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

“Am I God, that I should know? But of what else should the karnal sahib write?”

“What is the object of the rising?” King asked him next; and the man threw his head back to laugh like a wolf. Laughter, at night in the Khyber, is an insult. Ismail chattered into his beard; but King sat still.

“Object? What but to force the Khyber and burst through into India and loot? What but to plunder, now that English backs are turned the other way?”

“Who said their backs are turned?” demanded King.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ho! Hear him!”

The Khyber echoed the mockery away and away into the distance.

“Their backs are this way and their faces that! The kites know it! The vultures know it! The little jackals know it! The little butchas in the valley villages all know it! Ask the rocks, and the grass--the very water running from the 'Hills'! They all know that the English fight for life!”

“And the Khyber jezailchis? What of them?” King asked.

“They know it better than any!”

“And?”

“They make ready, even as I.”

“For what?”

“For what Allah shall decide! We ate the salt, we jezailchis. We chose, and we ate of our own free will. We have been paid the price we named, in silver and rifles and clothing. The arrficers the sirkar sent us are men of faith who have made no trouble with our women. What, then, should the Khyber jezailchis do? For a little while there will be fighting--or, if we be very brave and our arrficers skillful, and Allah would fain see sport, then for a longer while. Then we shall be overridden. Then the Khyber will be a roaring river of men pouring into India, as my father's father told me it has often been! India shall bleed in these days--but there will be fighting in the Khyber first!”

“And what of her? Of Yasmini?” King asked.

“Thou wearest that--and askest what of her? Nay--tell!”

“Should she order the jezailchis to be false to the salt--?”

“Such a question!”

The man clucked into his beard and began to fidget in the saddle. King gave him another view of the bracelet, and again he found a civil answer.

“We of the Rifles have her leave to be loyal to the salt, for, said she, otherwise how could we be true men; and she loves no liars. From the first, when she first won our hearts in the 'Hills,' she gave us of the Rifles leave to be true men first and her servants afterward! We may love her--as we do!--and yet fight against her, if so Allah wills--and she will yet love us!”

“Where is she?” King asked him suddenly, and the man began to laugh again.

“Let me by!” he shouted truculently. “Who am I to sit a horse and gossip in the Khyber? Let me by, I say!”

“I will let you by when you have told me where she is!”

“Then I die here, and very likely thou, too!” the man answered, bringing his rifle to the port in front of him so quickly that he almost had King at a disadvantage. As it was, King was quick enough to balance matters by covering him with the pistol again. The horses sensed excitement and began to stir. With a laugh the jezailchi let the rifle fall across his lap, and at that King put the pistol out of sight.

“Fool!” hissed Ismail in his ear; but King knows the “Hills” better in some ways than the savages who live in them; they, for instance, never seem able to judge whether there will be a fight presently or not.

“Why won't you tell me where she is?” he asked in his friendliest voice, and that would wheedle secrets from the Sphynx.

“Her secrets are her own, and may Allah help her guard them! I will tear my tongue out first!”

“Enviable woman!” murmured King. “Pass, friend!” he ordered, reining aside. “Take my spare horse and leave me that weary one, so you will recover the lost time and more into the bargain.”

The man changed horses gladly, saying nothing. When he had shifted the saddle and mounted, he began to ride off with a great air, not so much as deigning to scowl at Ismail. But he had not ridden a dozen paces when he sat round in the saddle and drew rein.

“Sahib!” he called. “Sahib!”

King waited. He had waited for this very thing and could afford to wait a minute longer.

“Hast thou--is there--does the sahib--I have not tasted--”

He made a sign with his hand that men recognize in pretty nearly every land under the sun.

“So-ho!” laughed King, patting his hip pocket, from which the cap of a silver-topped flask had been protruding ever since he put the pistol out of sight. “So our copper's hot, eh?”

“May Allah do more to me if my throat is not lined with the fires of Eblis!”

“But the Kalamullah!” King objected. “What saith the Prophet?”

“The Prophet forbade the faithful to drink wine,” said the jezailchi. “He said nothing about whiskey, that I ever heard!”

“Mine is brandy,” said King.

“May Allah bless the sahib's sons and grandsons to the seventh generation! May Allah--”

“Tell me about Yasmini first! Where is she?”

“Nay!”

King tapped the flask in his pocket.

“Nay! My throat is dry, but it shalt parch! I know not! As to where she is, I know not!”

“Remember, and I will give you the whole of it!”

He drew the flask out of his pocket and rode a little way toward the man.

“None can overhear. Tell me now.”

“Nay, sahib! I am silent!”

“Have you passed her on your way?”

The man shook his head--shook it until the whites of his eyes were a streak in the middle of his dark face; and when a Hillman is as vehement as that he is surely lying.

King set the flask to his own lips and drank a few drops.

“Salaam, sahib!” said the jezaitchi, wheeling his horse to ride away.

King let him ride twenty paces before calling to him to halt.

“Come back!” he ordered, and rode part of the way to meet him.

“I