Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There are better pickings here on the border, raiding now and then, and pocketing the gold of this Wassmuss between-whiles! Who wants the task of escorting a machine in a box to Khabul?" "Nevertheless," said Ranjoor Singh, "I know of a leader and his men who will undertake the task." "Who, then?" said the Kurd.
"If what the Germans in Stamboul said of him is only half-true," he answered, "we shall find him hard to catch. Wassmuss is a remarkable man. Before the war he was consul in Bagdad or somewhere, and he must have improved his time, for he knows enough now to keep all the tribes stirred up against Russians and British.
The men with the box, or Wassmuss?" asked Ranjoor Singh. "Nay," said the Kurd, "Wassmuss will be very glad to get a willing escort. He is in difficulty over that. There will be no objection from him. But what if the men with the box object to the change of escorts?" "We be over two hundred, and they thirty!" answered Ranjoor Singh, and the Kurd nodded. "After all," he said, "that is thy affair.
If any one asks questions, say only 'Allah! So they will think you are Muhammadans. If that should not seem sufficient, say 'Wassmuss! But unless questioned many times, say nothing! As you value your lives, say nothing more than those two words to any one at all! Rather be thought fools than be hanged before breakfast!"
"You shall have all the gold of this next convoy, if you will ride back to Wassmuss and agree that you and your men shall be the escort to Afghanistan." "Who shall guard this pass if I ride back?" the Kurd asked. "I!" said Ranjoor Singh. "I and my men will wait here for the gold. Leave me a few of your men to be guides and to keep peace between us and other Kurds among these mountains.
Perhaps that was why the Germans had sent Wassmuss, in order that the Turks might have more leisure to destroy their enemies at home! Who knows? There are many things about this great war to which none know the answer, and I think the fate of the Armenians is one of them. But who thought any more of Armenians when the outer spurs of the foot-hills began to close around us? Not we, at any rate.
Tugendheim made a great wail. He begged for this, and he begged for that. He begged us to give him a letter to Wassmuss explaining that we had compelled him by threats of torture. He begged for gold. And Ranjoor Singh gave him a little gold. Some of us put in a word for him, for on that long journey he had told many a tale to make us laugh. He had suffered with us.
He promised them I know not what reward, but the point is they consented, and within eight hours of Gooja Singh's arrival the German party was on its way. Then Wassmuss sent the thousand Kurds to deal with us; but, as I have told, we beat them. And that made the Kurds who held Wassmuss prisoner extremely angry with Gooja Singh; so they made him prisoner, too.
Some of his men had come back, clustering around him, and we were quite a party, filling all the shadow of the great rock. "How much of that gold was to have been yours?" asked Ranjoor Singh, and the Kurd's eyes blazed. "Wassmuss promised me so-and-so much," he answered, "if I with three hundred men wait here for the convoy and escort it to where he waits."
"If I do as you say," said the Kurd, "if I take this letter to Wassmuss, and agree with him to escort those Germans across Persia, what, then, if you fail to get the gold? What if the Turks get the better of you?" "Dead men can not keep bargains!" answered Ranjoor Singh. "I shall succeed or die.
Word Of The Day