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Updated: May 23, 2025
He stood like a native moved like one; even his voice was changed, as if like the actor who dyed himself all over to act Othello he could do nothing by halves. "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.
"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.
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.
"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!"
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.
"Come back!" he ordered, and rode part of the way to meet him. "I but tried thee, friend!" he said, holding out the flask. "Allah then preserve me from a second test!" The jezailchi seized the flask, clapped it to his lips and drained it to the last drop while King sat still in the moonlight and smiled at him. "God grant the giver peace!" he prayed, handing the flask back.
"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!
Their breath came and went sibilantly, and the darkness was alive with the excitement they thought themselves too warrior-like to utter. "But what will she do then?" asked somebody. King searched his memory, and in a moment there came back to him a picture of tile hurrying jezailchi he had held up in the Khyber Pass, and recollection of the man's words.
And now the guide made no objection but leaned on his long gun and waited. The charger proved to be making the trouble the horse that King had exchanged with the jezailchi in the Khyber. The terrified brute was refusing to enter the passage, and all the men, including Ismail and the mullah, were shoving, or else tugging at the reins.
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