"There are strangers!" announced the mullah, as a man might say, "I smell a rat!" But he did not look at anybody in particular; he blinked at the crowd.
"Strangers!" said the stalactites, in an awe-struck whisper.
"Show them! Show them! Let them stand forth!"
"Oh-h-h-h-h! Let them stand forth!" said the roof.
The mullah bowed as if that idea were a new one and he thought it better than his own; for all crowds love flattery.
"Bring them!" he shouted, and King suppressed a shudder—for what proof had he of right to be there beyond Ismail's verbal corroboration of a lie? Would Ismail lie for him again? he wondered. And if so, would the lie be any use?
Not far from where King sat there was an immediate disturbance in the crowd, and a wretched-looking Baluchi was thrust forward at a run, with arms lashed to his sides and a pitiful look of terror on his face. Two more Baluchis were hustled along after him, protesting a little, but looking almost as hopeless.
Once in the arena, the guards took charge of all three of them and lined them up facing the mullah, clubbing them with their rifle-butts to get quick obedience. The crowd began to be noisy again, but the mullah signed for silence.
"These are traitors!" he howled, with a gesture such as Ajax might have used when he defied the lightning.
The roof said "Traitors!"
"Slay them, then!" howled the crowd, delighted. And blinking behind the horn-rimmed spectacles, King began to look about busily for hope, where there did not seem to be any.
"Nay, hear me first!" the mullah howled, and his voice was like a wolf's at hunting time. "Hear, and be warned!"
The crowd grew very still, but King saw that some men licked their lips, as if they well knew what was coming.
"These three men came, and one was a new man!" the mullah howled. "The other two were his witnesses! All three swore that the first man came from slaying an unbeliever in the teeth of written law. They said he ran from the law. So, as the custom is, I let all three enter!"
"Good!" said the crowd. "Good!" They might have been five thousand judges, judging in equity, so grave they were. Yet they licked their lips.
"But later, word came to me saying they are liars. So—again as the custom is—I ordered them bound and held!"
"Slay them! Slay them!" the crowd yelped, gleeful as a wolf-pack on a scent and abandoning solemnity as suddenly as it had been assumed. "Slay them!"
They were like the wind, whipping in and out among Khinjan's rocks, savage and then still for a minute, savage and then still.
"Nay, there is a custom yet!" the mullah howled, holding up both arms. And there was silence again like the lull before a hurricane, with only the great black river talking to itself.
"Who speaks for them? Does any speak for them?"
"Speak for them?" said the roof.
There was silence. Then there was a murmur of astonishment. Over opposite to where King sat the mullah stood up, who the Pathan had said was "Bull-with-a-beard"—Muhammad Anim.
"The men are mine!" he growled. His voice was like a bear's at bay; it was low, but it carried strangely. And as he spoke he swung his great head between his shoulders, like a bear that means to charge. "The proof they brought has been stolen! They had good proof! I speak for them! The men are mine!"
