Chapter VII
The owl he has eyes that are big for his size,
And the night like a book he deciphers;
"Too-woop!" he asserts, and "Hoo-woo-ip!" he cries,
And he means to remark he is awfully wise;
But he lags behind us, who are "on" to the lies
Of the hairy Himalayan knifers!
For eyes we be, of Empire, we,
Skinned and puckered and quick to see,
And nobody guesses how wise we be,
Nor hidden in what disguise we be,
A-cooking a sudden surprise we be
For hairy Himahlyan knifers!
After a time King urged his horse to a jog-trot, and the five Hillmen pattered in his wake, huddled so close together that the horse could easily have kicked more than one of them. The night was cold enough to make flesh creep; but it was imagination that herded them until they touched the horse's rump and kept the whites of their eyes ever showing as they glanced to left and right. The Khyber, fouled by memory, looks like the very birthplace of the ghosts when the moon is fitful and a mist begins to flow.
"Cheloh!" King called merrily enough; but his horse shied at nothing, because horses have an uncanny way of knowing how their riders really feel. They led mules and the spare horse, instead of dragging at their bridles, pressed forward to have their heads among the men, and every once and again there would sound the dull thump of a fist on a beast's nose—such being the attitude of men toward the lesser beasts
They trotted forward until the bed of the Khyber began to grow very narrow, and Ali Masjid Fort could not be much more than a mile away, at the widest guess. Then King drew rein and dismounted, for he would have been challenged had he ridden much farther. A challenge in the Khyber after dark consists invariably of a volley at short range, with the mere words afterward, and the wise man takes precaution.
"Off with the mules' packs!" he ordered, and the men stood round and stared. Darya Khan, leaning on the only rifle in the party, grinned like a post-office letter box.
"Truly," growled Ismail, forgetting past expression of a different opinion, "this man is as mad as all the other Englishmen."
"Were you ever bitten by one?" wondered King aloud.
"God forbid!"
"Then, off with the packs—and hurry!"
Ismail began to obey.
"Thou! Lord of the Rivers! (For that is what Darya Khan means.) What is thy calling?"
"Badragga" (guide), he answered. "Did she not send me back down the Pass to be a guide?"
"And before that what wast thou?"
"Is that thy business?" he snarled, shifting his rifle-barrel to the other hand. "I am what she says I am! She used to call me 'Chikki'—the Lifter!—and I was! There are those who were made to know it! If she says now I am badragga, shall any say she lies?"
"I say thou art unpacker of mules' burdens!" answered King. "Begin!"
