United States or Sri Lanka ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"They would hang us," said King, "unless we came bearing gifts." "Gifts? Has Allah touched thee? What gifts should we bring? A dozen stolen rifles? A bag of silver? And I am the dreamer, am I?" "Nay," said King. "I am the dreamer. I have seen a good vision." "Well?" "There are others in these Hills others in Khinjan who wear British medals?" The Pathan nodded. "How many?" asked King. "Hundreds.
After a great deal of resentful argument they consented to lie hidden for an hour or two "but no longer," and King hid his horse in a hollow and persuaded three of them to gather grass for him. It was a little more than an hour after dawn and the chilled rocks were beginning to grow warmer when the head of a procession came out of Khinjan Gate and started toward them over the valley.
A great slice of Khinjan suddenly caved in with a roar, and smoke and dust burst upward through the tumbling crust. There was a pause after that, as if the waiting elements were gathering strength. For ten minutes they watched and scarcely breathed. Rewa Gunga gained the summit and, dismounting, stood by King with the reins over his arm. The mare was too blown to do anything but stand and tremble.
If fanatics were all-wise, it would be a poor world for the rest. "Very well," King said quietly. "Greeting," he wrote, "to the most beautiful and very wise Princess Yasmini, in her palace in the Caves in Khinjan, from her servant Kurram Khan the hakim, in the camp of the mullah Muhammad Anim, a night's march distant in the hills.
Some entered Khinjan, and the women of the place made sport with them. Those would rather have been crucified outside had they but known. Some, having got by Khinjan, entered the Caves. None ever came out again!" "Then, what is my case to thee?" King asked him "If I can not come out again and there is a secret then the secret will be kept, and what is the trouble?"
Never an Afridi spake his own tongue better!" "Yet does a Hillman slip? Would a Hillman use Punjabi words in a careless moment?" "God forbid!" "Therefore, thou dunderhead, I will be a Rangar Rajput, a stranger in a strange land, traveling by her favor to visit her in Khinjan!
Yet the man they miscall ghazi sought but the key to Khinjan Caves, with no thought at all about Heaven! Thou art a British arrficer. It may be they will let thee enter the Caves at her bidding. It may be, too, that they will keep thee in a cage there for some chief's son to try his knife on when the time comes to win admission!
"A strange knife," he said. "Yes, from Khinjan," said Rewa Gunga, and King eyed him as one wolf eyes another. "What makes you say it is from Khinjan?" "She brought it from Khinjan Caves herself! There is another knife that matches it, but that is not here. That bracelet you now wear, sahib, is from Khinjan Caves too! She has the secret of the Caves!"
A rifle is what it is. The 'Hills' are the 'Hills'! "Tell me about your lamp oil, then," he said. "You burn enough oil in Khinjan Caves to light Bombay! That does not come by submarine. The sirkar knows how much of everything goes up the Khyber. I have seen the printed lists myself a few hundred cans of kerosene a few score gallons of vegetable oil, and all bound for farther north.
The tribes'll know presently how many men we're sending oversea. There've been rumors about Khinjan by the hundred lately. They're cooking something. Can you imagine 'em keeping quiet now?" "That depends, sir. Yes, I can imagine it." The general laughed. "That's why I sent for you. I need a man with imagination!
Word Of The Day