Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.Incidental.“I’m afraid, Nesta, my child, that your soldier friends will have to alight somewhere else if they want any chikór,” pronounced Campian, subsiding upon a boulder to light his pipe. “We’ve railroaded them around this valley to such purpose that you can’t get within a couple of hundred yards. When are they due, by the way—the sodgers, not the chikór?”“To-day, I think. They have been threatening for the last fortnight.”“Threatening! Ingrate! Only think what a blessing their arrival will shed. You will hear all the latest ‘gup’ from Shâlalai, and have a couple of devoted poodles, all eagerness to frisk, and fetch and carry—wagging their tails for approving pats, and all that sort of thing. And you must be tired of this very quiet life, unrelieved save by a couple of old fogies like yours truly and Upward?”“Ah, I’m tired of the ‘gup’ of Shâlalai. I’m not sure I’m not quite tired of soldiers.”“That begins to look brisk for me, my dear girl, I being—bar Upward—nearly the only civilian in Baluchistan. The only flaw in this to me alluring vista now opened out is—how long will it last? First of all, sit down. There’s no fun in standing unnecessarily.”She sat down on the boulder beside him, and began to play with the smoothness of the barrels of the gun, which leaned against the rock between them. It was early morning. These two had strolledoffdown the valley together directly afterchota hazri—as they had taken to doing of late. A couple of brace of chikór lay on the ground at their feet, the smallness of the “bag” bearing out the accuracy of Campian’s prognostication as to the decadence of that form of sport. The sun, newly risen, was flooding the valley with a rush of golden ether; reddening the towering crags, touching, with a silver wand, the carpet of dewdrops in the valley bottom, and mist-hung spider webs which spanned the juniper boughs—while from many a slab-like cliff came the crowing of chikór, pretty, defiant in the safety of altitude—rejoicing in the newly-risen dawn.Some fifty yards off, Bhallu Khan, having spread his chuddah on the ground, and put the shoes from off his feet—was devoutly performing the prescribed prostrations in the direction of the Holy City, repeating the while the aspirations and ascriptions wherewith the Faithful—good, bad and indifferent—are careful to hallow the opening of another day.“You were asserting yourself tired of the garrison,” went on Campian. “Yes? And wherefore this—caprice, since but the other day you were sworn to the sabre?”“Was I? Well perhaps I’ve changed my mind. I may do that, you know. But I don’t like any of those at Shâlalai. And—the nice ones are all married.”This escaped her so spontaneously, so genuinely, that Campian burst out laughing.“Oh that’s the grievance, is it?” he said. “And what about the others who are—not nice?”“Oh, I just fool them. Some of them think they’re fooling me. I let it go far enough, and then they suddenly find out I’ve been fooling them. It’s rather a joke.”“Ever taken anyone seriously?”“That’s telling.”“All right, then. Don’t tell.”She looked up at him quickly. Her eyes seemed to be trying to read his face, which, beyond a slightly amused elevation of one eyebrow, was absolutely expressionless.“Well, I have then,” she said, with a half laugh.“So? Tell us all about it, Nessita.”She looked up quickly—“I say, that’s rather a good name—I like it. It sounds pretty. No one ever called me that before.”“Accept it from me, then.”“Yes, I will. But, do you know—it’s awful cheek of you to call me by my name at all. When did you first begin doing it, by the way?”“Don’t know. I suppose it came so natural as not to mark an epoch. Couldn’t locate the exact day or hour to save my life. Shall I return to ‘Miss Cheriton?’”“You never did say that. You never called me anything—until—”“Likely. It’s a little way I have. I say—It’s rather fun chikór shooting in the early morning. What?”“That means, I suppose, that you’re tired of talking, and would like to go on.” And she rose from her seat.“Not at all. Sit down again. That’s right. For present purposes it means that you won’t go out with me any more like this of a morning after those two Johnnies come.”“You won’t want me then. You can all go out together. I should only be in the way.”“That remark would afford nine-tenths of the British Army the opportunity of retorting, ‘Youcould never be that.’ I, however, will be brutally singular. Very probably you would be in the way—”“Thanks.”“Ifwe all went out together—I was going to say when you interrupted me.”A touch on the arm interruptedhint. It came from Bhallu Khan, who, having concluded his devotions was standing at Campian’s side, making vehement gesticulations of warning and silence.“Eh—what is it?” whispered Campian, looking eagerly in the direction pointed at by the other.The forester shook his head, and continued to gesticulate. Then he put both forefingers to his head, one on each side above the ears, pointing upwards.“Does he mean he has seen the devil?” said Campian wonderingly. “I guess he’s trying to make us understand ‘horns.’”Nesta exploded in a peal of laughter, which, though melodious enough to human ears, must have had a terrifying effect on whatever had been designated by Bhallu Khan. He ceased to point eagerly through the scrub, but his new gesticulations meant unmistakably that the thing, whatever it might be, was gone.All the Hindustani they could muster between them—and that wasn’t much—failed to make the old forester understand. He smiled talked—then smiled again. Then they all laughed together—But that was all.Although actually on the scene of his midnight peril, Campian gave that experience no further thought. Nearly a fortnight had gone by since then, and no further alarm had occurred. Bhallu Khan had made inquiries and in the result had learned that the adjacent and then somewhat dreaded Marri tribe was innocent of the playful little event which had so nearly terminated Campian’s allotted span of joys and sorrows. The assailants were Brahuis, of a notoriously marauding clan of that tribe, located in the Khelat district. What they were doing here, so far away from their own part of the country, however, he had not learned, or, if he had, for reasons of his own he kept it to himself. This intelligence lifted what shadow of misgiving might have lingered in the minds of Upward and his wife, as showing that the incident was a mere chance affair, and no indication of restlessness or hostility on the part of the tribesmen in their own immediate neighbourhood.Another fact gleaned by Bhallu Khan was that the man who had fallen to Campian’s shot was not killed—nor even fatally wounded. This relieved all their minds, especially that of the shooter. It saved all sorts of potential trouble in the way of investigation and so forth—likewise it dispelled sundry unpleasant visions of a blood feud, which now and then would obtrude in spite of all efforts at reasoning them away; for these fierce fanatical mountaineers were hardly the men to suffer bloodshed to pass unavenged. However, no one was much hurt, and the marauders had taken themselves off to their own side of the country. Thus for about ten days had life in Upward’s camp held on its way just as though no narrow escape of grim tragedy had thrown the visitor into its midst. Its inmates rejoiced in the open air life, and, save at night or for an afternoon siesta, were seldom indoors. The male section thereof, notwithstanding plentiful denunciation of the wily chikór and its ways, devoted much time to the pursuit of that exasperating biped, and all would frequently join hands in exploring the surrounding country—tiffin accompanying—to be laid out picnic fashion at some picturesque spot, whether of breezy height or in the cool shade of atangi. Thus did Upward perform his forest inspections, combining business with pleasure—and everybody was content.And this statement we make of set purpose. No more aspirations after a return to Shâlalai were now in the air. The infusion of a new element into the daily life of the camp seemed to make a difference. Campian and the two younger girls were friends of old. He did not mind their natural cheekiness—he had a great liking for them, and it only amused him; moreover, it kept things lively. And Nesta Cheriton—sworn worshipper of the sabre, speedily came to the conclusion that all that was entertaining and companionable was not a monopoly vested in the wearers of Her Majesty’s uniform.For between her and the new arrival a very good understanding had been set up—a very good understanding indeed. But he, in the maturity of years and experience, made light of what might have set another man thinking. They were thrown together these two—and camp life is apt to throw people very much together—He was the only available male, wherefore she made much of him. Given, however, the appearance of two or three lively subalterns on the scene, and he thought he knew how the land would lie. But the consciousness in no wise disquieted him; on the contrary it afforded him a little good-humouredly cynical amusement. He knew human nature, as peculiar to either sex no less than as common to both, and he had reached a point in life when the preferences of the ornamental sex, for any permanent purpose, mattered nothing. But the study of it as a mere subject of dissection did afford him a very great amount of entertainment.Mature cynic as he was, yet now, looking down at the girl at his side as they took their way back through the wild picturesque valley bottom, the dew shining like silver in the fast ascending sun, a moist woodland odour arising from beneath the juniper trees, he could not but admit to himself that her presence here made a difference—a very great difference. She was wondrously pretty, in the fair, golden-haired style; had pretty ways too—soft, confiding—and a trick of looking up at one that was a trifle dangerous. Only that he felt rather sure it was all part of her way with the male sex in general, and not turned on for his benefit in particular, he might have wondered.“Well?” she said, looking up suddenly, “what is it all about?”“You. I was thinking a great deal about you. Now you are going to say I had much better have been talking to you.”“No. But tell me what you were thinking.”“I was thinking how deftly you got away from that question of mine—about the one occasion when youdidtake someone seriously. Now tell us all about it.”“Ah—I’m not going to tell you.”“Not, eh?”“No—no—no! Perhaps some day.”“Well you’ll have to look sharp, for I’m off in a day or two.”“No? you’re not!” she cried, in a tone very like that of real consternation. “Ah, you’re just trying to crowd it on. Why, you’re here for quite a long time.”“Very well. You’ll see. Only, don’t say I never told you.”“But you mustn’t go. You needn’t. Look here—You’re not to.”“That sounds rather nice—Very nice indeed. And wherefore am I not to go, Nessita, mine angel?”“Because I don’t want you to. You’re rather a joke, you know, and—””—And—what?”“Nothing.”“That ought to settle it. Only I don’t flatter myself my departure will leave any gap. Remaineth there not a large garrison at Shâlalai—horse, foot, and artillery?”“Oh, hang the garrison at Shâlalai! You’re detestable. I don’t like you any more.”“No? Well what will make you like me any more?”“If you stay.”“That settles it. I cannot depart in the face of that condition,” he answered, the gravity of his words and tone simply belied by a whimsical twinkle of the eyes. She, looking up, saw this.“Ah, I believe you’ve been cramming all the time. I’ll ask Mr Upward when we get in, and if you have, I’ll never forgive you.”“Spare thyself the trouble O petulant one, for it would be futile in any case. If I have been telling nasty horrid wicked little taradiddles, Upward won’t give me away, for I shall tip him the masonic wink not to.Youwon’t spot it, though you are staring us both in the face all the time. So you’ll have to keep your blind faith in me, anyhow. Hallo! Stay still a minute. There are some birds.”In and out among the grass and stones, running like barn-door fowl was a large covey. This time a whoop and a handful of gravel from Bhallu Khan was effective. The covey rose with a jarring “whirr” as one bird. A double shot—a bird fell to each.“Right and left. That’s satisfactory. I’m getting my hand in,” remarked Campian. “They’re right away,” looking after the covey, “and I feel like breakfast time. Glad we are almost back.”The white tents half-hidden in the apricot tope, and sheltered by the fresh and budding green, looked picturesque enough against a background of rugged and stony mountain ridge, the black vertical jaws of thetangi, now waterless, yawning grim like the jaws of some silent waiting monster. Native servants in their snowy puggarees, flitted to and fro between the camp and the cook-tent, whence a wreath of blue smoke floated skyward. A string of camels had just come in, and were kneeling to have their loads removed, keeping up the while their hoarse snarling roar, each hideous antediluvian head turning craftily on its weird neck as though watching the chance of getting in a bite. But between them and their owners, three or four wild looking Baluchis—long-haired and turban-crowned—the understanding, whether of love or fear, seemed complete, for these went about their work of unloading, the normal expression of impassive melancholy stamped upon their copper-hued countenances undergoing no change.“Well, how many did you shoot?” cried Hazel, running out from the tents as the two came in. “Only six!” as Bhallu Khan held up the “bag.” “Pho! Why we heard about twenty shots. Didn’t we, Lily?”“More. I expect they were thinking of you when they named this place,” said the latter.“Thought something cheeky was coming,” remarked Campian tranquilly. “The ‘cow-catcher’ adorning thy most speaking countenance, Lilian my cherub, has an extra upward tendency this morning. No pun intended, of course.”“Oh—oh—oh!” A very hoot was all the expression that greeted this disclaimer. But a sudden summons to breakfast cut short further sparring.“Upward, what’s the meaning of Chirria Bach?” asked Campian when they were seated. Lily and Hazel clapped their hands and cackled. Upward looked up, with a laugh.“It means ‘miss a bird’ old chap. Didn’t you know?”“No. I never thought of it. Very good, Lilian my seraph. Now I see the point of that extra smart remark just now. What do you think, Mrs Upward? she said this place must have been named after me.”“They’re very rude children, both of them,” was the laughing reply. “But I can’t sympathise. I’m afraid you make them worse.”A wild crow went up from the two delinquents. Campian shook his head gravely.“After that we had better change the subject,” he said. “By the way, Upward, old Bhallu Khan went through an extraordinary performance this morning. I want you to tell me the interpretation thereof.”“Was he saying his prayers? Have another chikór, old chap?”“No—not his prayers. Thanks, I will. They eat rather better than they shoot. Nesta and I were deep in the discussion of scientific and other matters—”“Oh, yes.”This from Lily, meaningly.“Lilian, dearest. If you can tell the story better than I can”—with grave reproach.“Never mind—go on—go on”—rapped out the delinquent.”—In the discussion of scientific and other matters,” resumed Campian, eyeing his former interruptor, “when Bhallu Khan suddenly enjoined silence. He then put his fingers to his head—so—and mysteriously pointed towards the nullah. It dawned on me that he meant something with horns; but I knew there couldn’t begadhor markhôr right down here in the valley, and close to the camp. Then Nesta came to the rescue by suggesting that he must have seen the devil.”“Ah, I didn’t suggest it!” cried Nesta. But her disclaimer was drowned in a wild yelp of ecstasy that volleyed forth from the two younger girls; in the course of which Hazel managed to swallow her tea the wrong way, and spent the next ten minutes choking and spluttering.Upward was shaking in quiet mirth.“He didn’t mean the devil at all, old chap, only a hare,” he explained.“A hare?” uttered Campian.The blankness of his amazement started the two off again.“Only a hare! Good heavens! But a hare, even in Baluchistan, hasn’t got horns.”“He meant its ears. Come now, it was rather smart of him—wasn’t it? Old Bhallu Khan is smart all round. Hebuksa heap, and is an old bore at times, but he’s smart enough.”“Yes. It was smart. Yet the combined intelligence of Nesta and myself couldn’t get beyond the devil.”“Speak for yourself then,” she laughed. And just then Tinkles, rushing from under the table, darted forth outside, uttering a succession of fierce and fiery barks.“I expect it’s those two Johnnies arriving,” said Upward, rising. “Yes, it is,” as he lifted the “chick” and looked outside.They all went forth. Two horsemen were turning off the road and making for the camp.

“I’m afraid, Nesta, my child, that your soldier friends will have to alight somewhere else if they want any chikór,” pronounced Campian, subsiding upon a boulder to light his pipe. “We’ve railroaded them around this valley to such purpose that you can’t get within a couple of hundred yards. When are they due, by the way—the sodgers, not the chikór?”

“To-day, I think. They have been threatening for the last fortnight.”

“Threatening! Ingrate! Only think what a blessing their arrival will shed. You will hear all the latest ‘gup’ from Shâlalai, and have a couple of devoted poodles, all eagerness to frisk, and fetch and carry—wagging their tails for approving pats, and all that sort of thing. And you must be tired of this very quiet life, unrelieved save by a couple of old fogies like yours truly and Upward?”

“Ah, I’m tired of the ‘gup’ of Shâlalai. I’m not sure I’m not quite tired of soldiers.”

“That begins to look brisk for me, my dear girl, I being—bar Upward—nearly the only civilian in Baluchistan. The only flaw in this to me alluring vista now opened out is—how long will it last? First of all, sit down. There’s no fun in standing unnecessarily.”

She sat down on the boulder beside him, and began to play with the smoothness of the barrels of the gun, which leaned against the rock between them. It was early morning. These two had strolledoffdown the valley together directly afterchota hazri—as they had taken to doing of late. A couple of brace of chikór lay on the ground at their feet, the smallness of the “bag” bearing out the accuracy of Campian’s prognostication as to the decadence of that form of sport. The sun, newly risen, was flooding the valley with a rush of golden ether; reddening the towering crags, touching, with a silver wand, the carpet of dewdrops in the valley bottom, and mist-hung spider webs which spanned the juniper boughs—while from many a slab-like cliff came the crowing of chikór, pretty, defiant in the safety of altitude—rejoicing in the newly-risen dawn.

Some fifty yards off, Bhallu Khan, having spread his chuddah on the ground, and put the shoes from off his feet—was devoutly performing the prescribed prostrations in the direction of the Holy City, repeating the while the aspirations and ascriptions wherewith the Faithful—good, bad and indifferent—are careful to hallow the opening of another day.

“You were asserting yourself tired of the garrison,” went on Campian. “Yes? And wherefore this—caprice, since but the other day you were sworn to the sabre?”

“Was I? Well perhaps I’ve changed my mind. I may do that, you know. But I don’t like any of those at Shâlalai. And—the nice ones are all married.”

This escaped her so spontaneously, so genuinely, that Campian burst out laughing.

“Oh that’s the grievance, is it?” he said. “And what about the others who are—not nice?”

“Oh, I just fool them. Some of them think they’re fooling me. I let it go far enough, and then they suddenly find out I’ve been fooling them. It’s rather a joke.”

“Ever taken anyone seriously?”

“That’s telling.”

“All right, then. Don’t tell.”

She looked up at him quickly. Her eyes seemed to be trying to read his face, which, beyond a slightly amused elevation of one eyebrow, was absolutely expressionless.

“Well, I have then,” she said, with a half laugh.

“So? Tell us all about it, Nessita.”

She looked up quickly—“I say, that’s rather a good name—I like it. It sounds pretty. No one ever called me that before.”

“Accept it from me, then.”

“Yes, I will. But, do you know—it’s awful cheek of you to call me by my name at all. When did you first begin doing it, by the way?”

“Don’t know. I suppose it came so natural as not to mark an epoch. Couldn’t locate the exact day or hour to save my life. Shall I return to ‘Miss Cheriton?’”

“You never did say that. You never called me anything—until—”

“Likely. It’s a little way I have. I say—It’s rather fun chikór shooting in the early morning. What?”

“That means, I suppose, that you’re tired of talking, and would like to go on.” And she rose from her seat.

“Not at all. Sit down again. That’s right. For present purposes it means that you won’t go out with me any more like this of a morning after those two Johnnies come.”

“You won’t want me then. You can all go out together. I should only be in the way.”

“That remark would afford nine-tenths of the British Army the opportunity of retorting, ‘Youcould never be that.’ I, however, will be brutally singular. Very probably you would be in the way—”

“Thanks.”

“Ifwe all went out together—I was going to say when you interrupted me.”

A touch on the arm interruptedhint. It came from Bhallu Khan, who, having concluded his devotions was standing at Campian’s side, making vehement gesticulations of warning and silence.

“Eh—what is it?” whispered Campian, looking eagerly in the direction pointed at by the other.

The forester shook his head, and continued to gesticulate. Then he put both forefingers to his head, one on each side above the ears, pointing upwards.

“Does he mean he has seen the devil?” said Campian wonderingly. “I guess he’s trying to make us understand ‘horns.’”

Nesta exploded in a peal of laughter, which, though melodious enough to human ears, must have had a terrifying effect on whatever had been designated by Bhallu Khan. He ceased to point eagerly through the scrub, but his new gesticulations meant unmistakably that the thing, whatever it might be, was gone.

All the Hindustani they could muster between them—and that wasn’t much—failed to make the old forester understand. He smiled talked—then smiled again. Then they all laughed together—But that was all.

Although actually on the scene of his midnight peril, Campian gave that experience no further thought. Nearly a fortnight had gone by since then, and no further alarm had occurred. Bhallu Khan had made inquiries and in the result had learned that the adjacent and then somewhat dreaded Marri tribe was innocent of the playful little event which had so nearly terminated Campian’s allotted span of joys and sorrows. The assailants were Brahuis, of a notoriously marauding clan of that tribe, located in the Khelat district. What they were doing here, so far away from their own part of the country, however, he had not learned, or, if he had, for reasons of his own he kept it to himself. This intelligence lifted what shadow of misgiving might have lingered in the minds of Upward and his wife, as showing that the incident was a mere chance affair, and no indication of restlessness or hostility on the part of the tribesmen in their own immediate neighbourhood.

Another fact gleaned by Bhallu Khan was that the man who had fallen to Campian’s shot was not killed—nor even fatally wounded. This relieved all their minds, especially that of the shooter. It saved all sorts of potential trouble in the way of investigation and so forth—likewise it dispelled sundry unpleasant visions of a blood feud, which now and then would obtrude in spite of all efforts at reasoning them away; for these fierce fanatical mountaineers were hardly the men to suffer bloodshed to pass unavenged. However, no one was much hurt, and the marauders had taken themselves off to their own side of the country. Thus for about ten days had life in Upward’s camp held on its way just as though no narrow escape of grim tragedy had thrown the visitor into its midst. Its inmates rejoiced in the open air life, and, save at night or for an afternoon siesta, were seldom indoors. The male section thereof, notwithstanding plentiful denunciation of the wily chikór and its ways, devoted much time to the pursuit of that exasperating biped, and all would frequently join hands in exploring the surrounding country—tiffin accompanying—to be laid out picnic fashion at some picturesque spot, whether of breezy height or in the cool shade of atangi. Thus did Upward perform his forest inspections, combining business with pleasure—and everybody was content.

And this statement we make of set purpose. No more aspirations after a return to Shâlalai were now in the air. The infusion of a new element into the daily life of the camp seemed to make a difference. Campian and the two younger girls were friends of old. He did not mind their natural cheekiness—he had a great liking for them, and it only amused him; moreover, it kept things lively. And Nesta Cheriton—sworn worshipper of the sabre, speedily came to the conclusion that all that was entertaining and companionable was not a monopoly vested in the wearers of Her Majesty’s uniform.

For between her and the new arrival a very good understanding had been set up—a very good understanding indeed. But he, in the maturity of years and experience, made light of what might have set another man thinking. They were thrown together these two—and camp life is apt to throw people very much together—He was the only available male, wherefore she made much of him. Given, however, the appearance of two or three lively subalterns on the scene, and he thought he knew how the land would lie. But the consciousness in no wise disquieted him; on the contrary it afforded him a little good-humouredly cynical amusement. He knew human nature, as peculiar to either sex no less than as common to both, and he had reached a point in life when the preferences of the ornamental sex, for any permanent purpose, mattered nothing. But the study of it as a mere subject of dissection did afford him a very great amount of entertainment.

Mature cynic as he was, yet now, looking down at the girl at his side as they took their way back through the wild picturesque valley bottom, the dew shining like silver in the fast ascending sun, a moist woodland odour arising from beneath the juniper trees, he could not but admit to himself that her presence here made a difference—a very great difference. She was wondrously pretty, in the fair, golden-haired style; had pretty ways too—soft, confiding—and a trick of looking up at one that was a trifle dangerous. Only that he felt rather sure it was all part of her way with the male sex in general, and not turned on for his benefit in particular, he might have wondered.

“Well?” she said, looking up suddenly, “what is it all about?”

“You. I was thinking a great deal about you. Now you are going to say I had much better have been talking to you.”

“No. But tell me what you were thinking.”

“I was thinking how deftly you got away from that question of mine—about the one occasion when youdidtake someone seriously. Now tell us all about it.”

“Ah—I’m not going to tell you.”

“Not, eh?”

“No—no—no! Perhaps some day.”

“Well you’ll have to look sharp, for I’m off in a day or two.”

“No? you’re not!” she cried, in a tone very like that of real consternation. “Ah, you’re just trying to crowd it on. Why, you’re here for quite a long time.”

“Very well. You’ll see. Only, don’t say I never told you.”

“But you mustn’t go. You needn’t. Look here—You’re not to.”

“That sounds rather nice—Very nice indeed. And wherefore am I not to go, Nessita, mine angel?”

“Because I don’t want you to. You’re rather a joke, you know, and—”

”—And—what?”

“Nothing.”

“That ought to settle it. Only I don’t flatter myself my departure will leave any gap. Remaineth there not a large garrison at Shâlalai—horse, foot, and artillery?”

“Oh, hang the garrison at Shâlalai! You’re detestable. I don’t like you any more.”

“No? Well what will make you like me any more?”

“If you stay.”

“That settles it. I cannot depart in the face of that condition,” he answered, the gravity of his words and tone simply belied by a whimsical twinkle of the eyes. She, looking up, saw this.

“Ah, I believe you’ve been cramming all the time. I’ll ask Mr Upward when we get in, and if you have, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Spare thyself the trouble O petulant one, for it would be futile in any case. If I have been telling nasty horrid wicked little taradiddles, Upward won’t give me away, for I shall tip him the masonic wink not to.Youwon’t spot it, though you are staring us both in the face all the time. So you’ll have to keep your blind faith in me, anyhow. Hallo! Stay still a minute. There are some birds.”

In and out among the grass and stones, running like barn-door fowl was a large covey. This time a whoop and a handful of gravel from Bhallu Khan was effective. The covey rose with a jarring “whirr” as one bird. A double shot—a bird fell to each.

“Right and left. That’s satisfactory. I’m getting my hand in,” remarked Campian. “They’re right away,” looking after the covey, “and I feel like breakfast time. Glad we are almost back.”

The white tents half-hidden in the apricot tope, and sheltered by the fresh and budding green, looked picturesque enough against a background of rugged and stony mountain ridge, the black vertical jaws of thetangi, now waterless, yawning grim like the jaws of some silent waiting monster. Native servants in their snowy puggarees, flitted to and fro between the camp and the cook-tent, whence a wreath of blue smoke floated skyward. A string of camels had just come in, and were kneeling to have their loads removed, keeping up the while their hoarse snarling roar, each hideous antediluvian head turning craftily on its weird neck as though watching the chance of getting in a bite. But between them and their owners, three or four wild looking Baluchis—long-haired and turban-crowned—the understanding, whether of love or fear, seemed complete, for these went about their work of unloading, the normal expression of impassive melancholy stamped upon their copper-hued countenances undergoing no change.

“Well, how many did you shoot?” cried Hazel, running out from the tents as the two came in. “Only six!” as Bhallu Khan held up the “bag.” “Pho! Why we heard about twenty shots. Didn’t we, Lily?”

“More. I expect they were thinking of you when they named this place,” said the latter.

“Thought something cheeky was coming,” remarked Campian tranquilly. “The ‘cow-catcher’ adorning thy most speaking countenance, Lilian my cherub, has an extra upward tendency this morning. No pun intended, of course.”

“Oh—oh—oh!” A very hoot was all the expression that greeted this disclaimer. But a sudden summons to breakfast cut short further sparring.

“Upward, what’s the meaning of Chirria Bach?” asked Campian when they were seated. Lily and Hazel clapped their hands and cackled. Upward looked up, with a laugh.

“It means ‘miss a bird’ old chap. Didn’t you know?”

“No. I never thought of it. Very good, Lilian my seraph. Now I see the point of that extra smart remark just now. What do you think, Mrs Upward? she said this place must have been named after me.”

“They’re very rude children, both of them,” was the laughing reply. “But I can’t sympathise. I’m afraid you make them worse.”

A wild crow went up from the two delinquents. Campian shook his head gravely.

“After that we had better change the subject,” he said. “By the way, Upward, old Bhallu Khan went through an extraordinary performance this morning. I want you to tell me the interpretation thereof.”

“Was he saying his prayers? Have another chikór, old chap?”

“No—not his prayers. Thanks, I will. They eat rather better than they shoot. Nesta and I were deep in the discussion of scientific and other matters—”

“Oh, yes.”

This from Lily, meaningly.

“Lilian, dearest. If you can tell the story better than I can”—with grave reproach.

“Never mind—go on—go on”—rapped out the delinquent.

”—In the discussion of scientific and other matters,” resumed Campian, eyeing his former interruptor, “when Bhallu Khan suddenly enjoined silence. He then put his fingers to his head—so—and mysteriously pointed towards the nullah. It dawned on me that he meant something with horns; but I knew there couldn’t begadhor markhôr right down here in the valley, and close to the camp. Then Nesta came to the rescue by suggesting that he must have seen the devil.”

“Ah, I didn’t suggest it!” cried Nesta. But her disclaimer was drowned in a wild yelp of ecstasy that volleyed forth from the two younger girls; in the course of which Hazel managed to swallow her tea the wrong way, and spent the next ten minutes choking and spluttering.

Upward was shaking in quiet mirth.

“He didn’t mean the devil at all, old chap, only a hare,” he explained.

“A hare?” uttered Campian.

The blankness of his amazement started the two off again.

“Only a hare! Good heavens! But a hare, even in Baluchistan, hasn’t got horns.”

“He meant its ears. Come now, it was rather smart of him—wasn’t it? Old Bhallu Khan is smart all round. Hebuksa heap, and is an old bore at times, but he’s smart enough.”

“Yes. It was smart. Yet the combined intelligence of Nesta and myself couldn’t get beyond the devil.”

“Speak for yourself then,” she laughed. And just then Tinkles, rushing from under the table, darted forth outside, uttering a succession of fierce and fiery barks.

“I expect it’s those two Johnnies arriving,” said Upward, rising. “Yes, it is,” as he lifted the “chick” and looked outside.

They all went forth. Two horsemen were turning off the road and making for the camp.

Chapter Five.Concerning Two Fools.“Major Bracebrydge—Captain Fleming”—introduced Upward. The first lifted his hat punctiliously to Campian, the second put out his hand. To the rest of the party both were already known.“Well—ar—Upward—lots of chikór, eh?” began the first.“Swarms. But they’ve become beastly wild. Campian has been harrying them ever since we found him one dark night half in half out of the nullah in flood.”“Oh, yes; we heard something of that I suppose—ar—Mr Campian—it wasn’t one magnified by half-a-dozen—ah, ha—ha. You were travelling after dinner, you know—ah—ha—ha?”A certain amount of chaff in fair good fellowship Campian didn’t mind. But the element ofbonhomiewas lacking alike in the other’s tone and demeanour. The laugh too, was both fat and feeble. He did not deem this specimen of garrison wit worthy of any answer. The other seemed disappointed.“I see our camels have turned up,” he went on. “By Jove, Upward, I’ve got a useless lot of servants. That new bearer of mine wants kicking many times a day. Look at him now—over there. Just look at the brute—squatting on his haunches when he ought to be getting things together. I say though, you’ve got all the best of it here”—surveying the apricottope, which was incapable of sheltering even one more tent—“we shall get all the sun.”“Sorry they didn’t plant more trees, old chap,” said Upward. “But then we are here for a longish time, whereas it’s only a few days with you. Come in and have a ‘peg.’ Fleming—how about a ‘peg’?”“Oh, very much about a ‘peg,’” responded Fleming with alacrity. He had been renewing his acquaintance with Nesta about as volubly as time allowed.“Well, whatkhubburfrom below?” asked Upward, when they were seated in the large dining tent, discussing the said “pegs.”“Oh, the usual thing,” said Bracebrydge. “Tribes restless Khelat way—that’s nothing—they always are restless.”“Ever since you’ve been in the country, old chap?” rejoined Upward, with a dry smile, the point of which lay in the fact that the man who undertook to give an exhaustive and authoritative opinion on the country was absolutely new to it. He was not quartered at Shâlalai, nor anywhere else in Baluchistan; but was up, on furlough, from a hot station in the lower plains.“There is some talk of disturbance, though,” said Fleming. “Two or three of the Brahui sirdars sent a message to the A.G.G., which was offhand, not to say cheeky. Let them. We’ll soon smash ’em up.”“You may do,” said Upward. “But there’ll be lively times first. Then there’s all that disaffection in lower India. Things are looking dicky—devilish dicky. I shouldn’t wonder if we saw something before long. I’ve always said so.”Then they got away from the general question togupof a more private nature—even stationgup.“When are you coming back to Shâlalai, Miss Cheriton?” said Fleming, in the midst of this.“I don’t know. I’ve only just left it,” Nesta answered. “Not for a long time, I think.”“That’s awful hard lines on Shâlalai, Miss Cheriton—ah—ha—ha,” said Bracebrydge, twirling the ends of his moustache, which, waxed out on a level with the line of his mouth, gave him a sort of barber’s block expression, which however, the fair of the above city, and of elsewhere, deemed martial and dashing to a degree. This effect, in their sight, was heightened by a jagged scar extending from the left eye to the lower jaw, suggestive of a sword slash at close quarters, “facing the foe”—and so forth. As a matter of hard fact this honourable wound had been received while heading a storming party upon the quarters of a newly-joined and rather high tempered subaltern, for “hazing” purposes. The latter, anticipating such attentions had locked his door, and on the arrival of the “hazing” party, had given out that the first man to enter the room was going to receive something he wouldn’t like in the least. The door was burst open, and with characteristic gallantry the first man to enter was Bracebrydge, who found the destined victim to be as good as his word, for he received a heavy article of crockery, deftly hurled, full in the face—and he didn’t like it in the least—for it cut him so badly right along the cheek that he had to retire perforce, bleeding hideously. The next day the newly-joined subaltern sent in his papers, saying he had no wish to belong to a service wherein it was necessary to take such measures to defend oneself against the overgrown schoolboy rowdyism of “brother” officers, and subsequently won distinction and the V.C. as a daring and gallant leader of irregular horse in other parts of Her Majesty’s dominions.“I suppose you fellows will want to give the birds a turn,” said Upward, after tiffin. “We’ll get the ponies and start shooting from about four miles down the valley. I’m afraid they’re beastly wild until we get that far.”“Don’t know that I feel up to it,” said Fleming. “Beastly fag the ride up this morning. Think I’ll just take it easy here in camp, Upward. You and Bracebrydge can go. It’ll be all the better for yourselves; three guns are sure to have more sport than four.”Campian, who was in the joke, caught a sly wink from Upward, and mightily enjoyed it. Here was the latter’s prediction being already fulfilled.“What sort of fellow are you, Fleming?” said Bracebrydge. “What’s the good of coming up here on purpose to shoot, and then hanging up in camp? Now I had thought of not going out. The fact is, I want to fetch a snooze.”“Oh you don’t want a snooze. You snored for ten hours at a stretch the way up last night,” retorted Fleming. “Now I didn’t, and feel cheap in consequence. You go along now, or you’ll spoil the party. Upward and Mr Campian are both keen on it.”“Rather. One of you fellows must come,” declared Upward, bent on keeping up the fun. “We might spare one of you, but not both. Three guns we must have, to cover the ground properly.”“Then Fleming had better go,” said Bracebrydge. “I’m sleepy.”“No fear, I’m going to remain in camp,” declared Fleming. “I’m sleepy, too.”“Why don’t you toss for it?” suggested Upward. “Sudden death—the winner to do as he likes.”The idea took on, and Fleming came out the winner.“All right, Bracebrydge,” said the latter, jubilant. “I’ll have my snooze while you sacrifice yourself in the cause of others—and sport.”The latter snarled, but even he drew the line at backing out of his pledge.Meanwhile Campian, no longer able to restrain a roar, had hurried from the dining tent.“What’s the joke, now?” called out Nesta, who, with Mrs Upward, was seated beneath the trees.“Yes, itisa joke.”“Well, we’re spoiling to hear it; go on.”“Ssh—ssh! little girls shouldn’t be impatient. The joke is this—Wait. They’re coming,” with a look over his shoulder.“No. They’re not. Quick quick. What is it?”“Well, the spectacle of two fellows old enough to know better, who have come all the way up here on purpose to shoot, both keenly competing as to who shall have the privilege of remaining in camp, is comical—to say the least of it.”“Ah, I don’t believe it—” said Nesta.“Not, eh? Well they have even gone so far as to toss for the privilege.”“And who won?”“Him they call Fleming. Where are you going to take him for his afternoon stroll, Nessita? I warn youweare goingdownthe valley.”“Thenwewill go up it,” laughed the girl. “Yes, I think he is the best fun of the two.”“A pair of great sillies, both of them,” laughed Mrs Upward.“Steady. Here comes Fleming. But you won’t see much of him. He is only remaining behind with the express object of having an afternoon snooze. Ta-ta—I’m off.”Fleming, who was at that moment emerging from the dining tent came over to the two ladies, and throwing himself on the ground, lighted another cheroot and began to talk. He was still talking animatedly when the shooters started.“I say, Fleming, when are you going to have your snooze?” called out Bracebrydge nastily. “You don’t look so sleepy now as you did—Ar—ha—ha!” The shooters proceeded on the plan laid down, except that Bracebrydge suggested they should leave the ponies much sooner than was at first intended. Then, being in a villainous temper, he shot badly, and wondered what the devil they had come to such an infernally rotten bit of shooting for, and cursed the attendant forest guard, and made a studiously offensive remark or two to Campian, who received the same with the silence of utter contempt. Before they had been at it an hour, he flung down his gun and burst out with:“Look here Upward, I can’t shoot a damn to-day, and my boot is chafing most infernally. I shall be lame for a month if I walk any more. Couldn’t one of these fellows fetch my pony? I’ll go back to camp.”“All right, old chap; do just as you like,” replied Upward, giving the necessary orders.“Why not get on the gee, and ride on with us”—suggested Campian, innocently. “The scenery is rather good further down.”“Oh, damn the scenery! Look here though. I don’t want to spoil you two fellows’ shoot. You go on. Don’t wait for me. The nigger will be here with the horse directly.”“No. There’s no point in waiting,” assented Upward. “We’ll go on eh, Campian? So long, Bracebrydge.”The two resumed their shoot, cutting down a bird here and a bird there, and soon came together again.“That’s a real show specimen, that man Bracebrydge,” remarked Campian. “What made you freeze on to him, Upward?”“Oh, I met him in the Shâlalai club. I never took to the man, but he was in with some others I rather liked. It was Fleming who brought him up here.”“So? But, do you know, it’s a sorrowful spectacle to see a man of his age—already growing grey—making such an egregious ass of himself. Mind you, I’m not surprised at him being a little ‘gone’—she’s a very taking little girl—but to give himself away as he does, that’s where the lunacy of the affair comes in.”Upward chuckled.“Bless your life, old chap, Bracebrydge isn’t really ‘gone’ there.”“Not, eh? Then he’s a bigger idiot than even I took him for, letting himself go like that.”“It’s his way. He does just the same with every woman he comes across, if she’s at all decent-looking, and what’s more is under the impression she must be wildly ‘gone’ on him; and by the way, some of them have been. Wait till we get back to Shâlalai; you may see some fun in that line.”“They must be greater fools even than himself. I’m not a woman-hater, but really the sex can roll out some stupendous examples of defective intelligence—but then, to be fair, so can our own—as for instance Bracebrydge himself. What sort of place is this, Upward?” he broke off, as they came upon a low tumble-down wall surrounding a tree; the enclosure thus formed was strewn with loose horns, as of sheep and goats, and yet not quite like them.“Why, it’s a sort of rustic shrine, rigged up to some Mohammedan saint. Isn’t it, Bhallu Khan?” translating the remark.The forester reached over the wall, and picking up a markhôr horn, worn and weather-beaten, held it towards them.“He says it’s where the people come to make offerings,” translated Upward. “When they want to have a successful stalk they vow a pair of markhôr horns at a place like this.”“And then deposit it here, and then the noble Briton, if in want of such a thing to hang in his hall, incontinently bones it, and goes home and lies about it ever after,” cut in Campian. “Isn’t that how the case stands?”“I don’t think so. The horns wouldn’t be good enough to make it worth while.”“I suppose not,” examining the one tendered him by the forester. “I didn’t know the cultus of Saint Hubert obtained among Mohammedans. Do these people have legends and local ghosts, and all that kind of thing?”“Rather. You just set old Bhallu Khan yarning—pity you can’t understand him though. Look. See that very tree over there?” pointing out a large juniper. “He has a yarn about a fakir who used to jump right over the top of it every day for a year.”“So? What did he do that for? As a pious exercise?”“Something of the kind. But the joke of it is, the thing happened a devil of a time ago. When I pointed out to him that any fool could have done the same, considering that the tree needn’t have been more than a yard high, even then he hardly sees it.”“I should doubt that, Upward. My opinion is that our friend Bhallu Khan was endeavouring to pull his superior’s leg when he told that story.”“They are very stupid in some ways, though sharp as the devil in others. And the odd part of it is that most of their local sacred yarns are of the most absurd kind—well, like the tree and fakir story.”“They are rather a poor lot these Baluchis, aren’t they? They don’t go in for a lot of jewels, on their clothes and swords, like the Indian rajahs?”“No. Some of the Afghan sirdars do, though—or at any rate used to.”“So? And what became of them all?”“They have them still—though wait—let me see. There are yarns that some are hidden away, so as not to fall into the hands of other tribes as loot. There was a fellow named Keogh in our service who made a good haul that way. A Pathân brought him an old battered sword belt, encrusted with rough looking stones, which he had dug up, and wanted ten rupees for it Keogh beat him down to five, and brought the thing as a curio. How much do you think he sold it for?”“Well?”“Four thousand. The stones were sapphires.”“Where was this?” asked Campian quickly. “Anywhere near here?”“No. Out the other side of Peshawur. You seem keen on the subject, old chap! You haven’t got hold of a notion there’s anything to be done in that line around here, eh?”“Hardly. This sort of country doesn’t grow precious stones, I guess, except precious big ones.”“Where’s Bracebrydge?” queried Upward, on their return to camp two hours later.“He isn’t back yet,” replied Nesta, with a very mischievous laugh.“What? Why, he left us more than a couple of hours ago. What can have become of the chap? He ought to have been back long before us.”“He was back, but he started off again,” said Mrs Upward. “This time he went the other way”—whereat both Nesta and Fleming laughed immoderately.“I think he started to hunt us up, didn’t he, Mrs Upward?” spluttered the latter.“Oh, I don’t know. But—I believe you saw him and gave him the go-by”—whereat the inculpated pair exchanged glances, and spluttered anew.“I see,” said Upward, amusing himself by beginning to tease Tinkles—whose growls and snaps afforded him considerable mirth. “How’s his chafed foot now—Oh-h!” The last as the little terrier, getting in a bite, half play, half earnest, nipped him through his trousers.“He didn’t say anything about his chafed foot. Why, here he comes.”A very sulky looking horseman rode up and dismounted. Upon him Fleming turned a fire of sly chaff; which had the effect of rendering Bracebrydge sulkier than ever, and Bracebrydge sulky was not a pleasant fellow by any means. He retorted accordingly.“Never mind, old chap,” cut in Upward. “It’s all right now, and nearly dinner time. Let’s all have a ‘peg.’ Nothing like a ‘peg’ to give one an appetite.”

“Major Bracebrydge—Captain Fleming”—introduced Upward. The first lifted his hat punctiliously to Campian, the second put out his hand. To the rest of the party both were already known.

“Well—ar—Upward—lots of chikór, eh?” began the first.

“Swarms. But they’ve become beastly wild. Campian has been harrying them ever since we found him one dark night half in half out of the nullah in flood.”

“Oh, yes; we heard something of that I suppose—ar—Mr Campian—it wasn’t one magnified by half-a-dozen—ah, ha—ha. You were travelling after dinner, you know—ah—ha—ha?”

A certain amount of chaff in fair good fellowship Campian didn’t mind. But the element ofbonhomiewas lacking alike in the other’s tone and demeanour. The laugh too, was both fat and feeble. He did not deem this specimen of garrison wit worthy of any answer. The other seemed disappointed.

“I see our camels have turned up,” he went on. “By Jove, Upward, I’ve got a useless lot of servants. That new bearer of mine wants kicking many times a day. Look at him now—over there. Just look at the brute—squatting on his haunches when he ought to be getting things together. I say though, you’ve got all the best of it here”—surveying the apricottope, which was incapable of sheltering even one more tent—“we shall get all the sun.”

“Sorry they didn’t plant more trees, old chap,” said Upward. “But then we are here for a longish time, whereas it’s only a few days with you. Come in and have a ‘peg.’ Fleming—how about a ‘peg’?”

“Oh, very much about a ‘peg,’” responded Fleming with alacrity. He had been renewing his acquaintance with Nesta about as volubly as time allowed.

“Well, whatkhubburfrom below?” asked Upward, when they were seated in the large dining tent, discussing the said “pegs.”

“Oh, the usual thing,” said Bracebrydge. “Tribes restless Khelat way—that’s nothing—they always are restless.”

“Ever since you’ve been in the country, old chap?” rejoined Upward, with a dry smile, the point of which lay in the fact that the man who undertook to give an exhaustive and authoritative opinion on the country was absolutely new to it. He was not quartered at Shâlalai, nor anywhere else in Baluchistan; but was up, on furlough, from a hot station in the lower plains.

“There is some talk of disturbance, though,” said Fleming. “Two or three of the Brahui sirdars sent a message to the A.G.G., which was offhand, not to say cheeky. Let them. We’ll soon smash ’em up.”

“You may do,” said Upward. “But there’ll be lively times first. Then there’s all that disaffection in lower India. Things are looking dicky—devilish dicky. I shouldn’t wonder if we saw something before long. I’ve always said so.”

Then they got away from the general question togupof a more private nature—even stationgup.

“When are you coming back to Shâlalai, Miss Cheriton?” said Fleming, in the midst of this.

“I don’t know. I’ve only just left it,” Nesta answered. “Not for a long time, I think.”

“That’s awful hard lines on Shâlalai, Miss Cheriton—ah—ha—ha,” said Bracebrydge, twirling the ends of his moustache, which, waxed out on a level with the line of his mouth, gave him a sort of barber’s block expression, which however, the fair of the above city, and of elsewhere, deemed martial and dashing to a degree. This effect, in their sight, was heightened by a jagged scar extending from the left eye to the lower jaw, suggestive of a sword slash at close quarters, “facing the foe”—and so forth. As a matter of hard fact this honourable wound had been received while heading a storming party upon the quarters of a newly-joined and rather high tempered subaltern, for “hazing” purposes. The latter, anticipating such attentions had locked his door, and on the arrival of the “hazing” party, had given out that the first man to enter the room was going to receive something he wouldn’t like in the least. The door was burst open, and with characteristic gallantry the first man to enter was Bracebrydge, who found the destined victim to be as good as his word, for he received a heavy article of crockery, deftly hurled, full in the face—and he didn’t like it in the least—for it cut him so badly right along the cheek that he had to retire perforce, bleeding hideously. The next day the newly-joined subaltern sent in his papers, saying he had no wish to belong to a service wherein it was necessary to take such measures to defend oneself against the overgrown schoolboy rowdyism of “brother” officers, and subsequently won distinction and the V.C. as a daring and gallant leader of irregular horse in other parts of Her Majesty’s dominions.

“I suppose you fellows will want to give the birds a turn,” said Upward, after tiffin. “We’ll get the ponies and start shooting from about four miles down the valley. I’m afraid they’re beastly wild until we get that far.”

“Don’t know that I feel up to it,” said Fleming. “Beastly fag the ride up this morning. Think I’ll just take it easy here in camp, Upward. You and Bracebrydge can go. It’ll be all the better for yourselves; three guns are sure to have more sport than four.”

Campian, who was in the joke, caught a sly wink from Upward, and mightily enjoyed it. Here was the latter’s prediction being already fulfilled.

“What sort of fellow are you, Fleming?” said Bracebrydge. “What’s the good of coming up here on purpose to shoot, and then hanging up in camp? Now I had thought of not going out. The fact is, I want to fetch a snooze.”

“Oh you don’t want a snooze. You snored for ten hours at a stretch the way up last night,” retorted Fleming. “Now I didn’t, and feel cheap in consequence. You go along now, or you’ll spoil the party. Upward and Mr Campian are both keen on it.”

“Rather. One of you fellows must come,” declared Upward, bent on keeping up the fun. “We might spare one of you, but not both. Three guns we must have, to cover the ground properly.”

“Then Fleming had better go,” said Bracebrydge. “I’m sleepy.”

“No fear, I’m going to remain in camp,” declared Fleming. “I’m sleepy, too.”

“Why don’t you toss for it?” suggested Upward. “Sudden death—the winner to do as he likes.”

The idea took on, and Fleming came out the winner.

“All right, Bracebrydge,” said the latter, jubilant. “I’ll have my snooze while you sacrifice yourself in the cause of others—and sport.”

The latter snarled, but even he drew the line at backing out of his pledge.

Meanwhile Campian, no longer able to restrain a roar, had hurried from the dining tent.

“What’s the joke, now?” called out Nesta, who, with Mrs Upward, was seated beneath the trees.

“Yes, itisa joke.”

“Well, we’re spoiling to hear it; go on.”

“Ssh—ssh! little girls shouldn’t be impatient. The joke is this—Wait. They’re coming,” with a look over his shoulder.

“No. They’re not. Quick quick. What is it?”

“Well, the spectacle of two fellows old enough to know better, who have come all the way up here on purpose to shoot, both keenly competing as to who shall have the privilege of remaining in camp, is comical—to say the least of it.”

“Ah, I don’t believe it—” said Nesta.

“Not, eh? Well they have even gone so far as to toss for the privilege.”

“And who won?”

“Him they call Fleming. Where are you going to take him for his afternoon stroll, Nessita? I warn youweare goingdownthe valley.”

“Thenwewill go up it,” laughed the girl. “Yes, I think he is the best fun of the two.”

“A pair of great sillies, both of them,” laughed Mrs Upward.

“Steady. Here comes Fleming. But you won’t see much of him. He is only remaining behind with the express object of having an afternoon snooze. Ta-ta—I’m off.”

Fleming, who was at that moment emerging from the dining tent came over to the two ladies, and throwing himself on the ground, lighted another cheroot and began to talk. He was still talking animatedly when the shooters started.

“I say, Fleming, when are you going to have your snooze?” called out Bracebrydge nastily. “You don’t look so sleepy now as you did—Ar—ha—ha!” The shooters proceeded on the plan laid down, except that Bracebrydge suggested they should leave the ponies much sooner than was at first intended. Then, being in a villainous temper, he shot badly, and wondered what the devil they had come to such an infernally rotten bit of shooting for, and cursed the attendant forest guard, and made a studiously offensive remark or two to Campian, who received the same with the silence of utter contempt. Before they had been at it an hour, he flung down his gun and burst out with:

“Look here Upward, I can’t shoot a damn to-day, and my boot is chafing most infernally. I shall be lame for a month if I walk any more. Couldn’t one of these fellows fetch my pony? I’ll go back to camp.”

“All right, old chap; do just as you like,” replied Upward, giving the necessary orders.

“Why not get on the gee, and ride on with us”—suggested Campian, innocently. “The scenery is rather good further down.”

“Oh, damn the scenery! Look here though. I don’t want to spoil you two fellows’ shoot. You go on. Don’t wait for me. The nigger will be here with the horse directly.”

“No. There’s no point in waiting,” assented Upward. “We’ll go on eh, Campian? So long, Bracebrydge.”

The two resumed their shoot, cutting down a bird here and a bird there, and soon came together again.

“That’s a real show specimen, that man Bracebrydge,” remarked Campian. “What made you freeze on to him, Upward?”

“Oh, I met him in the Shâlalai club. I never took to the man, but he was in with some others I rather liked. It was Fleming who brought him up here.”

“So? But, do you know, it’s a sorrowful spectacle to see a man of his age—already growing grey—making such an egregious ass of himself. Mind you, I’m not surprised at him being a little ‘gone’—she’s a very taking little girl—but to give himself away as he does, that’s where the lunacy of the affair comes in.”

Upward chuckled.

“Bless your life, old chap, Bracebrydge isn’t really ‘gone’ there.”

“Not, eh? Then he’s a bigger idiot than even I took him for, letting himself go like that.”

“It’s his way. He does just the same with every woman he comes across, if she’s at all decent-looking, and what’s more is under the impression she must be wildly ‘gone’ on him; and by the way, some of them have been. Wait till we get back to Shâlalai; you may see some fun in that line.”

“They must be greater fools even than himself. I’m not a woman-hater, but really the sex can roll out some stupendous examples of defective intelligence—but then, to be fair, so can our own—as for instance Bracebrydge himself. What sort of place is this, Upward?” he broke off, as they came upon a low tumble-down wall surrounding a tree; the enclosure thus formed was strewn with loose horns, as of sheep and goats, and yet not quite like them.

“Why, it’s a sort of rustic shrine, rigged up to some Mohammedan saint. Isn’t it, Bhallu Khan?” translating the remark.

The forester reached over the wall, and picking up a markhôr horn, worn and weather-beaten, held it towards them.

“He says it’s where the people come to make offerings,” translated Upward. “When they want to have a successful stalk they vow a pair of markhôr horns at a place like this.”

“And then deposit it here, and then the noble Briton, if in want of such a thing to hang in his hall, incontinently bones it, and goes home and lies about it ever after,” cut in Campian. “Isn’t that how the case stands?”

“I don’t think so. The horns wouldn’t be good enough to make it worth while.”

“I suppose not,” examining the one tendered him by the forester. “I didn’t know the cultus of Saint Hubert obtained among Mohammedans. Do these people have legends and local ghosts, and all that kind of thing?”

“Rather. You just set old Bhallu Khan yarning—pity you can’t understand him though. Look. See that very tree over there?” pointing out a large juniper. “He has a yarn about a fakir who used to jump right over the top of it every day for a year.”

“So? What did he do that for? As a pious exercise?”

“Something of the kind. But the joke of it is, the thing happened a devil of a time ago. When I pointed out to him that any fool could have done the same, considering that the tree needn’t have been more than a yard high, even then he hardly sees it.”

“I should doubt that, Upward. My opinion is that our friend Bhallu Khan was endeavouring to pull his superior’s leg when he told that story.”

“They are very stupid in some ways, though sharp as the devil in others. And the odd part of it is that most of their local sacred yarns are of the most absurd kind—well, like the tree and fakir story.”

“They are rather a poor lot these Baluchis, aren’t they? They don’t go in for a lot of jewels, on their clothes and swords, like the Indian rajahs?”

“No. Some of the Afghan sirdars do, though—or at any rate used to.”

“So? And what became of them all?”

“They have them still—though wait—let me see. There are yarns that some are hidden away, so as not to fall into the hands of other tribes as loot. There was a fellow named Keogh in our service who made a good haul that way. A Pathân brought him an old battered sword belt, encrusted with rough looking stones, which he had dug up, and wanted ten rupees for it Keogh beat him down to five, and brought the thing as a curio. How much do you think he sold it for?”

“Well?”

“Four thousand. The stones were sapphires.”

“Where was this?” asked Campian quickly. “Anywhere near here?”

“No. Out the other side of Peshawur. You seem keen on the subject, old chap! You haven’t got hold of a notion there’s anything to be done in that line around here, eh?”

“Hardly. This sort of country doesn’t grow precious stones, I guess, except precious big ones.”

“Where’s Bracebrydge?” queried Upward, on their return to camp two hours later.

“He isn’t back yet,” replied Nesta, with a very mischievous laugh.

“What? Why, he left us more than a couple of hours ago. What can have become of the chap? He ought to have been back long before us.”

“He was back, but he started off again,” said Mrs Upward. “This time he went the other way”—whereat both Nesta and Fleming laughed immoderately.

“I think he started to hunt us up, didn’t he, Mrs Upward?” spluttered the latter.

“Oh, I don’t know. But—I believe you saw him and gave him the go-by”—whereat the inculpated pair exchanged glances, and spluttered anew.

“I see,” said Upward, amusing himself by beginning to tease Tinkles—whose growls and snaps afforded him considerable mirth. “How’s his chafed foot now—Oh-h!” The last as the little terrier, getting in a bite, half play, half earnest, nipped him through his trousers.

“He didn’t say anything about his chafed foot. Why, here he comes.”

A very sulky looking horseman rode up and dismounted. Upon him Fleming turned a fire of sly chaff; which had the effect of rendering Bracebrydge sulkier than ever, and Bracebrydge sulky was not a pleasant fellow by any means. He retorted accordingly.

“Never mind, old chap,” cut in Upward. “It’s all right now, and nearly dinner time. Let’s all have a ‘peg.’ Nothing like a ‘peg’ to give one an appetite.”

Chapter Six.Of the Ruby Sword.Not without reasons of his own had Campian made such careful and minute inquiries as to the traditions and legends of the strange, wild country in which his lot was temporarily cast, and the key to those reasons was supplied in a closely-written sheet of paper which he was intently studying on the morning after the above conversation. It was, in fact, a letter.Not for the first or second time was he studying this. It had reached him just after his arrival in the country, and the writer thereof was his father.The latter had been a great traveller in his younger days, and was brimful of Eastern experience; full too, of reminiscence, looking back to perilous years passed among fierce, fanatical races, every day of which represented just so many hours of carrying his life in his hand. Now he was spending the evening of life in peace and quiet. This was the passage which Campian was now studying:“It came to me quite as a surprise to hear you were in Afghanistan; had I known you thought of going, there are a few things we might have talked over together. I don’t suppose the country is much changed. Oriental countries never do change, any more than their people.“You remember that affair we have often talked about, when I saved the life of the Durani emir, Dost Hussain, and the story of the hiding of the ruby sword. It—together with the remainder of the treasure—was buried in a cave in a long narrow valley called Kachîn, running almost due east and west. The mountain on the north side is pierced by a very remarkabletangi, the walls of which, could they be closed, would fit like the teeth of a steel trap. I never saw the place myself, but Dost Hussain often used to tell me about it when he promised me half of the buried valuables. I was not particular to go into the subject with him in those days, for I had a strong repugnance to the idea of being paid for saving a man’s life; indeed I used to tell him repeatedly I did not need so costly a gift. But he would not hear of my objections, declaring that when he was able to return for his property half of it should be mine, and I fully believe he would have kept his word, for he was a splendid fellow—more like an Arab that an Asiatic. But Dost Hussain was killed by the Brahuis, and, so far as I was concerned, the secret of the hidden valuables died with him. The only man I know of who shared it was his brother, the Syyed Aïn Asrâf, but he is probably dead, or, at any rate must have recovered it long ago. The sword alone would have been of immense value. I saw it once. Both hilt and scabbard were encrusted with splendid rubies and other stones, but mostly rubies—and there were other valuables.“It occurs to me that all this must have been hidden somewhere about where you are now, and, if so, you might make a few inquiries. I would like to know whether the sword was ever found or not. Find out if Aïn Asrâf is still alive. If so, he must be very old now. It would be interesting to me to hear how that affair ended, and would give an additional object to your travels...” Then the letter went on to touch upon other matters, and concluded.As we have said, it was not the first time Campian had pondered over these words, but every time he did so something in them seemed to strike him in a fresh light. Well he remembered hearing his father tell the story by word of mouth, but at such time it had interested himasa story and no more. Now, however, that he was in the very scene of its enactment, it seemed to gain tenfold interest. What if this buried treasure had never been recovered, had lain hidden all these years. The affair dated back to the forties. Afghanistan his father had called it—but this was Afghanistan then. In those days it owned allegiance to the Amir of Kâbul.A long, narrow valley running almost due east and west! There were many such valleys. And thetangi? Why the verytangiat whose mouth their camp was pitched was the only one cleaving the mountain range on the northern side, and its configuration was exactly that of the one described in his father’s letter. He could not resist a thrill of the pulses. What if this splendid treasure were in reality right under his hand—if he only knew where to lay his hand upon it? There came the rub. The mountain sides here and there were simply honeycombed with caves. To strike the right one without some clue would be a forlorn quest indeed; and he could talk neither Baluch nor Hindustani. The very wildness of the possibility availed to quell any rising excitement to which he might have felt inclined upon the subject; besides, was it likely that this treasure—probably of double value, both on account of its own worth, and constituting a sort of heirloom—would have been allowed to lie buried for forty years or so, and eventually have been forgotten? Somebody or other must have known its hiding place. No; any possibility to the contrary must be simply chimerical.Just then the “chik” was lifted, and Upward’s head appeared within the tent.“Can I come in, old chap? Look here, we are all going on a little expedition, so you roll out and come along. There’s a bit of new enclosed forest I want to look at and report on, so we are going to make a picnic of it. There’s a highkotalbetween cliffs, which gives one a splendid view; then we can go down into the valley, and home again round another way, through a finetangiwhich is well worth seeing.”“I’m right on, Upward. I’ll roll out. Do you mind sending Khola in with the bath?”“That’s it. We are going to have breakfast a little earlier, and start immediately afterwards. Will that suit you?”“To a hair!”The start was duly made, and Lily and Hazel found immense fun in watching the efforts of the two knights of the sabre to secure the privilege of riding beside Nesta, with the result that, as neither would give way, the path, when it began to narrow, became inconveniently crowded. The girl was looking very pretty in a light blouse and habit skirt; her blue eyes dancing with mischievous mirth over the recollection of the wild rush they had made to assist her to mount; and how she, having accorded that privilege to Fleming, the other had promptly taken advantage of it by manoeuvring his steed to the side of hers, thus, for the time being, effectually “riding out” the much disgusted Fleming.“What’s the real name of this place, Upward?” said Campian, when they were fairly under way.“Chirria Bach,” said Lily. “We told you before. It was named after you.”“Not of thee did I humbly crave information, mine angelic Lil. I record the fact more in sorrow than in anger,” he answered.“It’s called that on the Government maps,” said Upward. “I think it has another name—Kachîn, I believe they call it—don’t they, Bhallu Khan?”“Ha, Huzoor, Kachîn,” assented the forester, who was riding just behind.“Is it the whole district, or only just this valley?” went on Campian.“Only just this valley,” translated Upward, who had put the question to the old Pathân.“Strange now—that I should be here, isn’t it? I’ve heard my father speak of this place. You know he was out here a lot—years ago—I suppose there isn’t another of the same name, is there?”“He says, nowhere near this part of the country,” said Upward, rendering Bhallu Khan’s reply. “But what made your father mention this place in particular? Was he in any row here?”“Perhaps he ‘missed birds’ here, too,” cut in the irrepressible Lily. “I know. It was named after him—not you.”“That’s it. Of course it was. Now, I never thought of that before,” assented Campian, with a stare of mock amazement. “I believe, however, Upward, that as a matter of fact, he remembered the rather remarkable formation of thattangibehind the camp.”Then he dropped out of the conversation, and thought over what he had just heard. Truly this thing was becoming interesting. He had located the very place. There could be no mistake about that. He had been on the point of asking if Bhallu Khan had heard the story of the flight of the Durani chief, or of Syyed Aïn Asrâf, but decided to let that alone for the present.“Who is that bounder, Campian?” Bracebrydge was saying. “Does anyone know?”“He isn’t a ‘bounder,’” returned Nesta shortly. “He’s awfully nice.”“Oh, awfully nice—ah—ha—ha—ha!” sneered Bracebrydge, with his vacuous laugh. “Very sorry. Didn’t know he was such a friend of yours.”“But he is.”“Pity he goes about looking such a slouch then, isn’t it?”“It would be—if he did. But then everybody doesn’t see the sense of knocking about among rocks and stones got up as if he was just turned out of a band box, Major Bracebrydge,” she returned, quite angrily.“Oh. Sorry I spoke—ah—ha—ha!” he retorted, recognising a shaft levelled at his own immaculate turnout. Fleming came to the rescue.“Don’t know what’s wrong with this fellow, Miss Cheriton. He’s been so crusty the last day or two. He ought to be invalided. Bracebrydge, old man, buck up.”A couple of hours of easy riding, and the whole party gained thekotal, to which we heard Upward make reference, and his eulogy of the view afforded therefrom was in no sense undeserved. Right in front the ground fell abruptly, well nigh precipitously, to a great depth; and in the valley, or basin beneath, here and there a plot of flat land under cultivation stood out green among the rolling furrows of grey rock and sombre vegetation. Opposite rose a mighty mass of mountain, piled up tier upon tier of great cliffs, and beyond this, far away to the left, a lofty range dark with juniper, swept round to meet the heights which shut in the amphitheatre from that side. Down into this the bridle path over thekotalwound, looking like a mere crack in a wall. A great crag towered right overhead, its jutting pinnacles and ledges standing defiantly forth against the sky.“Not a bad spot for a picnic, is it?” said Upward complacently, as, having dismounted, they stood taking in the view.“By Jove, no,” said Fleming. “Phew! what an idea of depth it conveys, looking right down into that hole. Look Miss Cheriton. There are some people moving down there. They seem about as big as flies.”“How big are flies? I always thought flies were small?” cut in Lily, the irrepressible.“Not always. Depends upon the fly,” murmured Campian.“Well, I shall have to leave you people for a while,” said Upward. “There’s a new plantation up the hill I want to look at. Sha’n’t be more than an hour, and we can have tiffin then. It’s quite early yet.”“I’ll go with you, Upward,” said Campian. And the two started, attended by Bhallu Khan, mounted on his wiry Baluch pony.“I’m getting deadly sick of that fellow Bracebrydge,” began Upward. “I wish to heaven he’d clear. He always wants to boss the whole show as if it belonged to him. Did you hear him trying to dictate where we were to pitch the tiffin camp?”“Yes.”“He always does that sort of thing, or tries to be funny at somebody else’s expense. I’m getting jolly sick of it.”He was still more sick of it, when, on returning, he found that Bracebrydge had carried his point, and actually had caused a removal of the said site. However, Upward was of an easy going disposition, though addicted to occasional fidgety fits, so he came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be helped now, and didn’t really matter after all, and the tiffin was plenteous and good, and the soda water well cooled. So they fed, and chatted, and had a good time generally.“I say, Upward. Can’t someone throw a few bottles at that brute?” remarked Bracebrydge, as, cheroots having been lit, the male element stretched at full length on the ground, was lazily puffing at the same. “He’ll crack the drum of one’s blessed ears directly, the howling lunatic.”The noise complained of was a soft, melancholy, wailing sound, something between a flute and a concertina, and it proceeded from one of the forest guard, who was tootling into some instrument of native make.“Does itdikyou, old chap?” replied Upward good naturedly. “I can shut him up, but we rather like it. Bulbul Khan swears he invented that instrument himself, and is immensely proud of it. We look upon him as our Court minstrel of sorts. He’s always tuning up when we go out anywhere. Never without his pipes.”“What did you say thesoor’sname was?” growled Bracebrydge.“Bulbul Khan. That’s my name for him,” laughed Upward. “His real name’s Babul Hân, but I christened him Bulbul Khan, because he’s always making melody. Not bad, eh?”“Oh yes—beastly funny—Ah—ha—ha—ha!” sneered Bracebrydge.Now the trampling of horse hoofs arrested the attention of the party, and about a dozen mounted Baluchis, riding at a foot’s pace, emerged from the juniper forest. They made a picturesque group enough in their white flowing garments and great turbans.“Why, who can these be?” said Nesta, gazing upon the new arrivals with some interest. “Who are they, Mrs Upward?”“I’ll ask Bhallu Khan.” Then—“He says it is a sirdar of the Marris, who has been up to Gushki to see the Political Agent, and is on his way home.”“So?” said Campian, interested. “Wonder if he’d stop and have a talk. Upward, roll up, old man. I want you to interview this very big swell.”“We don’t want to be ‘dikked’ by a lot of niggers,” grunted Bracebrydge, in an audible aside.The cavalcade had halted some threescore yards away, and one of the men now came forward to ask if the “jungle-wallah sahib” was there, because the Sirdar Yar Hussain Khan would be glad to have a talk with him on an official matter.“Yar Hussain Khan?” repeated Upward, choking back a yawn. “I say, Campian, you’d better take a good look at this fellow. He’s no end of a big chief among the Marris, though he’s really of Afghan descent. Come along with me and meet him.” Then, turning to the Baluchi, he gave the necessary answer.All the party were armed with the inevitable tulwar—four of their number, who were in immediate attendance on the chief, with Martini rifles as well. These, however, they laid down, as, having dismounted, they advanced to meet Upward.The sirdar himself was a man of stately presence, standing over six feet. His strong, handsome face, with its flowing black beard, was well set off by the great turban wound round a bluekûlla, whose conical peak was just visible above the snowy folds. Two jetty tresses of long hair fell over his broad chest, almost to the hem of a rich vest of blue velvet embroidered with gold; the only colour which relieved his white garments. Campian, for his part, as he returned the other’s handshake, and noted the free, full fearlessness of the glance which met his, decided that here indeed was a noble specimen of an Oriental chieftain.The subject of the latter’s official talk with Upward was of no especial importance, relating merely to certain grazing rights in dispute between a section of his tribesmen and the Government. Then he accepted an invitation to sit down and smoke a cigarette. But with the remainder of the party he did not offer to shake hands, acknowledging their presence by a dignified salute.Upward, talking in Hindustani, brought round the conversation to matters semi-political. “Was there anything in the rumours that had got about, that the tribes were becoming restless all over the country?”“The tribes always had been restless,” was Yar Hussain’s reply. “The English had taken over the country not so very long ago. Was it likely that the people could change their nature all at once? The English sahibs found sport in stalking markhôr or tiger shooting or in other forms ofshikar. The Baluchis found it in raiding. It was their form ofshikar.”Campian, who perforce had to await Upward’s interpretation, had been carefully observing their visitors, and noted that one among the chiefs attendants was gazing at him with a most malevolent stare. This man never took his glance off him, and when their eyes met that glance became truly fiendish.“That’s a first-class explanation, and a candid one,” was the comment he made on Upward’s rendering. “Tell him I hope they won’t take any more potshots at me when I’m wandering about alone—like they did that night I arrived at your camp, Upward. Tell him I rather like the look of them, and wish I could talk, so I could go in and out among them.”A slight smile came over the dignified gravity of the sirdar’s features as this was interpreted to him, and he replied.“He says,” translated Upward, “he will be very pleased if at any time you should visit his village. The shooting at you he knows nothing about, but is sure it could not have been done by any of his people.”Campian, looking up, again met the hostile glance above mentioned. The man, who was seated a little behind his chief, was regarding him with a truly fiendish scowl, and noting it he decided upon two things—that Yar Hussain was a very fine fellow indeed, but that if he had any more followers of the stamp of this malignant savage, it were better for himself or any other infidel who desired to live out his length of days to pause ere accepting this cordially worded invitation. Then, after a few more interchanges of civilities, the sirdar and his followers rose to take their leave.Now the diabolical scowl wherewith that particular Baluchi had greeted him, Campian at first set down to the natural hatred of a more than ordinarily fanatical Moslem for the infidel and the invader. But as the other drew nearer, spitting forth low envenomed curses, he half expected the Ghazi mania would prove too much for the man, even in the presence of his chief, and his hand instinctively moved behind him to his pistol pocket. The fellow however, seemed to think better of it.“Fine specimen, that sirdar, isn’t he?” said Upward, as they watched the party defiling down the steep hill path into the valley beneath.“He is. By the way, did you notice the infernal scowl that hook-nosed brigand of his turned on for my benefit all the time you were talking?”“I thought he wasn’t looking at you very amiably when they went away. He can see you’re a stranger, I suppose, and some of these fanatical devils hate a stranger.”“There was more in it than that, Upward. Did you happen to notice he walked with a slight limp?”“No; I hardly—er yes, by the way, now I think of it, I did.”“Well, what if he should turn out to be the very identical cuss I winged that night?”“Phew!” whistled Upward. “But then, Bhallu Khan says they were Brahuis. These are Marris.”“There may have been both among them. What is the sirdar’s name, again?”“Yar Hussain Khan.”“Yes. Well, Sirdar Yar Hussain Khan seems a very nice fellow, and I should much like to see him again; but probably I sha’n’t, for the simple reason that I don’t in the least want ever to behold that particularly abominable follower of his again.”But he little thought under what circumstances he was destined to behold both again.

Not without reasons of his own had Campian made such careful and minute inquiries as to the traditions and legends of the strange, wild country in which his lot was temporarily cast, and the key to those reasons was supplied in a closely-written sheet of paper which he was intently studying on the morning after the above conversation. It was, in fact, a letter.

Not for the first or second time was he studying this. It had reached him just after his arrival in the country, and the writer thereof was his father.

The latter had been a great traveller in his younger days, and was brimful of Eastern experience; full too, of reminiscence, looking back to perilous years passed among fierce, fanatical races, every day of which represented just so many hours of carrying his life in his hand. Now he was spending the evening of life in peace and quiet. This was the passage which Campian was now studying:

“It came to me quite as a surprise to hear you were in Afghanistan; had I known you thought of going, there are a few things we might have talked over together. I don’t suppose the country is much changed. Oriental countries never do change, any more than their people.

“You remember that affair we have often talked about, when I saved the life of the Durani emir, Dost Hussain, and the story of the hiding of the ruby sword. It—together with the remainder of the treasure—was buried in a cave in a long narrow valley called Kachîn, running almost due east and west. The mountain on the north side is pierced by a very remarkabletangi, the walls of which, could they be closed, would fit like the teeth of a steel trap. I never saw the place myself, but Dost Hussain often used to tell me about it when he promised me half of the buried valuables. I was not particular to go into the subject with him in those days, for I had a strong repugnance to the idea of being paid for saving a man’s life; indeed I used to tell him repeatedly I did not need so costly a gift. But he would not hear of my objections, declaring that when he was able to return for his property half of it should be mine, and I fully believe he would have kept his word, for he was a splendid fellow—more like an Arab that an Asiatic. But Dost Hussain was killed by the Brahuis, and, so far as I was concerned, the secret of the hidden valuables died with him. The only man I know of who shared it was his brother, the Syyed Aïn Asrâf, but he is probably dead, or, at any rate must have recovered it long ago. The sword alone would have been of immense value. I saw it once. Both hilt and scabbard were encrusted with splendid rubies and other stones, but mostly rubies—and there were other valuables.

“It occurs to me that all this must have been hidden somewhere about where you are now, and, if so, you might make a few inquiries. I would like to know whether the sword was ever found or not. Find out if Aïn Asrâf is still alive. If so, he must be very old now. It would be interesting to me to hear how that affair ended, and would give an additional object to your travels...” Then the letter went on to touch upon other matters, and concluded.

As we have said, it was not the first time Campian had pondered over these words, but every time he did so something in them seemed to strike him in a fresh light. Well he remembered hearing his father tell the story by word of mouth, but at such time it had interested himasa story and no more. Now, however, that he was in the very scene of its enactment, it seemed to gain tenfold interest. What if this buried treasure had never been recovered, had lain hidden all these years. The affair dated back to the forties. Afghanistan his father had called it—but this was Afghanistan then. In those days it owned allegiance to the Amir of Kâbul.

A long, narrow valley running almost due east and west! There were many such valleys. And thetangi? Why the verytangiat whose mouth their camp was pitched was the only one cleaving the mountain range on the northern side, and its configuration was exactly that of the one described in his father’s letter. He could not resist a thrill of the pulses. What if this splendid treasure were in reality right under his hand—if he only knew where to lay his hand upon it? There came the rub. The mountain sides here and there were simply honeycombed with caves. To strike the right one without some clue would be a forlorn quest indeed; and he could talk neither Baluch nor Hindustani. The very wildness of the possibility availed to quell any rising excitement to which he might have felt inclined upon the subject; besides, was it likely that this treasure—probably of double value, both on account of its own worth, and constituting a sort of heirloom—would have been allowed to lie buried for forty years or so, and eventually have been forgotten? Somebody or other must have known its hiding place. No; any possibility to the contrary must be simply chimerical.

Just then the “chik” was lifted, and Upward’s head appeared within the tent.

“Can I come in, old chap? Look here, we are all going on a little expedition, so you roll out and come along. There’s a bit of new enclosed forest I want to look at and report on, so we are going to make a picnic of it. There’s a highkotalbetween cliffs, which gives one a splendid view; then we can go down into the valley, and home again round another way, through a finetangiwhich is well worth seeing.”

“I’m right on, Upward. I’ll roll out. Do you mind sending Khola in with the bath?”

“That’s it. We are going to have breakfast a little earlier, and start immediately afterwards. Will that suit you?”

“To a hair!”

The start was duly made, and Lily and Hazel found immense fun in watching the efforts of the two knights of the sabre to secure the privilege of riding beside Nesta, with the result that, as neither would give way, the path, when it began to narrow, became inconveniently crowded. The girl was looking very pretty in a light blouse and habit skirt; her blue eyes dancing with mischievous mirth over the recollection of the wild rush they had made to assist her to mount; and how she, having accorded that privilege to Fleming, the other had promptly taken advantage of it by manoeuvring his steed to the side of hers, thus, for the time being, effectually “riding out” the much disgusted Fleming.

“What’s the real name of this place, Upward?” said Campian, when they were fairly under way.

“Chirria Bach,” said Lily. “We told you before. It was named after you.”

“Not of thee did I humbly crave information, mine angelic Lil. I record the fact more in sorrow than in anger,” he answered.

“It’s called that on the Government maps,” said Upward. “I think it has another name—Kachîn, I believe they call it—don’t they, Bhallu Khan?”

“Ha, Huzoor, Kachîn,” assented the forester, who was riding just behind.

“Is it the whole district, or only just this valley?” went on Campian.

“Only just this valley,” translated Upward, who had put the question to the old Pathân.

“Strange now—that I should be here, isn’t it? I’ve heard my father speak of this place. You know he was out here a lot—years ago—I suppose there isn’t another of the same name, is there?”

“He says, nowhere near this part of the country,” said Upward, rendering Bhallu Khan’s reply. “But what made your father mention this place in particular? Was he in any row here?”

“Perhaps he ‘missed birds’ here, too,” cut in the irrepressible Lily. “I know. It was named after him—not you.”

“That’s it. Of course it was. Now, I never thought of that before,” assented Campian, with a stare of mock amazement. “I believe, however, Upward, that as a matter of fact, he remembered the rather remarkable formation of thattangibehind the camp.”

Then he dropped out of the conversation, and thought over what he had just heard. Truly this thing was becoming interesting. He had located the very place. There could be no mistake about that. He had been on the point of asking if Bhallu Khan had heard the story of the flight of the Durani chief, or of Syyed Aïn Asrâf, but decided to let that alone for the present.

“Who is that bounder, Campian?” Bracebrydge was saying. “Does anyone know?”

“He isn’t a ‘bounder,’” returned Nesta shortly. “He’s awfully nice.”

“Oh, awfully nice—ah—ha—ha—ha!” sneered Bracebrydge, with his vacuous laugh. “Very sorry. Didn’t know he was such a friend of yours.”

“But he is.”

“Pity he goes about looking such a slouch then, isn’t it?”

“It would be—if he did. But then everybody doesn’t see the sense of knocking about among rocks and stones got up as if he was just turned out of a band box, Major Bracebrydge,” she returned, quite angrily.

“Oh. Sorry I spoke—ah—ha—ha!” he retorted, recognising a shaft levelled at his own immaculate turnout. Fleming came to the rescue.

“Don’t know what’s wrong with this fellow, Miss Cheriton. He’s been so crusty the last day or two. He ought to be invalided. Bracebrydge, old man, buck up.”

A couple of hours of easy riding, and the whole party gained thekotal, to which we heard Upward make reference, and his eulogy of the view afforded therefrom was in no sense undeserved. Right in front the ground fell abruptly, well nigh precipitously, to a great depth; and in the valley, or basin beneath, here and there a plot of flat land under cultivation stood out green among the rolling furrows of grey rock and sombre vegetation. Opposite rose a mighty mass of mountain, piled up tier upon tier of great cliffs, and beyond this, far away to the left, a lofty range dark with juniper, swept round to meet the heights which shut in the amphitheatre from that side. Down into this the bridle path over thekotalwound, looking like a mere crack in a wall. A great crag towered right overhead, its jutting pinnacles and ledges standing defiantly forth against the sky.

“Not a bad spot for a picnic, is it?” said Upward complacently, as, having dismounted, they stood taking in the view.

“By Jove, no,” said Fleming. “Phew! what an idea of depth it conveys, looking right down into that hole. Look Miss Cheriton. There are some people moving down there. They seem about as big as flies.”

“How big are flies? I always thought flies were small?” cut in Lily, the irrepressible.

“Not always. Depends upon the fly,” murmured Campian.

“Well, I shall have to leave you people for a while,” said Upward. “There’s a new plantation up the hill I want to look at. Sha’n’t be more than an hour, and we can have tiffin then. It’s quite early yet.”

“I’ll go with you, Upward,” said Campian. And the two started, attended by Bhallu Khan, mounted on his wiry Baluch pony.

“I’m getting deadly sick of that fellow Bracebrydge,” began Upward. “I wish to heaven he’d clear. He always wants to boss the whole show as if it belonged to him. Did you hear him trying to dictate where we were to pitch the tiffin camp?”

“Yes.”

“He always does that sort of thing, or tries to be funny at somebody else’s expense. I’m getting jolly sick of it.”

He was still more sick of it, when, on returning, he found that Bracebrydge had carried his point, and actually had caused a removal of the said site. However, Upward was of an easy going disposition, though addicted to occasional fidgety fits, so he came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be helped now, and didn’t really matter after all, and the tiffin was plenteous and good, and the soda water well cooled. So they fed, and chatted, and had a good time generally.

“I say, Upward. Can’t someone throw a few bottles at that brute?” remarked Bracebrydge, as, cheroots having been lit, the male element stretched at full length on the ground, was lazily puffing at the same. “He’ll crack the drum of one’s blessed ears directly, the howling lunatic.”

The noise complained of was a soft, melancholy, wailing sound, something between a flute and a concertina, and it proceeded from one of the forest guard, who was tootling into some instrument of native make.

“Does itdikyou, old chap?” replied Upward good naturedly. “I can shut him up, but we rather like it. Bulbul Khan swears he invented that instrument himself, and is immensely proud of it. We look upon him as our Court minstrel of sorts. He’s always tuning up when we go out anywhere. Never without his pipes.”

“What did you say thesoor’sname was?” growled Bracebrydge.

“Bulbul Khan. That’s my name for him,” laughed Upward. “His real name’s Babul Hân, but I christened him Bulbul Khan, because he’s always making melody. Not bad, eh?”

“Oh yes—beastly funny—Ah—ha—ha—ha!” sneered Bracebrydge.

Now the trampling of horse hoofs arrested the attention of the party, and about a dozen mounted Baluchis, riding at a foot’s pace, emerged from the juniper forest. They made a picturesque group enough in their white flowing garments and great turbans.

“Why, who can these be?” said Nesta, gazing upon the new arrivals with some interest. “Who are they, Mrs Upward?”

“I’ll ask Bhallu Khan.” Then—“He says it is a sirdar of the Marris, who has been up to Gushki to see the Political Agent, and is on his way home.”

“So?” said Campian, interested. “Wonder if he’d stop and have a talk. Upward, roll up, old man. I want you to interview this very big swell.”

“We don’t want to be ‘dikked’ by a lot of niggers,” grunted Bracebrydge, in an audible aside.

The cavalcade had halted some threescore yards away, and one of the men now came forward to ask if the “jungle-wallah sahib” was there, because the Sirdar Yar Hussain Khan would be glad to have a talk with him on an official matter.

“Yar Hussain Khan?” repeated Upward, choking back a yawn. “I say, Campian, you’d better take a good look at this fellow. He’s no end of a big chief among the Marris, though he’s really of Afghan descent. Come along with me and meet him.” Then, turning to the Baluchi, he gave the necessary answer.

All the party were armed with the inevitable tulwar—four of their number, who were in immediate attendance on the chief, with Martini rifles as well. These, however, they laid down, as, having dismounted, they advanced to meet Upward.

The sirdar himself was a man of stately presence, standing over six feet. His strong, handsome face, with its flowing black beard, was well set off by the great turban wound round a bluekûlla, whose conical peak was just visible above the snowy folds. Two jetty tresses of long hair fell over his broad chest, almost to the hem of a rich vest of blue velvet embroidered with gold; the only colour which relieved his white garments. Campian, for his part, as he returned the other’s handshake, and noted the free, full fearlessness of the glance which met his, decided that here indeed was a noble specimen of an Oriental chieftain.

The subject of the latter’s official talk with Upward was of no especial importance, relating merely to certain grazing rights in dispute between a section of his tribesmen and the Government. Then he accepted an invitation to sit down and smoke a cigarette. But with the remainder of the party he did not offer to shake hands, acknowledging their presence by a dignified salute.

Upward, talking in Hindustani, brought round the conversation to matters semi-political. “Was there anything in the rumours that had got about, that the tribes were becoming restless all over the country?”

“The tribes always had been restless,” was Yar Hussain’s reply. “The English had taken over the country not so very long ago. Was it likely that the people could change their nature all at once? The English sahibs found sport in stalking markhôr or tiger shooting or in other forms ofshikar. The Baluchis found it in raiding. It was their form ofshikar.”

Campian, who perforce had to await Upward’s interpretation, had been carefully observing their visitors, and noted that one among the chiefs attendants was gazing at him with a most malevolent stare. This man never took his glance off him, and when their eyes met that glance became truly fiendish.

“That’s a first-class explanation, and a candid one,” was the comment he made on Upward’s rendering. “Tell him I hope they won’t take any more potshots at me when I’m wandering about alone—like they did that night I arrived at your camp, Upward. Tell him I rather like the look of them, and wish I could talk, so I could go in and out among them.”

A slight smile came over the dignified gravity of the sirdar’s features as this was interpreted to him, and he replied.

“He says,” translated Upward, “he will be very pleased if at any time you should visit his village. The shooting at you he knows nothing about, but is sure it could not have been done by any of his people.”

Campian, looking up, again met the hostile glance above mentioned. The man, who was seated a little behind his chief, was regarding him with a truly fiendish scowl, and noting it he decided upon two things—that Yar Hussain was a very fine fellow indeed, but that if he had any more followers of the stamp of this malignant savage, it were better for himself or any other infidel who desired to live out his length of days to pause ere accepting this cordially worded invitation. Then, after a few more interchanges of civilities, the sirdar and his followers rose to take their leave.

Now the diabolical scowl wherewith that particular Baluchi had greeted him, Campian at first set down to the natural hatred of a more than ordinarily fanatical Moslem for the infidel and the invader. But as the other drew nearer, spitting forth low envenomed curses, he half expected the Ghazi mania would prove too much for the man, even in the presence of his chief, and his hand instinctively moved behind him to his pistol pocket. The fellow however, seemed to think better of it.

“Fine specimen, that sirdar, isn’t he?” said Upward, as they watched the party defiling down the steep hill path into the valley beneath.

“He is. By the way, did you notice the infernal scowl that hook-nosed brigand of his turned on for my benefit all the time you were talking?”

“I thought he wasn’t looking at you very amiably when they went away. He can see you’re a stranger, I suppose, and some of these fanatical devils hate a stranger.”

“There was more in it than that, Upward. Did you happen to notice he walked with a slight limp?”

“No; I hardly—er yes, by the way, now I think of it, I did.”

“Well, what if he should turn out to be the very identical cuss I winged that night?”

“Phew!” whistled Upward. “But then, Bhallu Khan says they were Brahuis. These are Marris.”

“There may have been both among them. What is the sirdar’s name, again?”

“Yar Hussain Khan.”

“Yes. Well, Sirdar Yar Hussain Khan seems a very nice fellow, and I should much like to see him again; but probably I sha’n’t, for the simple reason that I don’t in the least want ever to behold that particularly abominable follower of his again.”

But he little thought under what circumstances he was destined to behold both again.

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