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Updated: May 15, 2025
King gave him twenty minutes start, letting his men rest their legs and exercise their tongues. Now that he was out of the mullah's clutches and he suspected Yasmini would know of it within an hour or two, and before dawn in any event he began to feel like a player in a game of chess who foresees his opponent mate in so many moves.
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.
That was all, but the fire in the mullah's eyes showed that he thought it was enough. He did not doubt that once he should have his extra four thousand in the caves Khinjan would be his; and he said so. "Khinjan is mine!" he growled. "India is mine!" And King did not answer him. He did not believe Yasmini would be fool enough to trust herself in any bargain with Muhammad Anim.
He had advanced into a hostile country. In his front the Mohmands had gathered at the Hadda Mullah's call to oppose his further progress. The single brigade he had with him was not strong enough to force the Bedmanai Pass, which the enemy held. The 2nd Brigade, on which he had counted, was fully employed twelve miles away in the Mamund Valley.
"A man small of stature, effendi, but very fierce, with the visage of a devil. The Wandis fear him greatly. When he looks upon them with anger they flee." Herne's eyes were striving to pierce the gloom. "Where on earth are we?" he said. "It is the Mullah's dwelling-place, effendi, at the gate of the City of Stones. None may enter or pass out without his knowledge.
The mullah stood with his back to it and beckoned King nearer. He approached until he could see the pattern on the covering rugs, and the pink rims round the mullah's lashless eyes. "What is thy desire?" the mullah asked as a wolf might ask what a lamb wants. Supposing Yasmini to be jealous of invasion of her realm, King did not doubt she would be glad to have him break down at this point.
On one occasion when the rice had been handed round from man to man it was found after the fight was over that the Mullah's hand was very badly cut. His followers began to murmur, and wonder how the giver of this charmed rice could himself be wounded in battle. The Mullah was, however, smart enough to invent a story about having seized a bayonet and purposely cut himself.
A prominent Nationalist has alluded to the Mullah and his dervishes as "brave men striving to be free." In 1910 British prestige had shed its last rag in Somaliland: we had withdrawn to the coast and the Mullah's horsemen actually rode through Berbera bazar on one of their raids and withdrew unscathed.
"Did they beat the British greatly?" King asked him, with only vague interest on his face and a prayer inside him that his heart might flutter less violently against his ribs. His voice was as non-committal as the mullah's message. "Who knows, when so many men would rather lie than kill? Each one who returned swears he slew a hundred. But some did not return. Wait and watch, say I!"
They marched downward through interminable tunnels and along ledges poised between earth and heaven, until they came at last to the tunnel leading to the one entrance into Khinjan Caves. Just before they entered it two more of the mullah's men came up with them, leading horses.
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