Part 28 (2/2)
But the rest of the h's torture and death to care for the workings of a Kurdish chief's conscience They crowded closer and closer, interrupting with shouted questions and bidding each other be still So Ranjoor Singh said a word to Abraha The truth was soon out
Gooja Singh, it see we had one chance in a million, decided to contrive safety for hiht, and went and found Wasse in the mountains He told Wassmuss ere, and whence ere, and e intended So Wassh a prisoner, exerted so much persuasion forthwith that three hundred Kurds consented to escort the party of Gerhanistan He promised them I know not what reward, but the point is they consented, and within eight hours of Gooja Singh's arrival the German party was on its way
Then Wassmuss sent the thousand Kurds to deal with us; but, as I have told, we beat them And that ry with Gooja Singh; so they alloper and shouts fro in force to invade the h and would have torn hi a spy of the Turks, sent on ahead to prepare the way But soed to put hireed
Whether or not Gooja Singh declared under torture that ere Turks we could not get to know, but it is certain that the Kurds decided ere Turks, whatever Wassmuss swore to the contrary; and doubtless he swore furiously! And because they believed us to be Turks, they let us be for the present, sure that ould try to make our way back if they could keep thetouch with us And Gooja Singh they presently crucified in a place where ould al thus to surprise us with the inforhten us into a state of comparative harmlessness-a favorite Kurdish trick
That did not account for everything It did not account for our victory over Turks in the hail-storold But none had seen that raid because of the storm, and the spies who had said they talked with our ht were now disbelieved Our presence in the hills and Gooja Singh's escape was all set down to Turkish trickery; and doubtless they did not believe we truly had gold with us, or they would have detached at least a party to follow us up and keep in touch
The clearest thing of all that the disjointed scraps of tale betrayed was that ere in luck! If the Kurds believed us to be Turks, they were likely to let us wander at will, if only for the very hu us doe should try to break back ”No need to waste hts!” said I ”We shall rest a little and be up and away again!” And the wounded groaned, and soh was no man to study comfort when opportunity showed itself We rested two hours, and during those two hours our friend the Kurdish chief ain
”Give es and ten of uide you, and send theainst the Turks!”
Well, they bargained, and bargained Ranjoor Singh offered hiold then and there, or four-fifths of the whole in Persia; and in the end he agreed to take three chests of gold then and there, and to leave us the hostages and thirty h, ”how should the hostages and my prisoners return to you safely otherwise?”
So we kept two chests of gold, and found theood-by to him and his men, and put out our own fires and rode eastward And of the next few days there is nothing to tell except furiousand very little sleep-nor much to eat either
Once ell into Persia we bought food right and left, paying fabulous prices for it with gold from our looted chests Here and there we traded a plundered rifle for a new horse, sometimes t horses Here and there a wounded man would die and ould burn his body (for now there was fuel in plenty) Day after day, night after night, Ranjoor Singh kept in the saddle, hunting tirelessly for news of the party of Gerht, and on the fifth day (or was it the sixth) after we entered Persia he learned at last that ere only a day or two behind them Like us, they were in a hurry; but unlike us, they had no Ranjoor Singh to force the pace and do the scouting, so that for all their long lead ere overtaking them
Like us, they seemed wary of the public eye, for they followed lonely routes a the wooded foothills; but their Kurdish horseh they plundered a little as they went, they spent gold, too, like water, so that the villagers were in a strangewas done by their Kurdish escort who, it see to steal the money paid by the Gerold ould be an to have an easy time of it-all but the wounded, who suffered tortures froe and put our wounded in theless, and there were no roads at all, so that it was better in those days to be a dead !
After a few days (I forget how many, for who can re reat Christian ht safety under the A He and his Syrians elected to try their fortune there, and we let theood brave ent far beyond the ordinary We let the Syrians take their rifles and soht be called on perhaps to help defend the iving up our Turkish officer prisoners and Tugendheioal was, and Tugendheio with us all the way But Ranjoor Singh refused him
”I promised you to the Kurd, and the Kurd will trade you to Wassainst his brother,” he said ”Tell Wassmuss whatever lies you like, and make your peace with your own folk however you can Here is your paper back”
Tugendheined a receipt in conjunction with the Turkish mate and captain of that shi+p in which we escaped from Stamboul) Well, he took the paper back, and burned it in the little fire by which I was sitting facing Ranjoor Singh
”Let ed ”It will be rope or bullet for et back to Gerh, ”I promised to deliver you to Wassmuss e made you prisoner in the first place I must keep my word to you!”
”I release you froendheim
”And I promised you to the Kurdish chief”
”The Kurdish chief?” said Tugendheie-scarcely huainst a civilized man! What does such a pro at his old left,” said Ranjoor Singh, when he was sure Tugendhei you for gold from these Kurds There may be one of the for his chief But since you hold ht as that I o with the Kurds, Sergeant Tugendheied for this, and he begged for that He begged us to give hi that we had coold And Ranjoor Singh gave hiold So journey he had told h He had suffered with us He had helped usthe Syrians, and often his presence with us had saved our skins by convincing Turkish scouts of our bona fides We thought of Gooja Singh, and had no wish that Tugendheied for him, or perhaps because he so intended in the first place, Ranjoor Singh relented
”The Persians hereabouts,” he said, ”all tell reat Russian army will come down presently from the north Have I heard correctly that you endheim answered, ”How should I reach Russia?”
”That is thy affair!” said Ranjoor Singh ”But here is olden German coins ”You must ride back with these Kurds, but I have no authority over theoldfor himself and rode away rather despondently in the midst of the Kurds; and we followed about a day and a half behind the Gere box-full of machinery There were many of us who could talk Persian, and as we stopped in the villages to beg or buy curdled milk, and as we rounded up the cattle-herdse and wonderful stories about what the engine in that box could do I observed that Ranjoor Singh looked merry-eyed when the wildest stories reached hian to reflect on the disastrous consequences of letting such crafty people reach Afghanistan For, as doubtless the sahib knows, the areat army; and if he were to decide that the Gerht overnment of India