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Ismail spat savagely.

"Nay! Bismillah! Nay, nay! I will hold them who have boils, sitting firmly on their bellies—so—or between their shoulders—thus—when the boils are behind! Nay, I will drink no draughts! I am a man, not a cess-pool!"

"And I will study how to heat hot irons!" said Darya Khan, with grim conviction. "It is likely that, having worked for a blacksmith once, I may learn quickly! Phaughghgh! I have tasted physic! I have drunk Apsin Saats! (Epsom Salts.)"

He spat, too, in a very fury of reminiscence.

"Good!" said King. "Henceforward, then, I am Kurram Khan, the dakitar, and ye two are my assistants, Ismail to hold the men with boils, and Darya Khan to heat the irons—both of ye to be my men and support me with words when need be!"

"Aye!" said Ismail, quick to think of details, "and these others shall be the tasters! They have big bellies, that will hold many potions without crowding. Let them swallow a little of each medicine in the chest now, for the sake of practise! Let them learn not to make a wry face when the taste of cess-pools rests on the tongue—"

"Aye, and the breath comes sobbing through the nose!" said Darya Khan, remembering fragments of an adventurous career. "Let them learn to drink Apsin Saats without coughing!"

"We will not drink the medicines!" announced the man who had a stomach ache. "Nay, nay!"

But Ismail hit him with the back of his hand in the stomach again and danced away, hugging himself and shouting "Hee-yee-yee!" until the jackals joined him in discontented chorus and the Khyber Pass became full of weird howling. Then suddenly the old Afridi thought of something else and came back to thrust his face close to King's.

"Why be a Rangar? Why be a Rajput, sahib? She loves us Hillmen better!"

"Do I look like a Hillman of the 'Hills'?" asked King.

"Nay, not now. But he who can work one miracle can work another. Change thy skin once more and be a true Hillman!"

"Aye!" King laughed. "And fall heir to a blood-feud with every second man I chance upon! A Hill-man is cousin to a hundred others, and what say they in the 'Hills'?—'to hate like cousins,' eh? All cousins are at war. As a Rangar I have left my cousins down in India. Better be a converted Hindu and be despised by some than have cousins in the 'Hills'! Besides—do I speak like a Hillman?"

"Aye! Never an Afridi spake his own tongue better!"

"Yet—does a Hillman slip? Would a Hillman use Punjabi words in a careless moment?"'

"God forbid!"

"Therefore, thou dunderhead, I will be a Rangar Rajput,—a stranger in a strange land, traveling by her favor to visit her in Khinjan! Thus, should I happen to make mistakes in speech or action, it may be overlooked, and each man will unwittingly be my advocate, explaining away my errors to himself and others instead of my enemy denouncing me to all and sundry! Is that clear, thou oaf?"

"Aye! Thou art more cunning than any man I ever met!"

The great Afridi began to rub the tips of his fingers through his straggly beard in a way that might mean anything, and King seemed to draw considerable satisfaction from it, as if it were a sign language that he understood. More than any one thing in the world just then he needed a friend, and he certainly did not propose to refuse such a useful one.

"And," he added, as if it were an afterthought, instead of his chief reason, "if her special man Rewa Gunga is a Rangar, and is known as a Rangar through out the 'Hills,' shall I not the more likely win favor by being a Rangar too? If I wear her bracelet and at the same time am a Rangar, who will not trust me?"

"True! Thou art a magician!"

"True!" agreed Ismail.