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Once upon a time King Ali Mardan went out a-hunting, and as he hunted in the forest above the beautiful Dal lake, which stretches clear and placid between the mountains and the royal town of Srinagar, he came suddenly on a maiden, lovely as a flower, who, seated beneath a tree, was weeping bitterly.
This prince was now in his seven-and-thirtieth year, and exhibited all those generous qualities which we find in the men of his race as long as they are not enervated by the voluptuous repose of the Palace. He had been for some time residing in a kind of open arrest in the house of Ali Mardan Khan, a fortified building on the banks of the river.
Why, then, do you come to me? The Sahib has travelled a long way, and is stopping here to rest, not to make an exhibition of himself." An exception is of course made in favor of the Governor-General and Mardan Khan.
But while the consideration of the advisability of the retention of Chitral may be deferred, a description of the means is convenient, if not necessary, to the present chapter. Nowshera is the railway base of the road. Thence we have followed it to Mardan and across the frontier. Here the new and disputed portion begins.
But King Ali Mardan said such a treasure was more than any man's life was worth, since it must bring envy and battle and murder to its possessor; so when he went to Attock he threw the magical Snake-stone into the river, lest it should bring strife into the world.
So the servant, seeing there was nothing else to be done, set off to his master, but he was two years and a half in reaching home, because he had not the precious box with the magical ointment; and all this time Ali Mardan lived with the beautiful stranger in the Shalimar palace, and forgot everything in the wide world except her loveliness.
Fully satisfied of the truth of the Jogi's story, King Ali Mardan begged him for aid in getting rid of the beautiful horror. This the Jogi promised to do, if the King would faithfully obey orders. So they made an oven of a hundred different kinds of metal melted together, and closed by a strong lid and a heavy padlock.
The matter had been forgotten; the vacancies had long since been filled; indeed, two whole years had passed, when one day there walked into Mardan Cantonment a ragged, rough-bearded, hard-bitten gang of seventeen men, carrying two rifles. It was the lost legion!
The Guides, moving back to Mardan, went into cantonments again, and turned in a moment from war to peace. The Buffs, bitterly disappointed at having lost their chance of joining in the Tirah expedition, remained at Malakand in garrison.
'O King, replied the servant, 'he is indeed such a man, and there is nothing in the world he does not know! This reply aroused the King's curiosity, and putting the box in his vest, he said to the servant, 'Go home to your master, and tell him King Ali Mardan has his box, and means to keep it until he comes to fetch it himself. In this way he hoped to entice the holy Jogi into his presence.
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