King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure by Talbot Mundy (ink ebook reader .TXT) 📕

“Wait and see!” growled the mullah; but he seemed depressed.

He led the way downward, getting off his horse and giving the reins to a man. King copied him, and part-way sliding, part stumbling down they found their way along the dry bed of a water-course between two spurs of a hillside, until they stood at last in the midst of a cluster of a dozen sentries, close to a tamarisk to which a man's body hung spiked. That the man had been spiked to it alive was suggested by the body's attitude.

Without a word to the sentries the mullah led on down a lane through the midst of the camp, toward a great open cave at the far side, in which a bonfire cast fitful light and shadow. Watchers sitting by the thousand tents yawned at them, but took no particular notice.

The mouth of the cave was like a lion's, fringed with teeth. There were men in it, ten or eleven of them, all armed, squatting round the fire.

“Get out!” growled the mullah. But they did not obey. They sat and stared at him.

“Have ye tents?” the mullah asked, in a voice like thunder.

“Aye!” But they did not go yet.

One of the men, he nearest the mullah, got on his feet, but he had to step back a pace, for the mullah would not give ground and their breath was in each other's faces.

“Where are the bombs? And the rifles? And the many cartridges?” he demanded. “We have waited long, Muhammad Anim. Where are they now?”

The others got up, to lend the first man encouragement. They leaned on rifles and surrounded the mullah, so that King could only get a glimpse of him between them. They seemed in no mood to be treated cavalierly--in no mood to be argued with. And the Mullah did not argue.

“Ye dogs!” he growled at them, and he strode through them to the fire and chose himself a good, thick burning brand. “Ye sons of nameless mothers!”

Then he charged them suddenly, beating them over head and face and shoulders, driving them in front of him, utterly reckless of their rifles. His own rifle lay on the ground behind him, and King kicked its stock clear of the fire.

“Oh, I shall pray for you this night!” Muhammad Anim snarled. “What a curse I shall beg for you! Oh, what a burning of the bowels ye shall have! What a sickness! What running of the eyes! What sores! What boils! What sleepless nights and faithless women shall be yours! What a prayer I will pray to Allah!”

They scattered into outer gloom before his rage, and then came back to kneel to him and beg him withdraw his curse. He kicked them as they knelt and drove them away again. Then, silhouetted in the cave mouth, with the glow of the fire behind him, he stood with folded arms and dared them shoot. He lacked little in that minute of being a full-grown brute at bay. King admired him, with reservations.

After five minutes of angry contemplation of the camp he turned on a contemptuous heel and came back to the fire, throwing on more fuel from a great pile in a corner. There was an iron pot in the embers. He seized a stick and stirred the contents furiously, then set the pot between his knees and ate like an animal. He passed the pot to King when he had finished, but fingers had passed too many times through what was left in it and the very thought of eating the mess made his gorge rise; so King thanked him and set the pot aside.

Then, “That is thy place!” Muhammad Anim growled, pointing over his shoulder to a ledge of rock, like a shelf in the far wall. There was a bed upon it, of cotton blankets stuffed with dry grass. King walked over and felt the blankets and found them warm from the last man who had lain there. They smelt of him too. He lifted them and laughed. Taking the whole in both hands he carried it to the fire and threw it in, and the sudden blaze made the mullah draw away a yard; but it did not make him speak.

“Bugs!” King explained, but the mullah showed no interest. He watched, however, as King went back to the bed, and subsequent proceedings seemed to fascinate him.

Out of the chest that one of the women had set down King took soap. There was a pitcher of water between him and the fire; he carried it nearer. With an improvised scrubbing brush of twigs he proceeded to scrub every inch of the rock-shelf, and when he had done and had dried it more or less, he stripped and began to scrub himself.

“Who taught thee thy squeamishness?” the mullah asked at last, getting up and coming nearer. It was well that King's skin was dark (although it was many shades lighter than his face, that had been stained so carefully). The mullah eyed him from head to foot and looked awfully suspicious, but something prompted King and he answered without an instant's hesitation.

“Why ask a woman's questions?” he retorted. “Only women ask when they know the answer. When I watched thee with the firebrand a short while ago, oh, mullah, I mistook thee for a man.”

The mullah grunted and began to tug his beard. But King said no more and went on washing himself.

“I forgot,” said the mullah then, “that thou art her pet. She would not love thee unless thy smell was sweet.”

“No,” said King quite cheerfully--going it blind, for he did not know what had possessed him to take that line, but knew he might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. “No, if I stank like thee she would not love me.”

The mullah snorted and went back to the fire, but he took King's cake of soap with him and sat examining it.

“Tauba!” he swore suddenly as if he had made a gruesome discovery. “Such filthy stuff is made from the fat of pigs!”

“Doubtless!” said King. “That is why she uses it, and why I use it. She is a better Muhammadan than thou. She would surely cleanse her skin with the fat of pigs!”

“Thou art a shameless one!” said the mullah, shaking his head like a bear.

“I am what Allah made me!” answered King, and then, for the sake of the impression, he went through the outward form of muslim prayer, spreading a mat and omitting none of the genuflections. When he had finished he unfolded his own blankets that a woman had thrown down beside the chest and spread them carefully on the rock-shelf. But though he was allowed to climb up and lie there, he was not allowed to sleep--nor did he want to sleep--for more than an hour to come.

The mullah came over from the fire again and stood beside him, glaring like a great animal and grumbling in his beard.

“Does she surely love thee?” he asked at last, and King nodded, because he knew he was on the trail of information.

“So thou art to ape the