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Mahmoud's whole family were comfortably planted around him. We went to the great Bazaar in Stamboul, of course, and I shall not describe it further than to say it is a monstrous hive of little shops thousands, I should say all under one roof, and cut up into innumerable little blocks by narrow streets which are arched overhead.
It was Mahmoud's voice now that quavered over the heads of the camels and drove them on; it was his eye which watched the horizon. The hours went by, and no living thing appeared in the desert, save a small cloud of vultures, heavy from feasting on a camel dead in the waste, and a dark- brown snake flitting across their path.
I had hardly observed, when first the procession entered the room, that one of my friend's followers my friend's name, as I learned afterwards, was Mahmoud al Ackbar, and I will therefore call him Mahmoud that one of Mahmoud's followers bore in his arms a bundle of long sticks, and that another carried an iron pot and a tray.
But three of the staff engaged Kagig alone, and twenty or thirty of Mahmoud's infantry drove Kagig's men back on the still advancing column. Kagig went down, fighting and shouting like a Berserker, and Monty let Mahmoud go to run to Kagig's rescue. Monty did not go alone, for his men leapt after him like hounds.
Mahmoud's whole family were comfortably planted around him. We went to the great Bazaar in Stamboul, of course, and I shall not describe it further than to say it is a monstrous hive of little shops thousands, I should say all under one roof, and cut up into innumerable little blocks by narrow streets which are arched overhead.
I stuck my pistol into his ear and dared him to move hand or foot. Gloria came back in tears, and took Mahmoud's cape and my jacket, and spread them on the ground. On these they laid Monty very tenderly, Kagig looking on with cracking finger-joints that I could hear quite plainly in spite of the awful rage of battle that thundered and crashed and screamed among the woods.
It wag Kagig and Will together who overtook me, picked me off my feet, and dragged me back, and Will went down alone, with a wave of the hand to Gloria, and a laugh that might have made the devil think he liked it. Then began the conference, I holding a mere watching brief with a pistol reasonably close to Mahmoud's ear.
He was dressed as you and I are, in trousers and a coat and boots, and he had a billycock hat on. He had a foolish, anxious face. He did not keep his word particularly; and he was exceedingly fond of money. He had spent most of his life accumulating all sorts of wealth in a great bag, and he landed with this bag in Mahmoud's country, and Mahmoud was as polite to him as the heat would allow.
When the English conquered Afghanistan, Lord Ellenborough sent the gates to Agra; but some think they were not the gates of the temple, but of Mahmoud's tomb, for they were made of a wood that does not grow in India, and they are not of Hindu workmanship. From the museum the party walked to the imperial palace of Akbar, still in an excellent state of preservation.
These were the tombs of Mahmoud's grandsons, nephews of the present Light of the Universe, and children of his sister, the wife of Halil Pasha. Little children die in all ways: these of the much-maligned Mahometan Royal race perished by the bowstring. His sister, whom he is said to have loved, became again a mother, and had a son.