King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure, Talbot Mundy [ebook smartphone TXT] 📗

could judge nothing about the sound at all, except that whatever caused it must be round a corner out of sight.

At first, for a few minutes King suspected it was Rewa Gunga's mare, galloping over hard rock away ahead of him. Then he knew it was a horse approaching. After that he became nearly sure he was mistaken altogether and that the drums were being beaten at a village--until he remembered there was no village near enough and no drums in any case.

It was the behavior of the horse he rode, and of the led one and the mules, that announced at last beyond all question that a horse was coming down the Khyber in a hurry. One of the mules brayed until the whole gorge echoed with the insult, and a man hit him hard on the nose to silence him.

King legged his horse into the shadow of a great rock. And after shepherding the men and mules into another shadow, Ismail came and held his stirrup, with the leather bag in the other hand. The bag fascinated him, because he did not know what was in it, and it was plain that he meant to cling to it until death or King should put an end to curiosity.

King drew his pistol. Ismail drew in his breath with a hissing sound, as if he and not King were the marksman. King notched the foresight against the corner of a crag, at a height that ought to be an inch or two above an oncoming horse's ears, and Ismail nodded sagely. Whoever now should gallop round that rock would be obliged to cross the line of fire. Such are the vagaries of the Khyber's night echoes that it was a long five minutes yet before a man appeared at last, riding like the night wind, on a horse that seemed to be very nearly on his last legs. The beast was going wildly, sobbing, with straggled ears.

Instead of speaking, King spurred out of the shadow and blocked the oncoming horseman's way, making his own horse meet the other shoulder to breast, knocking most of the remaining wind out of him. At risk of his own life, Ismail seized the man's reins. The sparks flew, and there was a growled oath; but the long and the short of it was that the rider squinted uncomfortably down the barrel of King's repeating pistol.

“Give an account of yourself!” commanded King.

The man did not answer. He was a jezailchi of the Khyber Rifles--hook-nosed as an osprey--black-bearded--with white teeth glistening out of a gap in the darkness of his lower face. And he was armed with a British government rifle, although that is no criterion in that borderland of professional thieves where many a man has offered himself for enlistment with a stolen government rifle in his grasp.

The waler he rode was an officer's charger. The poor brute sobbed and heaved and sweated in his tracks as his rightful owner surely had never made him do.

“Whither?” King demanded.

“Jamrud!”

The jezailchi growled the one-word answer with one eye on King, but the other eye still squinted down the pistol barrel warily.

“Have you a letter?”

The man did not answer.

“You may speak to me. I am of your regiment. I am Captain King.”

“That is a lie, and a poor one!” the fellow answered. “But a very little while ago I spoke with King sahib in Ali Masjid Fort, and he is no cappitin, he is leftnant. Therefore thou art a liar twice over--nay, three times! Thou art no officer of Khyber Rifles! I am a jezailchi, and I know them all!”

“None the less,” said King, “I am an officer of the Khyber Rifles, newly appointed. I asked you, have you a letter?”

“Aye!”

“Let me see it.”

“Nay!”

“I order you!”

“Nay! I am a true man! I will eat the letter rather!”

“Tell me who wrote it, then.”

But the fellow shook his head, still eying the pistol as if it were a snake about to strike.

“I have eaten the salt!” he said. “May dogs eat me if I break faith! Who art thou, to ask me to break faith? An arrficer? That must be a lie! The letter is from him who wrote it, to whom I bear it--and that is my answer if I die this minute!”

King let his reins fall and raised his left wrist until the moonlight glinted on the gold of his bracelet under the jezailchi's very eyes.

“May God be with thee!” said the man at once.

“From whom is your letter, and to whom?” asked King, wondering what the men in the clubs at home would say if they knew that a woman's bracelet could outweigh authority on British sod; for the Khyber Pass is as much British as the air is an eagle's or Korea Japanese, or Panama United States American, and the Khyber jezailchis are paid to help keep it so.

“From the karnal sahib (colonel) at Landi Kotal, whose horse I ride,” said the jezailchi slowly, “to the arrficer at Jamrud. To King sahib, the arrficer at Ali Masjid I bore a letter also, and left it as I passed.”

“Had they no spare horse at Ali Masjid? That beast is foundered.”

“There are two horses there, and both lame. The man who thou sayest is thy brother is heavy on horses.”

King nodded. “What is in the letter?” he asked.

“Nay! Have I eyes that can see through paper?”

“Thou hast ears that can listen!” answered King.

“In the letter that I left at Ali Masjid there is news of the lashkar that is gathering in the 'Hills,' above Ali Masjid and beyond Khinjan. King sahib is ordered to be awake and wary.”

“And to lame no more horses jumping them over rocks!”

“Nay, the karnal sahib said he is to ride after no more jackals with a spear!”

“Same old game!” said King to himself. “What knowest thou of the lashkar that is gathering?”

“I? Oh, a little. An uncle of mine, and three half-brothers, and a brother are of its number! One came at night to tempt me to join--but I have eaten the salt. It was I who first warned our karnal sahib. Now, let me by!”

“Nay, wait!” ordered King. But he lowered his pistol point.

To hold up a despatch rider was about as irregular as any proceeding could be; but it was within his province to find out how far the Khyber jezailchis could be trusted and within his power more than to make up the lost time. So that the irregularity did not trouble him much.

“Does this other letter tell of the lashkar, too?”