Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1917-11-30

| jove! You jolly well will take the
wind out of her sails;"
King made no answer. For one thing,
the word hound" even in English, is
not essentially compliment. But he
had better reason than that.
did you find the way easilyp the
Hangar asked but King kept silence.
us he parehed? Have they cut his
| tongue out on the road?"
That question was in PashtU, direct
| ed at Ismail and the others, but King
| answered it.
"Oh, as for that" he said, salaaming
again in the fastidious manner of a ma
| tive gentleman, ST know no other
tongue than Pashtu and my own Ra-
jasthani. My name is Kurram Khan. l
ask admittance."
He held up his wrist to show the
gold bracelet, and high over his head
the Hangar laughed like bell.
"ShabaSh :" he laughed. swell done |
Enter, Kurram Khan, and be welcome,
| namew
| Somebody pulled a rope and the
door yawned wide, giving on a kind Of
courtyard whose high walls allowed no
view of anything but not blue sky.
Through gap under an arch in far
| corner of the courtyard came a one
| eyed, lean-IoOking villain in Afridi
dress who leaned on a long gun and
stared at them under his hand. After
leiSurely consideration of them he
rubbed his nose slowly with one finger,
spat contemporary, and then used
the finger to beckon them, croOking 1t
queerly and turning on his heel. He
did not say one word.
King led the way after him on foot,
! for even in the Hills where cruelty
is virtue, a man may be excused, on
economic grounds. for showing mercy
to his beast. His men tugged the
weary animals along behind him,
through the gap under the arch and
| along an almost interminable, smelly
maze of alleys whose sides were the
walls of square stone towers, or some
| times of mud-and-stone-walled COM
| pounds, and here and there of sheer,
slab-sided cliff. Like Old Jerusalem,
the place could have contained a civil
war of a hundred factions, and still
have opposed stout resistance to an
outside army.
Alley gave on to courtyard, and filthy
square to alley, until unexpectedly at
last a seemingly blind passage turned
sharply and opened on a straight
! street, of fair width, and more than
half a mile long. f. is marked Street
of the Dwellings" on the secret army
maps, and it has 5cen burned so often
by Khinjan rioters, as we'll as by expe-
ditiOns out of EaGia, that a man who
goes On long journey never expects
| to find it the same on his return.
1t was lined on either hand with
motley dwellings, out of which a mot
| lier crowd of people swarmed to stare
at King and his men. There were Hin
| dus-sycOphants, keepers Of accounts
and writer's to the chiefs (since lit
eracy is at premium in these parts).
In proof of Khinjan's catholic taste
and indiscriminate villainy, there were
women of nearly every Indian breed
and caste, many of them stolen into
| shameful slavery, but some of them
there from choice. And there were lit
tie children-little naked brats with
round drum tuLnmies, who squealed
and shrilled and stared with bold eyes
Perhaps a thousand souls came out
to watch, all told. Not an eye of
| them all missed the government marks
on Kings trappings, or the govern
ment brand on the mules, and after a
minute or two, when the procession
was halfway down the street, a man
reproved a child who had thrown a
stone, and he was backed up by the
others. They classified King correct
ly, exactly as he meant they should. AS
n hakim-a man of medicine-he could
fill a lOng-felt want; but by the brand
on his accOutrements he walked an
openly ayowed robber, and that made
him a brother in crime. Somebody
cuffed the next child who picked up
stone.
He knew the street of old, although
it had changed perhaps a dozen times
| since he had seen it. 1t was q Guide
sac, and at the end of it, just as on his
previous visit, there stood a stone
mosque, whose roof leaned back at a
steep angle against the mountainside
1t was a famous mosque in its way,
for the bed sheet of the Prophet is
known to hang in it, preserved against
the ravages of time and the touch of
| infidels by priceless Afghan rugs be-
fore and behind, so that it hangs like
a great thin sandwich before the rear
stone wall. King had seen L.
Toward the mosque the one-eyed ruff
| fan led the way, with the long, leisure
| ly-seeming gait of rlountaineer. At
the door, in the middle of the end of
the street, he paused ind struck on the
Intel three times with his gun butt.
And that was strange proceeding, to
say the least, in a land where the
mosque is public resting place for
homeless ones, and all the faithful
have right to enter.
A mullah, shaven like mummy for
some unaccountable reason-evon his
eyebrows and exclusives had been re-