King--of the Khyber Rifles Part 34

There was an answering snarl of hate that seemed like a song to him, amid which he sat down.

"The mullah Muhammad Anim answered he knows nothing of thee and cares less! He said-and he said it with vehemence-it is no more to him where a hakim sits than where the rats hide!"

He watched King's face and seeing that, King allowed his facial muscles to express chagrin.

"Between us, it is a poor time for messages to him. He is too full of pride that his lashkar should have beaten the British."

"Did they beat the British greatly?" King asked him, with only vague interest on his face and a prayer inside him that his heart might flutter less violently against his ribs. His voice was as non-committal as the mullah's message.

"Who knows, when so many men would rather lie than kill? Each one who returned swears he slew a hundred. But some did not return. Wait and watch, say I!"

Now a man stood up near the edge of the crowd whom King recognized; and recognition brought no joy with it. The mullah without hair or eyelashes, who had admitted him and his party through the mosque into the Caves, strode out to the middle of the arena all alone, strutting and swaggering. He recalled the man's last words and drew no consolation from them, either.

"Many have entered! Some went out by a different road!"

Cold chills went down his back. All at once Ismail's manner became unencouraging. He ceased to make a fuss over the dancer and began to eye King sidewise, until at last he seemed unable to contain the malice that would well forth.

"At the gate there were only words!" he whispered. "Here in this cavern men wait for proof!"

He licked his teeth suggestively, as a wolf does when he contemplates a meal. Then, as an afterthought, as though ashamed, "I love thee! Thou art a man after my own heart! But I am her man! Wait and see!"

The mullah in the arena, blinking with his lashless eyes, held both arms up for silence in the att.i.tude of a Christian priest blessing a congregation. The guards backed his silent demand with threatening rifles. The din died to a hiss of a thousand whispers, and then the great cavern grew still, and only the river could be heard sucking hungrily between the smooth stone banks.

"G.o.d is great!" the mullah howled.

"G.o.d is great!" the crowd thundered in echo to him; and then the vault took up the echoes. "G.o.d is great-is great-is great-ea-ea-eat!"

"And Muhammad is His prophet!" howled the mullah. Instantly they answered him again.

"And Muhammad is His prophet!"

"His prophet-is His prophet-is His prophet!" said the stalact.i.tes, in loud barks-then in murmurs-then in awe-struck whispers.

That seemed to be all the religious ritual Khinjan remembered or could tolerate. Considering that the mullah, too, must have killed his man in cold blood before earning the right to be there, perhaps it was enough-too much. There were men not far from King who shuddered.

"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 stalact.i.tes, 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-b.u.t.ts 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 a.s.sumed. "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!"

The Pathan nudged King in the ribs with an elbow like a club and tickled his ear with hot breath.

"Bull-with-a-beard speaks truth!" he grinned. "'Truth and a lie together! Good may it do him and them! They die, they three Baluchis!"

"Proof!" howled the mullah who had no hair eyelashes.

"Proof-oof-oof!" said the stalact.i.tes.

"Proof! Show us proof!" yelled the crowd.

"Words at the gate-proof in the cavern!" howled the lashless one.

The Pathan next King leaned over to whisper to him again, but stiffened in the act. There was a great gasp the same instant, as the whole crowd caught its breath all together. The mullah in the middle froze into mobility. Bull-with-a-beard stood mumbling, swaying his great head from side to side, no longer suggestive of a bear about to charge, but of one who hesitates.

The crowd was staring at the end of the bridge. King stared, too, and caught his own breath. For Yasmini stood there, smiling on them all as the new moon smiles down on the Khyber! She had come among them like a spirit, all unheralded.

So much more beautiful than the one likeness King had seen of her that for a second he doubted who she was-more lovely than he had imagined her even in his dreams-she stood there, human and warm and real, who had begun to seem a myth, clad in gauzy transparent stuff that made no secret of sylph-like shapeliness and looking nearly light enough to blow away. Her feet-and they were the most marvelously molded things he had ever seen-were naked and played restlessly on the naked stone. Not one part of her was still for a fraction of a second; yet the whole effect was of insolently lazy ease.