No More Learning

There was just the chance, therefore, that
Carnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan without
detection. But, beyond, they would find death--certain and awful death.

Ten days later a native correspondent, giving me the news of the day
from Peshawar, wound up his letter with: "There has been much laughter
here on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation
to sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as
great charms to H. H. the Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawar
and associated himself to the Second Summer caravan that goes to Kabul.
The merchants are pleased because through superstition they imagine that
such mad fellows bring good fortune. "

The two, then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for them, but
that night a real King died in Europe, and demanded an obituary notice.

The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again.
Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed again. The
daily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third summer there
fell a hot night, a night issue, and a strained waiting for something to
be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened
before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machines
worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the office garden
were a few feet taller. But that was all the difference.

I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene as
I have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than it
had been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three
o'clock I cried, "Print off," and turned to go, when there crept to my
chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was
sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other
like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled--this
rag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he
was come back. "Can you give me a drink? " he whimpered. "For the Lord's
sake, give me a drink! "

I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I
turned up the lamp.

"Don't you know me? " he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned his
drawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light.

I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over
the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could not
tell where.

"I don't know you," I said, handing him the whisky. "What can I do for
you? "

He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the
suffocating heat.

"I've come back," he repeated; "and I was the King of Kafiristan--me and
Dravot--crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it--you setting
there and giving us the books. I am Peachey,--Peachey Taliaferro
Carnehan,--and you've been setting here ever since--O Lord! "

I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings
accordingly.

"It's true," said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which
were wrapped in rags--"true as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns upon
our heads--me and Dravot--poor Dan--oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never
take advice, not though I begged of him! "

"Take the whisky," I said, "and take your own time. Tell me all you can
recollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the Border
on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. Do
you remember that? "

"I ain't mad--yet, but I shall be that way soon. Of course I remember.
Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces. Keep
looking at me in my eyes and don't say anything. "

I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He
dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It
was twisted like a bird's claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red,
diamond-shaped scar.

"No, don't look there. Look at me," said Carnehan. "That comes
afterward, but for the Lord's sake don't distrack me. We left with that
caravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people
we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the
people was cooking their dinners--cooking their dinners, and. . .
what did they do then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into
Dravot's beard, and we all laughed--fit to die. Little red fires they
was, going into Dravot's big red beard--so funny. " His eyes left mine
and he smiled foolishly.

"You went as far as Jagdallak with that caravan," I said, at a venture,
"after you had lit those fires. To Jagdallak, where you turned off to
try to get into Kafiristan. "

"No, we didn't, neither. What are you talking about? We turned off
before Jagdallak, because we heard the roads was good. But they wasn't
good enough for our two camels--mine and Dravot's. When we left the
caravan, Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we would
be heathen, because the Kafirs didn't allow Mohammedans to talk to them.
So we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as Daniel Dravot
I never saw yet nor expect to see again. He burned half his beard, and
slung a sheepskin over his shoulder, and shaved his head into patterns.
He shaved mine too, and made me wear outrageous things to look like
a heathen. That was in a most mountaineous country, and our camels
couldn't go along any more because of the mountains. They were tall and
black, and coming home I saw them fight like wild goats--there are lots
of goats in Kafiristan. And these mountains, they never keep still, no
more than the goats. Always fighting they are, and don't let you sleep
at night. "

"Take some more whisky," I said, very slowly. "What did you and Daniel
Dravot do when the camels could go no farther because of the rough roads
that led into Kafiristan? "

"What did which do? There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan
that was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died out there in
the cold. Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey, turning and twisting in
the air like a penny whirligig that you can sell to the Amir. No; they
was two for three ha'pence, those whirligigs, or I am much mistaken and
woful sore. . . And then these camels were no use, and Peachey said to
Dravot, 'For the Lord's sake let's get out of this before our heads
are chopped off,' and with that they killed the camels all among the
mountains, not having anything in particular to eat, but first they took
off the boxes with the guns and the ammunition, till two men came along
driving four mules. Dravot up and dances in front of them, singing,
'Sell me four mules. ' Says the first man, 'If you are rich enough to
buy, you are rich enough to rob;' but before ever he could put his hand
to his knife, Dravot breaks his neck over his knee, and the other party
runs away. So Carnehan loaded the mules with the rifles that was taken
off the camels, and together we starts forward into those bitter-cold
mountaineous parts, and never a road broader than the back of your
hand. "

He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember the
nature of the country through which he had journeyed.

"I am telling you as straight as I can, but my head isn't as good as it
might be. They drove nails through it to make me hear better how Dravot
died. The country was mountaineous and the mules were most contrary,
and the inhabitants was dispersed and solitary. They went up and up, and
down and down, and that other party, Carnehan, was imploring of Dravot
not to sing and whistle so loud, for fear of bringing down the tremenjus
avalanches. But Dravot says that if a King couldn't sing it wasn't worth
being King, and whacked the mules over the rump, and never took no
heed for ten cold days. We came to a big level valley all among the
mountains, and the mules were near dead, so we killed them, not having
anything in special for them or us to eat. We sat upon the boxes, and
played odd and even with the cartridges that was jolted out.

"Then ten men with bows and arrows ran down that valley, chasing twenty
men with bows and arrows, and the row was tremenjus.

"They was fair men--fairer than you or me--with yellow hair and
remarkable well built. Says Dravot, unpacking the guns, 'This is the
beginning of the business. We'll fight for the ten men,' and with that
he fires two rifles at the twenty men, and drops one of them at two
hundred yards from the rock where he was sitting. The other men began to
run, but Carnehan and Dravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all
ranges, up and down the valley. Then we goes up to the ten men that
had run across the snow too, and they fires a footy little arrow at us.
Dravot he shoots above their heads, and they all falls down flat. Then
he walks over them and kicks them, and then he lifts them up and shakes
hands all round to make them friendly like. He calls them and gives them
the boxes to carry, and waves his hand for all the world as though he
was King already. They takes the boxes and him across the valley and up
the hill into a pine wood on the top, where there was half a dozen
big stone idols. Dravot he goes to the biggest--a fellow they call
Imbra--and lays a rifle and a cartridge at his feet, rubbing his nose
respectfully with his own nose, patting him on the head, and nods his
head, and says, 'That's all right. I'm in the know too, and these old
jimjams are my friends. ' Then he opens his mouth and points down it, and
when the first man brings him food, he says, 'No;' and when the second
man brings him food, he says 'no;' but when one of the old priests and
the boss of the village brings him food, he says, 'Yes;' very haughty,
and eats it slow. That was how he came to our first village without any
trouble, just as though we had tumbled from the skies. But we tumbled
from one of those damned rope-bridges, you see, and--you couldn't expect
a man to laugh much after that? "

"Take some more whisky and go on," I said. "That was the first village
you came into. How did you get to be King? "

"I wasn't King," said Carnehan. "Dravot he was the King, and a handsome
man he looked with the gold crown on his head and all. Him and the other
party stayed in that village, and every morning Dravot sat by the side
of old Imbra, and the people came and worshipped. That was Dravot's
order. Then a lot of men came into the valley, and Carnehan Dravot picks
them off with the rifles before they knew where they was, and runs down
into the valley and up again the other side, and finds another village,
same as the first one, and the people all falls down flat on their
faces, and Dravot says, 'Now what is the trouble between you two
villages? ' and the people points to a woman, as fair as you or me, that
was carried off, and Dravot takes her back to the first village and
counts up the dead--eight there was. For each dead man Dravot pours
a little milk on the ground and waves his arms like a whirligig, and
'That's all right,' says he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of
each village by the arm, and walks them down the valley, and shows them
how to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives each
a sod of turf from both sides of the line. Then all the people comes
down and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says, 'Go and dig the
land, and be fruitful and multiply,' which they did, though they didn't
understand. Then we asks the names of things in their lingo--bread and
water and fire and idols and such; and Dravot leads the priest of each
village up to the idol, and says he must sit there and judge the people,
and if anything goes wrong he is to be shot.

"Next week they was all turning up the land in the valley as quiet as
bees and much prettier, and the priests heard all the complaints and
told Dravot in dumb-show what it was about. 'That's just the beginning,'
says Dravot. 'They think we're Gods. ' He and Carnehan picks out twenty
good men and shows them how to click off a rifle and form fours and
advance in line; and they was very pleased to do so, and clever to see
the hang of it. Then he takes out his pipe and his baccy-pouch, and
leaves one at one village and one at the other, and off we two goes to
see what was to be done in the next valley. That was all rock, and there
was a little village there, and Carnehan says, 'Send 'em to the old
valley to plant,' and takes 'em there and gives 'em some land that
wasn't took before. They were a poor lot, and we blooded 'em with a kid
before letting 'em into the new Kingdom. That was to impress the people,
and then they settled down quiet, and Carnehan went back to Dravot, who
had got into another valley, all snow and ice and most mountaineous.

"There was no people there, and the Army got afraid; so Dravot shoots
one of them, and goes on till he finds some people in a village, and the
Army explains that unless the people wants to be killed they had better
not shoot their little matchlocks, for they had matchlocks. We makes
friends with the priest, and I stays there alone with two of the Army,
teaching the men how to drill; and a thundering big Chief comes across
the snow with kettledrums and horns twanging, because he heard there was
a new God kicking about. Carnehan sights for the brown of the men half
a mile across the snow and wings one of them. Then he sends a message
to the Chief that, unless he wished to be killed, he must come and shake
hands with me and leave his arms behind. The Chief comes alone first,
and Carnehan shakes hands with him and whirls his arms about, same as
Dravot used, and very much surprised that Chief was, and strokes
my eyebrows. Then Carnehan goes alone to the Chief, and asks him in
dumb-show if he had an enemy he hated. 'I have,' says the chief. So
Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to
show them drill, and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about
as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain
on the top of a mountain, and the Chief's men rushes into a village and
takes it, we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy. So we
took that village too, and I gives the Chief a rag from my coat, and
says, 'Occupy till I come;' which was scriptural. By way of a reminder,
when me and the Army was eighteen hundred yards away, I drops a bullet
near him standing on the snow, and all the people falls flat on their
faces. Then I sends a letter to Dravot wherever he be by land or by
sea. "

At the risk of throwing the creature out of train I interrupted: "How
could you write a letter up yonder? "

"The letter? --oh! --the letter! Keep looking at me between the eyes,
please. It was a string-talk letter, that we'd learned the way of it
from a blind beggar in the Punjab. "

I remember that there had once come to the office a blind man with
a knotted twig, and a piece of string which he wound round the twig
according to some cipher of his own. He could, after the lapse of days
or hours, repeat the sentence which he had reeled up.

He had reduced the alphabet to eleven primitive sounds, and tried to
teach me his method, but I could not understand.

"I sent that letter to Dravot," said Carnehan, "and told him to come
back because this Kingdom was growing too big for me to handle; and then
I struck for the first valley, to see how the priests were working. They
called the village we took along with the Chief, Bashkai, and the first
village we took, Er-Heb. The priests at Er-Heb was doing all right, but
they had a lot of pending cases about land to show me, and some men from
another village had been firing arrows at night. I went out and looked
for that village, and fired four rounds at it from a thousand yards.
That used all the cartridges I cared to spend, and I waited for Dravot,
who had been away two or three months, and I kept my people quiet.

"One morning I heard the devil's own noise of drums and horns, and Dan
Dravot marches down the hill with his Army and a tail of hundreds of
men, and, which was the most amazing, a great gold crown on his head.
'My Gord, Carnehan,' says Daniel, 'this is a tremenjus business, and
we've got the whole country as far as it's worth having. I am the son
of Alexander by Queen Semiramis, and you're my younger brother and a
God too! It's the biggest thing we've ever seen. I've been marching and
fighting for six weeks with the Army, and every footy little village for
fifty miles has come in rejoiceful; and more than that, I've got the key
of the whole show, as you'll see, and I've got a crown for you! I told
'em to make two of 'em at a place called Shu, where the gold lies in the
rock like suet in mutton. Gold I've seen, and turquoise I've kicked out
of the cliffs, and there's garnets in the sands of the river, and here's
a chunk of amber that a man brought me. Call up all the priests and,
here, take your crown. '

"One of the men opens a black hair bag, and I slips the crown on. It was
too small and too heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered gold it
was--five pounds weight, like a hoop of a barrel.

"'Peachey,' says Dravot, 'we don't want to fight no more. The Craft's
the trick, so help me! ' and he brings forward that same Chief that I
left at Bashkai--Billy Fish we called him afterward, because he was so
like Billy Fish that drove the big tank-engine at Mach on the Bolan in
the old days. 'Shake hands with him,' says Dravot; and I shook hands
and nearly dropped, for Billy Fish gave me the Grip. I said nothing, but
tried him with the Fellow-craft Grip. He answers all right, and I tried
the Master's Grip, but that was a slip. 'A Fellow-craft he is! ' I says
to Dan. 'Does he know the word? ' 'He does,' says Dan, 'and all the
priests know. It's a miracle! The Chiefs and the priests can work a
Fellow-craft Lodge in a way that's very like ours, and they've cut the
marks on the rocks, but they don't know the Third Degree, and they've
come to find out. It's Gord's Truth. I've known these long years that
the Afghans knew up to the Fellow-craft Degree, but this is a miracle.
A God and a Grand Master of the Craft am I, and a Lodge in the Third
Degree I will open, and we'll raise the head priests and the Chiefs of
the villages. '

"'It's against all the law,' I says, 'holding a Lodge without warrant
from any one; and you know we never held office in any Lodge. '

"'It's a master stroke o' policy,' says Dravot. 'It means running the
country as easy as a four-wheeled bogie on a down grade. We can't stop
to inquire now, or they'll turn against us. I've forty Chiefs at my
heel, and passed and raised according to their merit they shall be.
Billet these men on the villages, and see that we run up a Lodge of some
kind. The temple of Imbra will do for a Lodge-room. The women must make
aprons as you show them. I'll hold a levee of Chiefs tonight and Lodge
tomorrow. '

"I was fair run off my legs, but I wasn't such a fool as not to see what
a pull this Craft business gave us. I showed the priests' families how
to make aprons of the degrees, but for Dravot's apron the blue border
and marks was made of turquoise lumps on white hide, not cloth. We took
a great square stone in the temple for the Master's chair, and little
stones for the officer's chairs, and painted the black pavement with
white squares, and did what we could to make things regular.

"At the levee which was held that night on the hillside with big
bonfires, Dravot gives out that him and me were Gods and sons of
Alexander, and Passed Grand Masters in the Craft, and was come to make
Kafiristan a country where every man should eat in peace and drink in
quiet, and specially obey us. Then the Chiefs come round to shake hands,
and they were so hairy and white and fair it was just shaking hands with
old friends. We gave them names according as they was like men we had
known in India--Billy Fish, Holly Dilworth, Pikky Kergan, that was
Bazaar-master when I was at Mhow, and so on, and so on.

"The most amazing miracles was at Lodge next night. One of the old priests
was watching us continuous, and I felt uneasy, for I knew we'd have to
fudge the Ritual, and I didn't know what the men knew. The old priest
was a stranger come in from beyond the village of Bashkai.
The minute
Dravot puts on the Master's apron that the girls had made for him, the
priest fetches a whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn the stone
that Dravot was sitting on. 'It's all up now,' I says. 'That comes of
meddling with the Craft without warrant! ' Dravot never winked an
eye, not when ten priests took and tilted over the Grand Master's
chair--which was to say, the stone of Imbra. The priest begins rubbing
the bottom end of it to clear away the black dirt, and presently he
shows all the other priests the Master's Mark, same as was on Dravot's
apron, cut into the stone. Not even the priests of the temple of Imbra
knew it was there. The old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot's feet
and kisses 'em. 'Luck again,' says Dravot, across the Lodge, to me;
'they say it's the missing Mark that no one could understand the why of.

"'We're more than safe now. ' Then he bangs the butt of his gun for a
gavel and says, 'By virtue of the authority vested in me by my own right
hand and the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand Master of all
Freemasonry in Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o' the country, and
King of Kafiristan equally with Peachey! ' At that he puts on his crown
and I puts on mine,--I was doing Senior Warden,--and we opens the Lodge
in most ample form. It was an amazing miracle! The priests moved in
Lodge through the first two degrees almost without telling, as if the
memory was coming back to them. After that Peachey and Dravot raised
such as was worthy--high priests and Chiefs of far-off villages. Billy
Fish was the first, and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him. It
was not in any way according to Ritual, but it served our turn. We
didn't raise more than ten of the biggest men, because we didn't want to
make the Degree common. And they was clamouring to be raised.

"'In another six months,' says Dravot, 'we'll hold another Communication
and see how you are working. ' Then he asks them about their villages,
and learns that they was fighting one against the other, and were sick
and tired of it. And when they wasn't doing that they was fighting with
the Mohammedans. 'You can fight those when they come into our country,'
says Dravot. 'Tell off every tenth man of your tribes for a Frontier
guard, and send two hundred at a time to this valley to be drilled.
Nobody is going to be shot or speared any more so long as he does well,
and I know that you won't cheat me, because you're white people--sons
of Alexander--and not like common black Mohammedans. You are my people,
and, by God,' says he, running off into English at the end, 'I'll make a
damned fine Nation of you, or I'll die in the making! '

"I can't tell all we did for the next six months, because Dravot did a
lot I couldn't see the hang of, and he learned their lingo in a way I
never could. My work was to help the people plough, and now and again
go out with some of the Army and see what the other villages were doing,
and make 'em throw rope bridges across the ravines which cut up the
country horrid. Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and
down in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with both
fists I knew he was thinking plans I could not advise about, and I just
waited for orders.

"But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. They were
afraid of me and the Army, but they loved Dan. He was the best of
friends with the priests and the Chiefs; but any one could come across
the hills with a complaint, and Dravot would hear him out fair, and call
four priests together and say what was to be done.

"He used to call in Billy Fish from Bashkai, and Pikky Kergan from Shu,
and an old Chief we called Kafuzelum,--it was like enough to his real
name,--and hold councils with 'em when there was any fighting to be done
in small villages. That was his Council of War, and the four priests of
Bashkai, Shu, Khawak, and Madora was his Privy Council. Between the lot
of 'em they sent me, with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men
carrying turquoises, into the Ghorband country to buy those hand-made
Martini rifles, that come out of the Amir's workshops at Kabul, from one
of the Amir's Herati regiments that would have sold the very teeth out
of their mouths for turquoises.

"I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the Governor there the pick of
my baskets for hush-money, and bribed the Colonel of the regiment some
more, and, between the two and the tribes-people, we got more than a
hundred hand-made Martinis, a hundred good Kohat Jezails that'll throw
to six hundred yards, and forty man--loads of very bad ammunition for
the rifles. I came back with what I had, and distributed 'em among
the men that the Chiefs sent in to me to drill. Dravot was too busy to
attend to those things, but the old Army that we first made helped me,
and we turned out five hundred men that could drill, and two hundred
that knew how to hold arms pretty straight. Even those cork-screwed,
hand-made guns was a miracle to them. Dravot talked big about
powder-shops and factories, walking up and down in the pine wood when
the winter was coming on.

"'I won't make a Nation,' says he. 'I'll make an Empire! These men
aren't niggers; they're English! Look at their eyes--look at their
mouths. Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their own
houses. They're the Lost Tribes, or something like it, and they've grown
to be English. I'll take a census in the spring if the priests don't get
frightened. There must be a fair two million of 'em in these hills. The
villages are full o' little children. Two million people--two hundred
and fifty thousand fighting men--and all English! They only want the
rifles and a little drilling. Two hundred and fifty thousand men, ready
to cut in on Russia's right flank when she tries for India! Peachey,
man,' he says, chewing his beard in great hunks, 'we shall be
Emperors--Emperors of the Earth! Rajah Brooke will be a suckling to
us. I'll treat with the Viceroy on equal terms. I'll ask him to send me
twelve picked English--twelve that I know of--to help us govern a bit.
There's Mackray, Serjeant Pensioner at Segowli--many's the good dinner
he's given me, and his wife a pair of trousers. There's Donkin, the
Warder of Tounghoo Jail; there's hundreds that I could lay my hand on if
I was in India. The Viceroy shall do it for me; I'll send a man through
in the spring for those men, and I'll write for a dispensation from
the Grand Lodge for what I've done as Grand Master. That--and all the
Sniders that'll be thrown out when the native troops in India take up
the Martini. They'll be worn smooth, but they'll do for fighting in
these hills. Twelve English, a hundred thousand Sniders run through the
Amir's country in driblets,--I'd be content with twenty thousand in one
year,--and we'd be an Empire.

"When everything was shipshape I'd hand over the crown--this crown I'm
wearing now--to Queen Victoria on my knees, and she'd say, 'Rise up, Sir
Daniel Dravot. ' Oh, it's big! It's big, I tell you! But there's so much
to be done in every place--Bashkai, Khawak, Shu, and everywhere else.

"'What is it? ' I says. 'There are no more men coming in to be drilled
this autumn. Look at those fat black clouds. They're bringing the snow. '

"'It isn't that,' says Daniel, putting his hand very hard on my
shoulder; 'and I don't wish to say anything that's against you, for no
other living man would have followed me and made me what I am as you
have done. You're a first-class Commander-in-Chief, and the people know
you; but--it's a big country, and somehow you can't help me, Peachey, in
the way I want to be helped. '

"'Go to your blasted priests, then! ' I said, and I was sorry when I made
that remark, but it did hurt me sore to find Daniel talking so superior,
when I'd drilled all the men and done all he told me.

"'Don't let's quarrel, Peachey,' says Daniel, without cursing. 'You're
a King too, and the half of this Kingdom is yours; but can't you see,
Peachey, we want cleverer men than us now--three or four of 'em, that
we can scatter about for our Deputies. It's a hugeous great State, and
I can't always tell the right thing to do, and I haven't time for all I
want to do, and here's the winter coming on and all. '

"He put half his beard into his mouth, all red like the gold of his
crown.

"'I'm sorry, Daniel,' says I. 'I've done all I could. I've drilled
the men and shown the people how to stack their oats better; and I've
brought in those tinware rifles from Ghorband--but I know what you're
driving at. I take it Kings always feel oppressed that way. '

"'There's another thing too,' says Dravot, walking up and down. 'The
winter's coming, and these people won't be giving much trouble, and if
they do we can't move about. I want a wife. '

"'For Gord's sake leave the women alone! ' I says. 'We've both got all
the work we can, though I am a fool. Remember the Contrack, and keep
clear o' women. '"

"'The Contrack only lasted till such time as we was Kings; and Kings
we have been these months past,' says Dravot, weighing his crown in his
hand. 'You go get a wife too, Peachey--a nice, strappin', plump girl
that'll keep you warm in the winter. They're prettier than English
girls, and we can take the pick of 'em. Boil 'em once or twice in hot
water, and they'll come out like chicken and ham. '

"'Don't tempt me! ' I says. 'I will not have any dealings with a woman,
not till we are a dam' side more settled than we are now. I've been
doing the work o' two men, and you've been doing the work of three.
Let's lie off a bit, and see if we can get some better tobacco from
Afghan country and run in some good liquor; and no women. '"

"'Who's talking o' women? ' says Dravot. 'I said wife--a Queen to breed
a King's son for the King. A Queen out of the strongest tribe, that'll
make them your blood-brothers, and that'll lie by your side and tell
you all the people thinks about you and their own affairs. That's what I
want. '

"'Do you remember that Bengali woman I kept at Mogul Serai when I was
a plate-layer? ' says I. 'A fat lot o' good she was to me. She taught me
the lingo and one or two other things; but what happened? She ran away
with the Station-master's servant and half my month's pay. Then
she turned up at Dadur Junction in tow of a half-caste, and had the
impidence to say I was her husband--all among the drivers in the
running-shed too! '

"'We've done with that,' says Dravot; 'these women are whiter than you
or me, and a Queen I will have for the winter months. '

"'For the last time o' asking, Dan, do not,' I says. 'It'll only bring
us harm. The Bible says that Kings ain't to waste their strength on
women, 'specially when they've got a new raw Kingdom to work over. '

"'For the last time of answering, I will,' said Dravot, and he went away
through the pine trees looking like a big red devil, the sun being on
his crown and beard and all.

"But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought. He put it before the
Council, and there was no answer till Billy Fish said that he'd better
ask the girls. Dravot damned them all round.

"'What's wrong with me? ' he shouts, standing by the idol Imbra. 'Am I
a dog, or am I not enough of a man for your wenches? Haven't I put the
shadow of my hand over this country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid? '
It was me really, but Dravot was too angry to remember. 'Who bought your
guns? Who repaired the bridges? Who's the Grand Master of the sign cut
in the stone? ' says he, and he thumped his hand on the block that he
used to sit on in Lodge, and at Council, which opened like Lodge always.
Billy Fish said nothing, and no more did the others. 'Keep your hair
on, Dan,' said I, 'and ask the girls. That's how it's done at Home, and
these people are quite English. '

"'The marriage of the King is a matter of State,' says Dan, in a
white-hot rage, for he could feel, I hope, that he was going against
his better mind. He walked out of the Council-room, and the others sat
still, looking at the ground.

"'Billy Fish,' says I to the Chief of Bashkai, 'what's the difficulty
here? A straight answer to a true friend. '

"'You know,' says Billy Fish. 'How should a man tell you who knows
everything? How can daughters of men marry Gods or Devils? It's not
proper. '

"I remembered something like that in the Bible; but, if after seeing us
as long as they had, they still believed we were Gods, it wasn't for me
to undeceive them.

"'A God can do anything,' says I. 'If the King is fond of a girl he'll
not let her die. ' 'She'll have to,' said Billy Fish. 'There are all
sorts of Gods and Devils in these mountains, and now and again a girl
marries one of them and isn't seen any more. Besides, you two know the
Mark cut in the stone. Only the Gods know that. We thought you were men
till you showed the sign of the Master. '

"I wished then that we had explained about the loss of the genuine
secrets of a Master Mason at the first go-off; but I said nothing. All
that night there was a blowing of horns in a little dark temple half-way
down the hill, and I heard the girl crying fit to die. One of the
priests told us that she was being prepared to marry the King.

"'I'll have no nonsense of that kind,' says Dan. 'I don't want to
interfere with your customs, but I'll take my own wife. ' 'The girl's a
little bit afraid,' says the priest. 'She thinks she's going to die, and
they are a-heartening of her up down in the temple. '

"'Hearten her very tender, then,' says Dravot, 'or I'll hearten you with
the butt of a gun so you'll never want to be heartened again. '

"He licked his lips, did Dan, and stayed up walking about more than half
the night, thinking of the wife that he was going to get in the morning.
I wasn't any means comfortable, for I knew that dealings with a woman
in foreign parts, though you was a crowned King twenty times over, could
not but be risky. I got up very early in the morning while Dravot was
asleep, and I saw the priests talking together in whispers, and the
Chiefs talking together too, and they looked at me out of the corners of
their eyes.

"'What is up, Fish? ' I say to the Bashkai man, who was wrapped up in his
furs and looking splendid to behold.

"'I can't rightly say,' says he; 'but if you can make the King drop all
this nonsense about marriage, you'll be doing him and me and yourself a
great service. '

"'That I do believe,' says I. 'But sure, you know, Billy, as well as me,
having fought against and for us, that the King and me are nothing more
than two of the finest men that God Almighty ever made. Nothing more, I
do assure you. '

"'That may be,' says Billy Fish, 'and yet I should be sorry if it was. '
He sinks his head upon his great fur cloak for a minute and thinks.
'King,' says he, 'be you man or God or Devil, I'll stick by you today.
I have twenty of my men with me, and they will follow me. We'll go to
Bashkai until the storm blows over. '

"A little snow had fallen in the night, and everything was white except
the greasy fat clouds that blew down and down from the north. Dravot
came out with his crown on his head, swinging his arms and stamping his
feet, and looking more pleased than Punch.

"'For the last time, drop it, Dan,' says I, in a whisper; 'Billy Fish
here says that there will be a row. '

"'A row among my people! ' says Dravot. 'Not much. Peachey, you're a fool
not to get a wife too. Where's the girl? ' says he, with a voice as loud
as the braying of a jackass. 'Call up all the Chiefs and priests, and
let the Emperor see if his wife suits him. '

"There was no need to call any one. They were all there leaning on their
guns and spears round the clearing in the centre of the pine wood. A lot
of priests went down to the little temple to bring up the girl, and the
horns blew fit to wake the dead. Billy Fish saunters round and gets as
close to Daniel as he could, and behind him stood his twenty men with
matchlocks--not a man of them under six feet. I was next to Dravot, and
behind me was twenty men of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and a
strapping wench she was, covered with silver and turquoises, but white
as death, and looking back every minute at the priests.

"'She'll do,' said Dan, looking her over. 'What's to be afraid of, lass?
Come and kiss me. ' He puts his arm round her. She shuts her eyes,
gives a bit of a squeak, and down goes her face in the side of Dan's
flaming-red beard.

"'The slut's bitten me! ' says he, clapping his hand to his neck, and,
sure enough, his hand was red with blood. Billy Fish and two of his
matchlock men catches hold of Dan by the shoulders and drags him into
the Bashkai lot, while the priests howls in their lingo, 'Neither God
nor Devil, but a man! ' I was all taken aback, for a priest cut at me in
front, and the Army behind began firing into the Bashkai men.

"'God A'mighty! ' says Dan, 'what is the meaning o' this? '

"'Come back! Come away! ' says Billy Fish. 'Ruin and Mutiny is the
matter. We'll break for Bashkai if we can.