Askov American., 1918-02-21

Snan gave hia water IN ersss csp
Utterly without ,sata fer ,h~ fsyst tia~
Tor days the aaaa was AS grx,efu, As
wolf frred frsaa trap
"Ae there any oshers In pain Tn
Khintanr' King asked him
listen to him. What ts Khinjanl
Is there one man without q wound o.
sore or scar or sicknessr
Then. tell Them" said King.
The man laughed.
"When show my jaw, there win Be
4 fight to be first! Make ready. hakim I
Igo!"
King sat down to eat. but he had not
finished his meal-he had made the
last little heap Of rice into a bali with
his fingers, native STYLE and was mop
ping up the last of the curried gravy
with it-when the advance guard of
the lame and the halt and the sick
made it, appearance. The caves en-
trance became jammed with them, and
no riot ever made more noise.
"Hakim! Ho. hakim! Where is the
hakim who draws teeth? Where Is the
man who knows yunani?"
Ten men burst down the passage all
together, all clamoring. and one man
wasted no time at all but began to tear
away bloody bandages to show his
wound. King rolled up his sleeves and
begaR so that eagerness gave place to
wonder. The desperate need Of winning
his first trick, made him hOrrOr-prOOf;
and nobody waiting for the next turn
was troubled because the man under
the. knife screamed little or bled
more than usual.
When they died-and more than one
did die-men carried them out and
flung them over the precipice into the
waterfall below.
Ismail and Darya Khan became
choosers Of the victims. They-seized
man, laid him on the bed, tore of his
disgusting bandages and held their
breath until the awful resulting stencil
had more or less dispersed. Then
King would probe or lance or bandage
as he saw At, using anesthetics when
he must, but managing mostly without
them.
They almost flung money at him. He
tossed money and clothes and every
other thing they gave him into corner
at the back of the cave, and nobody
tried to steal them back, although a
man suspected Of honesty in that
company would have been tortured to
death as an hereto and would have
had no sympathy.
For hour after gruesome hour he
toiled over wounds and sores such as
only battles and evil living can pro-
duce, until men began to come at last
with fresh wounds, all caused by bul.
let's, wrapped In bandages on which
the blood had caked but had not grown
foul.
"There has been fighting In the Khy-
ber," somebody Informed him, and he
stopped with lancet in miduir to listen,
scanning hundred faces swiftly in
the smoky lamplight. There were ten
men who held lamps for him, one OF
them newcomer, and 1t was he who
spoke.
"Fighting in the Khyber! Aye! We
were little lashkar, but we drove
them back into their fort Aye! we
slew many!"
"Not jihad YETI" King asked. as II
the world might be coming to an end.
The words We're startled out of him.
Under other circumstances he would
never have asked that question 80 d.
rectly; hut he had lost reckoning of
everything but these poor devils dread
full need Of doctoring. and he was like
man reused out OF dream. II
holy war had been proclaimed already,
then he was engaged on forlorn hope.
But the man laughed ut him.
"Nay, not yet. Bull-with-a-beard
holds back yet. This was little fight.
The jihad shall come later!"
"And who is 'Bull-with-a-beard'? p
| King wonaered; but he did not ask
that question because his wits were
awake. again. 1t pays not to be In too
much Of hurry to know things In the
"Hills."
AS II happened, he asked no more
questions. for there came a shout Mt
| the cave entrance whose purpOrt he
| did not catch. and within five minutes
after that. without a word OF explana-
ton. the cave was left empty Of all ex.
cert his own five men. They carried
away the men too sick to walk and
vanished. snatching the last man away
almost before Kings fingers had fin-
lshed tying the bandage on fts wound.
"Why Is that?" he asked Ismail.
"Why did they go? Who shouted?"
ut Is night" Ismail answered. 1T
was time"
King stared about him. He had not
realized until then that without aid of
the lamps he could not see his own