LITMIR.BIZ

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of the couch. “Allah el-Mumit—God the Dispenser of Justice—will not let me die before I have laid a son into my lord’s arms. Call a doctor of the English.”

      So the old woman came to my door, giving word to me of what had occurred. I hurried to the Street of the Mutton Butchers, where the English hakim lived, and together we went to the house of Bibi Halima.

      He examined her, dressed her wound, and said:

      “A child will be born, but the mother will assuredly die.”

      The old woman broke into a storm of tears, but Bibi Halima silenced her with a gesture.

      “It is as God wills,” she said, and the doctor marveled at her vitality. “Let but the child be born first, and let that child be a man-child. The rest matters not. And you”—she turned to me—“and you, my friend, go to the hills and fetch me my lord.”

      I bowed assent, and went to the door.

      “Wait!” Her voice was firm despite her loss of blood. “If on the way you should meet Ebrahim Asif, you must not kill him. Let him be safe against my husband’s claiming.”

      “I shall not touch him,” I promised, though the sword at my side was whinnying in its scabbard like a Balkh stallion in the riot of young spring.

      All that day and the following night, making no halt, I traveled, crossing the Nadakshi Pass at the lifting of dawn, and smelling the clean snow of the higher range the following noon. Here and there, from mountaineers and the Afghan Emir’s rowdy soldiers, I asked if aught had been seen of the two men, both being well known in the land.

      Yes, I asked for both men; for while I was hurrying to my friend with the message which was about my heart like a heel-rope of grief, it was also in my soul to keep track of Ebrahim Asif. Kill him I could not, because of the promise I had given to Bibi Halima; but perhaps I could reach Ali-Khan before the other had a chance to make the rock-perched villages of the Moustaffa-Khel, and thus comparative safety.

      It was late in the afternoon, with the lights of the camp-fires already twinkling in the gut of the Nadakshi, when I heard the noise of tent-peg speaking to hammer-nose, and the squealing of pack-ponies, free of their burdens, rolling in the snow. It was a caravan of Bokhara tadjiks going south to Kabul with wool and salt and embroidered silks, and perhaps a golden bribe for the governor.

      They had halted for a day and a night to rest the sore feet of their animals, and the head-man gave me ready answer.

      “Yes, pilgrim,” he said; “two men passed here this day, both going in the same direction,” and he pointed it out to me. “I did not know them, being myself a stranger in these parts; but the first was a courteous man who was singing as he walked. He gave us pleasant greeting, speaking in Persian, and dipped hands in our morning meal. Two hours later, traveling on the trail of the first man, another man passed the kafilah, a hillman, with the manners of the hills, and the red lust of killing in his eyes, nosing the ground like a jackal. We did not speak to him, for we do not hold with hillmen and hill-feuds. We be peaceful men, trading into Kabul.”

      It was clear to me that the hillman intended to forestall just fate by killing Ali-Khan before the latter had heard of what had befallen Bibi Halima. So I thanked the tadjik, and redoubled my speed; and late that evening I saw Ebrahim Asif around the bend of a stone spur in the higher Salt Range, walking carefully, using the shelter of each granite boulder, like a man afraid of breech-bolt snicking from ambush. For a mile I followed him, and he did not see me or hear me. He knew that his enemy was in front, and he did not look behind. Again the sword was whinnying at my side. For Ali-Khan was friend to me, and we of Afghanistan are loyal in living, loyal also in taking life.

      But there was my promise to Bibi Halima to keep Ebrahim Asif safe against her husband’s claiming.

      And I kept him safe, quite safe, by Allah, the holder of the balance of right. For using a short cut which I knew, having once had a blood-feud in those very hills, I appeared suddenly in front of Ebrahim Asif, covering him with my rifle.

      He did not show fight, for no hillman will battle against impossible odds. Doubtless he thought me a robber; and so, obeying my command, he dropped his rifle and his cheray, and he suffered me to bind his hands behind his back with my waistband.

      But when I spoke to him, when I pronounced the name of Ali-Khan and Bibi Halima, he turned as yellow as a dead man’s bones. His knees shook. The fear of death came into his eyes, and also a great cunning; for these Moustaffa-Khel are gray wolves among wolves.

      “Walk ahead of me, son of Shaitan and of a she-jackal,” I said, gently rubbing his heart with the muzzle of my rifle. “Together you and I shall visit Ali-Khan. Walk ahead of me, son of a swine-fed bazaar-woman.”

      He looked at me mockingly.

      “Bitter words,” he said casually, “and they, too, will be washed out in blood.”

      “A dead jackal does not bite,” I said, and laughed; “or do you think that perhaps Ali-Khan will show you mercy? Yes, yes,” I added, still laughing, “he is a soft man, with the manners of a Persian. Assuredly he will show you mercy.”

      “Yes,” he replied, “perhaps he will show me mercy.” Again the cunning look shone in his eyes, and a second later he broke into riotous, high-shrilling laughter.

      “Why the laughter?” I asked, astonished.

      “Because you shall behold the impossible.”

      “What?”

      “When the impossible happens, it is seen,” he answered, using the Sufi saying; “for eyes and ears prove the existence of that which cannot exist: a stone swims in the water; an ape sings a Kabuli love-song—”

      “Go on!” I interrupted him impatiently, rubbing his side with my rifle.

      So we walked along, and every few seconds he would break into mad laughter, and the look of cunning would shine in his gray eyes. Suddenly he was quiet. Only he breathed noisily through his nostrils, and he rolled his head from side to side like a man who has taken too much bhang. And that also was strange, for, with his hands tied behind his back, he could not reach for his opium-box, and I could not make it out at all.

      A few minutes later we came in sight of Ali-Khan. He was sitting on a stone ledge near a bend of the road, flowers about him, carefully wrapped in moist, yellow moss so that they would keep fresh for the longing of his beloved, and singing his old song, “O Peacock, cry again—”

      Then he saw us, and broke off. Astonishment was in his eyes, and he turned a little pale.

      “Ebrahim Asif,” he stammered, “what is the meaning of this?” And then to me, who was still covering the hillman with my rifle: “Take away your weapon from Ebrahim! He is blood-cousin to Bibi Halima, distant cousin to me.”

      “Ho!” Ebrahim’s shout cut in as sharp as the point of an Ulwar saber. “Ho! ho! ho!” he shouted again and again. Once more the mad, high-shrilling laughter, and then suddenly he broke into droning chant.

      I shivered a little, and so did Ali-Khan. We were both speechless. For it was the epic, impromptu chanting which bubbles to the lips of the Afghan hillmen in moments of too great emotion, the chanting which precedes madness, which in itself is madness the madness of the she-wolf, heavy with young, which has licked blood.

      “Listen to the song of Ebrahim Asif, the Sulaymani, the Moustaffa-Khel,” he droned, dancing in front of us with mincing steps, doubly grotesque because his hands were tied behind his back; “listen to the song of Ebrahim Asif, son of Abu Salih Musa, grandson of Abdullah el-Jayli, great-grandson of the Imam Hasan Abu Talib, great-great-grandson of Abd al-Muttalib al-Mahz! I have taken my rifle and my cheray, and I have gone into the plains to kill. I descended into the plains like a whirlwind of destruction, leaving behind me desolation and grief. Blood is on my hands, blood of feud justly taken, and therefore I praise Allah, Opener of the Locks of Hearts with His Name, and—”

      The words died in his throat, and he threw himself on the ground, mouthing

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