“Why not get on the gee, and ride on with us” – suggested Campian, innocently. “The scenery is rather good further down.”
“Oh, damn the scenery! Look here though. I don’t want to spoil you two fellows’ shoot. You go on. Don’t wait for me. The nigger will be here with the horse directly.”
“No. There’s no point in waiting,” assented Upward. “We’ll go on eh, Campian? So long, Bracebrydge.”
The two resumed their shoot, cutting down a bird here and a bird there, and soon came together again.
“That’s a real show specimen, that man Bracebrydge,” remarked Campian. “What made you freeze on to him, Upward?”
“Oh, I met him in the Shâlalai club. I never took to the man, but he was in with some others I rather liked. It was Fleming who brought him up here.”
“So? But, do you know, it’s a sorrowful spectacle to see a man of his age – already growing grey – making such an egregious ass of himself. Mind you, I’m not surprised at him being a little ‘gone’ – she’s a very taking little girl – but to give himself away as he does, that’s where the lunacy of the affair comes in.”
Upward chuckled.
“Bless your life, old chap, Bracebrydge isn’t really ‘gone’ there.”
“Not, eh? Then he’s a bigger idiot than even I took him for, letting himself go like that.”
“It’s his way. He does just the same with every woman he comes across, if she’s at all decent-looking, and what’s more is under the impression she must be wildly ‘gone’ on him; and by the way, some of them have been. Wait till we get back to Shâlalai; you may see some fun in that line.”
“They must be greater fools even than himself. I’m not a woman-hater, but really the sex can roll out some stupendous examples of defective intelligence – but then, to be fair, so can our own – as for instance Bracebrydge himself. What sort of place is this, Upward?” he broke off, as they came upon a low tumble-down wall surrounding a tree; the enclosure thus formed was strewn with loose horns, as of sheep and goats, and yet not quite like them.
“Why, it’s a sort of rustic shrine, rigged up to some Mohammedan saint. Isn’t it, Bhallu Khan?” translating the remark.
The forester reached over the wall, and picking up a markhôr horn, worn and weather-beaten, held it towards them.
“He says it’s where the people come to make offerings,” translated Upward. “When they want to have a successful stalk they vow a pair of markhôr horns at a place like this.”
“And then deposit it here, and then the noble Briton, if in want of such a thing to hang in his hall, incontinently bones it, and goes home and lies about it ever after,” cut in Campian. “Isn’t that how the case stands?”
“I don’t think so. The horns wouldn’t be good enough to make it worth while.”
“I suppose not,” examining the one tendered him by the forester. “I didn’t know the cultus of Saint Hubert obtained among Mohammedans. Do these people have legends and local ghosts, and all that kind of thing?”
“Rather. You just set old Bhallu Khan yarning – pity you can’t understand him though. Look. See that very tree over there?” pointing out a large juniper. “He has a yarn about a fakir who used to jump right over the top of it every day for a year.”
“So? What did he do that for? As a pious exercise?”
“Something of the kind. But the joke of it is, the thing happened a devil of a time ago. When I pointed out to him that any fool could have done the same, considering that the tree needn’t have been more than a yard high, even then he hardly sees it.”
“I should doubt that, Upward. My opinion is that our friend Bhallu Khan was endeavouring to pull his superior’s leg when he told that story.”
“They are very stupid in some ways, though sharp as the devil in others. And the odd part of it is that most of their local sacred yarns are of the most absurd kind – well, like the tree and fakir story.”
“They are rather a poor lot these Baluchis, aren’t they? They don’t go in for a lot of jewels, on their clothes and swords, like the Indian rajahs?”
“No. Some of the Afghan sirdars do, though – or at any rate used to.”
“So? And what became of them all?”
“They have them still – though wait – let me see. There are yarns that some are hidden away, so as not to fall into the hands of other tribes as loot. There was a fellow named Keogh in our service who made a good haul that way. A Pathân brought him an old battered sword belt, encrusted with rough looking stones, which he had dug up, and wanted ten rupees for it Keogh beat him down to five, and brought the thing as a curio. How much do you think he sold it for?”
“Well?”
“Four thousand. The stones were sapphires.”
“Where was this?” asked Campian quickly. “Anywhere near here?”
“No. Out the other side of Peshawur. You seem keen on the subject, old chap! You haven’t got hold of a notion there’s anything to be done in that line around here, eh?”
“Hardly. This sort of country doesn’t grow precious stones, I guess, except precious big ones.”
“Where’s Bracebrydge?” queried Upward, on their return to camp two hours later.
“He isn’t back yet,” replied Nesta, with a very mischievous laugh.
“What? Why, he left us more than a couple of hours ago. What can have become of the chap? He ought to have been back long before us.”
“He was back, but he started off again,” said Mrs Upward. “This time he went the other way” – whereat both Nesta and Fleming laughed immoderately.
“I think he started to hunt us up, didn’t he, Mrs Upward?” spluttered the latter.
“Oh, I don’t know. But – I believe you saw him and gave him the go-by” – whereat the inculpated pair exchanged glances, and spluttered anew.
“I see,” said Upward, amusing himself by beginning to tease Tinkles – whose growls and snaps afforded him considerable mirth. “How’s his chafed foot now – Oh-h!” The last as the little terrier, getting in a bite, half play, half earnest, nipped him through his trousers.
“He didn’t say anything about his chafed foot. Why, here he comes.”
A very sulky looking horseman rode up and dismounted. Upon him Fleming turned a fire of sly chaff; which had the effect of rendering Bracebrydge sulkier than ever, and Bracebrydge sulky was not a pleasant fellow by any means. He retorted accordingly.
“Never mind, old chap,” cut in Upward. “It’s all right now, and nearly dinner time. Let’s all have a ‘peg.’ Nothing like a ‘peg’ to give one an appetite.”
Chapter Six.
Of the Ruby Sword
Not without reasons of his own had Campian made such careful and minute inquiries as to the traditions and legends of the strange, wild country in which his lot was temporarily cast, and the key to those reasons was supplied in a closely-written sheet of paper which he was intently studying on the morning after the above conversation. It was, in fact, a letter.
Not for the first or second time was he studying this. It had reached him just after his arrival in the country, and the writer thereof was his father.
The latter had been a great traveller in his younger days, and was brimful of Eastern experience; full too, of reminiscence, looking back to perilous years passed among fierce, fanatical races, every day of which represented just so many hours of carrying his life in his hand. Now he was spending the evening of life in peace and quiet. This was the passage