King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure by Talbot Mundy (ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📗

“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 Pass 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 Pass without my knowledge. I thought it was a trick. Didn't believe she'd gone. Yet all my men 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 Pass 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! If 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 glass. “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 glass; and it was his first that day. “If it weren't for that note of hers that came down the Pass, and for one or two other things, I'd almost believe her a myth--one of those supposititious 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 Pass? 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?”

“Well two days ago,” said Courtenay. “What's your general plan?”

“Hunt!” said King. “Hunt for x and report. Hunt for the spirit of the coming ruction and try to scrag it! Live in the open when I can, sleep with the lice when it rains or snows, eat dead goat and bad bread, I expect; scratch myself when I'm not looking, and take a tub at the first opportunity. When you see me on my way back, have a bath made ready for me, will you--and keep to windward!”

“Certainly!” said Courtenay. “What's the Rangar going to do with that mare of his? Suppose he'll leave her at Ali Masjid? He'll have to leave her somewhere on the way. She'll get stolen. Gad! That's the brightest notion yet! I'll make a point of buying her from the first horse-thief who comes traipsing down the Pass!”

“Here's wishing you luck!” said King. “It's time to go, sir.”

He rose, and Courtenay walked with him to where his party waited in the dark, chilled by the cold wind whistling down the Khyber. Rewa Gunga sat, mounted, at their head, and close to him his personal servant rode another horse. Behind them were the mules, and then in a cluster, each with a load of some sort on his head, were the thirty prisoners, and Ismail took charge of them officiously. Darya Khan, the man who had brought the letter down the Pass, kept close to Ismail.

“Are you armed?” King asked, as soon as he could see the whites of the Rangar's eyes through the gloom.

“You jolly well bet I am!” the Rangar laughed.

King mounted, and Courtenay shook hands; then he went to Rewa Gunga's side and shook hands with him, too.

“Good-by!” called King.

“Good-by and good luck!”

“Forward! March!” King ordered, and the little procession started.

“Oh, men of the 'Hills,' ye look like ghosts--like graveyard ghosts!” jeered Courtenay, as they all filed past him. “Ye look like dead men, going to be judged!”

Nobody answered. They strode behind the horses, with the swift silent strides of men who are going home to the “Hills”; but even they, born in the “Hills”' and knowing them as a wolf-pack knows its hunting-ground, were awed by the gloom of Khyber-mouth ahead. King's voice was the first to break the silence, and he did not