Talbot Mundy

“ He pulled the turban off and rubbed his head where the bullet had grazed the scalp.
“I have thirty men behind me,” he went on, beginning to rebind the turban as casually as if he were in camp. “But it is difficult, for these Waziris are not in love with Sikhs, who have slain too many of their comrades in the border fights. King sahib bade me bring these ruffians to hold this track, lest Kangra Khan should fight his way around the corner yonder in spite of everything. They are picked men, but who shall pick diamonds from a dung-hill?” ”

“ Grim said, listening intently. “Lord! Let's hope the noise don't bring marauders our way! We haven't a friend to windward! The Waziris are our one reliance—and a shifty lot at that!”
Joan Angela showed him her pistol, but he shook his head.
“Keep that for the last contingency,” he advised. “Are you fit? Can you march? Is your nerve all right? Then never show your pistol to a soul until you have to use it on yourself! Getting killed don't hurt. The most the best of us can ask for is to die clean. ”

“ Kangra Khan told off a couple of dozen men to keep us busy and poured the rest of his nickeled lead into the ravine.
Once I heard a long, shrill whistle—King's in all likelihood, and after that there was more or less silence below while the Waziris beat retreat under a galling fire up the slope they had so easily descended. Only one man reached us—a fellow with a bullet through his arm, immensely angry. ”

“ Joan Angela can endure as much as any man alive in the way of roughing it, and about the only man who doesn't find her splendid company is the kind who can't or won't forget the sex problem. To her mind sex is no problem, and if I had played the part of a heavy male protecting her against a world too dangerous for her, she would have held it against me all my days. ”

“ I calculated the probable level of a man's heart and managed to pull that long knife out as well, for a furious set-to before we beat retreat. We heard a great gruff voice giving orders in Pishtu:
“Careful now! Dark and the mother of death are one! Halt! I go forward alone!”
SOMETHING blacker than the darkness loomed around the serrated outcrop. I fired. Grim knocked my pistol up in the very nick of time.
“God save you, sahib, that is the only turban I have!” said a voice I recognized, and Narayan Singh stepped up to us, showing his teeth in a great white grin in the midst of his black beard. ”

“ For answer Akbar ducked his head and butted the Waziri like a ram, hitting him in the belly and sending him reeling backward into the line of fire, where a bullet drilled him through the head from ear to ear and he lay grinning in the moonlight, twitching his fingers, with his brains oozing out on the rock.
So we never received the latter part of King's message, and had no means of guessing what his plan might be. I dragged a fellow out of the line of fire, and sent him to try to cross the ravine and bring an answer back ”

“ Some one shouted for Narayan Singh, and we all went hurrying back along the track to the corner, where we piled up such loose rocks as we could find and, in the lime-light as it were, held that point of disadvantage against Kangra Khan's men while King worked his Waziris down into the ravine below.
Every man of ours had a rifle stolen from the British, and they squandered ammunition as men always do waste stolen goods ”

“ All he accomplished was to arouse cupidity, and now they're all on the watch for her between here and the border. She's a prize worth bagging!”
“Won't the British troops come for us?” Joan Angela asked.
“Let's hope not!” he answered. “The tribes would stop quarreling among themselves and make common cause. Even our friends the Waziris would be forgiven pro tem. The best thing the British can do is to withdraw across the border and pretend they don't care a hoot. Time's the main thing. Every day that passes without cash in sight will tend to decrease your market price. ”

“ We could do that in the morning, if Joan Angela should then elect to yield. A man who offers friendship to a fellow in a tight place ranks ace high in my esteem, whatever his friendship may be actually worth. ”

“ They're being hounded. Two outfits of Pathans are on their heels to scupper them before they can reach home; so all we've got is two hundred men in a hurry to reach the skyline with every man's hand against 'em! Retreat to the border is cut off absolutely. Kangra Khan has bragged about Miss Leich and her millions ”

“ We rode interminably up and down a winding track that would have suited goats, dismounting and walking often because the horses were too weak to negotiate stiff places with our weight on them—mine especially. ”

“ It was the first time in all my knowledge of him that he had ever admitted that. “King can't get to us, nor we to him. The tribes will have heard this shindy, and when morning comes they'll surround us all. ”