No More Learning

We seed there was a light burning across the road,
and we were sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to my
friend here, "The office is open. Let's come along and speak to him as
turned us back from Degumber State," said the smaller of the two. He was
the man I had met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the red-bearded
man of Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one
or the beard of the other.

I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble with
loafers. "What do you want? " I asked.

"Half an hour's talk with you, cool and comfortable, in the office,"
said the red-bearded man. "We'd like some drink,--the Contrack doesn't
begin yet, Peachey, so you needn't look,--but what we really want is
advice. We don't want money. We ask you as a favour, because we found
out you did us a bad turn about Degumber State. "

I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on the
walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. "That's something like,"
said he. "This was the proper shop to come to.

"Now, Sir, let me introduce you to Brother Peachey Carnehan, that's
him, and Brother Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about
our professions the better, for we have been most things in our
time--soldier, sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader,
street-preacher, and correspondents of the 'Backwoodsman' when we
thought the paper wanted one. Carnehan is sober, and so am I. Look at us
first, and see that's sure. It will save you cutting into my talk. We'll
take one of your cigars apiece, and you shall see us light up. "

I watched the test. The men were absolutely sober, so I gave them each a
tepid whisky-and-soda.

"Well and good," said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the froth from
his moustache. "Let me talk now, Dan. We have been all over India,
mostly on foot. We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty
contractors, and all that, and we have decided that India isn't big
enough for such as us. "

They certainly were too big for the office. Dravot's beard seemed to
fill half the room and Carnehan's shoulders the other half, as they sat
on the big table. Carnehan continued: "The country isn't half worked
out because they that governs it won't let you touch it. They spend all
their blessed time in governing it, and you can't lift a spade, nor
chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that, without all the
Government saying, 'Leave it alone, and let us govern. ' Therefore, such
as it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place where
a man isn't crowded and can come to his own. We are not little men, and
there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed
a Contrack on that.

"Therefore we are going away to be Kings. "

"Kings in our own right," muttered Dravot.

"Yes, of course," I said. "You've been tramping in the sun, and it's
a very warm night, and hadn't you better sleep over the notion? Come
tomorrow. "

"Neither drunk nor sunstruck," said Dravot. "We have slept over the
notion half a year, and require to see Books and Atlases, and we have
decided that there is only one place now in the world that two strong
men can Sar-a-whack. They call it Kafiristan. By my reckoning it's the
top right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles
from Peshawar. They have two and thirty heathen idols there, and we'll
be the thirty-third and fourth. It's a mountaineous country, the women
of those parts are very beautiful. "

"But that is provided against in the Contrack," said Carnehan. "Neither
Women nor Liquor, Daniel. "

"And that's all we know, except that no one has gone there, and they
fight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill
men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King
we find, 'D' you want to vanquish your foes? ' and we will show him how
to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will
subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dy-nasty. "

"You'll be cut to pieces before you're fifty miles across the Border,"
I said. "You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to that country.
It's one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no Englishman has
been through it. The people are utter brutes, and even if you reached
them you couldn't do anything. "

"That's more like," said Carnehan. "If you could think us a little more
mad we would be more pleased. We have come to you to know about this
country, to read a book about it, and to be shown maps. We want you to
tell us that we are fools and to show us your books. " He turned to the
bookcases.

"Are you at all in earnest? " I said.

"A little," said Dravot, sweetly. "As big a map as you have got, even
if it's all blank where Kafiristan is, and any books you've got. We can
read, though we aren't very educated. "

I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch map of India and two
smaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of the "Encyclopaedia
Britannica," and the men consulted them.

"See here! " said Dravot, his thumb on the map. "Up to Jagdallak, Peachey
and me know the road. We was there with Robert's Army. We'll have to
turn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory. Then we
get among the hills--fourteen thousand feet--fifteen thousand--it will
be cold work there, but it don't look very far on the map. "

I handed him Wood on the "Sources of the Oxus. " Carnehan was deep in the
"Encyclopaedia. "

"They're a mixed lot," said Dravot, reflectively; "and it won't help
us to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they'll
fight, and the better for us. From Jagdallak to Ashang. H'mm! "

"But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurate
as can be," I protested. "No one knows anything about it really. Here's
the file of the 'United Services' Institute. ' Read what Bellew says. "

"Blow Bellew! " said Carnehan. "Dan, they're a stinkin' lot of heathens,
but this book here says they think they're related to us English. "

I smoked while the men poured over Raverty, Wood, the maps, and the
"Encyclopaedia. "

"There is no use your waiting," said Dravot, politely. "It's about four
o'clock now. We'll go before six o'clock if you want to sleep, and we
won't steal any of the papers. Don't you sit up. We're two harmless
lunatics, and if you come tomorrow evening down to the Serai we'll say
goodbye to you. "

"You are two fools," I answered. "You'll be turned back at the Frontier
or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want any money
or a recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chance of work
next week. "

"Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you," said Dravot.
"It isn't so easy being a King as it looks. When we've got our Kingdom
in going order we'll let you know, and you can come up and help us
govern it. "

"Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that? " said Carnehan, with
subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of notepaper on which was
written the following. I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity.

This Contrack between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of
God--Amen and so forth.

(One) That me and you will settle this matter together; i. e. , to be
Kings of Kafiristan.

(Two)That you and me will not, while this matter is being settled, look
at any Liquor, nor any Woman, black, white, or brown, so as to get mixed
up with one or the other harmful.

(Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity and Discretion, and if
one of us gets into trouble the other will stay by him.

Signed by you and me this day.

Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.

Daniel Dravot.

Both Gentlemen at Large.


"There was no need for the last article," said Carnehan, blushing
modestly; "but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that
loafers are,--we are loafers, Dan, until we get out of India,--and
do you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was in
earnest? We have kept away from the two things that make life worth
having. "

"You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this
idiotic adventure. Don't set the office on fire," I said, "and go away
before nine o'clock. "

I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back of
the "Contrack. " "Be sure to come down to the Serai tomorrow," were their
parting words.

The Kumharsen Serai is the great foursquare sink of humanity where the
strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the
nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folk
of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and try
to draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian pussy-cats,
saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep, and musk in the Kumharsen Serai, and get
many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down to see
whether my friends intended to keep their word or were lying there
drunk.

A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me,
gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant
bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up
two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks
of laughter.

"The priest is mad," said a horse-dealer to me. "He is going up to Kabul
to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honour or have his
head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly
ever since. "

"The witless are under the protection of God," stammered a flat-cheeked
Usbeg in broken Hindi. "They foretell future events. "

"Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up
by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass! " grunted the Eusufzai
agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been diverted into
the hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortunes
were the laughing-stock of the bazaar. "Ohe', priest, whence come you
and whither do you go? "

"From Roum have I come," shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; "from
Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves,
robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers!
Who will take the Protected of God to the North to sell charms that are
never still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the sons shall not
fall sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away,
of the men who give me place in their caravan. Who will assist me to
slipper the King of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel?
The protection of Pir Khan be upon his labours! " He spread out the
skirts of his gabardine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered
horses.

"There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, Huzrut,"
said the Eusufzai trader. "My camels go therewith. Do thou also go and
bring us good luck. "

"I will go even now! " shouted the priest. "I will depart upon my winged
camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan," he yelled to
his servant, "drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own. "

He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and, turning round to
me, cried, "Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I will
sell thee a charm--an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan. "

Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the two camels out of the
Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted.

"What d' you think o' that? " said he in English. "Carnehan can't talk
their patter, so I've made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant.
'T isn't for nothing that I've been knocking about the country for
fourteen years. Didn't I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on to a caravan
at Peshawar till we get to Jagdallak, and then we'll see if we can get
donkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the
Amir, O Lor'! Put your hand under the camelbags and tell me what you
feel. "

I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another.

"Twenty of 'em," said Dravot, placidly. "Twenty of 'em and ammunition to
correspond, under the whirligigs and the mud dolls. "

"Heaven help you if you are caught with those things! " I said. "A
Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans. "

"Fifteen hundred rupees of capital--every rupee we could beg, borrow, or
steal--are invested on these two camels," said Dravot.

"We won't get caught. We're going through the Khaiber with a regular
caravan. Who'd touch a poor mad priest? "

"Have you got everything you want? " I asked, overcome with astonishment.

"Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a memento of your kindness,
Brother. You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. Half
my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is. " I slipped a small charm
compass from my watch-chain and handed it up to the priest.

"Goodbye," said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. "It's the last time
we'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with
him, Carnehan," he cried, as the second camel passed me.

Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away along
the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect no
failure in the disguises. The scene in the Serai proved that they were
complete to the native mind. 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.