Part 37 (2/2)

”There was no need for the last article,” said Carnehan, blus.h.i.+ng modestly; ”but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that loafers are,--we are loafers, Dan, until we get out of India,--and do you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was in earnest? We have kept away from the two things that make life worth having.”

”You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this idiotic adventure. Don't set the office on fire,” I said, ”and go away before nine o'clock.”

I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back of the ”Contrack.” ”Be sure to come down to the Serai tomorrow,” were their parting words.

The k.u.mha.r.s.en Serai is the great foursquare sink of humanity where the strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folk of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and try to draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian p.u.s.s.y-cats, saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep, and musk in the k.u.mha.r.s.en Serai, and get many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down to see whether my friends intended to keep their word or were lying there drunk.

A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me, gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks of laughter.

”The priest is mad,” said a horse-dealer to me. ”He is going up to Kabul to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honour or have his head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly ever since.”

”The witless are under the protection of G.o.d,” stammered a flat-cheeked Usbeg in broken Hindi. ”They foretell future events.”

”Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up by the s.h.i.+nwaris almost within shadow of the Pa.s.s!” grunted the Eusufzai agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been diverted into the hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortunes were the laughing-stock of the bazaar. ”Ohe', priest, whence come you and whither do you go?”

”From Roum have I come,” shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; ”from Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves, robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers!

Who will take the Protected of G.o.d to the North to sell charms that are never still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the sons shall not fall sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away, of the men who give me place in their caravan. Who will a.s.sist me to slipper the King of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel?

The protection of Pir Khan be upon his labours!” He spread out the skirts of his gabardine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered horses.

”There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, Huzrut,”

said the Eusufzai trader. ”My camels go therewith. Do thou also go and bring us good luck.”

”I will go even now!” shouted the priest. ”I will depart upon my winged camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan,” he yelled to his servant, ”drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own.”

He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and, turning round to me, cried, ”Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I will sell thee a charm--an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan.”

Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the two camels out of the Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted.

”What d' you think o' that?” said he in English. ”Carnehan can't talk their patter, so I've made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant.

'T isn't for nothing that I've been knocking about the country for fourteen years. Didn't I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on to a caravan at Peshawar till we get to Jagdallak, and then we'll see if we can get donkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the Amir, O Lor'! Put your hand under the camelbags and tell me what you feel.”

I felt the b.u.t.t of a Martini, and another and another.

”Twenty of 'em,” said Dravot, placidly. ”Twenty of 'em and ammunition to correspond, under the whirligigs and the mud dolls.”

”Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!” I said. ”A Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans.”

”Fifteen hundred rupees of capital--every rupee we could beg, borrow, or steal--are invested on these two camels,” said Dravot.

”We won't get caught. We're going through the Khaiber with a regular caravan. Who'd touch a poor mad priest?”

”Have you got everything you want?” I asked, overcome with astonishment.

”Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a memento of your kindness, Brother. You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. Half my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is.” I slipped a small charm compa.s.s from my watch-chain and handed it up to the priest.

”Goodbye,” said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. ”It's the last time we'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with him, Carnehan,” he cried, as the second camel pa.s.sed me.

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