his horse to a jog-trot, and the five Hillmen pattered in his wake, huddled so close together that the horse could easily have kicked more than one of them. The night was cold enough to make flesh creep; but it was imagination that herded them until they touched the horse's rump and kept the whites of their eyes ever showing as they glanced to left and right. The Khyber, fouled by memory, looks like the very birthplace of the ghosts when the moon is fitful and a mist begins to flow.