Part 16 (2/2)
”I think I envy you!” said Courtenay
They were seated in Courtenay's tent, face to face across the low table, with guttering lights between and Iss to Courtenay's servant inside
”You're about the first who has ad
Not far frorunted and bubbled after the eveningfires down to thehan-one of the little crowd of traders who had co about his lady-love Overhead the sky was like black velvet, pierced with silver holes
”You see, you can't call our end of this business war-it's sport,” said Courtenay ”Two battalions of Khyber Rifles, hired to hold the Pass against their own relations Against thery for loot, armed with up-to-date rifles, thanks to Russia yesterday and Germany to-day, and all perfectly well aware that a world war is in progress That's sport, you know-not the 'ie and likeness of war' that Jorrocks called it, but the real red root And you've got a ive it piquancy I haven't found out yet how Yasht it was a trick Didn't believe she'd gone Yet all one, and not one of theo! What d'you think of that?”
”Tell you later,” said King, ”when I've been in the 'Hills' a while”
”What d'you suppose I' to say, eh? Shall I enter in my diary that a chit came down the Pass from a woman who never went up it? Or shall I say she went up while I was looking the other way?”
”Help yourself!” laughed King
”Laugh on! I envy you! I f the worst comes to the worst, you'll have had the best end of it If you fail up there in the 'Hills' you'll get scoughed and be done with you You'll at least have had a show All we shall know of your failure will be the arrival of the flood! We'll be swaloriously-shot, skinned alive and crucified without a chance of doing anything but wait for it! You're in luck-you can ets!”
For a while, as he ate Courtenay's broiled quail, King did not answer But the merry s his mind dwell on conditions as they concerned himself
”How many men have you at the fort?” he asked at last
”Two hundred Why?”
”All natives?”
”To a ?” answered Courtenay ”You knohat it rin when they salute They'renodded ”Die with you, eh?”
”To the last man,” said Courtenay quietly with that conviction that can only be arrived at in one way, and that not the easiest
”I'd die alone,” said King ”It'll be lonely in the 'Hills' Got any more quail?”
And that was all he ever did say on that subject, then or at any other ti and holding up his glass ”We can't explain her, so let's drink to her! No heel-taps! Here's to Rewa Gunga's !” answered King, draining his glass; and it was his first that day ”If it weren't for that note of hers that cas, I'd almost believe her a myth-one of those supposititious people who are supposed to express some ideal or other Not an hallucination, you understand-nor exactly an embodied spirit, either Perhaps the spirit of a problem Let y be the Khyber district, z the tribes, and x the spirit of the rumpus Find x Get me?”
”Not exactly Got quinine in your kit, by the way?”
”Plenty, thanks”
”What shall you do first after you get up the Pass? Call on your brother at Ali Masjid? He's likely to know a lot by the ti ”May and may not I'd like to see hie How is he?”