King--of the Khyber Rifles Part 25

"I am Kurram Khan, the dakitar, but who in the 'Hills' would believe it? Look now-look ye and tell me what is wrong?"

He pointed to the horse, and they stood in a row and stared.

"Shorten those stirrups, then, six holes at the least! Men will laugh at me if I ride like a British arrficer!"

"Aye!" said Ismail, hurrying to obey.

"Aye! Aye! Aye!" agreed the others.

"Now," he said, gathering the reins and swinging into the saddle, "who knows the way to Khinjan?"

"Which of us does not!"

"Ye all know it? Then ye all are border thieves and worse! No honest man knows that road! Lead on, Darya Khan, thou Lord of Rivers! Do thy duty as badragga and beware lest we get our knees wet at the fords! Ismail, you march next. Now I. You other two and the mule follow me. Let the man with the belly ache ride last on the other horse. So! Forward march!"

So Darya Khan led the way with his rifle, and King's face glowed in cigarette light not very far behind him as he legged his horse up the narrow track that led northward out of the Khyber bed.

It would be a long time before he would dare smoke a cigar again, and his supply of cigarettes was destined to dwindle down to nothing before that day. But he did not seem to mind.

"Cheloh!" he called. "Forward, men of the mountains! Kuch dar nahin hai!"

"Thy mother and the spirit of a fight were one!" swore Ismail just in front of him, stepping out like a boy going to a picnic. "She will love thee! Allah! She will love thee! Allah! Allah!"

The thought seemed to appal him. For hours after that he climbed ahead in silence.

Chapter VIII

Dear is the swagger that takes a man in Helmeted, clattering, proud.

Sweet are the honors the arrogant win, Hot from the breath of a crowd.

Precious the spirit that never will bend- Hot challenge for insolent stare!

But-talk when you've tried it!-to win in the end, Go ahsti!* Be meek! And beware!

[* Slowly.]

Even with the man with the stomach Ache mounted on the spare horse for the sake of extra speed (and he was not suffering one-fifth so much as he pretended); with Ismail to urge, and King to coax, and the fear of mountain death on every side of them, they were the part of a night and a day and a night and a part of another day in reaching Khinjan.

Darya Khan, with the rifle held in both hands, led the way swiftly, but warily; and the last man's eyes looked ever backward, for many a sneaking enemy might have seen them and have judged a stern chase worth while.

In the "Hills" the hunter has all the best of it, and the hunted needs must run. The accepted rule is to stalk one's enemy relentlessly and get him first. King happened to be bunting, although not for human life, and he felt bold, but the men with him dreaded each upstanding crag, that might conceal a rifleman. Armed men behind corners mean only one thing in the "Hills."

The animals grew weary to the verge of dropping, for the "road" had been made for the most part by mountain freshets, and where that was not the case it was imaginary altogether. They traveled upward, along ledges that were age-worn in the limestone-downward where the "h.e.l.l-stones" slid from under them to almost bottomless ravines, and a false step would have been instant death-up again between big edged boulders, that nipped the mule's pack and let the mule between-past many and many a lonely cairn that hid the bones of a murdered man (buried to keep his ghost from making trouble)-ever with a tortured ridge of rock for sky-line and generally leaning against a wind, that chilled them to the bone, while the fierce sun burned them.

At night and at noon they slept fitfully at the chance-met shrine of some holy man. The "Hills" are full of them, marked by fluttering rags that can be seen for miles away; and though the Quran's meaning must be stretched to find excuse, the Hillmen are adept at stretching things and hold those shrines as sacred as the Book itself. Men who would almost rather cut throats than gamble regard them as sanctuaries.

When a man says he is holy he can find few in the "Hills" to believe him; but when he dies or is tortured to death or shot, even the men who murdered him will come and revere his grave.

Whole villages leave their preciousest possessions at a shrine before wandering in search of summer pasture. They find them safe on their return, although the "Hills" are the home of the lightest-fingered thieves on earth, who are prouder of villainy than of virtue. A man with a blood-feud, and his foe hard after him, may sleep in safety at a faquir's grave. His foe will wait within range, but he will not draw trigger until the grave is left behind.

So a man may rest in temporary peace even on the road to Khinjan, although Khinjan and peace have nothing whatever in common.

It was at such a shrine, surrounded by tattered rags tied to sticks, that fluttered in the wind three or four thousand feet above Khyber level, that King drew Ismail into conversation, and deftly forced on him the role of questioner.

"How can'st thou see the Caves!" he asked, for King had hinted at his intention; and for answer King gave him a glimpse of the gold bracelet.

"Aye! Well and good! But even she dare not disobey the rule. Khinjan was there before she came, and the rule was there from the beginning, when the first men found the Caves! Some-hundreds-have gained admission, lacking the right. But who ever saw them again? Allah! I, for one, would not chance it!"

"Thou and I are two men!" answered King. "Allah gave thee qualities I lack. He gave thee the strength of a bull and a mountain goat in one, and her for a mistress. To me he gave other qualities. I shall see the Caves. I am not afraid."

"Aye! He gave thee other gifts indeed! But listen! How many Indian servants of the British Raj have set out to see the Caves? Many, many-aye, very many! Again and again the sirkar sent its loyal ones. Did any return? Not one! Some were crucified before they reached the place. One died slowly on the very rock whereon we sit, with his eyelids missing and his eyes turned to the sun! Some entered Khinjan, and the women of the place made sport with them. Those would rather have been crucified outside had they but known. Some, having got by Khinjan, entered the Caves. None ever came out again!"

"Then, what is my case to thee?" King asked him "If I can not come out again and there is a secret then the secret will be kept, and what is the trouble?"

"I love thee," the Afridi answered simply. "Thou art a man after mine own heart. Turn! Go back before it is too late!"

King shook his head.

"Be warned!"

Ismail reached out a hairy-backed hand that shook with half-suppressed emotion.

"When we reach Khinjan, and I come within reach of her orders again, then I am her man, not thine!"

King smiled, glancing again at the gold bracelet on his arm.

"I look like her man, too!"

"Thou!" Ismail's scorn was well feigned if it was not real. "Thou chicken running to the hand that will pluck thy breast-feathers! Listen! Abdurrahman-he of Khabul-and may Allah give his ugly bones no peace!-Abdurrahman of Khabul sought the secret of the Caves. He sent his men to set an ambush. They caught twenty coming out of Khinjan on a raid. The twenty were carried to Khabul and put to torture there. How many, think you, told the secret under torture? They died cursing Abdurrahman to his face and he died without the secret! May G.o.d recompense him with the fire that burns forever and scalding water and ashes to eat! May rats eat his bones!"

"Had Abdurrahman this?" asked King, touching the bracelet.

"Nay! He would have given one eye for it, but none would trade with him! He knew of it, but never saw it."

"I am more favored. I have it. It is hers, is it not?"

"Does not she know the secret?"

"She knows all that any man knows and more!"

"Was she seen to slay a man in the teeth of written law?" asked King, and Ismail stared so hard at him that he laughed.

"I was in Khinjan once before, my friend! I know the rule! I failed to reach the Caves that other time because I had no witnesses to swear they had seen me slay a man in the teeth of written law. I know!"

"Who saw thee this time?" Ismail asked, and began to cackle with the cruel humor of the "Hills," that sees amus.e.m.e.nt in a man's undoing, or in the destruction of his plans. His humor forced him to explain.

"The price of an entrance has come of late to be the life of an English arrficer! Many an one the English have dubbed Ghazi, because he crossed the border and buried his knife in a man on church parade! They hang and burn them, knowing our Muslim law, that denies Heaven to him who is hanged and burned. Yet the man they miscall ghazi sought but the key to Khinjan Caves, with no thought at all about Heaven! Thou art a British arrficer. It may be they will let thee enter the Caves at her bidding. It may be, too, that they will keep thee in a cage there for some chief's son to try his knife on when the time comes to win admission! Listen-man o' my heart!-so strict is the rule that boys born in the Caves, when they come to manhood, must go and slay an Englishman and earn outlawry before they may come back; and lest they prove fearful and betray the secret, ten men follow each. They die by the hand of one or other of the ten unless they have slain their man within two weeks. So the secret has been kept more years than ten men can remember!" (That estimate was doubtless due to a respect for figures and bore no relation to the length of a human generation.)