Talbot Mundy

“ He who is afraid hears fear, and nothing else. Said I to myself, there is a devil in the well, fouling holy water! Should it truly be a devil, thinks I, in the name of Allah I will show that is no place for him; and if it is a man in hiding, well and good; his spirit shall go where no living man can ever see it! I got me a good-sized stone, about as heavy as a man can lift with two hands. I hove it, thus, above my head, standing back a little from the well-mouth, lest the devil come forth, or a man shoot up at me. ”

“ Let the hen not have labored in vain! Lo, I went forth with swollen wrists. Is the smoke offensive? Let us tread the fire out. It is cold, but the sun is rising. Sons of evil mothers might observe the smoke. In the name of Allah, no more bloodshed than is necessary. If they come here we must kill them, and the hills are full of dead already. So. Lo, I have a sheepskin. It was warm when I took it, for a woman slept in it. I will lend it to your honor until the sun gets high. ”

“ A woman will be beaten presently because her man lacks food. I gave her the tea not long ago, and she was beaten for not saying whence she had it. Such is life, inshallah! Bellies ache for food. None but Allah knoweth whence a meal comes. Sahibs, it is pleasanter beyond the fire, where less smoke is. So, with your honors' good permission, eggs! Three eggs apiece—a hen's best effort, in the name of the All-Wise! We must drink tea from the kettle, having no cups. It is hot. Beware of it. I tried to steal cups, but there were none.”
He paused with his mouth full of eggs and chupattie. ”

“ The lower end was now no longer in the moonlight, and out of the solid-looking blackness down there the only sound that came was the cry of jackals, long since attracted to the feast of slain.
"I don't know to which of us it occurred first that three jackals had come slinking the wrong way—toward us—out of darkness into moonlight—up-hill—without apparent reason. Nothing in nature happens undesignedly. We both came to a stand still. The Sikh's ears are sharper than mine, and he heard something that caused his fingers to clench tight on the barrel of his rifle. ”

“ So they beat him for having wakened them, and drove him home with a threat in his ears that he should make his reckoning with the woman's husband. And I returned over the wall for the eggs and chupatties and the hen, finding them where I hid them, though an egg was broken where a fool in search of me had set his heel on it, leaving nine.
"I DID up the food in the bundle of clothes, hung the kettle to my belt, and with the knife held ready set forth to find your honors, praising Allah, who is Lord of Virtue, and my friend. Lo, sahibs, here I am, by Allah's favor! ”

“ I remembered tales of how those Hillmen will decoy a man until he stands exactly where it suits them best to murder him. We were easy marks, at the end of our tether, leg-weary, beginning to grow thirsty, and without supplies. ”

“ The Hill-women don't use hairpins—not of that sort, at any rate; nor do they pin a piece of cloth so neatly; nor would they have dropped such a long piece and left it; as a bandage, or a tape to tie bundles with, it would have been too valuable.
“That is her sign, sahib. We go forward,” said Narayan Singh.
So forward we went in a hurry, with our choice between making a noise and being waylaid, or going too slowly to have any hope of catching up, and making some noise in the bargain. It was impossible to move silently in the dark on that rough track. We broke into a run at intervals ”

“ I swung a blow at him as he went by, missed, but could see that he had something in his mouth.
So I stooped in the shadow and groped. Narayan Singh did the same. Each of us found something. I picked up a leather legging—mate to the one the jackal had pounced on. The Sikh produced Joan Angela's cloth riding-hat. Beyond question, both articles were hers. There was even a strand of her brown hair caught in the hat-band; it glistened like gold when I stepped back into the moonlight to examine it. ”