Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1918-02-16


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 easily?" the
Hangar asked; but King kept silence.
SIS he parched? 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 ma
| tive gentleman, 81 know no other
tongue than Pashtu and my own RAJ
jasthani. My name is Kurram Khan.
ask admittance."
He held up his wrist to show the
gold bracelet, and high over his head
the Hangar laughed like bell.
"Shabash I" he laughed. swell done!
Enter, Kurram Khan, and be welcome,
thou and thy men. Be welcome in her
name!'
Somebody pulled a rope and the
door yawned wide, giving on kind of
courtyard whose high walls allowed no
view of anything but not blue sky.
| Through gap under an arch In a far
corner Of the courtyard came one
eyed, lean-looking villain in Afridi
dress who leaned on long gun and
stared at them under his hand. After
a leisurely consideration of them he
rubbed his nose slowly with one finger,
| spat contemptuously, and then used
the finger to beckon them, crooking 1t
queery and turning on his heel. He
did not sly one word.
King led the way after him ON foot.
| for even in the Hills" where cruelty
is virtue, man may be excused, on
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 q civil
war of 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 seemingly blind passage turned
sharply and opened on straight
street, Of fair width, and more than
half a mile long. 1t is marked Street
Of the Dwellings" on the secret army
maps, and 1t has been burned so often
by khinjan rioters, as well as by expe-
dltlons out of India, that man who
goes on long journey never expects
to find 1t 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-littie naked brats with
round drum tummies, 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
stone, and he was backed up by the
others. They classified King correct
ly, exactly as he meant they should. AS
a hakim--a man of medicine-he could
fill a long-felt want; but by the brand
on his accOutrements he walked an
openly avowed robber, and that made
| him 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 1t. 1t was q Guide
sac, and at the end of 1t, just as on his
previous visit, there stood stone
mosque, whose roof leaned back at
steep angle against the mountainsde.
1t was 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
infldels by priceless Afghan rugs be-
fore and behind, so that 1t hangs like
great thin sandwich before the rear
stone wall. King lad seen 1t.
Toward the mosque the one-eyed ruff |
fan led the way, with the long, leisure |
ly-seeming gait of a mountaineer. At
the door, In the middle of the end of |
the street, he paused and struck on the |
Intel three times with his gun butt. |
And that was strange proceeding, to
say the least, in land where the
mosque is public resting place for
homeless ones, and all the faithful"
have right to enter.
A mullah, shaver like a mummy for
some unaecountable reason-even his
eyebrows and eyelashes had been re-
moved-pushed his bare head through
tha dnar nrJ hftpEad ~ thara Tfhara |