New Mexico state record. (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1914-19??, 1917-12-21

~ VIM 'SaLeu On II long gun an
stared ut them under his hand. Afte
!; ~lciSurely consideration of them h
rubbed his nose slowly with one finger
slhat contemptuOusly, and then use
the llnger to beckon them, crooking
q'leerly and turning on his heel. III
dId not say mt word.
kIng led the way after him on foot
Tor even in the Hills where cruelt,
Is !; virtue, II man may be excused. OF
economic grounds, for showing mere.
t" his beast. His men tusged tn,
weary animals along behind him
through the gap under the arch ant
along an almost interminable, smell,
maze of alleys whose sides were thu
walls OF square stone towers, or some
times of mud-and-stone-valled com
pounds, n here and there of sheer
Sl1b-sided cliff. Like Old .Jeruslem
the place could have contained a civil
War of Il hundred factions, and still
hav" opposed stout resistance to an
outside army.
Alley gave on to courtyard, and filthy
square to alley, until unexpectedly at
last Il seemingly blind passage turned
sharply and opened on a straight
street, of fair width, and more than
half II mile long. 1t is marked Street
of the Dwellings, on the secret army
maps and 1t has been burned 50 often
by khlnJan rioters, as well as By expe-
dltlohs out of India, that Il man who
goes on n long journey never expects
TO una 1t the same on his return.
1t was lined on either hand with
motley dwellings, out of which Il mot
Her crowd of people swarmed to stare
at King and his men. There were Hin
duS--S.ycophants, keepers of accounts
ana writers to the chiefs (since lit
cri'ry Is at n premium in these parts).
In proof of khinjan's catholic taste
ana indiScriminate villainy, there we're
women of nearly every Indian breed
ana 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 tummies, who squealed
ana shrilled and stared with bold ewes. |
Perhaps Il thousand souls came ont |
watch, all told. Not IN eve of |
them all missed the government marks |
IN Kings trappings, or the govern. |
nent brand on the mules, and after n
minute or two, when the procession |
vas halfway down the street, q man
'eproved Il child who had thrown II
stone, and he was backed I'D by the
others. They classified King correct.
Y, exactly as he meant they should. As
hakim-a man of medicine-he could
Ill /; long-felt want but by the brand
m ms accoufrementS he walked an
aVoWed robber. and that made
lin a brother in crime. Somebodv
uffed the next child who picked I'M n
tone.
lie knew the street of old. although
had changed perhaps a dozen times
he had seen it. 1t was a Guide.
nc, and at the end of it, just as on his
revious visit, there stood n STONE
loSque' whose roof leaned back at a
feep angle against the mountainside.
was a famous mosque in its wav.
'r the bed sheet of the Prophet is
to hang in it, preserved against
he ravages of time and the touch of
'fidels by priceless Afghan rugs be.
re and behind, so that it hangs like ,
great hin sandwich before the rear
one wall. King had seer it. IL.
Toward he mosque the one-eyed ruff. y.
IN led the way, with the long, leisure. ,.
seeming gait of a mountaineer. At ;
e door, in the middle of the end of !.
e street, he paused and struck on the =
ltel three times with his gun butt, :.
III Una was a strange proceeding, to '
y the least, in a land where the >
osque is public resting place for !.
meless ones, and all the faithful" Il
We a right to enter. X
a mullah, shaven like a for
u~naccOuntable sOn-eve his 81
eDrows and eyelashes had been re- IL
'ved-pushed his bare head through a!
! door and blinked at them. There III
S some whispering and more STAR 81
and at last the mullah turned his al
ok. CT
door slammed. The one-eyed to
de grounded his gun-butt on the W
and the procession waited.
tched by the crowd that had lost its tn
crest sufficiently to talk and joke. nj
n two minutes the mullah returned nj
! threw IA mat over the threshold. 1t sh
ned out to be the end of a long mar tn
: strip that he kicked and unrOlled qr
front of him all across the floor of To-
mosque. After that it was not so
Dnishing that the horses and mules on
e allowed to enter. be
winch proves | was right after tn
" murmured King to himself. ac
a steel box at Simla is a men, di,
ndum, made after his former visit tri
The place, to the effect that the 20
into Khinjan caves might his
Sibly be inside the mosque. No en-
Y had believed it likely, and he had Tn
more than half favored it himself: his
it is good, even when the next step Blu
: lead into a death-trap, to see SUI
8 first opinions confirmed. hin
e nodded to himself as the outer
: slammed shut behind them, for bef
was another most unusual circum- one
nv
faint light shone through slitlike an
lows, changing darkness into wit
m, and little more than vaguely an
ng at the Prophets bed sheet. But mo,
a section of white wall to either frol
OF 1t, the relic might have seemed viii
of the shadows. The mullah stood maj
his back to it and beckoned King rigt
er. He approached until he could Of I
The pattern on the covering rups apaj