King tapped the flask in his pocket.
"Nay! My throat is dry, but it shalt parch! I know not! As to where she is, I know not!"
"Remember, and I will give you the whole of it!"
He drew the flask out of his pocket and rode a little way toward the man.
"None can overhear. Tell me now."
"Nay, sahib! I am silent!"
"Have you passed her on your way?"
The man shook his head—shook it until the whites of his eyes were a streak in the middle of his dark face; and when a Hillman is as vehement as that he is surely lying.
King set the flask to his own lips and drank a few drops.
"Salaam, sahib!" said the jezaitchi, wheeling his horse to ride away.
King let him ride twenty paces before calling to him to halt.
"Come back!" he ordered, and rode part of the way to meet him.
"I but tried thee, friend!" he said, holding out the flask.
"Allah then preserve me from a second test!"
The jezailchi seized the flask, clapped it to his lips and drained it to the last drop while King sat still in the moonlight and smiled at him.
"God grant the giver peace!" he prayed, handing the flask back. The kindly East possesses no word for "Thank you." Then he wheeled the horse in a sudden eddy, as polo ponies turn on the Indian plains, and rode away down the wind as if the Pass were full of devils in pursuit of him.
King watched him out of sight and then listened until the hoof-beats died away and the Pass grew still again.
"The jezailchis'll stand!" he said, lighting a new cheroot. "Good men and good luck to 'em!"
Then he rode back to his own men.
"Where starts the trail to Khinjan?" he asked; not that he had forgotten it, but to learn who knew.
"This side of Ali Masjid!" they answered all together.
"Two miles this side. More than a mile from here," said Ismail. "What next? Shall we camp here? Here is fuel and a little water. Give the word—"
"Nay-forward!" ordered King.
"Forward?" growled Ismail. "With this man it is ever 'forward!' Is there neither rest nor fear? Has she bewitched him? Hai! Ye lazy ones! Ho! Sons of sloth! Urge the mules faster! Beat the led horse!"
So in weird wan moonlight, King led them forward, straight up the narrowing gorge, between cliffs that seemed to fray the very bosom of the sky. He smoked a cigar and stared at the view, as if he were off to the mountains for a month's sport with dependable shikarris whom he knew. Nobody could have looked at him and guessed he was not enjoying himself.
"That man," mumbled Ismail behind him, "is not as other sahibs I have known. He is a man, this one! He will do unexpected things!"
"Forward!" King called to them, thinking they were grumbling. "Forward, men of the 'Hills'!"
"
