Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “I’m going to try to get in without my men seeing me!” said the younger.

  “If they do see you, they’ll shoot!”

  “Yes, and miss! Trust a Khyber jezailchi not to hit much in the dark! It’ll do ’em good either way. I’ll have time to give ’em the password before they fire a second volley. They’re not really dangerous till the third one. Good-by!”

  “By, Charles!”

  Officers in that force are not chosen for their clumsiness, or inability to move silently by night. His foot-steps died in the mist almost as quickly as his shadow. Before he had been gone a minute the Pass was silent as death again, and though Athelstan listened with trained ears, the only sound he could detect was of a jackal cracking a bone fifty or sixty yards away.

  He repacked the loads, putting everything back carefully into the big leather envelopes and locking the empty hand-bag, after throwing in a few stones for Ismail’s benefit. Then he went to sit in the moonlight, with his back to a great rock and waited there cross-legged to give his brother time to make good a retreat through the mist. When there was no more doubt that his own men, at all events, had failed to detect the lieutenant, he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  Almost at once he heard sandals come pattering from both directions. As they emerged out of the mist he sat silent and still. It was Darya Khan who came first and stood gaping at him, but Ismail was a very close second, and the other three were only a little behind. For full two minutes after the man with the sore stomach had come they all stood holding one another’s arms, astonished. Then —

  “Where is he?” asked Ismail.

  “Who?” said King, the hakim.

  “Our sahib — King sahib — where is he?”

  “Gone!”

  Even his voice was so completely changed that men who had been reared amid mutual suspicion could not recognize it.

  “But there are his loads! There is his mule!”

  “Here is his bag!” said Ismail, pouncing on it, picking it up and shaking it. “It rattles not as formerly! There is more in it than there was!”

  “His two horses and the mule are here,” said Darya Khan.

  “Did I say he took them with him?” asked the hakim, who sat still with his back to a rock. “He went because I came! He left me here in charge! Should he not leave the wherewithal to make me comfortable, since I must do his work? Hah! What do I see? A man bent nearly double? That means a belly ache! Who should have a belly ache when I have potions, lotions, balms to heal all ills, magic charms and talismans, big and little pills — and at such a little price! So small a price! Show me the belly and pay your money! Forget not the money, for nothing is free except air, water and the Word of God! I have paid money for water before now, and where is the mullah who will not take a fee? Nay, only air costs nothing! For a rupee, then — for one rupee I will heal the sore belly and forget to be ashamed for taking such a little fee!”

  “Whither went the sahib? Nay — show us proof!” objected Darya Khan; and Ismail stood back a pace to scratch his flowing beard and think.

  “The sahib left this with me!” said King, and held up his wrist. The gold bracelet Rewa Gunga had given him gleamed in the pale moonlight.

  “May God be with thee!” boomed all five men together.

  King jumped to his feet so suddenly that all five gave way in front of him, and Darya Khan brought his rifle to the port.

  “Hast thou never seen me before?” he demanded, seizing Ismail by the shoulders and staring straight into his eyes.

  “Nay, I never saw thee!”

  “Look again!”

  He turned his head, to show his face in profile.

  “Nay, I never saw thee!”

  “Thou, then! Thou with the belly! Thou! Thou!”

  They all denied ever having seen him.

  So he stepped back until the moon shone full in his face and pulled off his turban, changing his expression at the same time.

  “Now look!”

  “Ma’uzbillah! (May God protect us!)”

  “Now ye know me?”

  “Hee-yee-yee!” yelled Ismail, hugging himself by the elbows and beginning to dance from side to side. “Hee-yee-yee! What said I? Said I not so? Said I not this is a different man? Said I not this is a good one — a man of unexpected things? Said I not there was magic in the leather bag? I shook it often, and the magic grew! Hee-yee-yee! Look at him! See such cunning! Feel him! Smell of him! He is a good one — good!”

  Three of the others stood and grinned, now that their first shock of surprise had died away. The fourth man poked among the packs. There was little to see except gleaming teeth and the whites of eyes, set in hairy faces in the mist. But Ismail danced all by himself among the stones of Khyber road and he looked like a bearded ghoul out for an airing.

  “Hee-yee-yee! She smelt out a good one! Hee-yee-yee! This is a man after my heart! Hee-yee-yee! God preserve me! God preserve me to see the end of this! This one will show sport! Oh-yee-yee-yee!”

  Suddenly be closed with King and hugged him until the stout ribs cracked and bent inward and King sobbed for breath among the strands of the Afridi’s beard. He had to use knuckles and knees and feet to win freedom, and though he used them with all his might and hurt the old savage fiercely, he made no impression on his good will.

  “After my own heart, thou art! Spirit of a cunning one! Worker of spells! Allah! That was a good day when she bade me wait for thee!”

  King sat down again, panting. He wanted time to get his breath back and a little of the ache out of his ribs, but he did not care to waste any more minutes, and his eyes watched the faces of the other four men. He saw them slowly waken to understanding of what Ismail meant by “worker of spells” and “magic in the bag” and knew that he had even greater hold on them now than Yasmini’s bracelet gave him.

  “Ma’uzbillah!” they murmured as Ismail’s meaning dawned and they recognized a magician in their midst. “May God protect us!”

  “May God protect me! I have need of it!” said King. “What shall my new name be? Give ye me a name!”

  “Nay, choose thou!” urged Ismail, drawing nearer. “We have seen one miracle; now let us hear another!”

  “Very well. Khan is a title of respect. Since I wish for respect, I will call myself Khan. Name me a village the first name you can think of — quick!”

  “Kurram,” said Ismail, at a hazard.

  “Kurram is good. Kurram I am! Kurram Khan is my name henceforward! Kurram Khan the dakitar!”

  “But where is the sahib who came from the fort to talk?” asked the man whose stomach ached yet from Ismail and Darya Khan’s attentions to it.

  “Gone!” announced King. “He went with the other one!”

  “Went whither? Did any see him go?”

  “Is that thy affair?” asked King, and the man collapsed. It is not considered wise to the north of Jamrud to argue with a wizard, or even with a man who only claims to be one. This was a man who had changed his very nature almost under their eyes.

  “Even his other clothes have gone!” murmured one man, he who had poked about among the packs.

  “And now, Ismail, Darya Khan, ye two dunder-heads! — ye bellies without brains! — when was there ever a dakitar — a hakim, who had not two assistants at the least? Have ye never seen, ye blinder-than-bats — how one man holds a patient while his boils are lanced, and yet another makes the hot iron ready?”

  “Aye! Aye!”

  They had both seen that often.

  “Then, what are ye?”

  They gaped at him. Were they to work wonders too? Were they to be part and parcel of the miracle? Watching them, King saw understanding dawn behind Ismail’s eyes and knew he was winning more than a mere admirer. He knew it might be days yet, might be weeks before the truth was out, but it seemed to him that Ismail was at heart his friend. And there are no friendships stronger than those formed in the Khyber and beyond — no more loyal partnerships. The “Hills” are the ho
me of contrasts, of blood-feuds that last until the last-but-one man dies, and of friendships that no crime or need or slander can efface. If the feuds are to be avoided like the devil, the friendships are worth having.

  “There is another thing ye might do,” he suggested, “if ye two grown men are afraid to see a boil slit open. Always there are timid patients who hang back and refuse to drink the medicines. There should be one or two among the crowd who will come forward and swallow the draughts eagerly, in proof that no harm results. Be ye two they!”

  Ismail spat savagely.

  “Nay! Bismillah! Nay, nay! I will hold them who have boils, sitting firmly on their bellies — so — or between their shoulders — thus — when the boils are behind! Nay, I will drink no draughts! I am a man, not a cess-pool!”

  “And I will study how to heat hot irons!” said Darya Khan, with grim conviction. “It is likely that, having worked for a blacksmith once, I may learn quickly! Phaughghgh! I have tasted physic! I have drunk Apsin Saats! (Epsom Salts.)”

  He spat, too, in a very fury of reminiscence.

  “Good!” said King. “Henceforward, then, I am Kurram Khan, the dakitar, and ye two are my assistants, Ismail to hold the men with boils, and Darya Khan to heat the irons — both of ye to be my men and support me with words when need be!”

  “Aye!” said Ismail, quick to think of details, “and these others shall be the tasters! They have big bellies, that will hold many potions without crowding. Let them swallow a little of each medicine in the chest now, for the sake of practise! Let them learn not to make a wry face when the taste of cess-pools rests on the tongue—”

  “Aye, and the breath comes sobbing through the nose!” said Darya Khan, remembering fragments of an adventurous career. “Let them learn to drink Apsin Saats without coughing!”

  “We will not drink the medicines!” announced the man who had a stomach ache. “Nay, nay!”

  But Ismail hit him with the back of his hand in the stomach again and danced away, hugging himself and shouting “Hee-yee-yee!” until the jackals joined him in discontented chorus and the Khyber Pass became full of weird howling. Then suddenly the old Afridi thought of something else and came back to thrust his face close to King’s.

  “Why be a Rangar? Why be a Rajput, sahib? She loves us Hillmen better!”

  “Do I look like a Hillman of the ‘Hills’?” asked King.

  “Nay, not now. But he who can work one miracle can work another. Change thy skin once more and be a true Hillman!”

  “Aye!” King laughed. “And fall heir to a blood-feud with every second man I chance upon! A Hill-man is cousin to a hundred others, and what say they in the ‘Hills’?— ‘to hate like cousins,’ eh? All cousins are at war. As a Rangar I have left my cousins down in India. Better be a converted Hindu and be despised by some than have cousins in the ‘Hills’! Besides — do I speak like a Hillman?”

  “Aye! Never an Afridi spake his own tongue better!”

  “Yet — does a Hillman slip? Would a Hillman use Punjabi words in a careless moment?”’

  “God forbid!”

  “Therefore, thou dunderhead, I will be a Rangar Rajput, — a stranger in a strange land, traveling by her favor to visit her in Khinjan! Thus, should I happen to make mistakes in speech or action, it may be overlooked, and each man will unwittingly be my advocate, explaining away my errors to himself and others instead of my enemy denouncing me to all and sundry! Is that clear, thou oaf?”

  “Aye! Thou art more cunning than any man I ever met!”

  The great Afridi began to rub the tips of his fingers through his straggly beard in a way that might mean anything, and King seemed to draw considerable satisfaction from it, as if it were a sign language that he understood. More than any one thing in the world just then he needed a friend, and he certainly did not propose to refuse such a useful one.

  “And,” he added, as if it were an afterthought, instead of his chief reason, “if her special man Rewa Gunga is a Rangar, and is known as a Rangar through out the ‘Hills,’ shall I not the more likely win favor by being a Rangar too? If I wear her bracelet and at the same time am a Rangar, who will not trust me?”

  “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.

  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 “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.