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Afghans in winter are late sleepers, and it was not till full day that the Gulla Kutta Mullah's men began to straggle from their huts, rubbing their eyes. They saw men in green, and red, and brown uniforms, leaning on their arms, neatly arranged all round the crater of the village of Bersund, in a cordon that not even a wolf could have broken.
"There take it! Make speed!" he ordered, and with his rifle at the "ready" and the letter tucked inside his shirt, the Pathan favored King with a farewell grin and obeyed. "Get out!" the mullah snarled then immediately. "See to the sick. Tell them I sent thee. Bid them be grateful!" King went. He recognized the almost madness that constituted the mullah's driving power.
A roar of laughter greeted that thrust. Many men who had not laughed at the mullah's first discomfiture, joined in now. Muhammad Anim sat and fidgeted, meeting nobody's eye and answering nothing. He shall meditate in his cave a while, and perhaps he shall be beaten, lest he dare offend again. He can no more escape from Khinjan Caves than the women who are prisoners here. He may therefore live!"
The Emir then nodded shortly to his son, who, as he followed the Mullah's example, turned out of his way to go close to Frank and pat his shoulder warmly, as if to commend him for all that had been done.
King nodded again, for modesty could not help him at that juncture. Love and boastfulness go together in the "Hills." "She shall have thee back, then, at a price!" King did not answer. His brown eyes watched the mullah's, and he drew his breath in little jerks, lest by breathing aloud he should miss one word of what, was coming. "She shall have thee back against Khinian and the ammunition!
And it took him five minutes to drag his hurt weary bones up the ramp, for the fight had taken more out of him than he had guegsed at first. The mullah glared at him but let him by without a word. It was by the fire at the back of the cave, where he stooped to dip water from the mullah's enormous crock that the next disturbing factor came to light.
Colonel Kelly's permission having been obtained, we set about collecting all the shovels and spades we could find in the village. Among others I got hold of the mullah's, who became very indignant; but I pointed out to him that as his prayers seemed to have no effect on the snow, perhaps his shovel would make up for their deficiencies.
The English troops were to post themselves round the hills at the side of the valley; the Goorkhas would command the gorge and the death-trap, and the cavalry would fetch a long march round and get to the back of the circle of hills, whence, if there were any difficulty, they could charge down on the Mullah's men. But orders were very strict that there should be no fighting and no noise.
It seemed to King that he scented climax. So did his near-fifty and their thirty friends. He chose to take the arrival of the blind men as a hint from Providence and to "go it blind" on the strength of what he had hoped might happen. Also he chose in that instant to force the mullah's hand, on the principle that hurried buffaloes will blunder. "To Khinjan!" he shouted to the nearest man.
Go in to-morrow across the Border to pay service to Orde Sahib's successor, and thou shalt slip thy shoes at the tent-door of a Bengali, as thou shalt hand thy offering to a Bengali's black fist. This I know; and in my youth, when a young man spoke evil to a Mullah holding the doors of Heaven and Hell, the gun-butt was not rammed down the Mullah's gullet. No!
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