Part 49 (1/2)
Then he turned his head to stare into King's face, with the scrutiny of a trader appraising loot Fire leaped up behind his calculating eyes And without a word passing between the knew that this man as well as Yasmini was in possession of the secret of the Sleeper Perhaps he knew it first; perhaps she snatched the keeping of the secret fro's likeness to the Sleeper, for his eyes betrayed hian to stroke his beard monotonously with one hand The rifle, that he pretended to be holding, really leaned against his back and with the free hand he was nals But he knew too that in Yasmini's power, her prisoner, he had no chance at all of interfering with her plans Having grounded on the bottom of impotence, so to speak, any tide that would take hi, and to be particularly unaware that the Pathan, with a rifle in each hand, was pretending to come casually up the path
In a minute he was covered by a rifle In another minute the mullah had lashed his hands In five s and they were all half-way down the track in single file, thebackith rifle ready against surprise, as if he expected Yasmini and her men to pounce out any minute to the rescue
They entered a tunnel and wound along it, stepping at short intervals over the bodies of three stabbed sentries The Pathan spurned thelare at the tunnel'stripped over the body of a fourth e of a sheer precipice
They were on a ledge above the waterfall again, having coh a projection on the cliff's side, for Khinjan is all rat-runs and projections, like a sponge or a hornet's nest on a titanic scale
The Pathan laughed and careat sed him to hirinned ”There is no pain in my shoulder at all! Ask of me another favor when the ti a shove along the path in the general direction of the s, and hurled it like a sling shot, watching it with a grin as it fell in a wide parabola After that he took the dead man's rifle, and those of the three other dead men, that he had hidden in a crevice in the rock, and loaded the's saddle that she carried already
”Come!” he said ”Hurry, or Bull-with-a-beard yonder will reets!”
They soon reached another cave, at which thehole, but he ordered King into it and the Pathan after hi the women pile all their loads inside Then he took the woing his right arm as he strode, in a way few natives do
”Let us hope he has forgotten these!” the Pathan grinned, touching the pile of rifles ”Weight for weight in silver they will bring et He dreams For a mullah he cares less for meat and money than any I ever saw He is mad, I think It is my opinion Allah touched hi asked
The Pathan grinned, and undid the button There was a second shi+rt underneath, and to that on the left breast were pinned two British hed ”I served the raj! I was in the ar asked, re that this h, and the bastard who stood nexthom my father had a blood-feud The blind fool did not know h on the saer on him that side of the border, for we ate the same salt I knifed him this side the border It was no affair, of the British But I was seen, and I fled And having slain a iment, I entered this place Except for a raid now and then to cool my blood I have been here ever since It is a devil of a place”
Now the art of ruling India consists not in treading barefooted on scorpions-not in virtuous indignation atold in the character of anytests before enlistier on it, but it is surely there
”I heard,” said King, ”as I careat haste (for the police were at rinned pleasantly
The inference was that at some time or other he had left his , ”that iments”
”Aye, but not men with a price on their heads, little haki To seem to know too much is as bad as to drink too much ”But I heard say that the sirkar has offered pardons to all deserters who return”
”Hah! The sirkar must be afraid The sirkar needs , ”a whole skin in the 'Hills' seems better than one full of bullet holes in India”
”Hah! But thou art a haki
”Tell ain! Free pardons? Free pardons for all deserters?”