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Passing by the ruinous gate yonder with its wild-looking sentry, we reach the open space where crouching hill-men are reposing on the stunted grass, and ungainly camels, kneeling in a circle, are chewing the cud in patience, or venting that uncanny half-whine, half-bellow, which is their only attempt at conversation.
I got it from Yasmini herself, from three of the hill-men who were present, and from the Afridi who was kicked and beaten. All except the Afridi, who wasn't there by that time, agreed that Ranjoor Singh had words with the German afterward. Eh? What's that?" He listened again for about five minutes, and then hung up the receiver with an expression of mixed irritation and amusement.
They all saw that if it had been difficult to get through the passes before, it would be almost impossible now, when the success at Cabul had given fresh courage and audacity to the hill-men, and thousands who had hung back waiting to know if the insurrection would be successful or not would have rushed to the help of their country.
Yet I remember the time when her own kin of the Hill-Men caught me and carried me away into the hills. They were her father, his brother, and her two own blood-brothers. But she was mine, who had lived with me. And at night, where I lay bound like a wild pig for the slaying, and they slept weary by the fire, she crept upon them and brained them with the war-club that with my hands I had fashioned.
They have not gone off towards the far mountain peaks, but crossed yonder limestone bridge instead." "What do you understand from that movement?" Denviers asked Hassan. "The sound which we heard at first came from the strange city of which I spoke," he replied. "Some of the fierce hill-men have made a night attack upon it, and will soon return this way.
Arndt burst into tears, and told his friend of all that had happened that night. The peddler's face grew graver and graver as the boy told him it was on this very spot that he lost his little sister. "Arndt," whispered he, "did you ever hear of the Hill-men? It is they who have carried little Reutha away."
But not all of the freemen of the Upper-mark could be at the Thing; for needs must there be some guard to the passes of the wood toward the south and the hills of the herdsmen, whereas it was no wise impassable to a wisely led host: so five hundred men, what of freemen, what of thralls, abode there to guard the wild-wood; and these looked to have some helping from the hill-men.
It meant that Weaver would have to sell off about a thousand head of cattle, while the hill-men, on the other hand, could increase their holdings. "What about sheep?" the old man asked bluntly. Buck's stony gaze met his steadily. "I'm going to leave those sheep on your conscience, Mr. Sanderson. You'll have to settle that matter for yourself."
The Hill-men and women will kill her!" "No," said the old man, "they are very good little people, and they live in a beautiful palace underground. Truly, you will never see Reutha again, for they will keep her with them a hundred years; and when she comes back you will be dead and buried, while she is still a beautiful child."
"I wonder how the deuce he picked up his food." "Oh, the hill-men hereabouts will travel leagues to visit and feed such a man." "That doesn't explain why his bones lie unburied." "No." The General mused for a moment. "Found anything else?" he demanded sharply. The searchers reported "Nothing," and wished to know if they should bring the skeleton out into the light.
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