The man did not answer. He was a jezailchi of the Khyber Rifles—hook-nosed as an osprey—black-bearded—with white teeth glistening out of a gap in the darkness of his lower face. And he was armed with a British government rifle, although that is no criterion in that borderland of professional thieves where many a man has offered himself for enlistment with a stolen government rifle in his grasp.
The waler he rode was an officer's charger. The poor brute sobbed and heaved and sweated in his tracks as his rightful owner surely had never made him do.
"Whither?" King demanded.
"Jamrud!"
The jezailchi growled the one-word answer with one eye on King, but the other eye still squinted down the pistol barrel warily.
"Have you a letter?"
The man did not answer.
"You may speak to me. I am of your regiment. I am Captain King."
"That is a lie, and a poor one!" the fellow answered. "But a very little while ago I spoke with King sahib in Ali Masjid Fort, and he is no cappitin, he is leftnant. Therefore thou art a liar twice over—nay, three times! Thou art no officer of Khyber Rifles! I am a jezailchi, and I know them all!"
"None the less," said King, "I am an officer of the Khyber Rifles, newly appointed. I asked you, have you a letter?"
"Aye!"
"Let me see it."
"Nay!"
"I order you!"
"Nay! I am a true man! I will eat the letter rather!"
"Tell me who wrote it, then."
But the fellow shook his head, still eying the pistol as if it were a snake about to strike.
"I have eaten the salt!" he said. "May dogs eat me if I break faith! Who art thou, to ask me to break faith? An arrficer? That must be a lie! The letter is from him who wrote it, to whom I bear it—and that is my answer if I die this minute!"
