King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure by Talbot Mundy (ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📗
- Author: Talbot Mundy
Book online «King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure by Talbot Mundy (ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📗». Author Talbot Mundy
“True! Thou art a magician!”
“True!” agreed Ismail.
But the moon was getting low and Khyber would be dark again in half an hour, for the great crags in the distance to either hand shut off more light than do the Khyber walls. The mist, too, was growing thicker. It was time to make a move.
King rose. “Pack the mule and bring my horse!” he ordered and they hurried to obey with alacrity born of new respect, Darya Khan attending to the trimming of the mule's load in person instead of snarling at another man. It was a very different little escort from the one that had come thus far. Like King himself, it had changed its very nature in fifteen minutes!
They brought the horse, and King laughed at them, calling the idiots--men without eyes.
“The saddle?” Ismail suggested. “It is a government arrficer's saddle.”
“Stolen!” said King, and they nodded. “Stolen along with the horse!”
“Then the bridle?”
“Stolen too, ye men without eyes! Ye insects! A stolen horse and saddle and bridle, are they not a passport of gentility this side of the border?”
“Aye!”
“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.
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 hunting, 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 “hell-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
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