*
*
Synopsis.—At the beginning
to Delhi to meet Yasmini, a dan
Jihad or holy war.
assassinate him and gets evidence
hillmen and takes them north with
ahead.
brother at Ali Masjid fort.
the sharp-eyved cutthroats compos
caves, thanks to his lying guides,
of the world war Capt. Athelstan
cer, and go with her to Kinjan to
that Yasminl is after him. He meets
Ismail, an Afridi, be-
He rescues some of Yosmiul's
him, tricking the Rangar into going
He meets his
ing his guard. He enters Khinjan
CHAPTER X!.—Continued.
so —
“Are there devils in Tophet? Fire
and my veins are one!”
The man did not notice the eager-
ness beaming out of King's horn-
geemed to him time to prove his vir
tunes ag assistant.
Khan,” he boasted. “He can cure any-
thing, and for a very little fee!”
The man looked incredulous, but
King drew the covering from his row
of instruments and bottles,
“Take a chance!” he advised. “None
put the brave wins anything!”
Ismail and Darya Khan were new to
the business and enthusiastic. They
had the man down, held tight onthe
floor to the
his howls of rage did him no good, for
Ismail drove the hilt of a knife be-
tween his open jaws to keep them open.
A very large proportion of King's
stores consisted of morphia and co-
caine,
deaden the man’s nerves, and allowed
tit time to work. Then he drew out
three back teeth In quick succession,
to make sure he had the right one.
Ismail let the victim up, and Darya
Ehan gave him water in a brass cup.
a wolf freed from a trap.
“Are any others
Khinjan?” King asked him.
“Listen to him! What is Khinjan?
there in pain in
# Sore or a scar or a sickness?”
“Then, tell them,” sald King.
The man laughed.
“When I show
a fight to be first
Igo!”
King sat down to eat, but he had not
finished his menl—he had made the
last little heap of rice into a ball with
his fingers, native style, and was mop-
ping up the last of the curried gravy
with it—when the advatice rd of
the and the halt
made its appearance.
trance became j
no riot ever made more noise.
“Hakim! Ho, hakim!
iy jaw, there will be
! Make ready, hakim!
u
'
is
it ree
gag
and the
The cave's en-
tat
ame
man who knows yunani?”
Ten men burst down the passage all
together, ull clamoring, and one mar
wasted no time at all but began to tear
away bloody bandages to show his
wound.
began, so that eagerness gave place to
his first trick, made him horror-proof ;
and nobody waiting for the next turn
was troubled because the man under
the knife screamed little or bled
more than usual,
a
did die-~-men carried them ont and
waterfall below,
Ismail
disgusting bandages and held their
breath until the awful resulting stench
had more or less dispersed. Then
King would probe or lance or bandage
as he maw fit, using anesthetics when
he must, but managing mostly without
them,
They almost flung money at him. He
tossed money and clothes and every
other thing they gave him into a corner
at the back of the cave, aud nobody
ied to steal them back, although no
man suspected of honesty in that
company would have been tortured to
death us an hergtie and would have
had no sympathy.
For hour after. gruesome hour be
tolled over wounds and sores such as
only battles and evil living can pro-
duce, until men began to come at last
with fresh wounds, all enused by bul-
lets, wrapped id bandages on which
he blood had caked but had not grown
‘oul.
“There has been fighting in the Khy-
ber,” somebody informed him, and he
stopped with lancet in midair to listen,
scanning a hundred faces swiftly in
men who held lamps for him, one of
them a newcomer, and it was be who
spoke,
~ “Fighting in the Khyber! Aye!
were a litle lashkar, but we drove
them back into their fort!
slew many !I™
| rectly: but he had lost reckoning of
| everything but these poor devils’ dread-
ful ned of doctoring, and he was like
a man roused out of a dream. If a
| holy war had been proclaimed already,
{ But the man laughed at him,
“Nay, not yet.
i holds Lack yet. This was a little fight.
{ The jihad shall come later!”
“And who is ‘Bull-with-a-beard'?” |
King wondered; but he did not ask
that question because his wits were
awake again. It pays not to be In too
much of a hurry to know things in the
“Hills.”
As it happened, he asked no more
questions, for there came n shout at
the cave entrance whose purport he
did not catch, and within five minutes
| tion, the cave was left empty of all ex- |
| cept his own five men. They carried
{ away the men too sick to walk and
! vanished, snatching the Inst man away
snlmost before King's fingers had fin-
ished tying the bandage on his wound.
“Why Is that? he ssked Ismail
“Why did they go? Whe shouted 7
| “It is night,” Ismail answered. “It
{ was time.”
| King stared about him. He had not |
i realized until then that without aid of |
{ the lamps he could not see his own |
| hand held out in front of him ; his eyes |
i had grown used to the gloom, like!
those of the surgeons in the sick-bays |
| below the waterline in Nelson's fleet,
| “But who shouted?”
“Who knows? There Is only one
{ here who gives orders. We be many
| who obey,” sald Ismail,
“Whose men were the last ones?
| King asked him, trying a new line.
“Bull-with-a-beard’s.”
| “And whose gan art thou, Ismail?
The Afridi hesitated, and when he
| spoke at last there was not quite the
'
a Le i
I 4
i
i
{
i
i
A Man Whom He Had Never Seen Be.
fore Leaned on a Magazine Rifle
and Eyed Him as a Tiger Eyes Its
Prey.
same assurance In his voice as once
there had been,
it 1s night. Sleep against the toll to-
morrow. There be many sick in Khin-
”
King made a little effort to clean the
the cave—she, the woman of the faded
photograph the seneral had given him
in Peshawnur—and that the cave be-
came filled ~7ith the strange intoxicat-
ing scent that had first wooed his
senses In her reception room in Delhl.
He dreamed that she called “im by
name. First, “King sahib!” Then
“Rurram Khan!” And her voice was
surprisingly familiar. But dreams are
strange things.”
“He sleeps!™ s=ald the same volce
presently. “It is good that he sleeps!”
And in his sleep he thought that a
shadowy Ismail grunted an answer,
When he awoke at last it was after
dawn, and light shone down the pas-
sage Into the cave.
“Ismail!” he shouted, for he was
thirsty. But there was no answer.
“Darya Khan!”
Again there was no answer. He
called each of the other men by name
with the same result. He decided to
#0 te the cave mouth, summon his men,
who were no doubt sleeping. But there
was no Ismail near the estrance—no
Darya Khan-—nor any of the other
men, The horse was gone. So was the
mule. So was the harness, and every-
thing he had, except the drugs and in-
struments and the presents the sick
hnd given him; he had noticed all
those lying about in confusion when he
woke,
“Ismail!” he shouted at the top of
outside,
He heard a man hawk and spit, close
A man whom he had never seen before
him as a tiger eyes his prey.
“No farther!”
his rifle to the port.
“Why not?" King asked him.
“Allah! When n
Khyber do the kites ask why? Go in!”
He thought then of Yasmini's brace-
let, that had always gained him at
least clvility from every man who saw
it. He held up his jeft wrist and knew
The bracelet had disappeared!
He turned back into the cave to hun!
for it, and the strange scent greeted
him again. In spite of the surround
ing stench of drugs and fiithy wounds,
there was no mistaking it. If it had
been her special scent in Delhi, as
Saunders swore it was, and her special
scent on the note Darya Khan had car.
pow, and she had been in the cave,
He hunted high and Jow and found
His pistol was gone, too,
and his eartridges, but not the dagger,
wrapped in a handkerchief, under his
shirt. The money, that his patients
touched. It wns an unusual robber who
had robbed him.
“Who's ‘Bull-with-a-beard'?” he won-
dered. “Nobody interfered with me un-
til I doctored his men, He's in oppo-
sition. That's a fair guess. Now, who
in thunder—by the fat lord Harry—
ean ‘Bull-with-a-beard’ be? And why
fighting in the Khyber so early as all
this? And why does ‘Bull-with-a-beard,’
whoever he is, hang back?’
CHAPTER XII,
—
They came and changed the guard
to the cave entrance, to look the new
man over: he was a Mahsudi—-no
sweeter to look at and no less treacher-
ous for the fact, Also, that he had
bolls all over the back of his neck, He
Put it is
secret service.
“There is an end to everything” he
remarked presently, addressing the
world at large, or as much as he could
gee of it through the eave mouth, “A
hill is so high, a pool so deep, a river
so wide. There Is an end to pain!” he
went on, adjusting his horp-rimmed
spectacles, “I lanced a man's boils
last night, and it hart him, but he must
be well today.” ;
“Go In!” growled thé guard. “She
says it is sorcery! She says none are
to let thee touch them!”
“1 can heal boils!” sald King, retin
ing Into the eave. Then, from a safe
distance down the passage, he added n
word or two to sink in as the hours
went by. At intervals throughout the
day Yasmini sent him food by silent
messengers. It Is not easy to worry
and eat heartily at one and the same
time, Having eaten, he rolled up his
dog's. So King stopped at the entrance
and saw then a blood-soaked bandage
on the right of his neck, not very far
from the jugular,
“Hah, said King. “Was that wound
got In the Khyber the other day?”
“Nay. Here in Khinjan.”
“A man told me last night” said
King, drawing on imagination without
any compunction at all, “that the fight
in the Khyber was becanse a jihad in!
Inunched ulready.”
“That man lied!” said the guard,
shifting position uneasily, as If afraid
to talk too much.
“So I told him!" answered King.
told him there never will
Jihad.”
“Then thou art a greater liar than
he ™ the guard answersd hotly, “There
will be a jihad when she {5 ready, such
an one ag never yet was! India shail
bleed for all the fat years she has lain
unplundered! Not a throat of an un-
believer in the world shall be left un-
slit! No had? Thou lar! Get in
out of my sight!” !
So King retired into the cave, with |
something new to think about. Was |
she planning the jihad! Or pretending |
to plun one? Every once in a while |
the guard leaned far into the cave |
mouth and hurled adjectives at him,
the mildest of which was a well of in-
formation. If his temper was the tem-
©
|
“
be another
disappointment for a jihad that should
have been already but had been post- |
poned. King let him alone and paced
the eave for hours.
He was squatting on his bed-end
in the dark, like a spectacled image of
Buddha, when the first of the three
men came on guard again and at last
Isncall came for him holding a pitchy
of nerid smoke and made both of them
cough. Ismail was red-eyed with it
“Come!” he growled. “Come, little
hakkim!" Then he turned on his heel
at once, as If afrald of being twitted
with desertion. He seemed to want to
get outside, where he could keep out of
range of words, yet not to wish to
seem unfriendly.
tut King made no effort to speak to
hi following in silence out on to the
dirk ledge above the waterfall and no-
ticing that the guard with the bolls
wis back again on duty. He grinned |
evilly out of a shadow as King passed.
“Make sn end!” he advised. “Jump, |
ha cim, before a worse thing happens!” |
To the suggestion he
kicked a loose stone over the cliff, and |
movement caused him to bend his |
neck and so inadvertently to hurt his |
boils, He cursed, and there was pity
in King's voice when he spoke next.
“Do they hurt thee?
“Aye, like the devil!
piice of plagues ™
“I could heal them.” King said, pass- |
ing on, and the man stared hard. i
“Come [” boomed Ismail through the
darkness, shaking the torch to make |
it burn better and beckoning impatient- |
iy, and King hurried after him, leaving |
behind a savage at the eave mouth who
fingered his sores and wondered, mut-
tering, leaning on a rifle, muttering |
nod muttering again as if he had seen |
a new light.
Instead of walting for King to catch
up. Ismail began to lead the way at
fllustrate
Khinjan is a |
ed gradually until it curved round the
end of the chasm and plunged into a
tunnel where the darkness grew
opaque. For thirty minutes he led
swiftly down a crazy devil's stairway
of uneven bowlders, stopping to lend
a hand at the worst places, but ever
Then the hell-month gloom began to
grow faintly luminous, and the water.
clore at hand. They emerged into
fresh wet air and a sea of sound, on a
rock ledge like the one above, Ismail
raised the torch and waved it. The
fire and smoke wandered up, until they
flattened on a moving opal dome, that
prisoned all the nolzex in the world,
“Earth's Drink !™ he announced, wav.
ing the torch and then shutting his
mouth tight, as if afraid to voice sacri-
lege.
It was the river, million-colored in
the torchiight, pouring from a half-
miledong slash in the cliff above them
and plunging past them through the
gloom toward the very middle of the
world. Bomewhere it met rock bottom
and boiled there, for a roar like the
gea’s came up from deeps unlnagin:
able.
He watched the overturning dome
until his senses reeled. Then he
crawled on honda and knees to the
ledge’s brink and tried to peer over.
But Ismail dragged him back,
“Come I” he howled; but In all that
din his shout was like a whisper,
. “How deep 8 IY’ King bellowed
Jish! Ask him who sade it!”
The fear of the falls was on the
“
A
leads to the ‘Heart of the | A" " And
after that King had to do 2 best to
Leep the Afridi's back in sight,
They began after a time to hear
voices and to se/%he smoky glare made
by other torches Then Ismail set the
piace yet faster, and they became the
last two of a procession of turbaned
men, who trowped along us winding
tunnel into ao great mountain's womb.
The sound of slippers clicking and
ratching on the rock floor swelled and
died and swelled again as the tunnel
led from eavern into cavern,
In one great cave they came to
every man beat out his torch and
tossed It on n heap. After that there
was a ledge above the height of a
wan's head on either side of the tun-
nel, and along the ledge little oll-burn-
ing lamps were spaced at measured
intervals. A quarter of a mile farther
along there were two sharp turns in
the tunnel, and then at last a sea of
noise and a veritable bhinze of light.
‘art of the noise made King feel
homesick, for out of the mountain's
very womb brayed a music-box, such
as the old-time carousals made use of
the days of electricity and
It was being worked by inex-
hands, for the time was some
thing jerky; but it was robbed of its
tinny meanness and even lent majesty
by the hugeness of a cavern's roof, as
weil 2s by the crashing, swinging music
it played—wild—wonderful—invented
for lawless hours and a kingless peo-
ple.
“Marchons !—Citoyens !—"
The procession began to tramp In
time to it, and the rock shook. They
steam,
pert
Leads to the ‘Heart of the MHilis!"”
try to measure it. It was the hollow
core of a mountain. filied by the sea-
sound of a human crowd and hung with
Across the
avern's farther end for a space of two
great river rushed,
Munging out of a great fanged gap and
urrying out of view down another one,
icking smooth backs on its way with
a hungry sucking sou
There were little lamps everywhere,
perched on ledges amid the stalactites,
and they suffused the whole cavern in
In the midst of the cay-
ern a great arena had been left bare,
and thousands of turbaned men squat-
ted round it in rings. At the end
where the river formed a tangent to
them the rings were flattened, and at
that § were cut into by the
and by a lane left
3
na.
witit thes
ra hrid
mp of a ge,
to connect the br
The bridge end formed a nearly square
platform, about fourteen Yet above the
floor, and the broad track thence to
the arena, 5s well as ali the arena’s
boundary, had been marked off by
great earthenware lamps, whose greasy
smoke streaked up and was lost by the
wind among the stalactites,
“Greek lamps, every one of ‘em!”
King whispered to himself, but he
wasted no time just then on trying to
explain how Greek lamps had ever got
there, There was too much else to
watch and wonder at.
No steps led down from the bridge
end to the floor; towara the arena it
was blind, Bat from the bridge's far-
ther end across the hurrying water
stairs had been hewn out of the rock
wall and led up to a hole of twice a
man's height, more than fifty feet
above water level,
On either side of the bridge end a
passage had been left clear to the
river edge, and nobody seemed to care
to invade It, although it was not
marked off in any way. Bach passage
wag about fifty feet wide and quite
straight.
TA AAAI AASB ABS
fender woud seurry fit ou ssid
the jeers of any who had see.
Ehoving, kicking 1d elbowing with
get purpose, Ismali forced a way
through the already seated crowd and
drew King down nto the cramped
space beside him, (ose caough to the
arena to be able f5 cateh the susrdy
low laughter, Bui be wis restless, He
wished to get nourer yet, only there
seemed no room anywhere in front,
Then a guard threw his shield down
with a clang and deliberately fired his
rifle at the roof. The ricocheiting tal
let brought down a shower of splint
ered stone and staluctite, ond he
grinned as he watched the crowd dodge
to avold it
Instantly 2 hundred men rose from
different directions and raced for the
arena, each with a curved sword in
either hand. The yelling changed back
into the chant, only louder than before,
and by that much more terrible, Cym
bals crashed. The music box resumed
its measured grinding
laise” And
sword
of the “Marseil-
hundred ni
dance, than which there
vorid. Its
like can only be seen under the
of the “Hills"
Ismail seemed ohses
of hades let loowu $1 by it na by a
magnet, although sient
proved him t to have
without a plan. le got with his
eyes fixed the dance, and thrust
himself and King next to some Ornk-
zal Pathans, ethowing savagely to right
and left to make room. And patience
proved scarce. The nearest man
reached for the ever-ready Pathan
knife, but paused In the Instant that
his knife licked clear. From a swifl
side glance at King's face he changed
to a full stare, hiz scowl slowly giv
ing place to a grin as he recogaized
him,
“Allah I”
back again.
“Well met, hakim!
heals finely!”
Baring his shoulder under the smelly
sheepskin cont, he lifted a bandage
gingerly to show the clean opening out
of which King had coaxed a bullet the
day before. It looked wholesome and
ready to heal.
“Name thy reward, hakim! We
Orakzal Pathans forget no favorsi™
(Now that boast was a true one.)
King nodded more to himself than to
the other man. He needed, for in-
stance, very much to know who was
planning a jihad, and who “Bull-with
a-beard” might be; but it was not safe
to confide just yet in a chance-made ac
iquaintance, A very fair scquaintance
i with phases of the East had
taught him that names such ss Bull
with-a-beard are often almost photo
graphically descriptive. He rose to his
feet to look. A blind man can talk, but
it takes trained eyes to gather informa
tion.
The din had increased, and it was
safe to stand up and stare, because ali~
the begun
shadow
: events
been altorether
un,
on
He drove the long blade
See—the wound
8OTDe
-
gi
nf
eyes were on the madness in the mid
die, There were plenty besides him-
| self who stood get a better view
and he had to dodge from side to side
to see between them.
“I'm not to doctor his men.
| fore it's a falr guess that he and | are
ito be kept apart. Therefore he'll be as
i far away from me now as possible
| supposing he's here.”
Reasoning along that line, he tried
{ to see the faces on the far side, but t
| problem was to see over the dance
iheads. He succeeded presently,
| the Orakzal Pathan saw what he w
od, and in his anxiety to be agrey
reached forward to pull back
{ from between the ranks in frog
owners offered instant fight, bed
no further objection when t
i who wanted It and why. Ki
dered at their sudden change of mind.
He found a man soon who was no
interested in the dancing, but who had
eyes and ears apparently for every
thing and everybody cise. He watched
him for ten min until at hast their
eyes met. Then he sat down and
kicked the box back to its owners. He
touched the Pathan’s broad shoulder
The man smiled and bent his turbaned
head to listen.
“Opposite,” said King, “nearly ex
actly opposite—three rows from the
front, counting the front row as one-—
there sits a man with a black beard,
whose shoulders are like a boil’'s, As
he sits he hangs his head between
them, Look! See! Tell me truly
what his name is!"
The Pathan got up and strode for
ward to stand on the box, kicking aside
the elbows that leaned on it and laugh-
ing “hen the owners cursed him, He
stood on it and stared for five minutes,
counting deliberately three times over,
striking a finger on the palm of his
hand to check himself.
“Bull-with-a-beard I” he announced
at last, dropping back into place beside
King. “Muhammad Anim. The muliah
Mubammad Anim.”
“An Afghan?” King asked.
“He says he Is an Afghan. But un-
less he lies he Is from Ishtamboul
(Constantinople).”
to
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There
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